It’s that time of year again: Oscar nominations! The 81st Academy Awards nominees were announced today, and here’s my scoresheet:

Another banner year here at Plutor.org for seeing movies in the theaters. I’ve seen the entertaining but overrated Slumdog Millionaire and the fantastic and completely deserving WALL-E. If (as I hope) I see The Wrestler and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in the next month, that’ll give me 5 more points.

How’d you do?

Update Jan 26: I saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button this weekend. I have to say, neither of the Best Picture nominees I’ve seen have really blown me away. Both this and Slumdog Millionaire were good movies, but I don’t think they’d have made the cut if they were made last year.

I thought that looking back on my list of books this year, I was going to feel somewhat disappointed. My late-fall reading list was thin. But actually looking on the list, I’m having a hard time picking out my favorites. Here’s the list of the books, along with some notes on the books I particularly enjoyed.

• Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Kingsolver, Barbara - This is my pick for Book of the Year. Kingsolver's family spent the entire year eating only food that they grew, raised, or traded for. She reveals how little we know about the food we buy at the grocery store, and this book has made me much more conscious of the source of my food. I'm not strictly a locavore, but this book pushed me in that direction.
• Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word by Kennedy, Randall
• The New Kings of Nonfiction by Glass, Ira - A great collection of short non-fiction collected by the host of This American Life. They're all fantastic examples of clever storytelling.
• Watchmen by Moore, Alan - I had heard of and about this comic book for years, and I decided I should finally read it before the movie comes out in March. I got it from the library, and before I had a chance to start it, M grabbed it and became engrossed. She hates comic books, but she liked this one. I can't think of a higher compliment.
• The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible As Literally As Possible by Jacobs, A.J.
• Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919 by Puleo, Stephen
• Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Lewis, Michael - Not quite as stirring as his Blind Side, but a solid book about baseball drafting, statistics, and money.
• The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky, Fyodor
• Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Adams, Douglas - I read Adams's Hitchhiker books growing up, and I loved them. I remember trying to start this once and putting it down in the first chapter. Reading it again, it definitely starts slowly, but it's an amusing book. It was nice to be able to read something brand new in a familiar voice that died too young.
• No One Belongs Here More Than You by July, Miranda
• A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bryson, Bill
• Don't Shoot the Dog! by Pryor, Karen
• Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Sacks, Oliver W.

See also by book lists for 2007, 2006, and 2005.