Hooray! I'm Done!

Hooray! I’m Done! – Books 51-52

As I closed the back cover of Book # 52, I breathed a great sigh of relief: My 52 Books in 52 Weeks challenge was officially finished. I had managed to read one book a week during 2012. And although it was an interesting adventure, I will not be repeating it … nor will I be upping the ante by doubling my intake to 104 books in 52 weeks. I did it. I’m done. Now I will read for pleasure as I always have!

So here are my final two books of 2012:

Book # 51: Someone to Watch Over Me by Judi McMahon

This book bills itself as a “novelized memoir” – which made it especially intriguing to me. I’ve always wanted to fictionalize my life, and in my younger days I often wrote stories featuring myself and my friends in a variety of escapades, some of which were frighteningly similar to reality. This book was obviously self-published – and not edited very well. Nevertheless, there was something compelling about it that kept me interested in the main characters. Perhaps it was the fact that they grew up in New York during the same era as I did and faced many of the same personal and professional challenges. Or maybe it was just because I wanted to see what awful typo would come up next: like spelling the purple dinosaur’s name “Barnie” a number of times … or the Egyptian president’s “Anwar el Dadat.” Then again, we WERE warned that it was novelized. 

Book # 52: Catch Me If You Can by Frank W. Abagnale with Stan Redding

I love-love-loved this book! And I also loved the film by the same name starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks. I’d seen the movie a couple of years ago, but somehow the fact that this consummate con man was only in his late teens/early twenties when he perpetuated his crimes had escaped me. This was one of those books that had you rooting for the “bad guy” unremorsefully! Most, if not all, of the capers he pulled would be impossible to get away with today (I think) but reading how he managed to forge, con and smooth-talk his way around the globe was – as the cover blurb states – “dangerously inspirational.” For a fun read, I highly recommend this one.