More Books

Oh how I love things like this when they involve books! I love reading and always have an ongoing to-read list that I refer to when I finish a book. Obviously I need to use this list next time I go to the library. I found this on another blog and thought it would be fun to pass on. One caveat: Several of the books on the list I either read a long time ago and don’t remember them enough to take credit for them, or I was forced to read it in high school, hated it because I was forced to read it, and therefore don’t feel like I can take credit. There are also a few others (Like Charlotte’s Web and A Christmas Carol) that I feel like I probably read when I was pretty young, but the stories are hazy and don’t think I should take credit. I’m being honest on this list!

Here's how it works:

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Mark in red the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your blog

[The premise of this little exercise is that the National Endowment for the Arts apparently believes that the average American has only read 6 books from the list below. I’m glad I’ve read more than average, but thought my number would be a bit higher.]

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien—I read The Fellowship of the Ring, but didn’t make it any farther in the series. So I can take credit for 1/3 of the series!
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte—I read this in high school but won’t take credit for it because I don’t remember much about it.
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible –although not straight through from beginning to end.
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte—I started this a couple of years ago, but got really bogged down in it and never finished.
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell—read this in high school and reread a couple of years ago. It’s really good.
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens—again, read in high school but won’t take credit because I don’t remember much about it.
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott—I have this book at my parents’ house so I’m sure I read it at some point, but don’t remember the plot.
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger—have this at home but haven’t read it.
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger –loved, loved loved this!
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell –have read it twice and will probably read it again!
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald—read it in high school and have tried to go back and reread it several times but never got very far.
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy—have this at home but haven’t yet been daring enough to pick it up.
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky—read in high school and liked it more than I thought I’d like a book by a guy with a name like that.
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck –read it, don’t remember it.
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis I’ve read the first 2 and intend to read the third (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader) soon.
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini Beautiful and heartbreaking.
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden—read half of it and need to go back and finish it.
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan –loved the movie, but I need a little separation from it before I read the book.
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray I’ve thought about reading this, so I guess it’s ok to italicize it.
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery—I read this when I was young, then spent a lot of time translating it into French in a high school French class.
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

[I’m so glad Atlas Shrugged isn’t on this list! I dated a guy once who asked me to read it and being the dutiful person I am, I tried my best. I got about 20 pages in by the time we stopped talking. I was so glad because it gave me a reason to stop reading the book!]

Writing

I read an article in Gourmet magazine a few years ago about the author Dori Sanders. I just re-read the article a few weeks ago, so it’s fresh in my mind. She has a peach orchard at her home in South Carolina, which is why she was featured in the foodie magazine. Other than talking about her orchard, she talked about how she conceived of the idea for her most well-known book, Clover. She said she was at her house one day and saw a funeral procession go by. She saw a young black girl looking out the window of the first car. In the second car, there was a white woman looking scared and tired. From this scenario, Ms. Sanders created a story about a 10 year old orphan raised by her white stepmother after her father dies unexpectedly. I haven’t read the book, but I plan to pick it up from the library today.

It’s probably no surprise that I have a desire to write a book. (I bet most people who have a blog also have intentions to write a book one day, however hidden those intentions might be. The blog is a precursor to seeing your name in print, for real, I guess.) Ever since reading that article on Ms. Sanders, I’ve been trying to create stories from the everyday occurrences I see around me. I try to inject more imagination and spontaneity into my day so that I don’t miss an opportunity to create a story, even if it’s just a practice story in my mind. Today it was seeing the older gentleman who cuts grass all the neighbors’ lawns on a particular street I drive down every day on the way to work. I imagined him receiving a large inheritance from one of his regular customers and how his life might change as a result of this money. A few days ago it was seeing a car pulled over on the side of the road by a police officer, the driver talking wildly into a cell phone while the officer leaned over his motorcycle making notations. For Ms. Sanders, a true fleshed-out story came from these imaginings. That hasn’t happened for me yet, but the desire to create a good story gets deeper year to year, so I have no choice but to continue with the imaginary scenarios and see what may come out.

They say that in order to be a good writer, you have to be a good reader. On one hand, reading intensifies my desire to write my own story, but on the other hand, as I read more and more excellent novels, it makes me think there’s no way I could add to the annals of good books. I’ve read some really amazing books, and I am fairly certain I could never write something on par with them. If I happened to conceive of a good-enough idea and tossed it out into the wild, would I be adding anything of substance or worth to the world of literature or just regurgitating the amazing stories I’ve already heard, just in another form?

I certainly don’t need to worry about what the “world” will think of my book until I can actually latch on to an idea and go with it long enough for it to become something other than just words strung together. I have notebooks upon notebooks of words strung together but fewer cohesive ideas. The best idea I’ve had lately (this one non-fiction) could possibly turn into something interesting enough that I’d actually pull it off the shelf if I saw it in a bookstore, but I have to fight the daytime doldrums that keep me from feeling inspired enough to keep at it. I have all the time in the world right now, so maybe this year will see an idea that actually becomes something grander.

Small but Mighty

At the risk of sounding vain here, I’m going to go ahead and speak my mind.

I come from a family of fairly thin people. My mom has always been very thin, although she’s taller than me. I got the thinness from my mom’s side, and the shortness—sorry, lack of height—from my dad’s side. So that makes me a pretty small person. I exercise regularly and eat healthy most of the time. I cook healthful dinners at home and don’t keep much “junk food” in the house, unless you count Breyers Natural Vanilla ice cream (my favorite IF you put Nutella on top) and I try to incorporate fruits and vegetables into our meals. I eat well so I don’t feel bad having ice cream a few nights a week, Mexican when I get a craving, or an extra piece of birthday cake. That’s just how I do things. And I stay the same size. I can’t help it, that’s what my mom’s genes and good metabolism give me, I guess. (Again, forgive me if this comes off sounding vain. I really do have a point.)

I’ve come to accept my small stature and size, but not without struggles. Over the years, I’ve tried different exercise and eating regimens to try to put on some weight for various reasons. For a while it was to combat the constant, “You’re so skinny, do you ever eat?” questions I’d get in high school. At one point, it was just for myself—I decided I wanted to look a bit fuller and not quite as…bony. As I’ve gotten older, I decided to try to fill out a bit in preparation for carrying a baby, whenever that time in my life comes. It’s been to no avail though. Nothing I’ve done has added any weight (other than a summer I spent in California working in the kitchen of a ranch feeding hungry campers all day and liberally tasting all the food before it was served) so I had no choice but to accept my body as it is. I have muscle tone (thanks to my Body.Pump class at the Y) and my body gets me where I need to go.

So, it hasn’t been fun to deal with the two otherwise nice ladies at work who, without fail, make a comment about my size every. single. day. At first, I tried to laugh it off, thinking they’re probably reminiscing back to when they were younger and thinner. But their comments have started to worm their way under my skin. They sit in an office together a few doors down from me talking most of the day, so I have no choice but to pass by them when I go to the bathroom or to the mailroom. Every time, they have a comment. “Boy, you sure are dressed up today! That’s what I call dressed up for work! Did you see her, she is just so skinny” when I pass by them wearing a simple black dress with my head down trying to avoid their looks. “Her little pants are just so tiny!” And my favorite was yesterday: “Even back in the day when I was at my smallest, I know I was never that skinny.”

Then this morning, bright and early, I’m walking to the kitchen several yards in front of two different girls walking down the hall and I hear, “Ugh, she’s so skinny.” Seriously. And they should have no body image issues—they’re both thin!! (Well, one is pregnant, but she’s thin when she’s not pregnant.)

And it’s not just at the office. I hear it from people I’ve never met and will never see again. I hear comments from ladies in the grocery store or in a shop. It’s not usually directed at me (although sometimes it is). It’s usually after I pass by. “She is just so tiny.”

For someone like me who hates to feel on display and feel like people are looking at me, this unwanted and almost mean-spirited attention (although conveyed as a pseudo-compliment) is frustrating and annoying. And the thing is, I’m not a shrimp! I’m not a munchkin! I don’t look like a 12 year old! I’m just thin! Get over it!

This thought has occurred to me before, but Matt reiterated it last night when I told him about these fun experiences. People would never make similar comments about someone who’s overweight. “Man, look at her, she’s just so fat.” “Those pants are huge!” “I used to be heavier, but I was never that heavy.” Can you imagine? I don’t think anyone would say anything like that. It’d be terrible. But that’s the tone of voice people tend to use when talking about how skinny I am. It makes me feel on display and sort of backed into a corner, like I need to apologize for my size.

I did stand up for myself yesterday to the two ladies who usually make comments, when one of them made the comment about never being my size even when she was at her skinniest. I said, “You know, I don’t diet to be this small. I do eat. This is just my size.” As I said this, I was preparing my lunch and getting ready to heat it up. She said, “Well I see you are eating.” I told her I never want anyone to think I’m this size because I don’t eat. They made a few more comments about my size (I was flabbergasted that they didn’t get the picture and stop) then they walked out.

I don’t know if I have much of a point here, other than to point out that there are thin people in this world who aren’t thin as a result of anorexia or frenzied exercise and diet. Some of us are naturally small and the constant barrage of “You’re so skinny!” doesn’t feel like a compliment. I wish people would stop talking about us behind our backs like we’ve done something wrong or like we have anything to apologize for. I’ve come a long way in accepting my stature and just like no one would tell an overweight person, “I can’t believe how fat you are,” I wish people would keep the thinly veiled criticisms to themselves!

I love reading novels set in a wide variety of settings and time periods, from ancient Rome to Renaissance Europe to present-day American cities. But my favorite time and place, by far, is reading about the South in decades past. I relish reading about pumping cool water from a well on a southern back porch. I remember my own grandmother in reading about someone cooking to perfection a peach or blackberry cobbler, made with fruit from the orchard out back, rather than what’s trucked in from California, or hand-cranking an old ice cream maker in the garage. I long for the lazy days of summer without the internet, tv, or video games as distractions, and am enthralled to read about the outdoor games children played back then to occupy their afternoons. I enjoy reading about people trying to figure out how to live in a society prejudiced against a race of people when they themselves don’t feel the same way.

Reading about the South, this place that I love, and how it was in a time before I began to make my mark here, reminds me that I am connected to so many people who have come before me. I’m not the first to live and love here in this region of beauty and contradiction. Nor will I be the last. People will come behind me and create their own stories of love and loss and laughter in these deep south cities and towns and fields.

Here are a few of my favorite books about the South that gave me a taste of how things used to be and lingered with me long after I closed the books...
The Well and the Mine by Gin Phillips
Crossing Blood by Nanci Kincaid
As Hot as it was You Ought to Thank Me by Nanci Kincaid
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns
The Last Hotel for Women by Vicki Covington
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier (I’m in the middle of this one and am loving it. I’ve seen the movie, but I tend to think books are always better than their movie counterparts.

Weeds

Call me crazy, but I really enjoy weeding. Matt hates it and always likes when I say I’m going to spend some time in the flowerbeds digging up weeds. I don’t know why, but I love to grab a big handful of weeds (they tend to grow voraciously in our flowerbeds for some reason) and pull firmly but gently—if I pull too quickly or too hard, I just break the stems. If I do it gently enough, I can feel the roots give way and come out. Then I know I have the entire weed and another one won’t grow in its place.

Yesterday while on my knees in the dirt with gloves on my hands, I had the idea that maybe I enjoy weeding because of the sense of control it gives me. True, I can’t control the fact that the weeds always return, but I can grab this one single weed and pull it out and it’s gone. In its place is a freshly turned spot of soil that’s ready for air and sunlight and water. With so much in life I can’t control, it feels good to be able to decidedly remove something and create space for air and life where there was once something unwanted and intrusive.

Granted, I could unleash with a big bottle of Round-Up and kill all the weeds for good, along with our flowering ginger, mint, Lenten roses, and lilies, but I’m not sure there’s an applicable life lesson there! Plus, I really like all our flowers and plants. I'd rather spend time on my knees in the beds rather than kill it all in a one shot deal.

Odds and Ends

While I was in the locker room at the gym today, the tv was on the 700 Club. For those of you who don’t know, the 700 Club is a Christian news talk show hosted by Pat Robertson and a few others. Pat is probably the most recognized. According to Wikipedia, “the show presents news stories from Robertson’s religious and political perspective, often relating stories to passages from the Bible…”

The piece I saw was on giving money to the needy. They were interviewing a couple who decided to give a chunk of their money to an organization in China that helps families with health care, agriculture, education, and other things. Once they started giving money, their small business started raking in money. They said God blessed them financially because of their tithes. Then Pat comes on and says, “I can’t tell you how many people I’ve talked to who started tithing their money only to see God bless them financially more than they could imagine.” He quoted from Malachi:

“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.”

I don’t think that verse automatically implies that if you tithe, God will grant you financial windfalls. I think the “blessing” He speaks of can be many different types of blessings—even the simple blessing of knowing your money is going to help someone less fortunate or help your church reach people in the best way possible. Sure, God may see fit to bless you financially, but that’s not always the case and that shouldn’t be the motive for your tithe. It really rubbed me the wrong way that Pat was completely implying—even saying specifically—that God will bless you financially (and in significant ways) if you tithe.

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In totally unrelated news, has anyone seen the promo for the new Beverly Hills 90210? It’s WAY steamier than the original 90s version. Maybe 90210 was risqué in 1990, but compared to the new one, that one was nothing. Remember seeing the girls in bikinis on the beach in the intro? Luke Perry in a wife-beater serving a volleyball? So tame, so tame. This one looks like it’s going to be just like every other sexually charged “young adult” show out there. It’ll have at least one similarity to the original: a family moves to Beverly Hills from Kansas and finds themselves fish out of water. I’m sure they’ll have the token smart girl (a la Andrea), the jock (would that be Steve Sanders?), the cool girl (Kelly), and the young wanna be (David Silver). Of course, this time around, there’s the token gay kid, because someone always comes out on these shows, and there will be the token African American kid, because they have to be PC. I hear some of the original cast will be making cameos. I may watch a few episodes just to see the cameos. I don’t care at all for a new show of twentysomethings playing sexually frustrated high school kids. I got enough of that on the O.C., although heaven help me, I loved that show.

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My third random thought. Do you remember just a few days ago when I mentioned the office cell phone wars? I haven’t heard the Widespread Panic ring tone since that day, but I’ll have you know the lady who has the terrible 20-second long ring on her phone JUST MOVED OFFICES AND SHE’S ABOUT 10 FEET FROM ME! I can’t believe it. I may have to try the sticky note this time.

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And last random thought of the day. I have a new friend, a younger girl (22 or so) who just joined our community group. She’s so sweet and I really like her a lot. Yesterday, her husband told me that she really likes me and sort of looks up to me. Not only that, she said I’m fun to hang out with and even though I’m older, I’m not weird.

Here’s to not being weird!

Chew Your Ice!

Wow. The newest thing for people trying to lose weight: ice chewing. It burns more than 70 calories per day! It’s the newest hot-weather snack trend! To keep your teeth from taking a hit, try CHEWABLE ICE! It’s gentler on your teeth and is available at Sonic!

I just can’t believe the things you read in health-type magazines sometimes. I’m not knocking people who’d like to lose weight, but chewing ice to lose weight? Ice being a snack trend? Why don’t you just chew on your fingernails while you’re at it? That’s gotta burn some calories.