4 posts tagged “books”
I am finally back from the holidays, from holidaze and family matters (of the snarky and hurtful kind). My father is doing well and should come home to the "new normal" in a week.
I haven't even LOOKED at my NaNo manuscript, and that may be very good. I did read a novel over the holidays and really appreciated it for its standard narrative with one innovation. Ultimately, I don't think it was all that earth-shattering, but it was diverting and interesting. The Coffee Trader by David Liss
As far as writing goes, I will either have NO time to write in the upcoming weeks, or all the time in the world. Heh. This is the busy season for my job, and things won't simmer down until Feb. 1. After that, I will have loads of time or the same as usual, which isn't enough...
but as they say, and as NaNo proves, if you want something done, give the job to a busy person.
(I did end up writing a bunch at my other blog: http://www.lizardlodge.com/aspic/blog.html The Aspic & Spooon. Which was enjoyable.
More as the saga continues...
Instructions: Look at the list of books below. Bold the ones you've read, italicize the ones you might read in the future, cross out the ones you won't touch with a 10 foot pole, and do not do anything to the ones you've never even heard of.
I added a category. Bold STRIKE for the ones I'm sorry I read. More on DaVinci Code later.
1. The DaVinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride And Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4 Gone with the Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (JRR Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (JRR Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (JRR Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (JK Rowling)12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix JK Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden) (Only made it through the first chapter before quitting)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (JK Rowling) Yes, dammit, I read the BRITISH edition because I didn't need any 'translation.'
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (JK Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold) (just can't go there - I owned it but then sold it somewhere)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert) *HATED* the movie32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (George Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley) the movie was meh. I may read this someday.
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho) I just think his name is cool.41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Gift & Award Bible NIV (Various)
46. Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She's Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver) Read half, love it, will read the rest.
52. A Tale of Two cities (Charles Dickens)
53. Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Charles Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (J.K. Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveler's Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brahares) (Read the first chapter - yawn)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Victor Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)71. Bridget Jones' Diary (Helen Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje) (read half, will read rest)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (John Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard's First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Michael Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (William Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)
Things I am setting aside just for a month:
1. Blog entries on the other load of blogs I have. ::eyeroll:: (Why so many? Maybe because I didn't have a novel to write?!?)
2. New TV shows. I'll stick to House, Grey's, CSI and Lost!. And I might watch the Country Music Awards just for some musical tidbits... but if they re-run that sucker on CMT then it will be there when I want it.
3. More than one movie a week for me. Netflix is chock full of kid vids.
4. Elaborate cooking. I'm down to crock pot, one-skillet and drive-through. Or the large pot of soup that simmers and requires stirring after every 500-800 words. Of course, I might bake/cook for T'giving, but I'm not stressing out over that. Yet.
5. Any new novels or books, other than continued reading in No Plot, No Problem, Living in Balance and the very cool and entertaining novel my wonderful friend Esteban gave me - in support of the project. He gave it to me very much like, "I love this novel (up to a point) and I think you will too. I marked passages that were very cool. And I am interested in your novel..." Now, that's support! Um, it's The Coffee Trader.
6. Major home projects and furniture shopping. I need a new couch, but unless it can be accomplished in three hours and delivered effortlessly, I'm just not doing it.
7. Sewing, baking or any other fussy xmas present preparation.
Other than that, I'm not modifying my routine all that much. Well, ok, yes I am. I'm doing weekly chiro, yoga twice a week and might schedule a massage for next weekend.
All I need to do is finish the feature article I'm writing for work, and get my other two main characters sketched. Then I'm ready.
What books are on your nightstand?
The Right to Write by Julia Cameron
Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg
Living in Balance by Joel and Michelle Levey
History of Love by Nicole Krauss (Knauss?)
Six Thinking Hats by DiBono
I'm in various stages of completion on all of them.
