It's been a month: How's about some awards?

It's been a month-plus since I've written in this blog.  Sadly, it's been that longs since I've finished a book. I got crazy-busy with Winnie-the-Pooh and The Littlest Angel both going on at the same time--both plays, by the way, based on books!

I'm pesudo-back-on-track with reading now, and hopefully I'll have something new to put here soon.  In the meantime, I'm overdue for some awards.  So here's what I've read since we last gathered 'round the podium:

Cell by Stephen King
Gretzky's Tears by Stephen Brunt
The Baseball Codes by Jason Turnbow with Michael Duca
Powerless by Matthew Cody
Sometime Never by Roald Dahl
Me, Myself, and Bob by Phil Vischer
From Russia with Love by Ian Fleming
The Complete Tales of Winnie-The-Pooh by A. A. Milne
The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan
One Red Paperclip by Kyle MacDonald
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Elantris by Brandon Sanderson

The "Book That Had The Most Direct Impact On My Life the Past Two Months" Award goes to
Winnie-the-Pooh!
Obviously.  Which means this book also wins the "Book That Won The Award With The Longest Title" Award

The Batman Bounce-back Award goes to:
Sometime Never!
Or, more specifically, to Roald Dahl.  Much as folks thought the Caped Crusader would never bounce back after Bat-nipples, cold puns, and Alicia Silverstone, I don't imagine many would have expected Dahl to have the wildly successful career he had after reading this debut novel.

The "Most of this Didn't Have to Happen" Award goes to
From Russia With Love!
Which wasn't a bad book.  The more I've thought about it, the more I realize that most of what occurred in the first half of the book was actually pretty irrelevant.  However, it did introduce one of the greatest Bond support characters we've seen (up to this point in the series)

The "Coolest Interpretation of the Werewolf Mythos" Award goes to:
The Graveyard Book!
Though I don't think any of the rest of these books dealt with the werewolf mythos...nevertheless, I really liked what Gaiman did with it in this story.

The "What Have We Learned Song" Award goes to
Me, Myself, and Bob!
When it was done burying you in technical information regarding computer animation, this ended up being a really insightful and challenging read on dreams, faith, and growth.  Like, uber challenging/convicting.  Not bad for a book with a talking tomato on the cover.

The "Redemption of the Internet" Award goes to
One Red Paperclip!
Proof that, yes, good and worthwhile things do sometimes happen on the World Wide Web.

The "Holding Out Hope for a Sequel" Award goes to
Powerless!
A really fun, innovative story for kids that starts to feel (toward the end) that it's not so much telling a story any more as it is trying to set up a franchise.  

The "Most Likely To Restore Your Faith In Baseball, Only To Potentially Dash It To The Ground" Award goes to:
The Baseball Codes
Which also gets the "Book That Won The Award That Supplanted That Other Award For The Title Of Award With The Longest Title Award" Award.

The "Oh, They'll Accept It All Right.  They'll Accept It And They'll Like It!" Award goes to
Cell
Does it ever feel like Stephen King is just daring you to say, "Okay, now that's just a little too far-fetched"? 

The "How Has Nobody In Canada Made This Into a Movie Starring George Clooney Yet?" Award goes to
Gretzky's Tears
Clooney wouldn't play Gretzky, but I think he'd make a dynamite Bruce McNall.  Alan Thicke would play Alan Thicke.

The "Hands Down Favorite Book (Of This Grouping)" Award goes to
The Eye of the World
The award title is pretty self-explanatory.  But the more I think back on this book, the more I like it.

The "I Can't Believe It's A Debut Novel!" Award goes to
Elantris
Quite the opposite of what I said about Roald Dahl with Sometime Never.  I'm sure this one raised the bar sky-high on expectations for Brandon Sanderson's career.

And, done.  Close to finishing a book of obscure fairy tales.  That'll be a fun one to write about.