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Fitbit IX – Week 49

Week three of my annual end-of-year vacation fell off a bit, as the holidays helped to put me back on the wrong side of the 30,000-step plateau.  Sunday was Christmas Eve, and I needed 24 more steps to get to 4000.  Christmas celebrations at my sister’s house on Monday limited me to just 3500 steps.  Things were just slightly worse on Tuesday, as I again surpassed 3500 steps.  A trip to the mall on Wednesday night to go to the Apple Store helped put me up over 5200 steps.  A big drop on Thursday left me 24 steps shy of 2800.  A trip into the city for Disney 100: The Exhibition on Friday led to my best day of the week, coming in over 5500 steps.  Another slow day on Saturday was just 21 steps away from 3200.

Total steps: 27,749

Daily average: 3964.1

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Book 1 (of 52) – The Last Devil To Die

The Last Devil To Die – Richard Osman

The Thursday Murder Club returns for their latest adventure.  When Stephen’s friend is murdered over some missing heroin, the gang starts investigating, trying to stay one step ahead of the police and the smugglers looking for their lost drugs.  When Stephen’s declining health keeps Elizabeth occupied, Joyce picks up the slack.  As the investigation proceeds, bodies start piling up, too many bodies for a simple shipment of heroin, which helps lead the gang to figure out who’s responsible.

Richard Osman returns with The Last Devil to Die, the fourth entry in his Thursday Murder Club series.  Nominated for the Best Mystery & Thriller category in the 2023 Goodreads Choice Awards, this continues to be a lighthearted, yet engaging series.  With this entry just released in September, we probably have a while until the next entry, but when it comes out, I’ll be waiting.

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2023: The Year In Movies

The return of my annual long December vacation helped push a healthy increase in movie watching for me, with my highest total since the lockdown in 2019.  I managed to watch 88 movies last year, my third consecutive year under 100, despite being home all day and not needing to bother with pesky things like a commute.  Or exercise.  The extended WGA and SAG strikes limiting new output probably didn’t help either.

Here’s a look back at the first 50 movies I watched last year and what recollection, if any, I have of them. The films are listed in the order I saw them.

Luckiest Girl Alive (2022)
Mila Kunis stars as a woman who sees her life start to unravel when she is faced with a years-old trauma.

Do Revenge (2022)
Two high school girls decide to trade off and get revenge on each other’s bully.

Orphan: First Kill (2022)
A long-delayed sequel to the 2009 horror film.

Margaux (2022)
A smart house sets its targets on a group of friends who have rented it for the weekend.

American Pie Presents: Girls’ Rules (2020)
The latest sequel to the comedy hit flips the script and has a trio of girls looking to lose their virginity before graduation.

Sick (2022)
Two friends quarantine at a lake house, but they quickly find out they are not alone.

The Menu (2022)
A chef prepares his final meal, taking out his frustrations on his diners on the way out.

Death on the Nile (2022)
Hercule Poirot takes on another case, based on the Agatha Christie novel.

Unhuman (2022)
A bus full of high school students try to survive after a crash leaves them vulnerable to an attacker.

Shotgun Wedding (2023)
A destination wedding goes off the rails when the wedding party is held hostage. Continue reading →

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52 Books in 52 Weeks – 2024 Edition

A new year is upon us, and it is time to once again set a goal of reading a book a week for the entire year, totaling 52 books in 52 weeks.

Last year, for the third straight year, I completed my goal, finishing the year with 59 books read.  Prior to that, I’d had a low point of 8 books back in 2010 and a high point of 55 books.

Since I have nothing but time again this year and am still a remote worker, I’m going to give it another go.  I’ve got plenty of new books stocked up, both in the Kindle app on my iPad and actual physical books, not to mention my handy dandy library card, so I’ve got a good pile to start with.  As a reminder, the rules I am using are:

  • You can count a book as read as long as you have completed the book in 2024 and at least 50% of that reading takes place in 2024.
  • Any book counts as long as you’re not embarrassed to count it.
  • Poetry collections do indeed count.
  • Re-reading a book is okay as long as it isn’t done this year. (Reading Twilight twice in 2024 only counts as 1 read).
  • Audiobooks also count.

My first book of the year looks like it will be The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman, the latest entry in his Thursday Murder Club series.  Here’s hoping 2024 is another good year when it comes to books.

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2023: The Year In Books

As 2023 comes to a close, my third full year of remote working, I managed to far surpass my previous records by completing a whopping 59 books, four books more than my previous high from last year and my third consecutive year completing the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge.  I completed the challenge in late November and surpassed last year’s total in mid-December.  I read (or listened) to 21,394 pages, by far my highest total of all time and only the fourth time I’ve passed 10,000.

Of those books, eleven were non-fiction and, of the remaining 48 novels, only four were tied to a TV show, either as the source material or as a tie-in.  None of the books came out of my dwindling “to-read” drawer, with 53 e-books and two audiobooks.  I continued to take advantage of my library card, which helped me procure 44 of the books I consumed throughout the year.

Over 61% of the books I read this year were by authors I had read before. The 22 authors that I read for the first this year were:

Selma Blair Stacy Willingham Gillian McAllister Chuck Klosterman
Gabrielle Zevin Ronan Farrow Matthew Perry Amor Towles
Jason Rekulak Emily St. John Mandel Bonnie Garmus Thomas Mullen
Naomi Hirahara Maitland Ward Busy Phillips Elliot Page
Jinwoo Chong Maureen Ryan Minka Kelly Britney Spears
Emily Henry Rebecca Makkai

Jennifer McMahon, Karin Slaughter, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Erle Stanley Gardner, Grady Hendrix, Jeffery Deaver, Laura Lippman, Ruth Ware, and Stacy Willingham were the only authors that I read multiple titles from during 2023.

18 of the books I read were released this year, while only five of them were released last century, with the oldest first published in 1934.

Continue reading →

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Book 59 (of 52) – My Darling Girl

My Darling Girl – Jennifer McMahon

After a childhood of abuse at the hand of her mother, Alison is stunned when she learns that her mother is dying and wants to move in for her final days.  While she sees glimpses of a mother that she barely knows, she also sees the abusive side, which seems reserved for just her.  As the end draws closer, Alison begins to believe that her mother is possessed by a demon who plans to target her youngest daughter when the time comes to find a new host.  While everyone around her starts to think she is going crazy, Alison comes up with a plan to bind the demon and save her family.  But is she too late?

The latest form Jennifer McMahon, My Darling Girl, was nominated for Best Horror in the 2023 Goodreads Choice Awards and is now the eighth of her works that I’ve read. After not really feeling the last book of hers that I read, this was a nice bounce back, with a twist at the end that I did not see coming.  I’m sure I’ll be diving into more of her work soon.

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Book 58 (of 52) – I Have Some Questions For You

I Have Some Questions For You – Rebecca Makkai

A successful podcaster returns to her New Hampshire boarding school to teach a two-week class, becoming drawn to the unanswered questions surrounding the death of her former roommate.  Falling down the rabbit hole, she teams up with two students, who started a podcast on the story for their class project, to dig deeper into the case, hoping to find enough evidence to spur a new trial.  When a hunch leads to a big break in the case, they get a hearing to argue for a new trial and may have actually identified the real killer, but will that be enough?

Rebecca Makkai’s I Have Some Questions for You came to my attention after being nominated for Best Mystery & Thriller in the Goodreads Choice Awards.  I liked the concept, but the execution was a little lacking.  The ending could have been tightened up a bit and, overall, there was a lot of superfluous fat that padded out the story with no real benefit to the overall tale.  This was my first experience with Makkai’s work and I’m not sure when. or if, I’ll get back to it.

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2024 Calendar

Now that Christmas has come and gone, we can unveil the cover to this year’s calendar gift, given annually to my mom and sister, and made up of pictures I have taken throughout the year.  I imagine I will be able to squeeze out one more version of this next year, but, with both Angelina and Danny graduating and Michael still mostly homebound, that will probably be it.  As in year’s past. the calendar was produced by the good folks at Shutterfly and we will unveil each month’s photo(s) on the first day of the month throughout 2024.

This year’s cover features Michael posing with his parents prior to his high school graduation this past June and Angelina and Danny posing with their Nana at the band tailgate prior to Danny’s Senior Day at the last Purdue football game of the year last month.