The End of 2010

I just finished reading Entertainment Weekly's Best and Worst of 2010 issue. It was an eye opener.
2010 Best Movies….haven't seen one of them.
2010 Best TV shows….don't watch any of those either.
2010 Best Music CD's…don’t own one of them and only recognized one artist name (Kanye West).
2010 Best non-fiction books…haven't read one although four were familiar titles.
2010 Best fiction books….haven't read ANY and only recognized ONE (!) title (Room).
2010 Best Stage shows….oh please, did I even need to type the heading? Zero, zip, nada.
2010 Best games….my best showing, I've played Angry Birds on the iPad.

I didn’t realize how completely unhip I am. I'm socially illiterate.

I may not have fared well compared to the general population but I was pretty happy with just myself for completing the bulk of the challenges I entered this year.

First off, and always a little bit tricky (darn that X!) is the A-Z Reading Challenge - this one I finished.

Next is Women Unbound, I never actually set a goal for this one but I would still call it a success, I think I met the minimum requirements with a few extra.

The Audiobook Challenge is a piece of cake other than my neglecting to add them to the list and link them up! This one is complete with about 25 audiobooks listened to this year.

The Year of the Historical challenge was a wash. The Historical fiction book club lost it's steam and so did I. I only read 4 of the 12.

I ended on an almost bang by completing the Holiday Reading Challenge - but I haven't written any of the posts so although complete it's not a resounding success.

I had in the back of my mind all year to sign up for the What's In a Name? challenge. Of course, it never happened but I still love this challenge and want to see if I could have done it...
1.A book with a food in the title: Yes, Dark Tort
2.A book with a body of water in the title: Yes! Green River Running Red
3.A book with a title (queen, president) in the title: Yes! The Queen's Mistake
4.A book with a plant in the title: Yes, again! The Bean Trees
5.A book with a place name (city, country) in the title: Yes, again! The New York, Regional Mormons ...
6.A book with a music term in the title: Nooooooo! So close! Next year, for sure.

Christmas Cake by Lynne Hinton

From Goodreads: With the holiday season drawing near, the ladies of Hope Springs, North Carolina, are making plans for a cake cookbook—a project that will hopefully lift the spirits of a beloved member of their close-knit quartet. But Margaret Peele is downhearted and uninspired now that her cancer has returned. All she wants this Christmas is to visit her mother's Texas hometown . . . and to see their absent friend, pastor Charlotte Stewart, who left Hope Springs to run a battered women's shelter. So impulsive Beatrice Newgarden Witherspoon commandeers a very inappropriate—but comfortable—van to transport Margaret, Louise Fisher, and Jessie Jenkins across the country for a Lone Star State reunion with Charlotte. And over the course of a remarkable journey they will rediscover the greatest Christmas gift of all: eternal friendship.

I read Christmas Cake as one of my books for the Holiday Reading Challenge hosted by Nely at all About N. I had actually received it through the Library Thing Early Reviewers program last year but not in enough time to read it for that Christmas season so it hung out for a year in my TBR pile waiting for the holidays to come back around. (During that time I also came across Friendship Cake and it nestled into my TBR pile as well!). Because the challenge was at hand, I read Christmas Cake first despite knowing I was going out of order. Being out of order did not stop me from enjoying the book; Hinton provides all the background needed to fill in a new reader and she does it in an unobtrusive way that blends in with the rest of the story. Each chapter begins with a cake recipe and then the cake itself somehow gets featured in that part of the story. The recipes all sounded absolutely yummy but, big drawback for me, they were all cakes from scratch - sifting flour, measuring sugar and spices, cutting in butter - this I just don’t do. I am an advocate of the boxed cake mix. I may "doctor up" the boxed mix a little bit but in general, I and my family are happy with them just the way they are. If I dare to make an analogy here, I would describe this book as a boxed cake mix kind of book - it's not a fancy, gourmet read but I was happy with it just the way it was. It reminded me of the Mitford books; small town charm, a gentle pace, an exploration of friendships with bits of humor, religion, and sadness all mixed in.

All these recipes make this book a perfect fit for Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth Fish Reads. (Which I would have linked up to had I gotten my post up when I should have!)

Holiday Reading Challenge

(Harrumph! I tried to lift a cute montage off my Goodreads page but it is not working. Story of my life these days as I am going on almost a month now without a computer! New computer is scheduled for delivery at the end of this week - hooray!)

These are the books I am reading for the Holiday Reading Challenge hosted by Nely over at All About N. It started way back in November so I started reading then too and have almost finished all of these books - having a GREAT time reading some light hearted Christmas. I'm off to go "link up", you can too if you are interested, we have until Dec. 31st to complete the challenge.