24 posts tagged “books”
Ah! Something I can write about that doesn't require too much thought, but is about a favourite thing: lists of books. (Actually reading said books is a close second ;)
Below is a list of the 106 books most likely to languish, unread, on the bookshelves of people who only want to seem cultured and well-read. If you want to play along:
bold the titles you've read on your own,
underline the ones you had to read for school,
italicize the ones you started but didn't finish,
bold and italicize the ones you hated,
bold and underline those you'd recommend
strike through those you'd like to/plan to read
[*I'm not going to mention ones I actually hated. There are very few, though I will make some comments as we go. And as to recommending - I'll just asterix those I loved in particular.]
Let the List begin
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Similalliron
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Ulysses
Don Quixote
The Odyssey
Moby Dick
Pride and Prejudice*
Jane Eyre*
A Tale of Two Cities*
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair - The thing with this one, is that I got the point within the first 150 pages and spent the rest of the time wishing Thackery would just kill everyone off already!
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Illiad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
Memoirs of a Geisha*
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked: the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales - Excerpts
The Historian: a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray*
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver's Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the
Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
A People's History of the United States: 1492-present
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse Five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita - A tough one for me, not so much the writing, but the content.
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics: a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity's Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers
The book chronicles the food adventures of Kingsolver and her family as they seek to eat just local, available food for one year. There is plenty of information about why this kind of approach is useful, with parts contributed by both her husband and daughter. One thing I think Kingsolver managed to do was to avoid getting preachy: she fully understood that not everyone has a couple of acres of arable land in Virginia upon which to raise all manner of fruits, vegetables and turkeys. To still inspire, there are ideas and ways in which those in urban places can obtain food without it having to have been trucked miles and miles and miles away. (In some cases, that means growing it yourself; in others, it means asking your grocer where things come from and just buying the stuff nearby.) All in all, a recommended read: you get to learn about turkey copulation, why heirloom seeds are a great idea, and why 'tomato' can become a dirty word, and that living without bananas ain't so bad, after all.
My other non-fiction reading this month has been a mixed-bag of potty training ideas, pregnancy info (it's amazing what I forgot from the first time around) and a swath of curricular stuff for school. But I did run back to my current ficitional fave and completed two more Fforde books, but this time from a new series. The Nursery Crime Mysteries stem from the plots of the Thursday Next novel and Fforde has all his lovely puns, allusions and satire. I really appreciate how this guys is willing to engage with the reader and have fun with his own stories, like making fun of plot holes within his own plots or directly (though subtly) addressing the reader. So go read them!
And now, I must get off to work soon. I though my cold was regressing, silly me, and I could take another day off today without a guilty conscience at all. But no. Preparing for my sub is more work than going. And so I go. Cheers.
For the second night in a row, I'm dealing with insomnia. What a great time to catch up on some posting! It's also prime time for typos and I won't re-read. Forgive the tired English teacher.
Last month I finished reading "Buy, Buy Baby:
Thomas is a journalist and this is apparent in her writing. I was expecting to hear things rather slanted, but I believe she does an ok job of striving for some balance. In fact, after completing the book, I was surprised at its subtitle: it almost struck me as something the publisher would slap on instead of something she'd come up with. Thomas does finally lets her guard down in her conclusion and you hear what she really thinks, but by then she's laid out all sorts of info and she's made the shift clear. You can't fault the lady for having her opinion.
I wholeheartedly recommend this read for any parents with young'uns. At any rate, it is educational and gives you something to consider, even if you can't turn back the clock, or even care to.
The book covers all sorts of information:
- the baby video craze (can it truly be 'educational' for a 12 month old?).
- how marketers target and yes, manipulate, Gen-X parents (who are far more likely to spend money on house and kids than their own parents were) who apparently will only buy toys that have a 'learning' component.
- explains the marketing brilliance behind the princess craze, Elmo, and Thomas the Train, among others.
- explores how marketers try for (though it's ethically dangerous territory) brand recognition in toddlers (btw - the top 5 brands recognized by kids, and some as young as 18 months, include Disney, Macdonalds, Cheerios, Barbie and Pop Tarts (!!!)).
- examines how brands have made their way into early educational childhood curricula.
Thomas's conclusions certainly lead one to realize that TV isn't great for kids (sending home Baby Einstein with new moms is 'unconscionable') and brands are no great shakes either. Her last chapter advocates doing "Nothing" - that is, just playing, without any agenda.
At Christmastime, we made 2 requests of family members who wanted to purchase toys for Gus: please, no batteries (usually, it's just noisy!) and no brands - especially characters. It's not that we have it in for Diego and Dora, but we know it'll be tough to fight this one down the road, (imagines 5-year-old Gus having a tantrum because I won't buy Bob the Builder rain jacket, lunchbox, curtains, and cereal - and the box would be right at his eye level at Extra Foods because marketers are smart that way) and it would be nice to at least not start the battle this young and right at home.
Now, I know there are far worse things out there for a kid than Winnie-the-Pooh plastered on every piece of furniture, clothing and toy-thing imaginable in their room, but like I alluded to earlier, it's important to at least consider the possibilities. Happy Reading.
Yes, though I haven't been posting, I have been reading!
But the biggie I want to talk about is Buy, Buy, Baby: How Consumer Culture Manipulates Parents and Harms Young Minds. However, I've run out of time, so another day. But don't let me forget!
Things were a little spare this month. Mostly I'm plugging away on Fforde's stuff and really enjoying it. I'm a chapter or 2 away from finishing another one, but that will just have to be part of February's update.
White Rapids is a graphic novella that charts the rise and fall of the power company town of Rapides Blancs in Quebec. It's very well done, doesn't overwhelm and also a little interesting. A quick read. I was sad when the town is closed when the running of the plant is switched to computers. It made me think of my home town. It's been around a long time (the oldest settlement in BC to be continually inhabited by white folk) but with forestry heading south and the the fluctuations that the mining industry can bring, well, I just don't know. But I guess if all else fails, the lake will still be there. One of my hopes (that has a very small likelihood of ever coming to fruition) is that we would be able to purchase a cabin on the lake and every summer spend 4 weeks there. If only...
And finally, what would a month be without having finished another Fforde. The Well of Lost Plots sees us in the world of fiction with Thursday Next as she becomes a Jurisfiction agent and have to solve all sorts of other personal and public dilemmas, all the while trying not to forget about her never-existed husband. Lovely.
So I don't get to posting for a long time, and it has been awhile since I checked in on the 'hood but you know what I found out - everyone else is sick too! (Ok, not everyone, but it features prominently.) Instead of the details of my flu, here are my December reads.
They're bizzare and fun and if you're familiar with traditional English lit, you'll get a kick out of the many allusions.
I alternated the Fforde books with more of Tempe. I really, really shouldn't finish these novels when my husband is out of town!
I tend to agree with is politics more than not, so maybe that's why I like the book, but I found that my CBC radio habit has kept me up on the basics of Canadian politics and that certainly helped me enjoy the book to. If you'd like to get a slice of this guy, check out his show (including archives of past shows) here.
What's on your holiday wishlist?
For about the last four years I've kept a wish list on amazon. It works well because most of my items are books or CDs anyway, and they have a lot of other stuff that I'll add to represent stuff I'd like. For example, right now I have a silver pendant listed; I'm not hung up on that particular pendant, but anything pretty and silver sounds good to me! I'm partial to yummy consumables and journals and crafty things are always loved. But this year, I'm hoping for some books and music... and Season 4 of Corner Gas, of course. ;)
Here's a sampling of what's on my list:
Hmmm.... As I survey this list, I find it interesting that the things I want (with the exception of Funk's poetry) are ones I've already had/listened to/read in the past - all previously loved pieces.
I guess I want that back.
I started with Deja Dead. You know the TV series, Bones? This is where it got started. I heard an interview with Reichs on the radio and it sounds like she has a lot of input into the series. Turns out she was quite deliberate in making the main character for the small screen different from that in the novel; the Tempe in the book is, well, normal. ;)
I have an overactive imagination when it comes to these kinds of stories and situations, so I need to take my suspense/crime novels in small doses. I enjoyed the read and I'll go back to Reichs, but I need a bit more time yet. It didn't help that I read the climax to this novel while my husband was out of town!
So after some examples of depraved individuals, I switched to some softer fare. These were some re-reads from high school and they did the trick. I had just come across the movie Love Comes Softly at the library and wanted to refresh my memory on the books. It was also a bit refreshing to read about people and God, even as straightforward and (I think) simplified as some of the situations were portrayed. These begin a whole 7 or 8 book series; I remember one friend pointing out in high school that in one (probably some!) of the books, there was basically a new baby every chapter. I'll probably finish off the series within a few months, but like my crime reading, I need to take my saccharine in small doses, too. ;)
As I've mentioned before, I've been reading a book very aptly named
It goes through different groups of foods and highlights how and why they are effective in preventing or fighting cancer. Here's a quick run down:
- Cruciferous Family - cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, etc.
- Garlic and Onions
- Soy - including edamame, dry roasted soybeans, miso, tofu, etc.
- Tumeric - yes, this spice that makes everything very yellow is in its own cancer-fighting category.
- Green Tea - especially the Japanese variety, but the Chinese ones work fine, too.
- Berries - pretty much all of them!
- Omega-3 Fatty Acids - which you'll find in salmon, sardines, and milled flax seed for starters.
- Citrus Fruit
- Dark Chocolate (yay!)
- Red Wine
- Tomatoes
I'd decided to try to feature some of these things in our diet during the week. I knew we'd be short on the Omega-3 category, so I've started hunting down recipes for canned salmon. I was surprised at how few turned up in my library of about a dozen cookbooks. Most were for salmon cakes - some sort of fried concoction, usually using potatoes as a base. And then I found this recipe in a book my mom gave me a few years back: One-Dish Meals. Some of the reipes are odd to me because they call for things like "a 12 oz. bag of frozen peas, carrots, corn and red pepper slices." I just chop the veggies myself. And they don't have much by way of vegetarian, but I did find a casserole that worked very well. It's basically a white sauce mixed with noodles, broccoli and tinned salmon and baked in a casserole dish. I added garlic, celery and onion to the mix and topped it with some cheese instead of the bread crumbs because I didn't have any handy. And it was very tasty, even if I do say so myself. And it was cancer-fighting packed meal: salmon (omega-3), garlic & onion and broccoli. (I was tempted to add tumeric; maybe I'll wait to the next time.)
I know that eating healthy whenever one can is better than never trying to do it at all, but the thing is, I think I'll find it hard to keep up. It'll take time to adjust what we buy (and how much we spend!) and the time it takes to think ahead a prepare things instead of just reaching for wieners and beans (which is a meal I love, especially when I add cumin to the beans and put it all in a wrap with cheese).
What's your healthy food tip?
No Bones tonight! I blame the strike. But not the writers. Bones is the only show I regularly watch during the week, though I'd watch House more religiously if I wasn't at care group those nights (do other 'religious' things!) So I'm going to avoid attacking that mass of marking on the floor and post the books I read in October.
I hadn't been paying attention to my holds list at the library when this one appeared - I'd been on the list for about 4 months. Go read it.
More Korman. An easy read that is part of our local "Battle of the Books" at the public library. This had its moments, but I didn't find the same laugh-out-loud moments I do in many of his other books.
More home organizing and decorating. Great ideas and I doubt I'll ever really get around to many of them. Our house does fine as it is, usually. Everything may not always be in its place, but I find I need things too often to always keep them there!
I did just finish Deja Dead by Reichs (full circle back to Bones) this evening, but I'll include that one in next month's update.
Ok. Back to my marking...