Tuesday, December 23, 2008

The Rules

After reading Not buying It: My Year Without Shopping by Judith Levine and Animal, Vegetable Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver, and then hearing about The Year of Living Biblically by A. J. Jacobs on National Public Radio, I realized I was onto a new genre "Year of" memoirs. These books chronicle a year of the author's life after they have made a concious choice to live differently. My choice for 2009 is to read "Year of" books and review the books on this blog. In order for me to write about it in this forum I will post only about books in which the author writes about his or her own experiences over the course of a year (more or less). They must be memoirs, rather than advice books that tell readers what they should wear, or eat, for instance, over the course of a year. I intend to try to read two such books each month.

Otherwise, my rules are these:

1. I get to read whatever else I want.

2. I will try to read library books first, if it proves difficult to get a library copy I will purchase the cheapest used copy I can. If I can't get a used copy I will buy a new one.

3. These are my rules and I will change them if I want.

I have done a bit of research and so far have selected 16 books that I believe fit my criteria. I will post the titles and authors on the first of the year. If you have suggestions for me I would love to find out about them.