Ah, New Years resolutions… we’ve all been down that crooked path to “self-betterment” and the optimism of another fresh start.  So, simple question: do you make resolutions and do you keep them?

As your celebrations continue, and for many of us our four-day weekend rolls on, we hope you have a great time with your family and friends and stay warm (or cool as the case my be, for all you lucky southern hemisphere/equator dwelling folks).

One question for all you folks out there: did you give or receive a book for Christmas/Hanukkah/whatever you’re celebrating?

Is it acceptable to give a used book as a holiday gift (I’m just kidding with the photo, I mean one that’s not ruined, natch)?

[Check out betterworld.com's reference section]

Some quotes from a story about Watchmen writer Alan Moore to help you think about it: “Moore said he has never watched any of the film adaptations of his comics creations (which have included “V for Vendetta,” “From Hell,” “Constantine” and “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen“) and that he believes “Watchmen” is “inherently unfilmable.” He also rues the effect of Hollywood’s siren call on the contemporary comics scene.

“There are three or four companies now that exist for the sole purpose of creating not comics, but storyboards for films. It may be true that the only reason the comic book industry now exists is for this purpose, to create characters for movies, board games and other types of merchandise. Comics are just a sort of pumpkin patch growing franchises that might be profitable for the ailing movie industry.”

Granted, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” was a positively awful film, but V for Vendetta was pretty sweet, and I have a soft spot for the original Spiderman as well.  So, can it work?

Top Ten list coming Friday!

In my quest I even went so far as to read One Hundred Years of Solitude in Spanish, The Aeneid in Latin and tried to muscle my way through Dante’s Inferno in Old Italian (this, admittedly, proved to be too difficult).  I was ready.  Armed with my library card and Half.com I plowed through books on my hour long train ride and subway commute to and from school each day and in classes and at lunch, but eventually, an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, and that object was Jane Austen.

Austen’s Pride and Prejudice was simply too much to bear.  As a 17 year old boy, commuting to school everyday with thousands of others on their way to New York City, I couldn’t make the jump to that era and persona.  I could struggle to breathe with Vonnegut in Dresden, I could tackle an enormous beast (and play the cuckold) with Sir Gawain and I could even serve in a field with a Jesus-esque slave, but I could not for the life of me wear jodhpurs and muscle down the clandestine courtship of a big house novel.  This would prove my undoing as I would later be derailed by Hardy’s Far from the Maddening Crowd.

So I ask you reader, at what point do you know to put down a book?  I feel that there are too many great books to be read to suffer bad literature, but when is the point where you say “I give up?”  Or do you soldier on, looking for the redemptive qualities as your eyes cross and head turns to mush?