Some times it's the little symbolic consequences of your actions that hurt the most. you deserve them, but they do hurt.

What do you do when you're 47 and think you've blown up your marriage?

It got very scary and real at about 8:45 this evening.

Or the whiteness that your pen could write

To be honest I didn't hear too much music this past year, but here goes:

My Top 10 Albums of 2011 (alphabetically):

Austra - Feel It Break
Beirut - The Rip Tide
Braids - Native Speaker
Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi – Rome
The Joy Formidible - The Big Roar
Hey Rosetta! – Seeds
Miracle Fortress - Was I The Wave
Peter Bjorn And John - Gimme Some
The Rural Alberta Advantage – Departing
The War on Drugs - Slave Ambient

Honourables:
Chemical Brothers – Hanna score
Childish Gambino – Camp
Deftones – Covers
Destroyer – Kaputt
Dream Jefferson - Punch Perm
Drive soundtrack

Lead the plot into some wild team-ups.

4.

Super Heroes: A Modern Mythology by Richard Reynolds - This one kept popping up in the bibliographies of Comic and Super-hero studies. A short book which is probably the guy's thesis, and is a little dated from its 1992 origins, but still quite insightful. I just wish there was better examples than The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen.

You have been disappointed in love but a better woman will replace her.

5.

Desperadoes by Ron Hansen - A western that I have meant to read for years. My Dad gave me my first Ron Hansen book and I thank him for it everytime I think of him. Hansen's first novel, it is the fictionalized first person account of the famed Dalton gang and their daring train and bank robberies.

Because the character and comic book offered a grand and triumphant vision of Afrofuturist blackness...

6.

Super Black by Adilifu Nama - I stumbled upon this book while browsing Facebook one day, saw one of my favourite comic characters and knew I had to read it. Nama, a professor of Africa American Studies, does a pretty good job of analysing all the major black superheroes in comics, TV and film. Some pretty good insights and criticism.

All the emotion I thought was dead rushing at me.

7.

Start Shooting by Charlie Newton - Picked up and advanced copy of this Chicago noir. Had high hopes of a good pot-boiler, but although this started out with promise of guns, gangs, drugs and corruption it soon turned silly with Japanese bio-weapons and a Viet Nam revenge saga. Blergh. I think I want my money back.

When you die, you feel as though there were some subtle change...

8.

Sum by Dave Eagleman - Book Club Pick! Forty-some odd visions of the afterlife. Some worked, but a lot didn't. It is the kind of book that makes you go Hmmm, but doesn't really stick with you.

No mention of his suspicion that this had something to do with things he could no longer ignore...

9.

The Coast Road by John Brady - I fell in love with the Matt Minogue mysteries a long time ago and probably still read them out of habit more than anything, but they always seem to hit the right notes and make me miss my visit to Ireland.

I don't know, the guy was beige wallpaper

10.

Agent X by Noah Boyd - Needing a bit of an escape and not being ready for another Lee Child I went back to Noah Boyd and his ready-for-screen thrillers starring Steve Vail, former FBI super hero & current bricklayer. This one did not disappoint. Fun puzzles, lots of action, hints of cold-war spying and eye rolling romance. Quick and fun little read.

Without bicycles, my life would have taken a completely different path.

11.

On Bicycles: 50 Ways the New Bike Culture Can Change Your Life edited by Amy Walker - I put in the subtitle, because I need you to know that this book is not 50 ways the new bike culture can change your life. It is 50 articles on bikes, bike culture and bike activism. The problem is that some are good and some are bad. Sure, to be expected, but the range of topics is too diverse and the editing is weak. Also, I don't need to read 35 people's different way to phrase 'bikes reduce green house emissions'.

Cause that night, swinging by candlelight in that cramped room, everything warring in me settled down.

12.

Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan - The everything nominated Canadian novel tells the tragic story of jazz band in Hitler's Berlin and occupied Paris. Well written, but not showy, it really paints an exquisite picture of time and place. And the dialogue shared by the men is like the music they created. Just a very good read.

So we sat in the starry darkness with each other and the whiskey.

13.

Blue-Eyed Devil by Robert B. Parker - I am going to miss Robert Parker. I never thought I would have written those words, but there is something so entertaining about about his sparse prose and tight plotting. Blue-Eyed Devil is his last western starring Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch and it was as good as the first. Adios Mr. Parker.

The most ingenious library scientist of modern times...

14.

The Icelander by Dustin Long - Bookclub Book! And boy was it too cute by half. A twee literary pastiche of a whodunit, it just doesn't really work. Some funny and/or good ideas, but nothing taken far enough to be good.

Ther are working up the steep slope of Cathedral Street...

15.

Barnacle Love by Anthony De Sa - A first novel about the Portugese immigrant experience in Canada, it has sat on my shelf for quite some time. A lot of references to Newfoundland which I didn't know about. Heartbreaking, but well written.

Are you just being recalcitrant?

16.

Split Image by Robert B. Parker - I came to Robert Parker very late in his career. The man had written over 60 books upon his death and was known as one of the kings of American crime fiction. This is one of the Jesse Stone novels. I got into Jesse Stone simply because of the Tom Selleck TV movies filmed in Halifax. Yup, Tom Selleck. Anyway, all the books are a little formulaic and more dialogue than anything, but they are fun.

Don't leave off the mayonnaise as it's a favorite topping in Maine for good reason.

17.

The Great American Hot Dog Book by Becky Mercuri - Boy oh boy, do I love a good hot dog. Saw this book and had to buy it 'cause it was cheap. 150 pages of history, recipes and notes on various hot dog stands all over the US. All I want is a chili dog now that I think about it.

It was a voice that could never quite disentangle itself from the text or remain truly omniscient in spite of the mocking detachment.

18.

Supergods by Grant Morrison - I used to love Grant Morrison's comics and then I didn't and then I did again. This is part memoir, part history, and part treatise. He has some weird ideas and a bit of an ego. I am not sure it really works, but there are some crunchy bits. They are just harder to find than they should be.

I reread it several times, but had no immediate revelations as to its meaning...

19.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline - Vacation Book! If you grew up playing video games in the 80s this the book for you. If you know what a TRS-80, an Atari 800, or Zork is then this is the book for you. If you are a geek or a nerd then this is the book for you. This is a fun fast nerdy speculative hero tale that has a little bit of something for everyone, but the cultural touchpoints may be too much for some.