100 Books: The Time Traveler's Wife

I can't believe I have not talked to you about this book.  Mostly because I was completely obsessed with it.  So much so that I couldn't put the darn thing down.  I tell you, that book came at just the right time - my mind was racing, I hadn't had a moment to relax in forever, and I couldn't tell you the last time I had picked up a book.

Then this came along.  The perfect love story.  The perfect romantic escape that I needed.  It envelopes you in its simple complexity.  You believe, you root for, you care.  You find yourself allowing the suspension of disbelief required to make the story plausible.  The author has such a knack for character development, that I felt myself missing those who had to be cut when I finally allowed myself to view the movie.

If this is your kind of thing, give it a try.  For me, it was the catalyst that got me back into the world of books.  And I tell you this, it had been far too long.

My only postscript would be to stay far far FAR away from the author's sophomore novel - Her Fearful Symmetry.  While her masterful character development carries through, her storytelling does not, and it leaves you cold at the end, as if she ran out of time or ink.  My advice would be to allow The Time Travelers Wife to transport you through a mystical timeline of love and hope, and to let it end there.

100 Books: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

I haven't been updating you all, but I have been reading some books.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is one that I have seen recommended often, and I already had it on my bookshelf.  I truly enjoyed reading it.  It is a coming of age story set in the early 1900's in Brooklyn.  It was interesting to watch how Francie and her family grow, change, and adapt to their circumstances.  Francie and her brother grow up a bit blissfully unaware of just how poor they really are, and I think that innocence in a child is something to which I could relate.

The book gave an honest and vivid snapshot of life during those times, but at the same time showed the struggles that any family faces.  The character development is natural and engaging.  The reminders to take in each breath and to live life are refreshing.  It was a wonderful picture of the everyman's quest toward the American dream.

If you read or have already read this book, I would love to hear your thoughts.

100 Books: A Million Little Pieces

Last summer I expressed my desire to try to become more well-read, and somehow I have actually managed to squeeze in some reading here and there.  I have been adopting the method of reading two books at once - one on the nightstand, and one in my gigantic purse.  Having that book on the go is great for me.  It is amazing how often one is idly waiting while out and about, and having the book handy fills these moments quite nicely.

First up was A Million Little Pieces, by James Frey.  This was already on my bookshelf from when it first came out.  In fact, it still had a bookmark in it from when I had begun reading it in 2006 when it came out, and then real life got in the way.  I just pulled the bookmark out and began again.

I breezed through it pretty quickly and easily.  It nicely coincided with a series of appointments and monitoring and dealing with doctors for surrogacy #2 (failed attempt #1), so I was able to appreciate his sterile and under the microscope existence in the rehab facility.

I related to his defiance to following the rules and insistence that he would succeed his own way.  I understood the powerful draw of addiction, and how it manifested itself in other things when the main source was removed.

And here's the thing..... I read it as a work of fiction.  I waited until I was through with the book before looking into the controversy surrounding it upon its release.  It seems that the mistake that was made was that the author/publisher categorized the book as non-fiction, and then everyone began challenging it's validity.  I'm not sure how it was ever possibly allowed to be that way, as there is no way that he would have been able to accurately remember or portray the first third to half of the book as he was still detoxing at that point.  I am quite sure he has no clear memories of that time, and there was certainly no mention of him keeping diaries through that time.

But he messed with Oprah.  And nobody gets away with making Oprah look like a fool.  So I suppose he had to pay.

Overall, I would recommend the book, as long as you take it as a work of fiction about conquering addiction, and not a non-fiction how-to guide.  And as long as the f-word does not offend you.

top 100 books challenge

One of the blogs I enjoy recently discussed the Top 100 Books list, and the daunting task of reading through the list. While I have no grand illusions of completing it, I think I would like to try to accomplish reading at least a respectable chunk of them. She edited her list somewhat, so I don't know what was removed/replaced, but it's good enough of a guideline to work from....

I will admit upfront to not being well read when it comes to the classics. I have not often found enough hours in the day to just read for pleasure, which has lent itself to me choosing the easiest to understand light and breezy chick lit-esque reading selection when I have the time. Here's to turning over a new leaf, eh?

I'll check back in to let you know how I'm doing. I have some summer reading I am doing for work right now, but plan to hit up the library in the upcoming weeks to get started. Our library is one of the things I love about this town.

Books in bold are ones I have already read...


1 To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) by Harper Lee
2 The Secret Garden (1911) by Frances Hodgson Burnett
3 Pride and Prejudice (1813) by Jane Austen
4 Twilight (2005) by Stephenie Meyer
5 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964) by Ronald Dahl
6 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962) by Ken Kesey
7 1984 (1949) by George Orwell
8 Jane Eyre (1847) by Charlotte Brontë
9 The Richest Man in Babylon (1955) George S. Clason
10 The Catcher in the Rye (1945) by J.D. Salinger
11 Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl (1947) by Anne Frank
12 Little Women (1868) by Louisa May Alcott
13 Gone With The Wind (1936) by Margaret Mitchell
14 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950) by C.S. Lewis
15 The Giver (1993) by Lois Lowry
16 The Kite Runner (2003) by Khaled Hosseini
17 A Christmas Carol (1843) by Charles Dickens
18 The Great Gatsby (1925) by F. Scott Fitzgerald
19 The Count of Monte Cristo (1844) by Alexandre Dumas
20 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979) by Douglas Adams
21 Ender's Game (1985) by Orson Scott Card
22 Anne of Green Gables (1905) by L.M. Montgomery, Margaret Atwood (Introduction)
23 Crime and Punishment (1866) by Fyodor Dostoevsky
24 The Time Traveler's Wife (2003) by Audrey Niffenegger
25 Les Misérables (1862) by Victor Hugo
26 The Little Prince (1943) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
27 Mein Kampf (1925) Adolf Hitler
28 One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) by Gabriel García Márquez, Gregory Rabassa (Translator)
29 The Alchemist (1988) by Paulo Coelho
30 The Princess Bride (1973) by William Goldman
31 East of Eden (1952) by John Steinbeck
32 The Grapes of Wrath (1939) by John Steinbeck
33 Animal Farm (1945) by George Orwell
34 Memoirs of a Geisha (1997) by Arthur Golden
35 A Million Little Pieces (2003) James Frey
36 Lolita (1955) by Vladimir Nabokov
37 Lord of the Flies (1954) by William Golding
38 Walden (1854) by Henry David Thoreau
39 A Wrinkle in Time (1962) by Madeleine L'Engle
40 Anna Karenina (1873) by Leo Tolstoy
41 Catch-22 (1961) by Joseph Heller
42 Life of Pi (2001) by Yann Martel
43 Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) by Kurt Vonnegut
44 A Tale of Two Cities (1859) by Charles Dickens
45 Watership Down (1972) by Richard Adams
46 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (1865) by Lewis Carroll
47 A Thousand Splendid Suns (2006) by Khaled Hosseini
48 The Poisonwood Bible (1998) by Barbara Kingsolver
49 Wuthering Heights (1847) by Emily Brontë
50 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (1997) by J.K. Rowling
51 Dune (1965) by Frank Herbert
52 The Odyssey (600) by Homer, Robert Fagles (Translator)
53 Water for Elephants (2006) by Sara Gruen
54 Brave New World (1932) by Aldous Huxley
55 The Road (2006) by Cormac McCarthy
56 The Fountainhead (1943) by Ayn Rand
57 The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890 by Oscar Wilde
58 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) by Mark Twain
59 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943) by Betty Smith
60 The Compleat Works of Wllm Shkspr (1983) by Reduced Shakespeare Company
61 Angela's Ashes (1996) by Frank McCourt
62 The Book Thief (2005) by Markus Zusak
63 The Da Vinci Code (2003) by Dan Brown
64 The Hobbit: Or There and Back Again (1937) by J.R.R. Tolkien
65 Night (1958) by Elie Wiesel
66 The Pillars of the Earth (1989) by Ken Follett
67 The Giving Tree (1964) by Shel Silverstein
68 Outlander (1991) by Diana Gabaldon
69 The Brothers Karamazov (1880) by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Richard Pevear (Translator)
70 Atlas Shrugged (1957) by Ayn Rand
71 A Prayer for Owen Meany (1988) by John Irving
72 Don Quixote (1605) by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
73 Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker
74 The Lovely Bones (202) by Alice Sebold
75 Sense and Sensibility (1811) by Jane Austen
76 The Iliad (600) by Homer, Robert Fagles (Translator)
77 Moby Dick (1850) by Herman Melville
78 War and Peace (1865) by Leo Tolstoy, Henry Gifford (editor)
79 Of Mice and Men (1937) by John Steinbeck
80 The Old Man and the Sea (1952) by Ernest Hemingway
80 Middlesex (2002) by Jeffrey Eugenides
82 Lonesome Dove (1920) by Larry McMurtry
83 The Bell Jar (1963) by Sylvia Plath
84 The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1983) by Milan Kundera
85 Siddhartha (1922) by Hermann Hesse
86 The Handmaid's Tale (1985) by Margaret Atwood
87 Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) by Zora Neale Hurston
88 Emma (1815) by Jane Austen, Fiona J. Stafford (Editor)
89 On the Road (1957) by Jack Kerouac
90 The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005) by Jeannette Walls
91 All Quiet on the Western Front (1929) by Erich Maria Remarque
92 The Master and Margarita (1966) by Mikhail Bulgakov
93 The Red Tent (1997) by Anita Diamant
94 Pygmalion (1914) by George Bernard Shaw
95 A Clockwork Orange (1962) by Anthony Burgess
96 The Perks of Being a Wallflower (1999) by Stephen Chbosky
97 Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1888) by Thomas Hardy
98 The Name of the Rose (1980) by Umberto Eco
99 Eat, Pray, Love (2006) by Elizabeth Gilbert
100 Romeo and Juliet (1595) by William Shakespeare