Notes, Notings, and Common Refrains

2008 is leaving a sour taste in my memory, and the memory of many of my friends.

But nothing is unadulterated badness, and so I'm taking this time and space to remember the things that I read in 2008 that made my life a little nicer and gentler and better than it would have been if I'd never encountered them:

(out of order, chronologically)

1. Jane Austen's final novel, Persuasion.



2. The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznik.



3. The transcript of Barack Obama's speech "A More Perfect Union"



4. "A Performance of Henry V at Stratford-Upon-Avon" by Elizabeth Jennings (thank you, angevin2).



5. "With True Love and Brotherhood," by lizbee (A post-"The Next Doctor" fanfic); with writing like this on my f'list, I don't need to follow the "Official" Who.



6. Solstice Wood by Patricia McKillip.



7. Jane Austen's first novel: Northanger Abby (I'd actually read it before, for a college class. But that was so long ago, and this was my first "mature" reading of it, without it being an assignment, so it might as well have been a first reading.