Tag Archives: books

2013.reading.challenge:complete

I did it! At the very last minute I finished the last few pages of the 40th book of the year! Hooray! I read some really great books this year, and some pretty terrible ones, but in the end it’s always good to be reading a story. I have challenged myself to read another 40 this year and there is already a stack by the bed vying for my attention first. One of the most anticipated books is Butler’s Lives of the Saints – I’m so excited to read about all of these fabulous and crazy religious folks! I may not be buying what they are selling, but I am most certainly impressed with their devotion to the cause.

  1. Dead as a Doornail – Charlaine Harris
  2. Later, At the Bar – Rebecca Barney
  3. Definitely Dead – Charlaine Harris
  4. All Together Dead – Charlaine Harris
  5. From Dead to Worse – Charlain Harris
  6. Dead and Gone – Charlain Harris
  7. Dead in the Family – Charlain Harris
  8. Dead Reckoning – Charlaine Harris
  9. Deadlocked – Charlaine Harris
  10. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carrol
  11. Wideacre – Philippa Gregory
  12. The Favored Child – Philippa Gregory
  13. Meridon – Philippa Gregory
  14. Pope Joan – Donna Woolfolk Cross
  15. The Kingmaker’s Daughter – Philippa Gregory
  16. Wickett’s Remedy – Myla Goldberg
  17. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
  18. Annie John – Jamaica Kincaid
  19. Girls in Trucks – Katie Crouch
  20. The Potty Mouth at the Table – Laurie Notaro
  21. Dead Ever After – Charlain Harris
  22. The Other Queen – Philippa Gregory
  23. The Weird Sisters – Eleanor Brown
  24. Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk – David Sedaris
  25. What to Wear to See the Pope – Christine Lehner
  26. I Am Nujood, Age 10 & Divorced – Nujood Ali
  27. Down the Common – Anne Baer
  28. Medieval Women – Eileen Power
  29. The Queen’s Fool – Philippa Gregory
  30. Flower Children – Maxine Swann
  31. The Beet Queen – Louise Erdrich
  32. The Last Pope – Luis Miguel Rocha
  33. Mastering the Art of French Eating – Ann Mah
  34. The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
  35. Catching Fire – Suzanne Collins
  36. Mockingjay – Suzanne Collins
  37. Versailles – Kathryn Davis
  38. The Birds’ Christmas Carol – Kate Douglas Wiggin
  39. The Book of Salt – Monique Truong
  40. Common Sense – Thomas Paine

12,475 pages read this year. I’ll take it!

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book.goal.update

  1. Dead as a Doornail – Charlaine Harris
  2. Later, At the Bar – Rebecca Barney
  3. Definitely Dead – Charlaine Harris
  4. All Together Dead – Charlaine Harris
  5. From Dead to Worse – Charlain Harris
  6. Dead and Gone – Charlain Harris
  7. Dead in the Family – Charlain Harris
  8. Dead Reckoning – Charlaine Harris
  9. Deadlocked – Charlaine Harris
  10. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carrol
  11. Wideacre – Philippa Gregory
  12. The Favored Child – Philippa Gregory
  13. Meridon – Philippa Gregory
  14. Pope Joan – Donna Woolfolk Cross
  15. The Kingmaker’s Daughter – Philippa Gregory
  16. Wickett’s Remedy – Myla Goldberg
  17. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
  18. Annie John – Jamaica Kincaid
  19. Girls in Trucks – Katie Crouch
  20. The Potty Mouth at the Table – Laurie Notaro
  21. Dead Ever After – Charlain Harris
  22. The Other Queen – Philippa Gregory
  23. The Weird Sisters – Eleanor Brown (8040 pages)

8040 pages read thus far & only 17 more books to reaching my goal of 40 for the year. I haven’t been doing much reading from “the list” but have a few good ones in the bunch. I was quite pleased with Pope Joan and passed it along to my mother who thought it was pretty great as well. It’s about the legend of a female pope in the 9th century – cool stuff and interesting theories! Other than that I may have now read everything Philippa Gregory has ever written, but that may not be true – stay tuned for more. Ha!

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date.a.girl.who.reads

A friend posted this on the facebooks and it made my heart smile.

“You should date a girl who reads.
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.”

― Rosemarie Urquico

old books

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book.progress

My goal is to read 40 books this year, and thanks so some vampire crack (aka the Sookie Stackhouse novels) and a lot of time on the exercise bike, I’m plodding along quite well!

  1. Dead as a Doornail – Charlaine Harris
  2. Later, At the Bar – Rebecca Barney
  3. Definitely Dead – Charlaine Harris
  4. All Together Dead – Charlaine Harris
  5. From Dead to Worse – Charlaine Harris
  6. Dead and Gone – Charlaine Harris
  7. Dead in the Family – Charlaine Harris
  8. Dead Reckoning – Charlaine Harris
  9. Deadlocked – Charlaine Harris
  10. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carrol
  11. Wideacre – Philippa Gregory
  12. The Favored Child – Philippa Gregory
  13. Meridon – Philippa Gregory
  14. Pope Joan – Donna Woolfolk Cross (5206 pages)

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2012.book.challenge:complete

I did it! I’m so proud of myself. I managed to not only finish the 30 book goal which I had set for myself at the beginning of the year, but managed to squeeze the 31st in just under the wire thanks to a very nasty and unpleasant cold reminiscent of the plague. I think I will try for 35 next year. What do you think?

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Click the logo for a complete list via Goodreads as well as any reviews or ratings. A total of 10,883 pages read feels AWESOME!

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book.update

  1. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
  2. Queen’s Own Fool – Jane Yolen
  3. Innocent Traitor – Alison Weir
  4. The Crown – Nancy Bilyeau
  5. Memoirs of a Gnostic Dwarf – David Madsen
  6. My Fair Lazy – Jen Lancaster
  7. My Lead Dog Was a Lesbian – Brian Patrick O’Donoghue
  8. My Life in France – Julia Child
  9. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
  10. Little Altars Everywhere – Rebecca Wells
  11. The New York Regional Mormons Single Halloween Dance – Elna Baker
  12. Unicorn’s Blood – Patricia Finney
  13. Lizzie – Evan Hunter
  14. Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
  15. Under the Tuscan Sun – Frances Mayes
  16. The White Queen – Philippa Gregory
  17. Practical Magic – Alice Hoffman
  18. Anne of Green Gables – L.M.Montgomery
  19. The Red Queen – Philippa Gregory
  20. The Lady of the Rivers – Philippa Gregory
  21. Garden Spells – Sarah Addison Allen
  22. Pretty in Plaid – Jen Lancaster
  23. The Boleyn Inheritance – Philippa Gregory
  24. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  25. Dead Until Dark – Charlaine Harris
  26. Living Dead in Dallas – Charlaine Harris
  27. Club Dead – Charlaine Harris
  28. Animal Farm – George Orwell
  29. Curious Myths of the Middle Ages – Sabine Baring-Gould (10320 pages)

One book to go to reach my goal of 30 for the year…and over 10,000 pages read! Wow!

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i.have.a.need

I have a desperate need for this sign. Anyone? Help?

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books.read

I set a goal to read 30 books this year and as of yesterday I have 20 under my belt and 2 more in the works…! Feels good to dive into such great reads. There’s a little fluff in the mix, and a few checked off my BBC reading list as well, but I’m just tickled to curl up with a good book!

  1. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
  2. Queen’s Own Fool – Jane Yolen
  3. Innocent Traitor – Alison Weir
  4. The Crown – Nancy Bilyeau
  5. Memoirs of a Gnostic Dwarf – David Madsen
  6. My Fair Lazy – Jen Lancaster
  7. My Lead Dog Was a Lesbian – Brian Patrick O’Donoghue
  8. My Life in France – Julia Child
  9. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
  10. Little Altars Everywhere – Rebecca Wells
  11. The New York Regional Mormons Single Halloween Dance – Elna Baker
  12. Unicorn’s Blood – Patricia Finney
  13. Lizzie – Evan Hunter
  14. Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
  15. Under the Tuscan Sun – Frances Mayes
  16. The White Queen – Philippa Gregory
  17. Practical Magic – Alice Hoffman
  18. Anne of Green Gables – L.M.Montgomery
  19. The Red Queen – Philippa Gregory
  20. The Lady of the Rivers – Philippa Gregory (7353 pages)

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practical.magic

First of all, Practical Magic is one of my all time favorite movies. Mostly because I want that house so bad it hurts, and I’m also pretty sure I could be Aunt Franny and rock it (I’m growing my hair – I’m working on it!). It’s one of the movies that I pop in if I’m feeling a little down, and by the end I’m back on top and ready to rule the world (and not a dove in sight was hurt). When we were at the library book sale in May, I ran across a copy of the book for super cheap and had to give it a read. However, for the first time in the history of books vs. movies, the movie wins hands down. I was amazed how different the book was from the movie, and not in a way which I appreciated. The sweet lovable characters from my beloved movie were snarky, rude and self centered in the book…and the beautiful house which I would live and die for has but a mere mention. The horror!


I dream of the garden and the view, the solarium and all of the jars filled with nature’s cure for everything….However, they both had the same great message: “There’s a few things I’ve learned in life: always throw salt over your left shoulder, keep rosemary by your garden gate, plant lavender for good luck, and fall in love whenever you can.”

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bbc.project

I love to read. Getting lost in a great story is amazing, and I’m always left a little empty when a story ends, before picking up a new one. And with so many great books out there to read, it’s sometimes a challenge to choose the next. So I’ve started what I am now calling the ‘BBC Project.’

The project: Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here. Bold those books you’ve read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn’t finish or read an excerpt. 

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma -Jane Austen

35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – A.A. Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding

50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens

72 Dracula – Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – E.B. White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

To date (8/10/12) I have read 32…and I’m still plodding along.

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