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Saturday, January 29, 2005

you really would not believe how ill I am

I am so, so ill.

OK, so I'm really not that sick. I'm even feeling a good bit better now than I was this afternoon (I think I was dehydrated and that didn't help). But by golly I am going to milk this for all it's worth. So what if it's just a sinus infection? I don't get lying-down-in-the-middle-of-the-day privileges very often and I'm not going to let the opportunity pass me by. And any work I do in this condition is just extra brownie points, which are always handy.

So. I am so, so ill.

Also. Did you notice the sidebar? I am done with Villette, -- just finished it before I started writing this entry -- and I found that I liked it better as I got nearer the end. Which is probably why I plowed through about 250 pages of it today. (see above re: lying down in the middle of the day. We also watched "Anne of Avonlea", and it's been so long since I read the books that I was actually able to enjoy it. I will, however, be doing a good read-through of that entire series ASAP. Watching adaptations always gives me book cravings.)

I am going to go smear myself with VapoRub and talk like the guy in the NyQuil commercials (or, at least, the guy who was in NyQuil commercials last time I saw any commercials, which was years ago), for the extra sympathy factor, before I go to sleep. Good-dight.

Saturday, January 22, 2005

much ado about... not much

Tonight I read a chapter of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh aloud to the family. One of my favorite memories from childhood is the way my brother and I would lie in bed while Mom sat in our room and read out loud to us. Both of us were old enough to read ourselves, and I had already developed the nose-in-book disease that would plague me so deliciously for the rest of my life, but somehow having Mom read to us was special. She read Charlotte's Web, and a wonderful little book called No Children, No Pets, her copy of which I later destroyed by much reading and which I tracked down and bought on Bibliofind.com (may it rest in peace) when I first had Internet access, and some of the Little House books and some of the Narnia ones. I've tried to do this with my kids over the years but it's always fizzled out after a few weeks. This time I wised up and picked a book that T really, really likes, so maybe he'll help me not slack off. ;-) Should we get through Mrs. Frisby, we'll move on to C's choice, The Wizard of Oz, and then LT's, Journey to the Center of the Earth, which I may record for my dad.

Cat update: Henry and Mary can now occupy the same couch without a single smidge of hissing or snarling or even crouching. They aren't washing each other's faces yet (oh, poor Molly, we miss you so, so much) but it's progress. They remind me of a blended family wherein a 15-year-old girl who wants to be a rebel but is good at heart just acquired a soft, skinny little 12-year-old stepbrother. Only they've never yet called each other "pizzaface" or listened in on each other's phone conversations. Give them time, I guess.

Sunday, January 09, 2005

book infatuation

(quick note: I updated the 1001 Days journal tonight as well. I won't note this here every time I do that; that site now has its own notify list; feel free to use it. Also, the link will continue to be in the blogroll on this site.)

This afternoon we went to the valley to pick up a few things, and on our way out of town we stopped by the library and I picked up the books they had waiting for me on hold. I couldn't start reading right away because I was the one driving on the way to the valley, but once we were down there T drove, and in the fifteen or so blocks between the hobby store and Wal-Mart, I discovered that I was in love with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. I was reading sections out loud to T and I had a silly grin on my face and I had that twittery feeling like you get when you first start to think that maybe the person you like likes you back and you don't want to hope that you're embarking on something wonderful, so you tell yourself to expect disappointment, but under the surface you know you're totally lost and if this ship sinks you'll go down with it. (I did say that I have books instead of friends. Maybe I have books instead of affairs too.) Maybe I was just really ready to enjoy a book, I dunno. The narrator of this story is an autistic teenaged boy, and the first three pages (the first three paragraphs, really) immersed me in his world completely. I read in the car until it got too dark. I'd have done the trick where I hold the book up in the light of the headlights from the car behind us, like I used to do when I was little, but I wanted to save a little of the enjoyment for later. It couldn't last, though; as soon as the kids were in bed I just dived in, and I didn't come up until I finished the book a little after midnight. READ THIS BOOK. THIS MEANS YOU. The story is interesting, but it's the telling of it that sucked me in, and the insights into the mind of an autistic person are worth the read all by themselves. Having a son with a mild neurological disorder (Tourette Syndrome, for those of you who joined us recently; TS and autism are in the same "spectrum" of disorders), I saw several things I recognized. And not all having to do with LT; the protagonist (ahem) sees the text of a conversation in his head just like somebody else I know who may or may not be named Rachel (and also Kat!).



On the way home from the valley the twilight sky directly above us was clear (hadn't seen blue sky or stars in days) but there was a literally awesome bank of clouds built up against the mountains, and as we drove toward and then under them, there was an enormous thunderstorm going on. I think that will be one of those drives I remember when I'm eighty.

Thursday, January 06, 2005

books I want to read in 2005

I don't remember the last time I was in bed before midnight. It has reached the point where I feel like I'm wasting hours if I am asleep before two a.m. I think this is some kind of long-repressed reaction to having had a bedtime of 9:00 from birth till high school -- when my parents allowed for my extra maturity by bumping it up to 9:30. Not that it was very strictly enforced, I'll admit. But I have to blame my weird night-owl tendencies on something.


I spent some quality time with my Amazon recommendations* the other night, and between what was suggested to me and what those suggestions triggered in my memory, I came up with a really yummy list of a few books I want to read this year. This does not include re-reads, which I know I will be doing a great deal of, because I am the kind of person who has books instead of friends. Some of these books I hadn't even heard of before, which is exactly what I need right now, as I'm in a bit of a rut. I won't necessarily be buying all of these; some I'll check out of the library, and I already own some of them. I'll put a star by those. And forgive the lack of italics and authors' names; this is taken from a text file that I made up quickly as I went, just as notes for myself. Shut UP already Rachel and get to the list.

• The Jungle Book
  
• Tess of the D'Urbervilles (Hardy)
  
• The Awakening*
  
• Jude the Obscure*
  
• Time Machine/Invisible Man*
  
• Vanity Fair*
  
• Dickens* [every year I promise myself a chronological Dickens excursion and every year I put it off. Maybe this year I'll actually do it.]
  
• The Importance of Being Earnest
  
• The Secret Life of Bees
  
• Middlesex
  
• The Life of Pi
  
• Frankenstein
  
• Tales from Watership Down
  
• The Three Junes
  
• The Pull of the Moon -- E. Berg
  
• Say When -- E. Berg
  
• Until the Real Thing Comes Along -- E. Berg
  
• Atonement -- McEwen
  
• Reading Lolita in Tehran
  
• Here Be Dragons -- Penman
  
• The Good Mother -- Miller
  
• Middlemarch
  
• Mill on the Floss*
  
• Fahrenheit 451
  
• more A.S. Byatt
  
• War of the Worlds -- Wells
  
• Good Grief -- Winston
  
• Little Children -- Perrotta
  
• Firefly Summer -- Binchy
  
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night TIme -- Haddon (this one is waiting for me at the library)
  
• The Lost World -- Doyle
  
• An Assembly Such as This (Pamela Aidan)
  
• Truth and Beauty: A Friendship -- Ann Patchett
  
• The Birth of Venus -- Sarah Dunant
  

*Amazon recommendations: WHAT A TOTALLY BRILLIANT IDEA! don't you think? I mean, isn't it, like, the perfect and purest use of computer programming, to take in data about what books I like and spit out a list of books I probably would enjoy? I feel all warm and fuzzy toward the whole computer industry every time I think of it. Well, not quite the whole computer industry, OK, but pretty close.


Oh, and the redesign. I went for a more bloggish look this time. IT WAS A LOT OF WORK so if you hate it, be nice. It won't last long anyway; you know how I am by now.


Edited to add: Valerie asked me for the URL for Amazon's recommendations. You just go to Amazon.com (I'm pretty sure the British version would have the same feature if that's what you'd rather use, Val). Sign in or create an account, and then the fun starts. :) You can search for books on Amazon that you own or have read, and rate them (down on the lower left on each item's page); you can add things to your wish list; you can make purchases. All these things will change your recommendations. After you've done some rating, buying, or wishing, click on "Your Store" (should have your name instead of "Your" if you're signed in) and there'll be recommendations for you. You can go through those, rating them, telling the beneficent Amazon computer that you're not interested, buying them, adding them to your wishlist (which is a bit of a pain because it takes you away from the recommendations page every time, but oh well, nothing's perfect), and that will continue to update your recommendations.



P.S. If somebody should happen to buy, say, a book about rebuilding MoPar muscle cars, one about the book of Revelation, and a set of Star Wars videos on your Amazon account, you will spend months weeding out the sprouts from those seeds in your recommendations list. Just thought I'd warn you. The moral of the story is: T has his own e-mail address; he needs his own darn Amazon account as well. ;-)

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

The Thursday Bookworm

I had these all answered and then I clicked "add entry" and my DSL modem spazzed and my entry was eaten by this blasted machine. And it was long and well-thought-out too. So I had to go away from the computer for a while before I had the energy to try to re-create it. No promises though.

I am a slave to surveys, as anyone who has spent three seconds reading this journal probably knows. This one is from The Thursday Bookworm. I've lifted these surveys from KiwiRia before but this is the first time I've gone to the source myself.

1. What is your favorite movie adapted from a book that you have actually read? Was it pretty true to the original author's vision, or was too much vital information left out or changed?
Pride and Prejudice -- the 5-hour A&E/BBC version. Even after repeated viewings I still do not find flaws in it.

A close second on this one is To Kill A Mockingbird.

2. What, in your opinion, is the worst movie adaptation of a book? What did you not like about it?
Possession by A.S. Byatt. The book was so rich, so fascinating -- and the movie was a hollow shell, with two Americans in the lead of what is a very British story (and one of them wasn't even pretending to be British; they wrote his character as an American, which was a travesty in this case).

3. Have you ever liked the movie version of a book despite its glaring differences from the original story?
This is going to be very shocking to people who know me. Debi, are you sitting down? Susan? Everyone else? OK. I really, really like Patricia Rozema's movie Mansfield Park. In all honesty, I rented it once (for free, from the library) because I wanted to be able to criticize it and know what I was criticizing. But wow. For once in my life I was able to separate the movie from the book (which I love) and enjoy the movie as its own work even though it deviated in staggering ways from the source material. It was an interpretation rather than a retelling, which is something I usually do not let filmmakers get away with, when defenders of movies which deviate from the original use it as their reasoning. Usually I say, if you're not going to tell the story the way the author intended it, you can write your own story with your own characters and not try to ride on the author's coattails. But maybe it was because Rozema strayed so far from the original in so many ways that I was able to forgive her for it in this case, I don't know. All I know is that I really enjoyed this pretty, emotionally rich, originally-directed film, even with its flaws (and there were a few, even apart from the adaptation thing).

And then there are movies that have been part of our lives and culture for so long, so thoroughly ingrained in our childhoods, that we can like them even though they stray wildly from the books on which they were based. Two that come ot mind are The Wizard of Oz and "Little House on the Prairie".

4. Have you ever seen a movie adaptation that actually made you go out and read that book after seeing the film?
Hmm. Pollyanna. The Man from Snowy River (a really great Australian poem is the basis for this pretty movie). The Fiddler on the Roof (Sholem Alecheim's stories are hard to get through if I read a lot of them at a time, but one at a time, they were very interesting). Bambi (didn't like the book). Forrest Gump (book was execrable). I don't remember if I read Pygmalion before I saw My Fair Lady or not. I have gone seeking autobiographies of the people depicted in The Sound of Music. And I know there are some examples I'm forgetting here.

And there are a lot of adaptations where I'm already familiar with the book, but watching the movie gives me the itch to read that particular book again. Just about any film adaptation will do that to me.

5. Have you ever seen a movie without knowing beforehand that it had first been published in book form?
Mostly when I was little -- things like Mary Poppins, etc. Well, here's a big example: Every single Disney animated feature film up until The Lion King was based on outside source material, and I had no idea about some of those -- again, when I was little. I know there are some from my adulthood too but I just can't think of them offhand.

One question that was left off here that I think is a good one is: Are there any adaptations where you like the movie better than the book? And two that come to mind here are The Black Stallion (heart-poundingly beautiful movie, just stunning, based on an average-at-best boy-and-horse book -- but let's give the author credit; from what I understand he wrote it in high school) and Forrest Gump as mentioned before. I don't love the movie of that one, but I couldn't even get five pages into the book. Oh, and Wings of the Dove. I just cannot get into Henry James -- and I'm not afraid of older literature. He is just so dry and bleak in his writing style; I can read a page and have no idea what I've just read. But the 1997 movie of this is, well, very racy, and also quite engaging.

Monday, December 06, 2004

busy days

Yesterday we drove to the Bay Area (twitch. twitch) to look at a car
we've been thinking about buying. We didn't end up getting it (although we're still thinking about it) but we had a nice long drive and a mostly-pleasant day. Except for the wretched 580/680 interchange which is everything that people who hate freeway interchanges hate about freeway interchanges. Ack. And for some strange reason, even though I always plan to have T* drive in places like that, I end up being the one with my white knuckles clamped to the wheel trying to look in four or five directions at once, so as to be able to merge without becoming part of a horrific mangled freeway accident. Because that would make the traffic even worse, with all the rubber-necking.

Then today we cut wood (and I did not skip out this time!) before
having T's birthday dinner at my parents' house. He wanted spaghetti, which is, hallelujah, something I'm good at making and I can do it reliably and it doesn't take a gazillion pots and pans or have to be kept warm in the oven while I cook it in batches or ANYTHING. Good old spaghetti. But T always gets (meaning I always make) German chocolate cake for his birthday. Eew. The cake part is bland and the frosting has (puke) coconut. Ah well, it's only once a year, and it makes the chances of my blowing my diet on leftovers virtually nonexistent. Which will not be the case after my birthday (which is in three weeks), because I am all about either a) a Costco cake, which is the be-all and end-all of cakes, or, if we can't spring for that, b) chocolate cake from a mix with chocolate frosting from a can. What other kind of cake does there really need to be, after all? And Dulce de Leche (Spanish
for "Let's Make Rachel Fat") ice cream. mmm.

I can tell that I've been reading the Little House books too much when I really start obsessing about food. Next time you read those, pay attention to how few pages can go by without a description of some kind of hearty Early American meal. Even during The Long Winter there's all that talk about grinding wheat to make nutty-tasting whole-wheat bread. And when they're not on the verge of starvation it's even worse. The roast geese! The fried chicken! The venison! Oh good Lord, the blackbird pie!! I think I maybe gained five pounds this past week just reading about it all.

Thursday, December 02, 2004

a book meme

Another book meme lifted from KiwiRia.

The idea is to recommend a few books from each genre.

01. Horror:

• The Stand by Stephen King. This is in a different vein from most of the other stuff he wrote -- at least, what he'd written up until the early 90's when I stopped reading his books.


• Edgar Allen Poe's short stories. The Pit and the Pendulum, The Cask of Amontillado, The Tell -Tale Heart -- wow. One of my junior-high friends had a tape set of Vincent Price reading some of Poe's short stories; we lay in her rec room listening to them on Halloween night and neither of us could get up afterward to
  blow out the candles we'd lit, so we just let them burn down until they were gone.

02. Suspense/Mystery: I am drawing a blank here. I know I've read some good suspense stuff in the last few years but I just can't remember any of it. So I'll shrug and say, "Trixie Belden. She was way better than Nancy Drew."

03. Science-Fiction/Fantasy:

• The Martian Chronicles -- Ray Bradbury


• The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. The movies are pretty well-made, but as is the case with almost all adaptations, if you've seen them, you haven't experienced the whole stories. The books are much richer, and the characters are more admirable in the original than they're portrayed to be in the movies.


• The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. These are, no pun intended, an absolute staple in our household.

04. Romance/Chick Lit:

• Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series


• Sara Donati's Into the Wilderness series (both of the
  above are really deeply researched historical fiction)


• A few of Jennifer Crusie's books. Some of them are too over-the-top for me, but I really like her latest one, called Bet Me.


• Elizabeth Berg -- she writes chick lit but not romances. Read with tissues.


• Marian Keyes. So funny and yet she's not JUST funny.

05. American Classic:

• To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee -- this is an absolute, utter must-read, in my opinion.


• The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Don't be turned off by having been forced to read this in high school. Read it in your twenties or beyond and you'll get a lot more out of it.


• Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series. They're ostensibly for kids but they're an amazing look at pioneer life.


• Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain


• Of Mice and Men, and even though I disagree with its overarching political message, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.

06. British/World Classic:

• Any of Jane Austen's six novels (yes, even Mansfield Park), along with her juvenilia and unpublished work.


• Dickens: David Copperfield, Great Expectations, A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist ... I could go on.


• Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera


• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë


• L.M. Montgomery's books. Not just the Anne of Green Gables series, although that's wonderful; she wrote a dozen other novels, and they're all worth reading.

07. Drama (Play):

• Shakespeare of course, when you feel like slogging through a lot of words to get the meaning of a great story ;-) (also, reading Shakespeare is great because you realize just how many of his phrases and quotations have made their way into common speech)


• Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

08. Biography/Autobiography:

• MiG Pilot by John Barron, about Viktor Belenko. This tells the story of a Russian fighter pilot who, in the late 70's, defected to the US along with his top-secret jet. His impressions of America alone make the book worth reading.


• Mover of Men and Mountains by R.G. LeTourneau.
  Autobiography of a Christian inventor who lived to see (and in great part brought about) mind-blowing changes in the mechanical and earth-moving industries. Not just a Christian testimony or a book about tractors; you get a very good picture of life in the early 20th century and beyond from this book.


• The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery in five volumes.
  There was a lot going on behind the scenes as all those tranquil "children's" books were being written.

Saturday, October 16, 2004

a book quiz

It's been a long time (in journal years anyway) since I did a survey/meme kind of thing. I was starting to have withdrawals. So here's one I lifted from KiwiRia.

Hardback or Paperback?
I like both.  If I'm buying new I get a paperback.

Highlight or Underline?
I'll occasionally do either, but not very often.  High school was a different story -- all my novels from those years are highlit wherever I read a line that really spoke to me (use of hushed awed teenaged know-it-all hyper-pseudo-sensitive-intellectual tone advised here).  In my Bible I'll highlight if I have one handy, which generally means that I underline.

Lewis or Tolkien?
I like both but I think I only love Lewis.

E.B. White or A.A. Milne?
Both!

T.S. Eliot or e.e. cummings?
Honestly I'm not terribly familiar with either.  I liked cummings in high school.

Stephen King or Dean Koontz?
I used to read King in junior high.  Never read anything by Koontz.

Barnes & Noble or Borders?
Whichever is handiest.  B&N has the Starbucks caramel brownie advantage, while Borders has a better educator's discount and very slightly better prices.

Waldenbooks or B. Dalton?
I've never been to Waldenbooks.  There was a B. Dalton in the mall we frequent until a B&N went in down the street (they are owned by the same company).  You know my very favorite small bookstore?  The one that used to be in my little town until I was in high school.  It's been gone ten years and I still mourn its loss.

Fantasy or Science Fiction?
I really don't like either, much.  I'll read the lightest of fantasy -- Lewis and Tolkien -- but the more stereotypical fantasy stuff even in Tolkien leaves me a little cold.

Horror or Suspense?
Suspense.

Bookmark or Dog-ear?
Generally a bookmark.  I'm not above dog-earing though.  My books are for reading and enjoying, not reselling, and paper's not sacred.

Hemingway or Faulkner?
Neither, ugh.

Fitzgerald or Steinbeck?
Again with the neither.  Although I used to really like Steinbeck, in my highlighting days.

Homer or Plato?
If I'm ever in the mood for either of these I'll let you know. :D

Geoffrey Chaucer or Edmund Spenser?
Chaucer

Pen or Pencil? style="font-weight: bold;">
A sharpened pencil or a fine-point pen; either's fine.  I do write
in my Bible a lot and I'll use either.

Looseleaf or Notepad?
Looseleaf.  My notepads always end up a hodgepodge of various
stuff anyway.  Which makes them more interesting when I find them
years later, but not terribly useful as an organizational tool.

Alphabetize: By Author or By Title?
Right now my books are alphabetized by author and then arranged in
chronological order by publication, except for series which are in
series order where that differs from publication order.  Sometimes
I'll reorder them all strictly by publication order, with no author
alphabetization, but that's more complicated.

Dustjacket: Leave it On or Take it Off?
Off for reading, on for storage.  For the few of my books that
have dust jackets.

Novella or Epic?
Either.  I like some of both.

John Grisham or Scott Turow?
Neither.

J.K. Rowling or Lemony Snicket?
Neither.  (L.M. Montgomery!  Cynthia Voigt!  Beverly Cleary!)

John Irving or John Updike?
I've tried both and liked neither.

Fiction or Non-fiction?
Usually fiction.  I'll read non-fiction when it's pertinent to something I'm interested in, and I like a biography now and then.

Historical Biography or Historical Romance?
I like a few really good historical romances -- Donati and Gabaldon mainly.  I also like a few historical biographies but I have to be in the right mood for them.

A Few Pages per Sitting or Finish at Least a Chapter?
Oh, the joy of having a choice!  Usually I just steal a few minutes to read whatever I can manage.  On my late-night reading binges I sometimes try to finish chapters before I finally stop, and sometimes don't.

Short Story or Creative Non-fiction Essay?
Each has its place.

"It was a dark and stormy night..." or "Once upon a time..." ?
Generally neither.

Buy or Borrow?
Both.  I usually borrow a book from the library first, and if I like it really well, I'll buy it used, and if I LOVE it or have a gift certificate to spend, I'll buy it new.  Occasionally if a book is a classic or one by an author I like, I'll buy it without ever having read it, but almost always used or at a serious discount.

Book Reviews or Word of Mouth?
Both, mostly word of mouth.

Tuesday, June 22, 2004

a book review. and my codependency (I think.)

I just took a break from reading Persuasion to read The Glorious Appearing, which had come in at the library for me after about six months of being in my hold list. In case you aren't up on your Christian-ese, The Glorious Appearing is the twelfth and final volume in that bestselling Christian fiction series about the end of time. I really hate to say it, but... the book sucked. The rest of the series I read and didn't mind too much, because the subject matter was of interest to me, even though the writing style (a poor attempt to be a Christian Tom Clancy) was off-putting to me. Not my style, nothing wrong with it, different strokes for different folks, all that. But in this last book, it's like instead of trying to channel Tom Clancy, the author decided to go for a kind of love-child-of-Nicholas-Sparks-and-Stephen-King kind of thing. And the scariest thing is, he succeeded. Ugh. I made myself finish just so I could finish off the series, and honestly, the last few chapters were better than the rest of the book. But now I feel like I need to go through a ritual cleansing before I can pick up Persuasion again, in all its crystalline, witty, romantic perfection. And I need to apologize to Jane too. Or at least read some Beverly Cleary or something, to cleanse my palate.

Total topic change: T has been so ridiculously stressed out lately, what with his job and all, that he's become (I think) borderline depressed. And I am so totally one of those people who is really distressed when those around me aren't happy. When my parents fought? end of the world. And oh good Lord the one time I saw my dad cry as a child was a nightmarish event of monumental proportions. DADDY CRIED. IT IS THE APOCALYPSE. Heck, even if there was trouble with the car, I was (quietly, because I come from a long line of men whose #1 Rule of Roadside Repairs is, "EVERYONE SHUT UP") really distraught. Now when those around me are unhappy, I just get this knot in my stomach and Nameless Dread starts making regular nightly visits (hello, ulcer -- which I think is probably the technical name for Nameless Dread, although I could be wrong) and generally life is less happy than I like it to be. So tonight I thought I would at least superficially cheer T up by giving him something to look forward to all day -- namely, his favorite dinner consisting of this kind of bastard offspring of Chicken Marsala and Chicken Parmigiana that I make, along with homemade rolls and a fancy (read: something besides lettuce, croutons, parmesan cheese, and bottled caesar dressing). It went well. T had a good relaxing evening. And I am officially Every Feminist's Nightmare, also known as The Codependent Betty Crocker.

File this one under "Things that Made Mommy Happy Today":



It's time for the Summer Reading Program, which means that this is a common sight around our house as the kids work toward pool passes and free French fries and who knows what all. Bribery: the best motivational tool for 8-year-olds in the world.

Update: My college-educated friend, who are smart about them there things, just told me (when I asked) that I'm not codependent. I'm just a worry-wart. You'd think there'd be a more technical term for it than that. Oh well. ;-)

Friday, June 11, 2004

Book list on STEROIDS, warning, this thing is HUGE

Oh dear Lord, why can't I resist these things? WHY??

* bold those books you've read
* parenthesize started-but-never-finished
* italicize if you've seen the movie ;)
* underline the ones you actually like
* as you get near the end, marvel at the number of books in existence that you've never ever heard of
* add three books you recommend
* post the whole conglomerated mess in your journal

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker�s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. 1984, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte (re-read it recently and liked it better than before -- still not my favorite though)
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger (this one, I dunno, I just don't get the whole 20th-century American despair movement, I guess)
16. (The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame)
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli�s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. (War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy)
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Sorcerer�s/Philosopher�s Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D�Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. (A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving)
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck (it said underline if you like it, not if you love it)
30. Alice�s Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. (Dune, Frank Herbert)
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. (The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald)
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. (Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy)
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Susskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones�s Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. (Brave New World, Aldous Huxley) someday I will finish this.  It's short, just disturbing.
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. (On The Road, Jack Kerouac)
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. (The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel)
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot (these are a fun escape)
100. Midnight�s Children, Salman Rushdie
101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
103. The Beach, Alex Garland
104. Dracula, Bram Stoker
105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz
106. (The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens) - I actually am working on this right now, slooowly :)
107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz
108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy
112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13 1/2, Sue Townsend
113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
119. Shogun, James Clavell
120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson
122. (Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray) had to turn it in at the library before I finished it -- it's on my to-buy-used list
123. The Forsythe Saga, John Galsworthy
124. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
127. Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison (funny, funny series)
128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
129. Possession, A. S. Byatt  (hated the movie though)
130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The Handmaid�s Tale, Margaret Atwood
132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl
133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck
134. George�s Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker saw this years ago as a child; it hardly counts...
137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson
141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson
143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
144. It, Stephen King
145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
146. The Green Mile, Stephen King
147. Papillon, Henri Charriere
148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett
149. Master And Commander, Patrick O�Brian
150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz
151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett
153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement, Ian McEwan
155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier
157. (One Flew Over The Cuckoo�s Nest, Ken Kesey)
158. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
160. Cross Stitch/Outlander, Diana Gabaldon (one of my favourite books!)
161. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
162. River God, Wilbur Smith
163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
165. The World According To Garp, John Irving
166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore
167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson
168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye
169. The Witches, Roald Dahl
170. Charlotte�s Web, E. B. White
171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. (The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway)
174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco
175. (Sophie�s World, Jostein Gaarder)
176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr. Fox, Roald Dahl
178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner, George Eliot (I love this book!)
185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Grossmith
187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine
189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons
193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells
195. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans
196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White
199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews
201. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
202. The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan
203. The Great Hunt, Robert Jordan
204. The Dragon Reborn, Robert Jordan
205. Fires of Heaven, Robert Jordan
206. Lord of Chaos, Robert Jordan
207. Winter�s Heart, Robert Jordan
208. A Crown of Swords, Robert Jordan
209. Crossroads of Twilight, Robert Jordan
210. A Path of Daggers, Robert Jordan
211. As Nature Made Him, John Colapinto
212. Microserfs, Douglas Coupland
213. The Married Man, Edmund White
214. Winter�s Tale, Mark Helprin
215. The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault
216. Cry to Heaven, Anne Rice
217. Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe, John Boswell
218. Equus, Peter Shaffer
219. The Man Who Ate Everything, Jeffrey Steingarten
220. Letters To A Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke
221. Ella Minnow Pea, Mark Dunn
222. The Vampire Lestat, Anne Rice
223. Anthem, Ayn Rand
224. The Bridge To Terabithia, Katherine Paterson
225. Tartuffe, Moliere
226. The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
227. The Crucible, Arthur Miller
228. The Trial, Franz Kafka
229. Oedipus Rex, Sophocles
230. Oedipus at Colonus, Sophocles
231. Death Be Not Proud, John Gunther
232. A Doll�s House, Henrik Ibsen
233. Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen
234. Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
235. A Raisin In The Sun, Lorraine Hansberry
236. ALIVE!, Piers Paul Read
237. Grapefruit, Yoko Ono
238. Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde
240. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
241. Chronicles of Thomas Convenant, Unbeliever, Stephen Donaldson
242. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
242. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon
243. Summerland, Michael Chabon
244. (A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole)  (I hated this.  SO pointless and just vulgar and stupid.  I lost all faith in the Pulitzer as a gauge for good reading material when I tried this.)
245. Candide, Voltaire
246. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More, Roald Dahl
247. Ringworld, Larry Niven
248. The King Must Die, Mary Renault
249. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein
250. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L�Engle
251. The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
252. The House Of The Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne
253. The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
254. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
255. The Great Gilly Hopkins, Katherine Paterson
256. Chocolate Fever, Robert Kimmel Smith
257. Xanth: The Quest for Magic, Piers Anthony
258. The Lost Princess of Oz, L. Frank Baum
259. Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon
260. Lost In A Good Book, Jasper Fforde
261. Well Of Lost Plots, Jasper Fforde
261. Life Of Pi, Yann Martel
263. The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver
264. A Yellow Rraft In Blue Water, Michael Dorris
265. Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder
267. Where The Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls
268. Griffin & Sabine, Nick Bantock
269. Witch of Blackbird Pond, Joyce Friedland
270. Mrs. Frisby And The Rats Of NIMH, Robert C. O�Brien (LOVE this book)
271. Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt
272. The Cay, Theodore Taylor
273. From The Mixed-Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg
274. The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster
275. The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
276. The Kitchen God�s Wife, Amy Tan
277. The Bone Setter�s Daughter, Amy Tan
278. Relic, Duglas Preston & Lincolon Child
279. Wicked, Gregory Maguire
280. American Gods, Neil Gaiman
281. Misty of Chincoteague, Marguerite Henry
282. The Girl Next Door, Jack Ketchum
283. Haunted, Judith St. George
284. Singularity, William Sleator
285. A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
286. Different Seasons, Stephen King
287. Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk
288. About a Boy, Nick Hornby
289. The Bookman�s Wake, John Dunning
290. The Church of Dead Girls, Stephen Dobyns
291. Illusions, Richard Bach
292. Magic�s Pawn, Mercedes Lackey
293. Magic�s Promise, Mercedes Lackey
294. Magic�s Price, Mercedes Lackey
295. The Dancing Wu Li Masters, Gary Zukav
296. Spirits of Flux and Anchor, Jack L. Chalker
297. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
298. The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices, Brenda Love
299. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
300. The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
301. The Cider House Rules, John Irving
302. Ender�s Game, Orson Scott Card
303. Girlfriend in a Coma, Douglas Coupland
304. The Lion�s Game, Nelson Demille
305. The Sun, The Moon, and the Stars, Stephen Brust
306. Cyteen, C. J. Cherryh
307. Foucault�s Pendulum, Umberto Eco
308. Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
309. Invisible Monsters, Chuck Palahniuk
310. Camber of Culdi, Kathryn Kurtz
311. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
312. War and Rememberance, Herman Wouk
313. The Art of War, Sun Tzu
314. The Giver, Lois Lowry
315. The Telling, Ursula Le Guin
316. Xenogenesis (or Lilith�s Brood), Octavia Butler
317. A Civil Campaign, Lois McMaster Bujold
318. The Curse of Chalion, Lois McMaster Bujold
319. The Aeneid, Publius Vergilius Maro (Vergil)
320. Hanta Yo, Ruth Beebe Hill
321. The Princess Bride, William Goldman
322. Beowulf, Anonymous
323. The Sparrow, Maria Doria Russell
324. Deerskin, Robin McKinley
325. Dragonsong, Anne McCaffrey
326. Passage, Connie Willis
327. Otherland, Tad Williams
328. Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay
329. Number the Stars, Lois Lowry
330. Beloved, Toni Morrison
331. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ�s Childhood Pal, Christopher Moore
332. The mysterious disappearance of Leon, I mean Noel, Ellen Raskin
333. Summer Sisters, Judy Blume
334. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo
335. The Island on Bird Street, Uri Orlev
336. Midnight in the Dollhouse, Marjorie Filley Stover
337. The Miracle Worker, William Gibson
338. The Genesis Code, John Case
339. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevensen
340. Paradise Lost, John Milton
341. Phantom, Susan Kay
342. The Mummy or Ramses the Damned, Anne Rice
343. Anno Dracula, Kim Newman
344: The Dresden Files: Grave Peril, Jim Butcher
345: Tokyo Suckerpunch, Issac Adamson
346: The Winter of Magic�s Return, Pamela Service
347: The Oddkins, Dean R. Koontz
348. My Name is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok
349. The Last Goodbye, Raymond Chandler
350. At Swim, Two Boys, Jaime O�Neill
351. Othello, by William Shakespeare
352. The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas
353. The Collected Poems of William Butler Yeats
354. Sati, Christopher Pike
355. The Inferno, Dante
356. The Apology, Plato
357. The Small Rain, Madeline L�Engle
358. The Man Who Tasted Shapes, Richard E Cytowick
359. 5 Novels, Daniel Pinkwater
360. The Sevenwaters Trilogy, Juliet Marillier
361. Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier
362. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
363. Our Town, Thorton Wilder
364. Green Grass Running Water, Thomas King
365. The Interpreter, Suzanne Glass
366. The Moor�s Last Sigh, Salman Rushdie
367. The Mother Tongue, Bill Bryson
368. A Passage to India, E.M. Forster
369. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky
370. The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux
371. Pages for You, Sylvia Brownrigg
372. The Changeover, Margaret Mahy
373. Howl�s Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones
374. Angels and Demons, Dan Brown
375. Johnny Got His Gun, Dalton Trumbo
376. Shosha, Isaac Bashevis Singer
377. Travels With Charley, John Steinbeck
378. The Diving-bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
379. The Lunatic at Large by J. Storer Clouston
380. Time for Bed by David Baddiel
381. Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold
382. Quite Ugly One Morning by Christopher Brookmyre
383. The Bloody Sun by Marion Zimmer Bradley
384. Sewer, Gas, and Eletric by Matt Ruff
385. Jhereg by Steven Brust
386. So You Want To Be A Wizard by Diane Duane
387. Perdido Street Station, China Mieville
388. (The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte)
389. Road-side Dog, Czeslaw Milosz
380. The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje
381. Neuromancer, William Gibson
382. The Epistemology of the Closet, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
383. A Canticle for Liebowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr
384. The Mask of Apollo, Mary Renault
385. The Gunslinger, Stephen King
386. Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare
387. Childhood�s End, Arthur C. Clarke
388. A Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
389. Ivanhoe, Walter Scott
390. The God Boy, Ian Cross
391. The Beekeeper�s Apprentice, Laurie R. King
392. Finn Family Moomintroll, Tove Jansson
393. Misery, Stephen King
394. Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters
395. Hood, Emma Donoghue
396. The Land of Spices, Kate O�Brien
397. The Diary of Anne Frank
398. Regeneration, Pat Barker
399. Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald
400. Dreaming in Cuban, Cristina Garcia
401. A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
402. The View from Saturday, E.L. Konigsburg
403. Dealing with Dragons, Patricia Wrede
404. Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Lynne Truss  (I WANT THIS BOOK.)
405. A Severed Wasp - Madeleine L�Engle
406. Here Be Dragons - Sharon Kay Penman
407. The Mabinogion (Ancient Welsh Tales) - translated by Lady Charlotte E. Guest
408. The DaVinci Code - Dan Brown
409. Desire of the Everlasting Hills - Thomas Cahill
400. The Cloister Walk - Kathleen Norris
401. My Antonia, Willa Cather
402. Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
403. The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins
404. Conceived Without Sin, Bud MacFarlane Jr.
405. Pierced by a Sword, Bud MacFarlane, Jr.
406. Tully, Paullina Simons
407. On the Beach, Nevil Shute
408. Cat's Eye, Margaret Atwood
409. Earth Abides, George R. Stewart
410. Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy From Mars, Daniel K. Pinkwater
411. The Talisman, Stephen King and Peter Straub
412. Black House, Steven King and Peter Straub
413. Please Don't Eat the Daisies, Jean Kerr
414. The Golden Spiders, Rex Stout
415. Pippi Longstocking, Astrid Lindgren
415. The gift of Sex, C & J Penner
416. Dominion, Randy Alcorn
417 Trixie Belden and the secret of the mansion, Julie Campbell
418. The Shaman, Noah Gordon
419. Pope Joan, Donna W. Cross
420. The Bible
421.  Emily of New Moon, L.M. Montgomery
422.  Into the Wilderness, Sara Donati
423.  Homestead, Rosina Lippi

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