Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

This was another Christmas present, again from my dad. I'd somehow made it this far in my life without reading any Virginia Woolf, although I had read The Hours several years ago, which lent at least the first part of Mrs. Dalloway a somewhat eerie déjà vu.

The omniscient perspective, it has always seemed to me, is a tricky voice to pull off in a novel, but Woolf handles it with aplomb. And, wow, if I thought The Manticore was hypermetacognitive, this one easily beats it, despite the former's use of psychoanalytical terminology, by sheer numbers of those cogitating.

It's a short novel, but neither compact nor concise; I found it took much longer and demanded more concentration than anything else I'd read recently. It was accordingly also somewhat tiring, because of its intricate descriptions, meandering sentences, and a nagging sensation (at least for me) that something very bad was going to happen. Still, its understanding and depiction of depression, madness, and the relationships between men and women were fascinating, and perhaps more so given its location in a very specific time and place. I don't have a desire to return to it any time soon, but am very glad to have read it and to have experienced the Woolf.

Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

This tiny book was a Christmas present from my mom. Conversational, engaging, and divided into bite-sized chapters often arranged around a particular story or anecdote, it was easy to read before bed or whenever I had a spare moment.

The book avoids being saccharine or sappy, which is impressive when one considers that it was written by a man dying of terminal cancer and trying to impart life lessons. I thought it might be a tearjerker, but even I, prone as I am to weeping over pages, only got misty once, near the very end.

It's written very simply and isn't great literature, but is a fascinating record of one man's life and achievements, as well as an important reminder to appreciate and embrace life to the fullest while you have it. And though I'm pretty sure one doesn't fully appreciate the gift life is until faced with one's irrevocable mortality, Pausch's entire life, not just the period after his diagnosis, is an inspiring model of attempting as much.