This year I received an interesting gift for a writer: Book Lover's Calendar for 2010. It pleased me and challenged me, just as it did last year when I received the 2009 version. A colleague told me calendars like this make her nervous.

I pondered this at length, and decided the calendar seemed to be a treasure trove waiting for me to dig in. It didn't make me nervous, it exhilarated me! Great books, recommended by the calendar which met the ì365 Days of Good Authors, Good Books, & Good Readingî criteria as touted on the calendar's cover.

Each day presents one book by Title with Author, Publisher, and Date. There is a short synopsis that strives to spotlight each tome in such a way, it makes you want to run out and buy it, devour it in one gulp.† Burp.

I suppose each author pumps the air with a triumphant fist when notified her or his book has been chosen for the next year's ìBook Lover's Calendar.î Out of the hundreds of thousands of books published each year, for one day of the year all eyes [albeit only calendar users] would turn to her or his book. Gravy, advertising at its finest.

What I did not expect was my reaction to the calendar by, say mid-March. Let's take the Ides as an example. I laughed to see ìCaesar: Life of a Colossus by Adrian Goldsworthyî taking up the 3/15/09 page. Equally amusing was the pairing of April Fools' Day and the dark comedy with frightening undertones by Michael Crichton, ìNext.î

But, as the year progressed, I felt more and more like a slacker. Too lazy to keep up with the calendar of great reading suggestions, I fell hopelessly behind early in January and never gained a foothold.

This year I'm doing much better. How do I manage to read a book a day?

I don't.† Moreover, I give my self permission to choose from a tiny sprinkling of the diverse advertisements numbingly numbering 365. Nervous? Nah. No way. I am taking this daily billboard of books less to heart. It is much easier this way, and I have not the indigestion of gobbling† a book a day.† Burp.

Today's suggestion ìHow To Be Aloneî was penned by my old ìThe Correctionsî buddy Jonathan Franzen. Maybe I'll get around to it before the 2011 edition of the Book Lover's Calendar challenges me all over again.