national read a new book month

I cannot find one holiday, outrageous or otherwise, to celebrate today. This is fine, because it is Sunday, and a day of rest is in order. So, since December is National Read a New Book Month, I have had a marvelous idea. I'll let all of you do the work. It seems an appropriate arrangement to me.

I considered asking you all to tell us about the best book you read in 2009. Or, I thought, possibly the worst? But in the end, I have decided simply to go with one book that you have read in 2009 which affected you in some way, for good or bad. So, please share the one book you wish to tell people about so we can decide what we might (or might not) want to read. Since it is Read a new Book all month, keep at it until next weekend.

This seems a good time to go over some ground rules for comments to the blog. I recently read a book site that was supposedly offering lists of best and worst books of: 2009/the past decade/the past century/that your accountant recommended at the last tax audit. However, in fact, it really was just a place for political/religious liberals to bash political/religious conservatives, and vice versa, regarding books with which they didn't happen to agree. So please, do not get political or controversial just for the sake of pushing an agenda. For instance, do not extol the praises of a Barak Obama biography/autobiography. That is, unless you truly do think it's the finest piece of fiction you have read all year.

Second, this is a fairly G-rated blog. Thirteen-year-old girls read it. Lest you consider writing something they shouldn't read, well, don't.

Third, in the spirit of the imperfect journey, no one's opinion is worth less than anyone else's, so don't hesitate just because you don't think your reading material stacks up next to the next person's. If you've read The Redneck's Guide to Hunting with an AK-47, please, we want to know. At least, I do, so I can be sure to monitor your posts from now on and lock my doors.

So, the floor is now, so to speak, open. And I'm going to go sit on my couch, read something worthless, and smile that you're doing my work.