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

bringing scratch & sniff stickers to your graduation party

Welcome to the July 9th version of Thursday Thunks!
This week we will answer some crazy questions brought to you by

Berleen, the number 141 and the color of your underwear.

1. Do you tend to have a guilty conscious?
I absolutely do. It is a function of the OCD. I think, overthink, feel badly, think some more.....

2. Do you still have your wisdom teeth?
I had them removed by some hack oral surgeon ten years ago and half of my mouth and chin are still numb. Awesome.

3. Peanut Butter - creamy or crunchy?
Crunchy please!

4. Get up off your butt. Take 5 steps. Which leg did you start out on?
Right. You should always start on the right. Because I said so.

5. What color is your favorite kitchen utensil?
Huh?

6. Did you watch the Michael Jackson memorial/funeral?
Did he die? I hadn't heard! (Kidding.)
I tried to use a bereavement day at work since he was my first boyfriend after all. They said no. Whatevs.

7. Do you know anyone who graduated from high school this year?
Were you invited to their graduation party? Did you go?
I'm sure at least one of my cousins graduated, and one of my favorite assistants at the dance school graduated too. No party invites though. Perhaps they were lost in the mail....

8. White with black stripes or black with white stripes?
White with black stripes. Again, because I said so.

9. If we were to call your 6th grade teacher, what would they say about you?
Who is she?
(I was in middle school that year, had 7 or so teachers, and can't even name a single one.)

10. Can you draw a perfect circle?
Not even close. Not even with a compass or a plate to trace.

11. What was your favorite scratch & sniff sticker scent?
Grape? I have no idea. I haven't scratched or sniffed a sticker in twenty years.

12. What does your sibling do for a living?
I don't know - something sciency?

13. How many light switches and electrical outlets are in the room that you are in right now?
1 switch and 3 or so outlets. And the biggest unsafest tangle of overloaded extension cords you've ever seen. Say a prayer nothing sparks, k?

14. Do you know sign language?
I do. I was fluent enough to be mistaken for Deaf back in the day, but now not so much. Very rusty.

15. Do you step on cracks in the sidewalk?
No way. Mom doesn't like it when I break her back.

16. And the sheets on your bed look like....?
Sheets. The kind you sleep on. Beige with stripes. Or whatever.

17. What is something that everyone else has, but you don't?
Motivation. Care to spare me some?

the worst thursday thunks ever (according to kimber)

This week we will answer some crazy questions brought to you by
Kimber, the number 3000 and the color grape ape.


1. Are your ears dirty?
No. And it is one of those things that I notice and really grosses me out in other people.

2. Would you rather be stung by a scorpion or bit by a snake? (Don't say either...no one wants to be in pain, that's the point. Pick one.)
I'm going to go with the scorpion. Mostly because I would pee my pants in fear just being around the snake. Yikes!

3. Do loud noises make you snappish? (i.e. A loud restaurant, screaming child next to you, booming stereo from a neighbor's house?)
Kind of. Repetitive noise really tweaks my nerves more than loud noise though.

4. PETA- thoughts on this org.? I would never be a member.

5. Would you rather be the discoverer of the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot? (Imagination!)
Loch Ness! Finding Nessie would be very cool!

6. When in a public toilet and it's not flushed: do you flush & use or move on to a clean one?
I have such public toilet paranoia. Even this question makes me nervous. I would move to a clean one for sure. I avoid cleaning after others as much as possible in there. Blech!!!

7. Neighbors are having a noisy, party bonfire, what do you do?
Not a thing. They put up with my noise, and I put up with there's. If I knew them I might wander over and join in. There was a noisy party bonfire a week or two ago with karaoke. I just laughed and sang along.

8. Do you play Monopoly? If so which version of the game?
I do! The latest version that I play is Wii. It is a lot of fun!

9. Are you a remote hog?
Totally. Were you going to touch it? Cuz don't. It's mine.

10. Do you like the smell of paint?
I wouldn't say I like it. I don't hate it either.

11. My questions obviously suck this week. {I've had a bad week.} So do you think Kimber should have...
~smoked pot before doing these questions? if she wanted to.
~drank liquid courage? Always.
~begged Berleen to do them (she's better at them anyhow)? Nah. Tit for tat, right? ~just piss off! I could have done better! This meme is always a favorite! Keep it going!

tumbling down and through the looking glass

Ten Things I Wish I Could Say to Ten Different People (but don't say their name).

1. I love you and I'm proud of you, and I hope you will always know and feel this.
2. If you would live up to just a quarter of your potential and realized what was important in life, you would be amazing.
3. You filter and hide the truth to spare feelings. It doesn't work. Because lying is lying. And we all know it.
4. He's just not that into you.
5. I miss you so much it aches. You took a piece of my soul with you.
6. Paranoia clouds every decision you make. Which means you make lots of bad decisions.
7. You turned out really great. I am REALLY proud of you.
8. Stop it. Nobody's buying it.
9. You are like a ray of sunshine. It warms my soul to be near you.
10. Thank you.

Nine Things About Myself.

1. I like funny.
2. I sometimes wonder if anyone really knows me.
3. I would need ten lifetimes to do everything I want to do.
4. I don't mean to be harsh, but I often come across that way.
5. I am up for most anything.
6. I hate my hair.
7. I laugh all the time.
8. I have amazing recall.
9. I either have hyper-focus or none at all.

Eight Ways to Win My Heart.

1. Be funny.
2. Think that I am funny.
3. Take careful care of me.
4. Be smart.
5. Be ambitious.
6. Have talent.
7. Have fun with me.
8. Share my secrets.


Seven Things That Cross My Mind A Lot.

1. I should be doing something else.
2. Money.
3. Is everyone where they need to be?
4. Am I on time?
5. Can I relax now?
6. Ugh.
7. BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!

Six Things I Do Before I Fall Asleep.

1. Set the alarm.
2. PJs.
3. Take my medicine.
3. Brush my teeth.
4. Wash my face.
5. Check on the kiddos.
6. Read.


Five People Who Mean A Lot (in no order whatsoever).

1-5. Tooooooo many.


Four Things You Do In The Morning While Getting Ready.

1. Stumble around sleepily.
2. Listen to music.
3. Wait for everyone else to get out of my way.
4. Check the crackberry.


Three Songs That You Listen to Often.

1. Anything BNL
2. 90s hip hop
3. Quiet sleepytime music.


Two Things You Want To Do Before You Die.

1. Be financially secure.
2. Travel the world.


One confession.

1. I am lonely.