A book every month

At the beginning of the year I had very lavish plans to read a book every week. The reality is though, I've not read any book for the year to date. There are some interesting titles I'd like to wrap my mind around for the remaining months of 2011 though.

- Eat Pray Love
I've seen the movie to this New York Times Best Seller autobiography by Elizabeth Gilbert. Fantastic movie with the leading lady being one of my favourites, Julia Roberts. Of course, the book is usually far better than the movie is, so I want to wrap up and get down to turning the pages of this one soon.


- Heaven is for real - told by Todd Burpo
With the issues and life I have, I kinda like the title of this book. It's a true story about a little 4-year-old boy (Colton) who underwent life-threatening surgery and survived. When he regained consciousness, he began telling his family about the scenes in the operating theatre and family waiting room, his deceased sister (who they never told him about), his deceased grandfather, and other 'facts' that were hard to explain his knowledge of, except that he really had this supernatural experience.
I should really enjoy tackling this one, it's about two things close to my heart - the innocence of children, and the wonder of the things we cannot explain but which cannot be explained away.


- Salt
Actually, I began reading this Earl Lovelace novel about a young man struggling to find his identity, in 2008 and had to rest it down. The language and format of Salt is very different from what Lovelace usually offers, I think. I found that raw, raucous, down-to-earth, gripping, stirring, style of writing in Wine of Astonishment, Dragon Can't Dance, and The Schoolmaster, did not jump out of the pages to taunt me for being just a witness to all the drama and sensuality, and sexuality, and grandiose, and over-the-top-ness in the lives of his characters. Well, maybe the timing wasn't right. I'll try Salt again this year.


- The Black Jacobins
I read this one in 2007, but something well done is twice done (or something like that the saying goes). This CLR James offering is insightful, revealing, edifying, eye-opening (all the same, but different). This book showed me, perhaps for the first time, the true power and greatness of the black man. It is the story of the Haitian Revolution and its leader, Toussaint L'Ouverture. Eyh, allyuh. Read dis one! Dat was one bad@ss man.


My more modest ambition now is to read one book every month from now until December 2011. I'll have to expand this list, of course, and I plan to share my thoughts on these and others with you. So, here I go!

What books do you plan to get your reading fingers on for 2011?