10 year anniversary
Yesterday was Sumi’s (my lovely wife) and my 10 year wedding anniversary.
It took me a while to figure out what to do for this event and at the end I decided on two things: First, I booked us a night at the same bed & breakfast where we got married 10 years ago. This was a slightly risky move because there was a chance that the place will not be as wonderful or romantic as we remember, and this will spoil the wonderful memories we have from our wedding day. Luckily this was not the case, and the place was just as wonderful and romantic as we remembered. Second, I decided to buy her a book for each year from 1998 until 2008, and I picked the best book from each year (usually based on the Pulitzer prize). In each book I wrote something about our joint adventures during that year. I will not reveal what I wrote, but the list of books is below.
List of books
1998
Philip Roth
American Pastoral
1999
Michael Cunningham
The Hours
2000
Jhumpa Lahiri
Interpreter of Maladies
2001
Michael Chabon
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
2002
Richard Russo
Empire Falls
2003
Jeffrey Eugenides
Middlesex
2004
Edward P. Jones
The Known World
2005
Marilynne Robinson
Gilead
2006
Geraldine Brooks
March
2007
Cormac McCarthy
The Road
2008
Junot Díaz
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
My latest book, The Upside of Irrationality, explores some positive and some negative ways that irrationality plays out in our lives.
What a cool idea. Hope it went over well.
Deb, please go away.
Deb, please, go away. Leave these good people alone. You are a failed academic and you’re motivated purely by jealousy. This man is happy and successful. Why do you hate that so much?
mazal tov!!! may you guys celebrate many more happy years together …
That’s a wonderful idea.
And a very post-modern bookshelf!
Hi Dan,
I’m very happy for you and I wish you a lifetime of happiness with Sumi! But somehow I’m against the idea of putting up my personal (private) life on the web along with my academic stuff. There is a risk which may or may not be rational. If I get some positive feedback from the viewers the utility of showing my personal life increases obviously. But if I get negative feedback (since there are always someone not nice out there) the utility of such behavior decreases, and perhaps not proportionally. The utility may decrease so much that destroys my mood because it’s something personal.
What do you think Dan?
Jay
Hey Jay,
you have a valid point man but there is negative aspect to every thing ( personal or professional) and knowing Dan as an experiment guy who knows that this is one of his experiments….. right Dan?
Further, Dan, I have a cool remark on your wedding attire you and Sumi are looking absolutely wonderful!!!!
Hey No body,
yeah i understand this might be an interesting experiment but i think using my own stories in an experiment is biased, i can never look at the responses objectively because you know it’s about me and there are emotions involved more or less.
we could do a study on the bloggers and see how rational they are at handling the contents of the blog.
anyway i really like Dan’s blog and book
Hi Dan (and Sumi)
I hope that you both read the books and talk about them. If you enjoy Brief, Wonderous Life, make sure you also read “The Perks of being a Wallflower”.
hm. hope to see same more info
I would like to know more
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