31 May 2008

BBCs The Big Read

According to their web page, "In April 2003 the BBC's Big Read began the search for the nation's best-loved novel, and we asked you to nominate your favourite books." I found it in April 2006, and printed it off to see how many I had read (yes, I love lists, it's one of my things). I ran across the printed list yesterday, so I thought I'd put it up here. I like this one so much better than the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die because these were chosen by all the British public that wished to participate, not just some guy writing a book. (Of course, one must remember when looking at this list, that it was compiled in 2003.)

I've bolded the ones I've read and italicized the ones I own but haven't read yet. Looks like I've read 72 of them, so far.

The 200 favorite books, chosen by "three quarters of a million votes" from the British public, in order from number one down to number 200:

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. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
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 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
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
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 Süskind
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
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 García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
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
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 13¾, Sue Townsend
113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Misérables, 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
123. The Forsyte 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
128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
129. Possession, A. S. Byatt
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
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, Diana Gabaldon
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
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. LawrenceLife of 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

30 May 2008

Author Meme

Bethany of B&b ex libris tagged me for this fun author meme.

1. Who’s your all-time favorite author, and why?
Jane Austen; reading her is like reading a gentle social commentary. Her character portraits are so well-drawn and though (as Somerset Maugham puts in) nothing much happens, I have to keep turning the pages because so much is happening. Her books are real to me, they live.


2. Who was your first favorite author, and why? Do you still consider him or her among your favorites?
I learned to read at 3, and I only vaguely remember a few book covers and contents before I found Paddington Bear and Trixie Beldon, both around the same time. I went mad for both of them and read them in trees, with flashlights in bed and in the bathtub. I remember wearing out copies of Trixie Beldon mysteries and I can still remember the part about Paddington and the grapefruit that made me laugh out loud.

I also remember in my early teens discovering Agatha Christie and she is still a favorite light read. She was referred by one of the local libraians, Mary, who knew of my love of juvenile mysteries. I owe Mary my love of adult mysteries--and of my other teen love, Georgette Heyer and her Regency romances--I still own most of them and read them for "fluff reading" from time to time. Thanks Mary, wherever you are!


3. Who’s the most recent addition to your list of favorite authors, and why?
Diana Wynne Jones. I read everything I can get my hands on by her--her YA fantasy is so incredible. She can write so excellently, her plots are fabulous and her worlds live, they really live. I can't recommend her enough. My husband and I are both addicted; my only regret is that I didn't discover her sooner.


4. If someone asked you who your favorite authors were right now, which authors would first pop out of your mouth? Are there any you’d add on a moment of further reflection?

First Thoughts:
Jane Austen
C.S. Lewis
Diana Wynne Jones
Terry Pratchett

Further reflection:
Vladimir Nabokov
Wilkie Collins
PD James
Carl Hiaasen
George MacDonald
Robin McKinley
Virginia Woolf
JK Rowling

5. Tagged:
Deb of the Deblog
Debi of Nothing of Importance
Maggie of Maggie Reads

29 May 2008

1001 Books to Read Before You Die

Courtesy of 3M, here is Peter Boxall's List of 1001 Books to Read Before You Die. I don't agree with all of them, and feel that some great ones have been missed, but that's not the point of this post. ;)

Seeing the list, and loving lists like I do, I've bolded the books I've read and italicized the ones I own but just haven't gotten around to reading yet. It was interesting to me, at least. And it's certainly easy to see where my reading interest lies, century-wise.

Thus far, I've read 112 of these, though I keep seeing ones on this list that I didn't notice before so it might be edited further.

updated 29 July 2008

2000s
1. Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
2. Saturday – Ian McEwan
3. On Beauty – Zadie Smith
4. Slow Man – J.M. Coetzee
5. Adjunct: An Undigest – Peter Manson
6. The Sea – John Banville
7. The Red Queen – Margaret Drabble
8. The Plot Against America – Philip Roth
9. The Master – Colm Tóibín
10. Vanishing Point – David Markson
11. The Lambs of London – Peter Ackroyd
12. Dining on Stones – Iain Sinclair
13. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
14. Drop City – T. Coraghessan Boyle
15. The Colour – Rose Tremain
16. Thursbitch – Alan Garner
17. The Light of Day – Graham Swift
18. What I Loved – Siri Hustvedt
19. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon
20. Islands – Dan Sleigh
21. Elizabeth Costello – J.M. Coetzee
22. London Orbital – Iain Sinclair
23. Family Matters – Rohinton Mistry
24. Fingersmith – Sarah Waters
25. The Double – José Saramago
26. Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer
27. Unless – Carol Shields
28. Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami
29. The Story of Lucy Gault – William Trevor
30. That They May Face the Rising Sun – John McGahern
31. In the Forest – Edna O’Brien
32. Shroud – John Banville
33. Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
34. Youth – J.M. Coetzee
35. Dead Air – Iain Banks
36. Nowhere Man – Aleksandar Hemon
37. The Book of Illusions – Paul Auster
38. Gabriel’s Gift – Hanif Kureishi
39. Austerlitz – W.G. Sebald
40. Platform – Michael Houellebecq
41. Schooling – Heather McGowan
42. Atonement – Ian McEwan
43. The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen
44. Don’t Move – Margaret Mazzantini
45. The Body Artist – Don DeLillo
46. Fury – Salman Rushdie
47. At Swim, Two Boys – Jamie O’Neill
48. Choke – Chuck Palahniuk
49. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
50. The Feast of the Goat – Mario Vargos Llosa
51. An Obedient Father – Akhil Sharma
52. The Devil and Miss Prym – Paulo Coelho
53. Spring Flowers, Spring Frost – Ismail Kadare
54. White Teeth – Zadie Smith
55. The Heart of Redness – Zakes Mda
56. Under the Skin – Michel Faber
57. Ignorance – Milan Kundera
58. Nineteen Seventy Seven – David Peace
59. Celestial Harmonies – Péter Esterházy
60. City of God – E.L. Doctorow
61. How the Dead Live – Will Self
62. The Human Stain – Philip Roth
63. The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood
64. After the Quake – Haruki Murakami
65. Small Remedies – Shashi Deshpande
66. Super-Cannes – J.G. Ballard
67. House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski
68. Blonde – Joyce Carol Oates
69. Pastoralia – George Saunders
1900s
70. Timbuktu – Paul Auster
71. The Romantics – Pankaj Mishra
72. Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephenson
73. As If I Am Not There – Slavenka Drakuli?
74. Everything You Need – A.L. Kennedy
75. Fear and Trembling – Amélie Nothomb
76. The Ground Beneath Her Feet – Salman Rushdie
77. Disgrace – J.M. Coetzee
78. Sputnik Sweetheart – Haruki Murakami
79. Elementary Particles – Michel Houellebecq
80. Intimacy – Hanif Kureishi
81. Amsterdam – Ian McEwan
82. Cloudsplitter – Russell Banks
83. All Souls Day – Cees Nooteboom
84. The Talk of the Town – Ardal O’Hanlon
85. Tipping the Velvet – Sarah Waters
86. The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver
87. Glamorama – Bret Easton Ellis
88. Another World – Pat Barker
89. The Hours – Michael Cunningham
90. Veronika Decides to Die – Paulo Coelho
91. Mason & Dixon – Thomas Pynchon
92. The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy
93. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
94. Great Apes – Will Self
95. Enduring Love – Ian McEwan
96. Underworld – Don DeLillo
97. Jack Maggs – Peter Carey
98. The Life of Insects – Victor Pelevin
99. American Pastoral – Philip Roth
100. The Untouchable – John Banville
101. Silk – Alessandro Baricco
102. Cocaine Nights – J.G. Ballard
103. Hallucinating Foucault – Patricia Duncker
104. Fugitive Pieces – Anne Michaels
105. The Ghost Road – Pat Barker
106. Forever a Stranger – Hella Haasse
107. Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace
108. The Clay Machine-Gun – Victor Pelevin
109. Alias Grace – Margaret Atwood
110. The Unconsoled – Kazuo Ishiguro
111. Morvern Callar – Alan Warner
112. The Information – Martin Amis
113. The Moor’s Last Sigh – Salman Rushdie
114. Sabbath’s Theater – Philip Roth
115. The Rings of Saturn – W.G. Sebald
116. The Reader – Bernhard Schlink
117. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
118. Love’s Work – Gillian Rose
119. The End of the Story – Lydia Davis
120. Mr. Vertigo – Paul Auster
121. The Folding Star – Alan Hollinghurst
122. Whatever – Michel Houellebecq
123. Land – Park Kyong-ni
124. The Master of Petersburg – J.M. Coetzee
125. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami
126. Pereira Declares: A Testimony – Antonio Tabucchi
127. City Sister Silver – Jàchym Topol
128. How Late It Was, How Late – James Kelman
129. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis de Bernieres
130. Felicia’s Journey – William Trevor
131. Disappearance – David Dabydeen
132. The Invention of Curried Sausage – Uwe Timm
133. The Shipping News – E. Annie Proulx
134. Trainspotting – Irvine Welsh
135. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
136. Looking for the Possible Dance – A.L. Kennedy
137. Operation Shylock – Philip Roth
138. Complicity – Iain Banks
139. On Love – Alain de Botton
140. What a Carve Up! – Jonathan Coe
141. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
142. The Stone Diaries – Carol Shields
143. The Virgin Suicides – Jeffrey Eugenides
144. The House of Doctor Dee – Peter Ackroyd
145. The Robber Bride – Margaret Atwood
146. The Emigrants – W.G. Sebald
147. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
148. Life is a Caravanserai – Emine Özdamar
149. The Discovery of Heaven – Harry Mulisch
150. A Heart So White – Javier Marias
151. Possessing the Secret of Joy – Alice Walker
152. Indigo – Marina Warner
153. The Crow Road – Iain Banks
154. Written on the Body – Jeanette Winterson
155. Jazz – Toni Morrison
156. The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje
157. Smilla’s Sense of Snow – Peter Høeg
158. The Butcher Boy – Patrick McCabe
159. Black Water – Joyce Carol Oates
160. The Heather Blazing – Colm Tóibín
161. Asphodel – H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)
162. Black Dogs – Ian McEwan
163. Hideous Kinky – Esther Freud
164. Arcadia – Jim Crace
165. Wild Swans – Jung Chang
166. American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis
167. Time’s Arrow – Martin Amis
168. Mao II – Don DeLillo
169. Typical – Padgett Powell
170. Regeneration – Pat Barker
171. Downriver – Iain Sinclair
172. Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord – Louis de Bernieres
173. Wise Children – Angela Carter
174. Get Shorty – Elmore Leonard
175. Amongst Women – John McGahern
176. Vineland – Thomas Pynchon
177. Vertigo – W.G. Sebald
178. Stone Junction – Jim Dodge
179. The Music of Chance – Paul Auster
180. The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien
181. A Home at the End of the World – Michael Cunningham
182. Like Life – Lorrie Moore
183. Possession – A.S. Byatt
184. The Buddha of Suburbia – Hanif Kureishi
185. The Midnight Examiner – William Kotzwinkle
186. A Disaffection – James Kelman
187. Sexing the Cherry – Jeanette Winterson
188. Moon Palace – Paul Auster
189. Billy Bathgate – E.L. Doctorow
190. Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
191. The Melancholy of Resistance – László Krasznahorkai
192. The Temple of My Familiar – Alice Walker
193. The Trick is to Keep Breathing – Janice Galloway
194. The History of the Siege of Lisbon – José Saramago
195. Like Water for Chocolate – Laura Esquivel
196. A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving
197. London Fields – Martin Amis
198. The Book of Evidence – John Banville
199. Cat’s Eye – Margaret Atwood
200. Foucault’s Pendulum – Umberto Eco
201. The Beautiful Room is Empty – Edmund White
202. Wittgenstein’s Mistress – David Markson
203. The Satanic Verses – Salman Rushdie
204. The Swimming-Pool Library – Alan Hollinghurst
205. Oscar and Lucinda – Peter Carey
206. Libra – Don DeLillo
207. The Player of Games – Iain M. Banks
208. Nervous Conditions – Tsitsi Dangarembga
209. The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul – Douglas Adams
210. Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency – Douglas Adams
211. The Radiant Way – Margaret Drabble
212. The Afternoon of a Writer – Peter Handke
213. The Black Dahlia – James Ellroy
214. The Passion – Jeanette Winterson
215. The Pigeon – Patrick Süskind
216. The Child in Time – Ian McEwan
217. Cigarettes – Harry Mathews
218. The Bonfire of the Vanities – Tom Wolfe
219. The New York Trilogy – Paul Auster
220. World’s End – T. Coraghessan Boyle
221. Enigma of Arrival – V.S. Naipaul
222. The Taebek Mountains – Jo Jung-rae
223. Beloved – Toni Morrison
224. Anagrams – Lorrie Moore
225. Matigari – Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
226. Marya – Joyce Carol Oates
227. Watchmen – Alan Moore & David Gibbons
228. The Old Devils – Kingsley Amis
229. Lost Language of Cranes – David Leavitt
230. An Artist of the Floating World – Kazuo Ishiguro
231. Extinction – Thomas Bernhard
232. Foe – J.M. Coetzee
233. The Drowned and the Saved – Primo Levi
234. Reasons to Live – Amy Hempel
235. The Parable of the Blind – Gert Hofmann
236. Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel García Márquez
237. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit – Jeanette Winterson
238. The Cider House Rules – John Irving
239. A Maggot – John Fowles
240. Less Than Zero – Bret Easton Ellis
241. Contact – Carl Sagan
242. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
243. Perfume – Patrick Süskind
244. Old Masters – Thomas Bernhard
245. White Noise – Don DeLillo
246. Queer – William Burroughs
247. Hawksmoor – Peter Ackroyd
248. Legend – David Gemmell
249. Dictionary of the Khazars – Milorad Pavi?
250. The Bus Conductor Hines – James Kelman
251. The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis – José Saramago
252. The Lover – Marguerite Duras
253. Empire of the Sun – J.G. Ballard
254. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
255. Nights at the Circus – Angela Carter
256. The Unbearable Lightness of Being – Milan Kundera
257. Blood and Guts in High School – Kathy Acker
258. Neuromancer – William Gibson
259. Flaubert’s Parrot – Julian Barnes
260. Money: A Suicide Note – Martin Amis
261. Shame – Salman Rushdie
262. Worstward Ho – Samuel Beckett
263. Fools of Fortune – William Trevor
264. La Brava – Elmore Leonard
265. Waterland – Graham Swift
266. The Life and Times of Michael K – J.M. Coetzee
267. The Diary of Jane Somers – Doris Lessing
268. The Piano Teacher – Elfriede Jelinek
269. The Sorrow of Belgium – Hugo Claus
270. If Not Now, When? – Primo Levi
271. A Boy’s Own Story – Edmund White
272. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
273. Wittgenstein’s Nephew – Thomas Bernhard
274. A Pale View of Hills – Kazuo Ishiguro
275. Schindler’s Ark – Thomas Keneally
276. The House of the Spirits – Isabel Allende
277. The Newton Letter – John Banville
278. On the Black Hill – Bruce Chatwin
279. Concrete – Thomas Bernhard
280. The Names – Don DeLillo
281. Rabbit is Rich – John Updike
282. Lanark: A Life in Four Books – Alasdair Gray
283. The Comfort of Strangers – Ian McEwan
284. July’s People – Nadine Gordimer
285. Summer in Baden-Baden – Leonid Tsypkin
286. Broken April – Ismail Kadare
287. Waiting for the Barbarians – J.M. Coetzee
288. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
289. Rites of Passage – William Golding
290. Rituals – Cees Nooteboom
291. Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
292. City Primeval – Elmore Leonard
293. The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco
294. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting – Milan Kundera
295. Smiley’s People – John Le Carré
296. Shikasta – Doris Lessing
297. A Bend in the River – V.S. Naipaul
298. Burger’s Daughter - Nadine Gordimer
299. The Safety Net – Heinrich Böll
300. If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler – Italo Calvino
301. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
302. The Cement Garden – Ian McEwan
303. The World According to Garp – John Irving
304. Life: A User’s Manual – Georges Perec
305. The Sea, The Sea – Iris Murdoch
306. The Singapore Grip – J.G. Farrell
307. Yes – Thomas Bernhard
308. The Virgin in the Garden – A.S. Byatt
309. In the Heart of the Country – J.M. Coetzee
310. The Passion of New Eve – Angela Carter
311. Delta of Venus – Anaïs Nin
312. The Shining – Stephen King
313. Dispatches – Michael Herr
314. Petals of Blood – Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
315. Song of Solomon – Toni Morrison
316. The Hour of the Star – Clarice Lispector
317. The Left-Handed Woman – Peter Handke
318. Ratner’s Star – Don DeLillo
319. The Public Burning – Robert Coover
320. Interview With the Vampire – Anne Rice
321. Cutter and Bone – Newton Thornburg
322. Amateurs – Donald Barthelme
323. Patterns of Childhood – Christa Wolf
324. Autumn of the Patriarch – Gabriel García Márquez
325. W, or the Memory of Childhood – Georges Perec
326. A Dance to the Music of Time – Anthony Powell
327. Grimus – Salman Rushdie
328. The Dead Father – Donald Barthelme
329. Fateless – Imre Kertész
330. Willard and His Bowling Trophies – Richard Brautigan
331. High Rise – J.G. Ballard
332. Humboldt’s Gift – Saul Bellow
333. Dead Babies – Martin Amis
334. Correction – Thomas Bernhard
335. Ragtime – E.L. Doctorow
336. The Fan Man – William Kotzwinkle
337. Dusklands – J.M. Coetzee
338. The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum – Heinrich Böll
339. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – John Le Carré
340. Breakfast of Champions – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
341. Fear of Flying – Erica Jong
342. A Question of Power – Bessie Head
343. The Siege of Krishnapur – J.G. Farrell
344. The Castle of Crossed Destinies – Italo Calvino
345. Crash – J.G. Ballard
346. The Honorary Consul – Graham Greene
347. Gravity’s Rainbow – Thomas Pynchon
348. The Black Prince – Iris Murdoch
349. Sula – Toni Morrison
350. Invisible Cities – Italo Calvino
351. The Breast – Philip Roth
352. The Summer Book – Tove Jansson
353. G – John Berger
354. Surfacing – Margaret Atwood
355. House Mother Normal – B.S. Johnson
356. In A Free State – V.S. Naipaul
357. The Book of Daniel – E.L. Doctorow
358. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – Hunter S. Thompson
359. Group Portrait With Lady – Heinrich Böll
360. The Wild Boys – William Burroughs
361. Rabbit Redux – John Updike
362. The Sea of Fertility – Yukio Mishima
363. The Driver’s Seat – Muriel Spark
364. The Ogre – Michael Tournier
365. The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison
366. Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick – Peter Handke
367. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
368. Mercier et Camier – Samuel Beckett
369. Troubles – J.G. Farrell
370. Jahrestage – Uwe Johnson
371. The Atrocity Exhibition – J.G. Ballard
372. Tent of Miracles – Jorge Amado
373. Pricksongs and Descants – Robert Coover
374. Blind Man With a Pistol – Chester Hines
375. Slaughterhouse-five – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
376. The French Lieutenant’s Woman – John Fowles
377. The Green Man – Kingsley Amis
378. Portnoy’s Complaint – Philip Roth
379. The Godfather – Mario Puzo
380. Ada – Vladimir Nabokov
381. Them – Joyce Carol Oates
382. A Void/Avoid – Georges Perec
383. Eva Trout – Elizabeth Bowen
384. Myra Breckinridge – Gore Vidal
385. The Nice and the Good – Iris Murdoch
386. Belle du Seigneur – Albert Cohen
387. Cancer Ward – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
388. The First Circle – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
389. 2001: A Space Odyssey – Arthur C. Clarke
390. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick
391. Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid – Malcolm Lowry
392. The German Lesson – Siegfried Lenz
393. In Watermelon Sugar – Richard Brautigan
394. A Kestrel for a Knave – Barry Hines
395. The Quest for Christa T. – Christa Wolf
396. Chocky – John Wyndham
397. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test – Tom Wolfe
398. The Cubs and Other Stories – Mario Vargas Llosa
399. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
400. The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov
401. Pilgrimage – Dorothy Richardson
402. The Joke – Milan Kundera
403. No Laughing Matter – Angus Wilson
404. The Third Policeman – Flann O’Brien
405. A Man Asleep – Georges Perec
406. The Birds Fall Down – Rebecca West
407. Trawl – B.S. Johnson
408. In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
409. The Magus – John Fowles
410. The Vice-Consul – Marguerite Duras
411. Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys
412. Giles Goat-Boy – John Barth
413. The Crying of Lot 49 – Thomas Pynchon
414. Things – Georges Perec
415. The River Between – Ngugi wa Thiong’o
416. August is a Wicked Month – Edna O’Brien
417. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater – Kurt Vonnegut
418. Everything That Rises Must Converge – Flannery O’Connor
419. The Passion According to G.H. – Clarice Lispector
420. Sometimes a Great Notion – Ken Kesey
421. Come Back, Dr. Caligari – Donald Bartholme
422. Albert Angelo – B.S. Johnson
423. Arrow of God – Chinua Achebe
424. The Ravishing of Lol V. Stein – Marguerite Duras
425. Herzog – Saul Bellow
426. V. – Thomas Pynchon
427. Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut
428. The Graduate – Charles Webb
429. Manon des Sources – Marcel Pagnol
430. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold – John Le Carré
431. The Girls of Slender Means – Muriel Spark
432. Inside Mr. Enderby – Anthony Burgess
433. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
434. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
435. The Collector – John Fowles
436. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey
437. A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
438. Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov
439. The Drowned World – J.G. Ballard
440. The Golden Notebook – Doris Lessing
441. Labyrinths – Jorg Luis Borges
442. Girl With Green Eyes – Edna O’Brien
443. The Garden of the Finzi-Continis – Giorgio Bassani
444. Stranger in a Strange Land – Robert Heinlein
445. Franny and Zooey – J.D. Salinger
446. A Severed Head – Iris Murdoch
447. Faces in the Water – Janet Frame
448. Solaris – Stanislaw Lem
449. Cat and Mouse – Günter Grass
450. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark
451. Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
452. The Violent Bear it Away – Flannery O’Connor
453. How It Is – Samuel Beckett
454. Our Ancestors – Italo Calvino
455. The Country Girls – Edna O’Brien
456. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
457. Rabbit, Run – John Updike
458. Promise at Dawn – Romain Gary
459. Cider With Rosie – Laurie Lee
460. Billy Liar – Keith Waterhouse
461. Naked Lunch – William Burroughs
462. The Tin Drum – Günter Grass
463. Absolute Beginners – Colin MacInnes
464. Henderson the Rain King – Saul Bellow
465. Memento Mori – Muriel Spark
466. Billiards at Half-Past Nine – Heinrich Böll
467. Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Truman Capote
468. The Leopard – Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
469. Pluck the Bud and Destroy the Offspring – Kenzaburo Oe
470. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
471. The Bitter Glass – Eilís Dillon
472. Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
473. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning – Alan Sillitoe
474. Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris – Paul Gallico
475. Borstal Boy – Brendan Behan
476. The End of the Road – John Barth
477. The Once and Future King – T.H. White
478. The Bell – Iris Murdoch
479. Jealousy – Alain Robbe-Grillet
480. Voss – Patrick White
481. The Midwich Cuckoos – John Wyndham
482. Blue Noon – Georges Bataille
483. Homo Faber – Max Frisch
484. On the Road – Jack Kerouac
485. Pnin – Vladimir Nabokov
486. Doctor Zhivago – Boris Pasternak
487. The Wonderful “O” – James Thurber
488. Justine – Lawrence Durrell
489. Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin
490. The Lonely Londoners – Sam Selvon
491. The Roots of Heaven – Romain Gary
492. Seize the Day – Saul Bellow
493. The Floating Opera – John Barth
494. The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien
495. The Talented Mr. Ripley – Patricia Highsmith
496. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
497. A World of Love – Elizabeth Bowen
498. The Trusting and the Maimed – James Plunkett
499. The Quiet American – Graham Greene
500. The Last Temptation of Christ – Nikos Kazantzákis
501. The Recognitions – William Gaddis
502. The Ragazzi – Pier Paulo Pasolini
503. Bonjour Tristesse – Françoise Sagan
504. I’m Not Stiller – Max Frisch
505. Self Condemned – Wyndham Lewis
506. The Story of O – Pauline Réage
507. A Ghost at Noon – Alberto Moravia
508. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
509. Under the Net – Iris Murdoch
510. The Go-Between – L.P. Hartley
511. The Long Goodbye – Raymond Chandler
512. The Unnamable – Samuel Beckett
513. Watt – Samuel Beckett
514. Lucky Jim – Kingsley Amis
515. Junkie – William Burroughs
516. The Adventures of Augie March – Saul Bellow
517. Go Tell It on the Mountain – James Baldwin
518. Casino Royale – Ian Fleming
519. The Judge and His Hangman – Friedrich Dürrenmatt
520. Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
521. The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
522. Wise Blood – Flannery O’Connor
523. The Killer Inside Me – Jim Thompson
524. Memoirs of Hadrian – Marguerite Yourcenar
525. Malone Dies – Samuel Beckett
526. Day of the Triffids – John Wyndham
527. Foundation – Isaac Asimov
528. The Opposing Shore – Julien Gracq
529. The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
530. The Rebel – Albert Camus
531. Molloy – Samuel Beckett
532. The End of the Affair – Graham Greene
533. The Abbot C – Georges Bataille
534. The Labyrinth of Solitude – Octavio Paz
535. The Third Man – Graham Greene
536. The 13 Clocks – James Thurber
537. Gormenghast – Mervyn Peake
538. The Grass is Singing – Doris Lessing
539. I, Robot – Isaac Asimov
540. The Moon and the Bonfires – Cesare Pavese
541. The Garden Where the Brass Band Played – Simon Vestdijk
542. Love in a Cold Climate – Nancy Mitford
543. The Case of Comrade Tulayev – Victor Serge
544. The Heat of the Day – Elizabeth Bowen
545. Kingdom of This World – Alejo Carpentier
546. The Man With the Golden Arm – Nelson Algren
547. Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
548. All About H. Hatterr – G.V. Desani
549. Disobedience – Alberto Moravia
550. Death Sentence – Maurice Blanchot
551. The Heart of the Matter – Graham Greene
552. Cry, the Beloved Country – Alan Paton
553. Doctor Faustus – Thomas Mann
554. The Victim – Saul Bellow
555. Exercises in Style – Raymond Queneau
556. If This Is a Man – Primo Levi
557. Under the Volcano – Malcolm Lowry
558. The Path to the Nest of Spiders – Italo Calvino
559. The Plague – Albert Camus
560. Back – Henry Green
561. Titus Groan – Mervyn Peake
562. The Bridge on the Drina – Ivo Andri
563. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
564. Animal Farm – George Orwell
565. Cannery Row – John Steinbeck
566. The Pursuit of Love – Nancy Mitford
567. Loving – Henry Green
568. Arcanum 17 – André Breton
569. Christ Stopped at Eboli – Carlo Levi
570. The Razor’s Edge – William Somerset Maugham
571. Transit – Anna Seghers
572. Ficciones – Jorge Luis Borges
573. Dangling Man – Saul Bellow
574. The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
575. Caught – Henry Green
576. The Glass Bead Game – Herman Hesse
577. Embers – Sandor Marai
578. Go Down, Moses – William Faulkner
579. The Outsider – Albert Camus
580. In Sicily – Elio Vittorini
581. The Poor Mouth – Flann O’Brien
582. The Living and the Dead – Patrick White
583. Hangover Square – Patrick Hamilton
584. Between the Acts – Virginia Woolf
585. The Hamlet – William Faulkner
586. Farewell My Lovely – Raymond Chandler
587. For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway
588. Native Son – Richard Wright
589. The Power and the Glory – Graham Greene
590. The Tartar Steppe – Dino Buzzati
591. Party Going – Henry Green
592. The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
593. Finnegans Wake – James Joyce
594. At Swim-Two-Birds – Flann O’Brien
595. Coming Up for Air – George Orwell
596. Goodbye to Berlin – Christopher Isherwood
597. Tropic of Capricorn – Henry Miller
598. Good Morning, Midnight – Jean Rhys
599. The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler
600. After the Death of Don Juan – Sylvie Townsend Warner
601. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day – Winifred Watson
602. Nausea – Jean-Paul Sartre
603. Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier
604. Cause for Alarm – Eric Ambler
605. Brighton Rock – Graham Greene
606. U.S.A. – John Dos Passos
607. Murphy – Samuel Beckett
608. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
609. Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston
610. The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
611. The Years – Virginia Woolf
612. In Parenthesis – David Jones
613. The Revenge for Love – Wyndham Lewis
614. Out of Africa – Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen)
615. To Have and Have Not – Ernest Hemingway
616. Summer Will Show – Sylvia Townsend Warner
617. Eyeless in Gaza – Aldous Huxley
618. The Thinking Reed – Rebecca West
619. Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
620. Keep the Aspidistra Flying – George Orwell
621. Wild Harbour – Ian MacPherson
622. Absalom, Absalom! – William Faulkner
623. At the Mountains of Madness – H.P. Lovecraft
624. Nightwood – Djuna Barnes
625. Independent People – Halldór Laxness
626. Auto-da-Fé – Elias Canetti
627. The Last of Mr. Norris – Christopher Isherwood
628. They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? – Horace McCoy
629. The House in Paris – Elizabeth Bowen
630. England Made Me – Graham Greene
631. Burmese Days – George Orwell
632. The Nine Tailors – Dorothy L. Sayers
633. Threepenny Novel – Bertolt Brecht
634. Novel With Cocaine – M. Ageyev
635. The Postman Always Rings Twice – James M. Cain
636. Tropic of Cancer – Henry Miller
637. A Handful of Dust – Evelyn Waugh
638. Tender is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald
639. Thank You, Jeeves – P.G. Wodehouse
640. Call it Sleep – Henry Roth
641. Miss Lonelyhearts – Nathanael West
642. Murder Must Advertise – Dorothy L. Sayers
643. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas – Gertrude Stein
644. Testament of Youth – Vera Brittain
645. A Day Off – Storm Jameson
646. The Man Without Qualities – Robert Musil
647. A Scots Quair (Sunset Song) – Lewis Grassic Gibbon
648. Journey to the End of the Night – Louis-Ferdinand Céline
649. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
650. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
651. To the North – Elizabeth Bowen
652. The Thin Man – Dashiell Hammett
653. The Radetzky March – Joseph Roth
654. The Waves – Virginia Woolf
655. The Glass Key – Dashiell Hammett
656. Cakes and Ale – W. Somerset Maugham
657. The Apes of God – Wyndham Lewis
658. Her Privates We – Frederic Manning
659. Vile Bodies – Evelyn Waugh
660. The Maltese Falcon – Dashiell Hammett
661. Hebdomeros – Giorgio de Chirico
662. Passing – Nella Larsen
663. A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway
664. Red Harvest – Dashiell Hammett
665. Living – Henry Green
666. The Time of Indifference – Alberto Moravia
667. All Quiet on the Western Front – Erich Maria Remarque
668. Berlin Alexanderplatz – Alfred Döblin
669. The Last September – Elizabeth Bowen
670. Harriet Hume – Rebecca West
671. The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner
672. Les Enfants Terribles – Jean Cocteau
673. Look Homeward, Angel – Thomas Wolfe
674. Story of the Eye – Georges Bataille
675. Orlando – Virginia Woolf
676. Lady Chatterley’s Lover – D.H. Lawrence
677. The Well of Loneliness – Radclyffe Hall
678. The Childermass – Wyndham Lewis
679. Quartet – Jean Rhys
680. Decline and Fall – Evelyn Waugh
681. Quicksand – Nella Larsen
682. Parade’s End – Ford Madox Ford
683. Nadja – André Breton
684. Steppenwolf – Herman Hesse
685. Remembrance of Things Past – Marcel Proust
686. To The Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
687. Tarka the Otter – Henry Williamson
688. Amerika – Franz Kafka
689. The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
690. Blindness – Henry Green
691. The Castle – Franz Kafka
692. The Good Soldier Švejk – Jaroslav Hašek
693. The Plumed Serpent – D.H. Lawrence
694. One, None and a Hundred Thousand – Luigi Pirandello
695. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd – Agatha Christie
696. The Making of Americans – Gertrude Stein
697. Manhattan Transfer – John Dos Passos
698. Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf
699. The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
700. The Counterfeiters – André Gide
701. The Trial – Franz Kafka
702. The Artamonov Business – Maxim Gorky
703. The Professor’s House – Willa Cather
704. Billy Budd, Foretopman – Herman Melville
705. The Green Hat – Michael Arlen
706. The Magic Mountain – Thomas Mann
707. We – Yevgeny Zamyatin
708. A Passage to India – E.M. Forster
709. The Devil in the Flesh – Raymond Radiguet
710. Zeno’s Conscience – Italo Svevo
711. Cane – Jean Toomer
712. Antic Hay – Aldous Huxley
713. Amok – Stefan Zweig
714. The Garden Party – Katherine Mansfield
715. The Enormous Room – E.E. Cummings
716. Jacob’s Room – Virginia Woolf
717. Siddhartha – Herman Hesse
718. The Glimpses of the Moon – Edith Wharton
719. Life and Death of Harriett Frean – May Sinclair
720. The Last Days of Humanity – Karl Kraus
721. Aaron’s Rod – D.H. Lawrence
722. Babbitt – Sinclair Lewis
723. Ulysses – James Joyce
724. The Fox – D.H. Lawrence
725. Crome Yellow – Aldous Huxley
726. The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton
727. Main Street – Sinclair Lewis
728. Women in Love – D.H. Lawrence
729. Night and Day – Virginia Woolf
730. Tarr – Wyndham Lewis
731. The Return of the Soldier – Rebecca West
732. The Shadow Line – Joseph Conrad
733. Summer – Edith Wharton
734. Growth of the Soil – Knut Hamsen
735. Bunner Sisters – Edith Wharton
736. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce
737. Under Fire – Henri Barbusse
738. Rashomon – Akutagawa Ryunosuke
739. The Good Soldier – Ford Madox Ford
740. The Voyage Out – Virginia Woolf
741. Of Human Bondage – William Somerset Maugham
742. The Rainbow – D.H. Lawrence
743. The Thirty-Nine Steps – John Buchan
744. Kokoro – Natsume Soseki
745. Locus Solus – Raymond Roussel
746. Rosshalde – Herman Hesse
747. Tarzan of the Apes – Edgar Rice Burroughs
748. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists – Robert Tressell
749. Sons and Lovers – D.H. Lawrence
750. Death in Venice – Thomas Mann
751. The Charwoman’s Daughter – James Stephens
752. Ethan Frome – Edith Wharton
753. Fantômas – Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre
754. Howards End – E.M. Forster
755. Impressions of Africa – Raymond Roussel
756. Three Lives – Gertrude Stein
757. Martin Eden – Jack London
758. Strait is the Gate – André Gide
759. Tono-Bungay – H.G. Wells
760. The Inferno – Henri Barbusse
761. A Room With a View – E.M. Forster
762. The Iron Heel – Jack London
763. The Old Wives’ Tale – Arnold Bennett
764. The House on the Borderland – William Hope Hodgson
765. Mother – Maxim Gorky
766. The Secret Agent – Joseph Conrad
767. The Jungle – Upton Sinclair
768. Young Törless – Robert Musil
769. The Forsyte Sage – John Galsworthy
770. The House of Mirth – Edith Wharton
771. Professor Unrat – Heinrich Mann
772. Where Angels Fear to Tread – E.M. Forster
773. Nostromo – Joseph Conrad
774. Hadrian the Seventh – Frederick Rolfe
775. The Golden Bowl – Henry James
776. The Ambassadors – Henry James
777. The Riddle of the Sands – Erskine Childers
778. The Immoralist – André Gide
779. The Wings of the Dove – Henry James
780. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
781. The Hound of the Baskervilles – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
782. Buddenbrooks – Thomas Mann
783. Kim – Rudyard Kipling
784. Sister Carrie – Theodore Dreiser
785. Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad
1800s
786. Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. – Somerville and Ross
787. The Stechlin – Theodore Fontane
788. The Awakening – Kate Chopin
789. The Turn of the Screw – Henry James
790. The War of the Worlds – H.G. Wells
791. The Invisible Man – H.G. Wells
792. What Maisie Knew – Henry James
793. Fruits of the Earth – André Gide
794. Dracula – Bram Stoker
795. Quo Vadis – Henryk Sienkiewicz
796. The Island of Dr. Moreau – H.G. Wells
797. The Time Machine – H.G. Wells
798. Effi Briest – Theodore Fontane
799. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
800. The Real Charlotte – Somerville and Ross
801. The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman
802. Born in Exile – George Gissing
803. Diary of a Nobody – George & Weedon Grossmith
804. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
805. News from Nowhere – William Morris
806. New Grub Street – George Gissing
807. Gösta Berling’s Saga – Selma Lagerlöf
808. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
809. The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
810. The Kreutzer Sonata – Leo Tolstoy
811. La Bête Humaine – Émile Zola
812. By the Open Sea – August Strindberg
813. Hunger – Knut Hamsun
814. The Master of Ballantrae – Robert Louis Stevenson
815. Pierre and Jean – Guy de Maupassant
816. Fortunata and Jacinta – Benito Pérez Galdés
817. The People of Hemsö – August Strindberg
818. The Woodlanders – Thomas Hardy
819. She – H. Rider Haggard
820. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson
821. The Mayor of Casterbridge – Thomas Hardy
822. Kidnapped – Robert Louis Stevenson
823. King Solomon’s Mines – H. Rider Haggard
824. Germinal – Émile Zola
825. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
826. Bel-Ami – Guy de Maupassant
827. Marius the Epicurean – Walter Pater
828. Against the Grain – Joris-Karl Huysmans
829. The Death of Ivan Ilyich – Leo Tolstoy
830. A Woman’s Life – Guy de Maupassant
831. Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson
832. The House by the Medlar Tree – Giovanni Verga
833. The Portrait of a Lady – Henry James
834. Bouvard and Pécuchet – Gustave Flaubert
835. Ben-Hur – Lew Wallace
836. Nana – Émile Zola
837. The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky
838. The Red Room – August Strindberg
839. Return of the Native – Thomas Hardy
840. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
841. Drunkard – Émile Zola
842. Virgin Soil – Ivan Turgenev
843. Daniel Deronda – George Eliot
844. The Hand of Ethelberta – Thomas Hardy
845. The Temptation of Saint Anthony – Gustave Flaubert
846. Far from the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
847. The Enchanted Wanderer – Nicolai Leskov
848. Around the World in Eighty Days – Jules Verne
849. In a Glass Darkly – Sheridan Le Fanu
850. The Devils – Fyodor Dostoevsky
851. Erewhon – Samuel Butler
852. Spring Torrents – Ivan Turgenev
853. Middlemarch – George Eliot
854. Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There – Lewis Carroll
855. King Lear of the Steppes – Ivan Turgenev
856. He Knew He Was Right – Anthony Trollope
857. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
858. Sentimental Education – Gustave Flaubert
859. Phineas Finn – Anthony Trollope
860. Maldoror – Comte de Lautréaumont
861. The Idiot – Fyodor Dostoevsky
862. The Moonstone – Wilkie Collins
863. Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
864. Thérèse Raquin – Émile Zola
865. The Last Chronicle of Barset – Anthony Trollope
866. Journey to the Centre of the Earth – Jules Verne
867. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky
868. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
869. Our Mutual Friend – Charles Dickens
870. Uncle Silas – Sheridan Le Fanu
871. Notes from the Underground – Fyodor Dostoevsky
872. The Water-Babies – Charles Kingsley
873. Les Misérables – Victor Hugo
874. Fathers and Sons – Ivan Turgenev
875. Silas Marner – George Eliot
876. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
877. On the Eve – Ivan Turgenev
878. Castle Richmond – Anthony Trollope
879. The Mill on the Floss – George Eliot
880. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
881. The Marble Faun – Nathaniel Hawthorne
882. Max Havelaar – Multatuli
883. A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
884. Oblomovka – Ivan Goncharov
885. Adam Bede – George Eliot
886. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
887. North and South – Elizabeth Gaskell
888. Hard Times – Charles Dickens
889. Walden – Henry David Thoreau
890. Bleak House – Charles Dickens
891. Villette – Charlotte Brontë
892. Cranford – Elizabeth Gaskell
893. Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lonely – Harriet Beecher Stowe
894. The Blithedale Romance – Nathaniel Hawthorne
895. The House of the Seven Gables – Nathaniel Hawthorne
896. Moby-Dick – Herman Melville
897. The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
898. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
899. Shirley – Charlotte Brontë
900. Mary Barton – Elizabeth Gaskell
901. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – Anne Brontë
902. Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
903. Agnes Grey – Anne Brontë
904. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
905. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
906. The Count of Monte-Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
907. La Reine Margot – Alexandre Dumas
908. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
909. The Purloined Letter – Edgar Allan Poe
910. Martin Chuzzlewit – Charles Dickens
911. The Pit and the Pendulum – Edgar Allan Poe
912. Lost Illusions – Honoré de Balzac
913. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
914. Dead Souls – Nikolay Gogol
915. The Charterhouse of Parma – Stendhal
916. The Fall of the House of Usher – Edgar Allan Poe
917. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby – Charles Dickens
918. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
919. The Nose – Nikolay Gogol
920. Le Père Goriot – Honoré de Balzac
921. Eugénie Grandet – Honoré de Balzac
922. The Hunchback of Notre Dame – Victor Hugo
923. The Red and the Black – Stendhal
924. The Betrothed – Alessandro Manzoni
925. Last of the Mohicans – James Fenimore Cooper
926. The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner – James Hogg
927. The Albigenses – Charles Robert Maturin
928. Melmoth the Wanderer – Charles Robert Maturin
929. The Monastery – Sir Walter Scott
930. Ivanhoe – Sir Walter Scott
931. Frankenstein – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
932. Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen
933. Persuasion – Jane Austen
934. Ormond – Maria Edgeworth
935. Rob Roy – Sir Walter Scott
936. Emma – Jane Austen
937. Mansfield Park – Jane Austen
938. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
939. The Absentee – Maria Edgeworth
940. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
941. Elective Affinities – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
942. Castle Rackrent – Maria Edgeworth
1700s
943. Hyperion – Friedrich Hölderlin
944. The Nun – Denis Diderot
945. Camilla – Fanny Burney
946. The Monk – M.G. Lewis
947. Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
948. The Mysteries of Udolpho – Ann Radcliffe
949. The Interesting Narrative – Olaudah Equiano
950. The Adventures of Caleb Williams – William Godwin
951. Justine – Marquis de Sade
952. Vathek – William Beckford
953. The 120 Days of Sodom – Marquis de Sade
954. Cecilia – Fanny Burney
955. Confessions – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
956. Dangerous Liaisons – Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
957. Reveries of a Solitary Walker – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
958. Evelina – Fanny Burney
959. The Sorrows of Young Werther – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
960. Humphrey Clinker – Tobias George Smollett
961. The Man of Feeling – Henry Mackenzie
962. A Sentimental Journey – Laurence Sterne
963. Tristram Shandy – Laurence Sterne
964. The Vicar of Wakefield – Oliver Goldsmith
965. The Castle of Otranto – Horace Walpole
966. Émile; or, On Education – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
967. Rameau’s Nephew – Denis Diderot
968. Julie; or, the New Eloise – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
969. Rasselas – Samuel Johnson
970. Candide – Voltaire
971. The Female Quixote – Charlotte Lennox
972. Amelia – Henry Fielding
973. Peregrine Pickle – Tobias George Smollett
974. Fanny Hill – John Cleland
975. Tom Jones – Henry Fielding
976. Roderick Random – Tobias George Smollett
977. Clarissa – Samuel Richardson
978. Pamela – Samuel Richardson
979. Jacques the Fatalist – Denis Diderot
980. Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus – J. Arbuthnot, J. Gay, T. Parnell, A. Pope, J. Swift
981. Joseph Andrews – Henry Fielding
982. A Modest Proposal – Jonathan Swift
983. Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift
984. Roxana – Daniel Defoe
985. Moll Flanders – Daniel Defoe
986. Love in Excess – Eliza Haywood
987. Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe
988. A Tale of a Tub – Jonathan Swift
Pre-1700
989. Oroonoko – Aphra Behn
990. The Princess of Clèves – Marie-Madelaine Pioche de Lavergne, Comtesse de La Fayette
991. The Pilgrim’s Progress – John Bunyan
992. Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
993. The Unfortunate Traveller – Thomas Nashe
994. Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit – John Lyly
995. Gargantua and Pantagruel – Françoise Rabelais
996. The Thousand and One Nights – Anonymous
997. The Golden Ass – Lucius Apuleius
998. Aithiopika – Heliodorus
999. Chaireas and Kallirhoe – Chariton
1000. Metamorphoses – Ovid
1001. Aesop’s Fables – Aesopus

Kitchen


Kitchen
Banana Yoshimoto
Paperback: 160 page
Publisher: Washington Square Press (March 1, 1994)

Yosimoto's first book is part romance, part coming of age story, written in an easy style that draws in the reader. It felt real, believable, and had characters that I cared about, that I could be friends with, that I could expect to meet going about my daily life.

The story follows Mikage after the death of her grandmother, coming to grips with the death of her only family and her emptiness. She is helped through this tough time by an unexpected offer of friendship and by a discovery of a love of cooking. Another death and more love follow Mikage in the ensuing months and she struggles to handle it as any twenty-something would. While the story was sometimes silly with romance (for me), it was still about real life and for that I liked it.

The companion novella is Yosimoto's first published work and also deals with the themes of love and loss through death. This is a much more sentimental story, too much so for my taste, but the elements of the preternatural kept me interested. It ends in a very satisfying, and again real life, ending that just "felt right".

I was very enchanted with Yosimoto's easy style and realism and plan to read her more recent novels at some point as well.

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Read for the ORBIS TERRARUM Challenge. View my progress here.

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The Haunted Looking Glass

The Haunted Looking Glass
edited by Edward Gorey
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: NYRB Classics (February 28, 2001)

I had high hope for this collection; loving Gorey and his bizarre sense of humor I expected him to find an odd collection of great stories. Unfortunately, they are mostly mediocre (to my mind), and with very few exceptions not chilling or startling at all.

There was one fantastic story, though: "August Heat" by W.F. Harvey. I'm grateful for this entire collection, for that one story. It is short, tight and incredible. Not a "ghost story", so to speak, but a chilling one none the less. I highly recommend it and was thrilled to find that others liked it enough to type it up online. I found several places, but this particular version seemed to be unaltered and had the easiest to read format. Please, read it--you'll thank me later.

The best part of the book, of course, was the full page illustration, incorporating the title and a bit of the story, before each selection. For a Gorey fan, that made it almost worth slogging through the not-so-good stories.

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Read for the "Short Story" part of my "888" challenge.
See my progress here

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Dream Angus


Dream Angus: The Celtic God of Dreams
Alexander McCall Smith
Paperback: 192 pages
Publisher: Canongate U.S. (July 27, 2007)

Dream Angus is part of a multi-author series, "The Myths", in which contemporary authors retell various myths. Loving Smith's other works, and being fascinated by Celtic mythology, I thought this would be a winner. I was wrong.

Smith's format is to tell the myth of Angus side by side (actually chapter by chapter) with short stories. Each short story has an incident, theme or something else connecting it to the previous chapter about Angus' life.

While the idea was stunning, the result was very unsatisfying.

There is only one memorable character, Bodb; he is the only one in the myth that is given any personality. So many lovely opportunities to flesh out a myth, to make the gods human, is missed. With the exception of Bodb, it reads more like a straight telling out of a Bullfinch type anthology, instead of a retelling.

The accompanying short stories are drab and, though emotion is intended, they just don't fulfill that promise. The ending, again intended to be emotional and fulfilling, quite frankly left me cold and disappointed.

Overall, it was a poor effort on Smith's part--in a hurry to meet the deadline?--and I was glad this is not my first time reading him, or I wouldn't again.

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this was read as the Mythology part of my Once Upon a Time quest. View my progress here

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26 May 2008

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: a Savannah Story, is a "nonfiction novel" which tells of the transplanted author's 8 years in society Savannah through vignettes of the people he met and his experiences with them, as well as events that led up to Savannah's big scandal--the trial of one of society's own.

John Berendt has a lovely writing style, relaxed and yet detailed, which caught my interest from the first page. He kept my attention with his stories, even while I felt guilty for reading them--feeling as if I were reading a "kiss and tell" book. What did the people involved think, I couldn't help but wonder, about having their private conversations plastered about in print. Conversations that they can't be blamed for assuming would be private.

As that seed of discontent began to grow, I began to wonder about Berendt's creditability as he recounted conversations in unbelievable detail. Did he have a notebook and pencil with him at all times, scribbling during all casual conversations in hope that it might prove useful in 10 years or so, just in case he decided to write a book?

Checking on his dates, I found in a few places, other people wondering about the same thing, going so far as to state that he wasn't even in Savannah for the pre-trial information (not arriving until after the first trial). I was unable to verify or debunk this; all I could find anywhere, (Berendt interviews included) isn't telling exact dates, just that he spent 8 years there during the 1980's. The trial in question was for a crime that happened in 1981. If he wasn't there, Berendt has deliberately misled his readers by writing as if he was privy to inside information given to him at that time.

Not being able to certify his truthfulness, I approached the rest of the book as a novel, not as nonfiction. Unfair to Berendt? Possibly, but then again, possilby not. I'd be interested in what other readers have to say about it.

Now, given all that, how to rate it? As a nonfiction writer, I don't trust him, so I can't give him a good rating (though the travelogue portion did make me quite interested in Savannah and the bit of history made me want to read more about the city as well). As a novel, it was highly entertaining, with some great prose. A conundrum that has resulted in no star rating being applied at all.

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This was read for both the Southern Reading Challenge and the NonFiction Challenge.

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24 May 2008

Friday Fill-ins

1. On my laziest day I like to stay in bed most of (if not all of) the day reading!
2. Seeing my to-do piles get smaller makes me feel like I'm being productive.
3. I love little baby bats and big bowls of ice cream.
4. This summer I want to get orgainized and enjoy my time away from work with lots of relaxation, reading and blogging.
5. Seeing my husband blogging made me start my blog.
6. Red strawberries and orange nasturtians make me think of summer.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to playing World of Warcraft and reading, tomorrow my plans include some photo-taking and Sunday, I want to laze around the house, enjoying the start of a two week vacation!

19 May 2008

Once Upon a Time II: Horns and Wrinkles


I just finished reading Horns and Wrinkles by Joseph Helgerson and it fits nicely into the "fantasy" category of the Once Upon a Time II Reading Challenge.

This fun, witty and well-written fantasy tells of Claire, who lives near a magical stretch of the Mississippi River between Minnesota and Wisconsin and of the adventure, or should I say trouble, she gets into because of her bully of a cousin, Duke.

The book opens with Duke hanging her by the ankles off a bridge over the Mississippi:
The river I was hanging over was the Mississippi, which was flooding, all muddy and solid-looking as a freight train, about twenty feet below my ponytail. It was early May. None of the trees had turned green yet, but you could smell it coming fast.

Duke's bullying--and the magic of the river--lands him with a rhino-nose, with troll friends and no desire to go back home. That means that Claire, with the help of a magical old lady, other trolls, some lying crickets and some good luck, has to rescue him from a horrible fate.

The result is a ripping good yarn combined with colorful, sometimes beautiful, prose. Horns and Wrinkles is now in my top 20 favorite children's fantasies. It was pure chance that I came across it, but now I'm going to give it a blanket recommendation--read it! :D

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Also being used as the letter H in the A-Z Title Reading Challenge, and for the category To-Be-Read in the 888 Challenge, as this has sat on my TBR shelf for nearly 2 months now..

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18 May 2008

888 Challenge

Yeah, I know, I'm addicted, so whaddaya gonna do?

Anyway. . . The 888 Challenge caught my eye, so I had to join in, too! Here it is:

1. Challenge runs from January 1 through December 31, 2008.

2. Choose 8 categories of your own that you would like to read 8 books EACH in.

3. You will be allowed 8 overlaps, for a total of 56 unique book titles.

4. You may overlap these 56 titles with any other challenge.

5. You may change your list or your categories at any time.

6. Post a comment here that you are participating, and I will add a link to the sidebar. Request an invite including your e-mail address if you want to post your list to this blog. However, we will NOT be writing reviews here! You may update your lists by providing the link to books read. Please use your name as a label, along with the book categories you're reading from.

7. Check back here to see who is participating and cheer others on.

8. Participants who complete all 56 books will be in the running for in-stock books from paperbackswap.com. (I have mucho credits.) Overseas is okay!

9. Have fun reading!


I gave MUCH thought (read "one full week") but I've finally chosen my 8 categories. They are:

1) Alternate HistoryThis was orginaly steampunk but I was having too much trouble finding what I deemed to be true steampunk and didn't want to miss out completing this challenge because I'm a purist. Since so many that I was finding called steampunk were actually just Alternate History, I decided to change it to Alternate History--another of my favorite genres anyway!

2) Short Stories
I used to think, as a teenager being forced to read them, that short stories were written by people who couldn't write novels or were novels that writers didn't take the time to flesh out to full length. Happily, I've spent some time actually reading these awesome works of fiction (and some particularly good ones at that) and have become a huge fan of them. I particularly enjoy 19th century works, the more fantastical the better, but I'm prone to let my collections set on my to-be-read shelf and gather dust. This should encourage me to dig them out and READ them!

3)Classics
I have a lovely collection of books that can be generically lumped into the "classics" category that I've just not read yet, but that I always say I'm going to. Now here's the utch I need.

4)Vampire Books
When I first discovered the idea of vampires back in my pre-teen years, I was as fascinated as most people are. Bram Stoker's Dracula is one of my favorite books, and I'm always looking for more vampire fiction. Nothing can match the "wow" that Dracula gives me (with all it's 19th century-isms) but I recently came across an article in my latest acquisition (an annotated Dracula) that listed lots of earlier vampire writers. Naturally I had to fill my to-be-read shelves with those works, so I have fair amount of early AND modern vampire fiction to read. Huzzah!

5)Newberry Award Winners
A few years ago, I started on a quest to read all of Newberry Award Winners. This was a dismal failure when I read one that I didn't find award material AT ALL and it simple put me off them entirely. I still haven't regained my faith in the decision makers, but I'm willing to give it another try.

6)Recommended Reads
I'm always hearing "you need to read this!" from friends and family and really planning on doing so, but. . . not doing so. They end up on the to-be-read shelves with the others and I just don't get around to them. Now I have no excuse!

7) Pre-20th Century Works
My favorite literary centuries are 18-19th but my frequent trips to the library's new book shelves are causing me to read more 20th century works and less earlier works. I'd like to get back to where my interest really lies, if I can.

8)To-Be-Read Shelves
Being addicted to the public library sometimes causes me to neglect that roughly quarter of my 1000+ book personal library that is sitting in my to-be-read shelves. Though the other 7 categories can mostly be found in my to-be-read shelves too, this is a more generic category that will allow me to just pull any ol' book out and read it when I feel like it. :D

Now, here's the deal: I'm starting this pretty darn late in the year and I'm not really sure that I can complete it this late. That being said, and the fact that it runs from January through December, I'm going back to my reading journal and adding any books that I've already read that fit these categories. If I read enough from now to December to fill it out to the full eight without January to April, then I'll delete them from the list. Sound fair? Okay!

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PROGRESS

Alternate History:
1-Anno Dracula by Kim Newman | read 13 June
2-Bloody Red Barron by Kim Newman | read 1 July
both reviews coming soon

Short Stories:
1-The Haunted Looking Glass, edited by Edward Gorey
read 28 May 2008 | my review

Classics:

Vampire Books:
1-Dead Until Dark: Charlaine Harris | read 15 February 2008
A somewhat lighthearted Southern Vampire mystery and first in a series; I'm considering reading the second.

2-Vampirates: Demons of the Ocean: Justin Somper | read 22 February 2008
YA book about, you got it, Vampires who are also pirates. This was the first in a series and rather good but Stoney says the second "just left him cold" so I didn't get around to reading it.


3-Anno Dracula by Kim Newman | read 13 June 2008
Newberry Award Winners:

Recommended Reads:
1-The Ragamuffin Gospel: Brennan Manning | 16 March 2008
Recommended by my Mom
Christian book with an amazing take on grace and mercy and is truly a life-changing experience. Thanks to our reading of it, Stoney and I both consider ourselves, God's Ragamuffins and are much less concerned with what other people think of us. Wonderful book for those who are interested in Christian reading of this sort.

2-The Ship Who Sang: Anne McCaffrey | read 14 April 2008
Recommended by my friend, the author Kate McKeever.
Amazing, wonderful, 5 star book that is actually a set of short stories written over years that fit perfectly together and make a great book. The premise is that in this particular future, there are "shell people" who are trained to be the brains inside and that work space ships. This books follows some of the career of the ship, Helva. This comes highly recommended, with the warning to not pay any attention to the blurb on the back of the book as it is very misleading.

3-Beautiful Boy by David Sheff
Recommended by my friend Caroline, and it was recommended to her by our mutual friend, Judy.
read 1 June 2008 | read my review

4-Tweak by Nic Sheff
Also recommended by my friend Caroline.
read 19 June 2008 | read my review

3-Beautiful Boy by David Sheff

Pre-20th Century Works:
1-The Way of the Pilgrim | read 23 February 2008
I've wanted to read this 19th century anonymous work since I read about it in Salinger's Frannie and Zoey. I finally came across a copy and was not disappointed. It's another Christian work, about an anonymous Russian pilgrim traveling with practically nothing and saying the Jesus Prayer continually. It's a fascinating and thought provoking work, whether it's a true account or an allegorical story, and is highly recommended for any one interested in learning more about developing internal, continual prayer. It's one I'll certainly read again. I do not, however, recommend, the sequel The Pilgrim Continues his Way. To my mind, it's not written by the same author, and was unappealing and dry. I didn't finish.

To-Be-Read Shelves:
1-Horns and Wrinkles by Joseph Helgerson | read 19 May 2008
review can be read here.

17 May 2008

Shutterday: Photos of Photographers

for the Shutterday theme: Photos of Photographers:
Myself, reflected in a P-51 Mustang.

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Friday Fill-Ins--a day late

1. There is absolutely NO way you can get me to eat mayonaise!
2. The frog pond serenade reminds me that summer is almost here!
3. I cannot live without my sweet tea--black, green or herbal.
4. International travel and summer in Alaska are two things I'd like to try.
5. When life hands you lemons, just do your best to juggle them and keep laughing.
6. Being with Mom and Dad at Little River is my favorite childhood memory.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to reading and sleeping after a long day of playing World of Warcraft, and Sunday I want to do more of the same!

TV Show Challenge

Deb did this challenge (she found it at Kimmy's The Smug Cloud who started it from Empire Magazine's list of the "50 Greatest TV Shows" ever) and (being nearly anti-TV) I thought it would be fun to see my answers.

The list is below, and Kimmy's rules are:

1. Bold the shows of which you've watched every episode.
2. Italicize the shows of which you've seen at least one episode.
2a. Star * the shows you consider "the best".
3. Post your answers.

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50. Quantum Leap
49. Prison Break
48. Veronica Mars (never heard of it)
47. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (never heard of it)
46. Sex & the City
45. Farscape (never heard of it)
44. Cracker (never heard of it)
43. Star Trek* (not one of my 10 best but certainly one of the best on this list)
42. Only Fools and Horses (never heard of it)
41. Band of Brothers (never heard of it)
40. Life on Mars (never heard of it)
39. Monty Python's Flying Circus* (and own them all too)
38. Curb Your Enthusiasm (never heard of it)
37. Star Trek: The Next Generation
36. Father Ted (never heard of it)
35. Alias (never heard of it)
34. Frasier
33. CSI: Las Vegas (never heard of it)
32. Babylon 5
31. Deadwood (never heard of it)
30. Dexter (I've read the books, why would I want to watch some sorry portrayal that couldn't possibly convey the emotional depths of character that the books do?)
29. ER
28. Fawlty Towers*(All of the MULTIPLE times)
27. Six Feet Under (never heard of it)
26. Red Dwarf* (great, GREAT show and I'm sad that I've NOT seen them all;not one of my 10 best but certainly one of the best on this list)
25. Futurama
24. Twin Peaks
23. The Office UK (never heard of it)
22. The Shield (never heard of it)
21. Angel (never heard of it)
20. Blackadder* (I can't convey how much I love this show, especially the 4th!)
19. Scrubs (never heard of it)
18. Arrested Development (never heard of it)
17. South Park
16. Doctor Who* (spent years watching this religiously--not one of my 10 best but certainly one of the best on this list)
15. Heroes (never heard of it)
14. Firefly (never heard of it)
13. Battlestar Galactica
12. Family Guy
11. Seinfeld
10. Spaced (never heard of it)
09. The X-Files
08. The Wire (never heard of it)
07. Friends
06. 24 (never heard of it)
05. Lost
04. The West Wing
03. The Sopranos
02. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
01. The Simpsons

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Hell-OOOO? Where is the Prisoner? That is THE best show of all time! These people are clueless! No Prisoner, no MST3k, no Mr. Bean? Sheesh!

I guess, from my list up there, it's pretty obvious that I killed my television about 8 years ago and watched very little before that. I really don't dig on no TV (she said borrowing a phrase from Jules).

For a lark, I thought super hard so I could show what good TV REALLY is--I wanted to give a list of the ten best shows. I almost couldn't come up with ten, but at the last minute, right before posting, I remembered one more.
1-The Prisoner
2-Monty Python's Flying Circus
3-Blackadder
4-Mystery Science Theatre 3000
5-Fawlty Towers
6-Mission: Impossible
7-Mr. Bean
8-Are You Being Served?
9-the original Who's Line is it Anyway
10-The Good Life (a/k/a Good Neighbors in the U.S.)

Now to me, that's good TV! They don't make it like that anymore. . .