For Love Of Reading

I found this meme via a Plurk post by BubbleBoo.


What have you just read?

Spare Change, by Robert B. Parker, the last of the Sunny Randall mysteries that the library has on the shelves.

What are you reading now?

Killer View, by Ridley Pearson, a new to me mystery writer, that was on the New Books shelves when we went to the library on Friday.

Do you have any idea what you’ll read when you’re done with that?

I have three more mysteries by Robert B. Parker (two Jesse Stone & a Spencer) waiting on the pile along with an Arthur C. Clark & a Dale Brown.

What’s the worst thing you were ever forced to read?

That's easy! Magic Mountain, by Thomas Mann in college.

What’s one book you always recommend to just about anyone?

I'm more apt to recommend authors depending on what sort of book the person enjoys.

Admit it, sadly the librarians at your library know you on a first name basis, don’t they?

Of course, & not sadly but proudly! When Mom & Dad moved here from the farm, Dad wanted to get a library card but didn't have the address change yet on anything. I went to the library with him not remembering that I had had to show my address on my driver's license some 21 years earlier. The librarian at the desk went ahead and issued him a card because, as she said, "Jane practically lives here." {g}

Is there a book you absolutely love, but for some reason, people never think it sounds interesting, or maybe they read it and don’t like it at all?

The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein, I've read it five or six times but some people don't seem to enjoy science fiction.

Do you read books while you eat?

Yes, but more likely a magazine.

While you bathe?

Taking a book into the shower doesn't seem like a good idea..

While you watch movies or tv?

Yes, I usually read during commercials.

While you listen to music?

Yes.

While you’re on the computer?

Not much now that we have DSL, but back in the dial-up days I'd read while the page was loading s-l-o-w-l-y..

When you were little did other children tease you about your reading habits?

Only when I missed a word on purpose in the spelling bee so I could sit down & continue reading whatever book I was on at the moment.

What’s the last thing you stayed up half the night reading because it was so good you couldn’t put it down?

Seeing that I regularly fall asleep in the recliner while reading - usually sometime after 1 a.m. - probably quite a few. But I still remember staying awake all night to finish Heinlein's I Will Fear No Evil back when it was published in 1970.

Have any books made you cry?

Black Beauty, the first library book that my Grandfather borrowed for me when I had the mumps at age 8. Most horse stories seemed to be so sad until I discovered The Black Stallion series a few years later.

One of the great things about being retired is that I have lots of time to read. I find that I'll discover an author & then go through just about everything that the library has by him or her. There's a list of all the books I've read since I started this blog over in the left side bar that goes back to when I started the blog in 2005.

A Meme From Knitnana

I just swiped this meme from Knitnana's site:

Instructions: Look at the list and put an 'X' after those you have read.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen ()
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (X) [all 3 books]
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte ()
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (X)- [all 7 books]
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (X)
6 The Bible - ()
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte()
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (X)
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (X)
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 (X)
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk ()
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger ()
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger ()
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot ()
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell (X)
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald ()
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens ()
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy ()
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (X)
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh ()
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 (X)
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 (X)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini - ()
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres ()
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden (X)
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne (X)
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell (X)
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (X)
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez ()
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 (X)
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 (X)
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 (X)
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 (X)
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 (X)
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro ()
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert ()
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry ()
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White (X)
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 (X)
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 (X)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl ()
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo ()

In total, I've read 22 of the 100, far fewer than Knitnana, but then I've had a tendency to avoid classics. I do notice that, with the exception of Dune, I've read all the ones that are science fiction/fantasy like The Lord Of The Rings series, Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy & all the Harry Potter books. 1984 & Brave New World were tackled my freshman year in college, Gone With The Wind during high school. Memoirs Of A Geisha was recommended by DD#2, Watership Down by a friend.

I think what surprises me most is that a number of books that I consider classics aren't included. I've read all these, many of them more than once:

101 Hawaii, James Michener
102 Exodus, Leon Uris
103 Stranger In A Strange Land, Robert Heinlein
104 Foundation, Isaac Asimov
105 The Good Earth, Pearl Buck
106 2001, A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clark
107 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey
108 The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
109 All Creatures Great & Small, James Herriot
110 Walden, Henry David Thoreau
111 Snow Falling on Cedars, David Guterson

There are probably more - I know that I've read classics that were assigned for various classes such as Magic Mountain, by Thomas Mann, but that's not one I'd recommend. If you have time, post your own version of the list and, more importantly, add in the books you think were missed.

Playing Catch-Up...

Yes, it's been a LONG time since I sat down here to post.. Let's see, what's happened in those weeks:

1) I planted my garden. Started out with around 24 tomato plants, 4 zucchini & 8 basil.

2) I flew from Flint to Atlanta to Baltimore to visit DD#1 & her family in Pennsylvania. AirTran had good ticket prices, but flying way south to come back north seems a little strange. Had a very good time including helping pick out garden plants & getting them into the ground.

3) Flew home and planted more tomatoes - heirloom ones this time. Eight Mr. Stripy, four Yellow Pear & four Black Krim. We put them in various places around the yard to see where they'll do best. Besides, with the regular garden spot full, we had to sort of fit them in where we could. {g}

4) Went to garage sales, but at one I tripped on the curb, took a tumble & broke a little chunk off the second bone in my big toe. I've been wearing a boot that would look right at home on a StarWars Storm Trooper ever since. X-rays this last Monday show that it isn't starting to heal yet so I'm on mega-doses of calcium & a regular dose of vitamin D.

5) Watched the garden progress very slowly because except for a few days our temperatures have been below normal. Only 64° here at 4 p.m. today. For me, the lower temperatures are wonderful, but I think the tomatoes would appreciate a bit warmer. I have blossoms and a few *small* green tomatoes, but nowhere near what the tomatoes were doing last summer.

6) I've been knitting & reading since moving around in this boot isn't the most fun. FWIW, if you're ever wondering if I'm still alive, check the "Recently Read" list over in the left sidebar - I've been updating that regularly as I use it to check when a book seems overly familiar (I might have read it a year or two earlier). I've just finished the 85th book so far this year.

In knitting, I'm still working on hat/scarf sets for the shelter for homeless vets. I just finished the hat for set #53 and am working on the scarf. Here's the latest batch since the last photo:



I guess that's about all the news. I'm going to recharge the camera batteries and hope to be a better blogger in the future..

Goodies

I finally had a chance this evening to open the Knit Picks order that came while I was staying with Mom at the hospital, so lots of photos in this one although with the flash, I had a tough time matching photos with the actual yarn. These are all Palette heathers - new colors this fall. Palette is a fingering weight yarn so don't ask me what I'm going to do with it yet - I just fell in love with the colors {g}.. I have two skeins of each - enough for a pair or socks or I may mix them all together in a vest.



Calypso



Clematis



Merlot



Tidepool



Verdant



Marine



Bluenote



Brindle



Rainforest

And the books:

A Week Already??

It's Thursday again and time for Booking Through Thursday. This week's question:

"What, in your opinion, is the (mythical) Great American Novel? At least to date. A “classic,” or a current one–either would be fine. Mark Twain? J.D. Salinger? F. Scott Fitzgerald? Stephen King? Laura Ingalls Wilder?

It doesn’t have to be your favorite book, mind you. “Citizen Kane” may be the “best” film, and I concede its merits, but it’s not my favorite. You don’t have to love something to know that it’s good."

My vote goes to James Michener's Hawaii - I think it's a classic and it's a book I've enjoyed enough to read at least three times starting with final exam week my senior year of high school. I'm in the northern Metro Detroit area of Michigan, not too far from where the corn fields start.

Thursday Blogging

At least I don't have to worry about a blogging topic on Thursdays because it's Booking Through Thursday again. This week's question:

"What’s the most desperate thing you’ve read because it was the only available reading material?

If it was longer than a cereal box or an advertisement, did it turn out to be worth your while?"

Hmmm.. When I'm at home, I can usually find something to read. I'm keeping the book Wild Swans as a back-up for those times the library books run out before the next library run. But where I run into trouble is waiting for a doctor or dentist appointment. Is it a given that the magazines in medical offices are always 5 months minimum out of date? Sometimes I'm lucky enough to run into a Smithsonian or National Geographic which is just as good years after publishing, but often I'm stuck with the latest magazine on pregnancy (I'm WAY past that stage of my life!) or a sports magazine. Neither of those ever turn out to be worth my time. The latter doesn't even provide me with information for conversation because, if anything, my DH is less sports minded than I am. I'm considered the family jock because, for the most part, I know which ball goes with which sport - never mind how many players on a team or the rules of the game.. If it's white & dimpled, it a golf ball; if it's bigger, round and has black splotches, it's soccer; and so on.. Anyway, I guess it serves me right not to have toted along my own book if I'm stuck with nothing to read.

While browsing the other answers on the BTT list, I found a new summer reading challenge, Beach Blanket Bonanza. The challenge is to read three books between July 1st & September 1st. That sounds like something I can handle {g}. I'll put the button over there in the sidebar for anyone else who wants to join.

School Days, Golden Rule Days

It's that time of the week again:

Since school is out for the summer (in most places, at least), here’s a school-themed question for the week:

Do you have any old school books? Did you keep yours from college? Old textbooks from garage sales? Old workbooks from classes gone by?

Yes, I have many of my history books from college, especially the ones on Chinese History. I picked up an elementary Spanish book last year from a free box at a garage sale in hopes of picking up a bit of what I learned in college - not that I was very good at it.

How about your old notes, exams, papers? Do you save them? Or have they long since gone to the great Locker-in-the-sky?

I still have my senior research project paper - 100 pages on 4000 years of land tenure and land reform in China - along with an art history paper on African equestrian figurines that my professor said was the equivalent of a master's thesis. I'm still kicking myself that when we cleaned out the attic of my parents' house five years ago, I let a big box of exams and other papers go to the curb. I might have been able to find my papers on the divorce of Henry VIII, the reign of Queen Ann, the importance of English trade to Russia, and the career of "Chinese" Gordon. I was tired after two days of packing and just wasn't thinking {sigh}

Booking on Thru

Booking Through Thursday

Do you cheat and peek ahead at the end of your books? Or do you resolutely read in sequence, as the author intended?
And, if you don’t peek, do you ever feel tempted?

No I don't cheat - that would take all of the fun out of reading a book as the story develops. Sometimes, when I have the feeling that I may have read a book before (it's happened more than once), I may read a random paragraph ahead to see if it also sounds familiar. I'm much more apt to page *back* and re-read sections if I'm even slightly confused about what is going on in the story.

Thursday Dreaming

This week's Blogging Through Thursday topic is a good one for dreaming:

"Almost everyone can name at least one author that you would love just ONE more book from. Either because they’re dead, not being published any more, not writing more, not producing new work for whatever reason . . . or they’ve aged and aren’t writing to their old standards any more . . . For whatever reason, there just hasn’t been anything new (or worth reading) of theirs and isn’t likely to be.

If you could have just ONE more book from an author you love . . . a book that would be as good any of their best (while we’re dreaming) . . . something that would round out a series, or finish their last work, or just be something NEW . . . Who would the author be, and why?"

I can think of three authors who have passed away - Ellis Peters (pen name for Edith Pargeter) and her Brother Cadfael mysteries, James Michener with his awesome volumes that combined history & fiction so seamlessly, & Robert Heinlein, the Dean of Science Fiction and author of Stranger In A Strange Land, I Will Fear No Evil, & (my all time favorite) The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.

I think I've read every book that Heinlein ever wrote (with the exception of Job, A Comedy of Justice which I just couldn't get into despite several attempts) and many of them two, three & even five times.

I've read all the Brother Cadfael books - and enjoyed the episodes for Mystery on PBS with Derek Jacobi as Cadfael. Edith Pargeter also wrote The Heaven Tree Trilogy under her own name which was excellent.

James Michener's books are legendary. My personal favorite is Hawaii which I read (along with Exodus) the week of my high school senior finals. There are still a couple huge volumes on the shelves in the other room that I'm saving - sort of like desert.

So, to chose just one book by one of these authors? That's difficult, but I think I'd have to chose a new Heinlein, maybe a follow up the TMIAHM.

Thursday Already??

Yup! It sure is.. so it's time for the book question of the week:

Paper or Plastic:
Do you read e-Books?
If so, how? On your computer, or a PDA?
Or are you a paper purist? Why?

This one is a toss up. Reading for pleasure? That definitely paper, normally hard-bound books from the library. Reading for information? That type of reading is often on the computer as I Google my way though various sites and take advantage of the on-line access to Heritage Quest's genealogy library. I'd be interested in finding out more about e-books because the library is supposed to have a selection that's downloadable from home, but to date I haven't looked into it very seriously.

It's been a busy week. The garden is planted as of Tuesday - all 36 tomato plants (ok, I got a bit carried away at the green house and didn't really realize that I had that many until DH was digging holes for them with the post hole digger and I had to keep asking for more - more holes, I say!) Basil wasn't available this year in the 4-packs like last, so I bought three 2½" pots instead with about 6 plants in each clump. I'm hoping that they do well enough that we can double our production of pesto this summer. The stash in the freezer from last summer is almost gone but it's been an occasional welcome reminder of summer in the depths of this last winter.

Tuesday was also the day that my Amazon order showed up - Barbara Walker's First Knitting Treasury, Knitting In The Old Way, & Folk Vests. I was a little disappointed in the Treasury as I hadn't seen it before and from the cover I was hoping for all lace patterns. The lace section is nice but only a small part of the book with textured stitches, color work, cables, and other types making up the majority of the pages. I did discover that over the last few weeks of working lace designs into the K4 shawls I made a break-through on reading charts so that the all text directions in the Treasury seemed strange. Knitting In The Old Way has been updated from the book I borrowed years ago from the library - lots more information on how to design sweaters in various ethnic styles. The Folk Vests book is a standard knitting pattern book with some very nice designs - I'm especially interested in making the Chinese vest.

Yesterday, DH tried to add a sound card to this computer. Ok, I know I'm probably one of the very few people in the world with a dead silent computer, but when I bought this one it was strictly for doing a little moonlighting in printed circuit design here at home and a sound card seemed like something that I wouldn't need. Fast forward seven years.. I'm retired and the computer is used mainly for blogging, web wandering & working on my genealogy page - none of which require the concentration that the design work did - so having some music playing or being able to follow some of the on line pod-casts would be nice. Suffice it to say, that with the sound card in place the computer wouldn't boot because of some sort of conflict. Take the card out and it still wouldn't boot - "cannot find operating system".. AARRGGGG.. After a few tries, it did magically resuscitate itself but the tech with the sound card company ventured that the problem might be that the hard drive is going. Double AARRGGGG.. DH hooked up a CD-ROM burner we found a couple weeks ago at a garage sale and I've backed up most of the drives - at least the important stuff. Everything seems to be running smoothly if still dead silent, but it was a slightly nerve wracking day.

Today was garage sales - two huge subdivisions full of open garages.. Lots of walking, looking and bargaining. I found a few books for the grandchildren, but that was about it. It was awfully hot out with only a trace of a breeze. High 80s day after day this time of year are a bit unusual.

We got home about noon which gave me time to cool off and relax a bit before heading for the weekly K4 meeting. We had an almost full group today. Four of my knitting students were there and making great progress. Frances hasn't been there for a few weeks but she brought in five crocheted afghans! Gloria is starting a darling child's hat. Sharon is working on a crocheted afghan that is turning some variegated yarn that the rest of us avoided into something beautiful. And Jean is knitting a vest in a pale pink. It's so much fun to watch these friends enjoy knitting & crocheting. No photos today as I only completed one K4 shawl and the yarn ends still need to be run in before taking a photo. I have two other shawls started - I'm almost to the point on one where I have to decide which lace pattern to put in before the border so I started the second one at the meeting today - something easy that I could put down without losing my place when someone needed help. I have another rag-tag afghan about half done but with Boomer looking for more lap time in the evening while I'm watching TV, I haven't been working on it as steadily as usual.

Garage Sale Fever

Whew! I am totally worn out after going to two subdivision garage sales which really means about 25-30 individual sales, but it was worth it. At one of the last ones, about the time I was ready to wait in the car while DH browsed, I ran across 22 - that's right, twenty-two - Piecework magazines for FREE!! Here are most of them spread out on the desk along with a short stack of others that wouldn't fit. The stack of books at the back are new ones to send to the grandkids as soon as I find a suitable box.



I also found some other goodies - like a pair of Gloria Vanderbilt jeans in my size for $1 that look like new {g}..

Yesterday was our K4 meeting and I turned in a small rag-tag afghan in shades of blue and a willow green shawl with lace.






Once again, the willow green yarn doesn't show up well in the photo - it's really a very pretty shade of green. The lace design was borrowed from The Lacy Prairie Shawl in the Folk Shawls book. I'm now working on a turquoise shawl and another rag-tag.

I need to update my sidebar, both the projects and the reading list section. Right now I'm reading The Mephisto Club by Tess Gerritsen. She has other books out and I'm going to check for them the next library run. I also found The Golden Compass - the book behind the Daemon quiz from last week - in the young adult section. It's surprising how many good books - like Eragon & the Redwall series - are in Young Adult, so if I can't find anything to my tastes in the adult stacks, I wander across the lobby and see what the teens are trying to keep all to themselves {g}.

It's Thursday Again

And that means that it's time for Booking Through Thursday.. This week's question is an easy one:

"It happens even to the best readers from time to time… you close the cover on the book you’re reading and discover, to your horror, that there’s nothing else to read. Either there’s nothing in the house, or nothing you’re in the mood for. Just, nothing that “clicks.” What do you do?? How do you get the reading wheels turning again?"

I head for the library! It's a rare visit that leaves me without anything to read. Sometimes it may be just one or two books to tide me over to another visit when the choices may be a little better, but I can't remember even once walking out empty handed when I went there looking instead of just dropping off a book that was due. Even those times, I normally find time to wander past the "New Books" area where something will jump out and grab my attention. The library has just installed book holders on the end of each stack as they face the main room and the staff places up to 6 books from that area where it's easy to notice them. I've found a couple new authors this way that I might not have found otherwise.

Once More Into The Breech....

Here it is, Friday morning, and I'm just getting around to checking the Booking Through Thursday site for this week's question which is the opposite of last week's:

Where DON’T you read??

Behind the wheel when I'm driving! Ok, I've seen people doing it out on the highway, but I'm not one of them. I'd just as soon get where I'm going in one piece. {g}

Over at Nana Sadie's Place, I ran across this:



There's a button up there to click to see if your answers about me agree or if I should adjust my Dæmon.

Update: May 13th.. My Dæmon, Tarquin, is changing. He started out as a Tiger, morphed to a Lion and now is a Wolf - all with the same attributes. Color me confused {g}

R.I.P. - Booking Through Thursday

This week's question:
No, not THAT kind of R.I.P.
Reading. In. Public.
Do you do it? Why or why not?

Sure, though I'm not out in public all that often any more, but when I was working I always had a book in my bag for lunch & breaks. I read in the car while DH is driving. I even K.I.P. - Knit In Public - often at the same time I'm R.I.P.ing.. So many books, so few hours in the day {g}..

On the knitting & crocheting front, with three hours of good t.v. last night (I love sweeps periods), I finished off the latest rag-tag & the latest shawl.


This one is in shades of turquoise with mostly white shades in the center.


It's impossible to get the entire shawl spread out on the desk. This area is about 3x3.5 feet and by folding the shawl, I can get it to barely fit the space.


The lace pattern is called "Falling Leaves" and is super simple - an 8 row repeat with the 4 wrong side rows simply purling across. The four remaining pattern rows are basically two rows that shift slightly over. It was easy to tell exactly where I was in the pattern at all times once the first row was completed. I could get to like this type of lace.


Here's a close up of the pattern. I worked a total of 12 rows because I needed the yarn that was left for the garter stitch border. Another time, I think I would start the pattern earlier. If the Adamas shawl was this easy to keep track of, it might be done by now..


Unfortunately, it's right where it was about a year ago....


Part of the problem might be the size of the needles and the lace weight yarn. Things go much faster with worsted weight & size 15 needles.

A Reader's MeMe

I found this MeMe on Nana Sadie's Place. It seemed like a good one given that I'm a voracious reader - though maybe not of the books that are on this list. The ones that are in BOLD are the ones I've read.

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 (Tolkein)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (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 (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
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)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
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)
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 (Ablom)
45. The Bible (parts)
46. Anna Karenina (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)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew 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)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (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 (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 (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (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)

I'm not sure how they came up with this list, but there are books that I'd add to it:

101. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress (Robert Heinlein)
102. Wyrd Sisters (Terry Pratchett)
103. Exodus, (Leon Uris)
104. The HAB Theory (Allen W. Eckert)
105. Hawaii (James Michener)
106. The Dragon Prince (Melanie Rawn)
107. The Queen's Grace (Jan Westcott)
108. Dragon Flight (Ann McCaffery)
109. The Legacy of Heorot (Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle & Steve Barnes)
110. A Game of Thrones (George R.R. Martin)
111. Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury)
112. A Boat of a Million Years (Poul Anderson)
113. Rendezvous with Rama (Arthur C. Clarke)
114. The Adolescence of P1 (Thomas J Ryan)
115. Roselynde, (Roberta Gellis)

A lot of these are old - I read Hawaii & Exodus the week of my senior finals in high school - others are the beginning book of good series. But they're all excellent books that I've enjoyed over the years - sort of the best of the best. If I ever took the time to list every book I've read and enjoyed, going back to Woofis, the Woolly Dog at about age 4, this might turn into the longest post Blogger has ever seen. Suffice it to say that while growing up and since reading has been one of my greatest joys and I've read a LOT of books over the years.

Booking Through Thursday #4

This week's question is "Okay, there must be something you read that's a guilty pleasure . . . a Harlequin romance stashed under the mattress. A cheesy sci-fi book tucked in the back of the freezer. A celebrity biography, a phoned-in Western . . . something that you'd really rather not be spotted reading. Even just a novel if you're a die-hard non-fiction fan. Come on, confess. We won't hold it against you!"

No problem here - and I'm not really ashamed of it - but we have lots and lots of comic strip collections! Far Side, For Better Or For Worse, Cathy, Doonesbury, Crankshaft, Calvin & Hobbs, Overboard, Dilbert, Sally Forth, Baby Blues, Foxtrot, Rose is Rose, Zits, and probably a number of others that I can't remember at the moment. They rotate in and out of the bathroom and on & off the end table downstairs providing a quick read and more than a few smiles. Collections that I hope are either out or will be coming out soon: Heart of the City, Stone Soup, Candorville, and maybe On The Fast Track; DH is looking forward to Pearls Before Swine. They're about the only books that we actually purchase (the rest of our reading material coming from the library) as we know that they're the ones that will be read again & again & again.

An Engrossing Book

This week's Booking Through Thursday question concerns getting so involved in a book that you miss something else:

Have you ever missed an important appointment because you have become so engrossed in a book you forgot the time or were up so late reading that you didn't wake up in time? Been late to work because you couldn't resist the temptation and left the house too late?

If I didn't have the help of my sweet DH, I would often be late in getting over to Mom's for morning coffee because I didn't get to bed until 2 or 3 in the morning. Sometimes it's because I'm web wandering, but usually it's because I want to finish the book I'm reading. It happens more often now that I'm retired because Mom is more understanding than a boss. I still remember the first time I stayed up *all* night reading a book. It was back when DED & DYD were both little and I had a copy of Heinlein's latest book, Time Enough For Love, published in 1972 - I started it about the time the girls went to bed and I was just finishing when they got up the next morning. Fortunately, they took a number of naps that day because I was a zombie {g}.

On the knitting front, I finished the willow green shawl - I'll be glad when the rain lets up and the sun comes out so I can take a few photos outside because the flash is washing out the colors.



I have most of a blue rag-tag afghan finished and I'm working on a lime green shawl that's knit from the neck down using four YOs every other row for the increases. I'm almost to the point where I want to add a lace edging worked sideways like the one on the Highland Triangle shawl.

Continually Late

Here it is Friday and I just remembered that I was supposed to check the Booking on Thursday site for this week's questions. They're rather heavy ones this week:

1) Just out of curiosity, as we enter into Passover and Easter season . . . have you ever read the Bible? Just the odd chapter or Psalm? The whole thing? (Or, almost the whole thing? It's some heavy reading, of course, and those "begats" get kind of tedious.)

I'm into genealogy, so I don't find the "begats" all that boring, but, no, I haven't read a lot of the Bible. We had to memorize verses back in Bible School & Sunday School, I think at one time or another I've read through Matthew, Mark, Luke & John. But I draw the line at reading Paul's anti-female nonsense.

2) If so, was it from religious motivation or from a literary perspective? Stuck with nothing else to read in a hotel room the Gideon's have visited? Any combination?

Trying to understand where some of the sermons I was hearing in church were based.

3) If not, why not? Against your religious principles? Too boring? Just not interested? Something you're planning on taking care of when you get marooned on a desert island?

I see the Bible as a book written by men who were trying to understand the world around them - more history than holy. Don't get me wrong, I believe in a higher power and find a lot of good lessons in the four main gospels. I try to live a life that helps others - you might say that every stitch I put into the hats, scarves, shawls & afghans is a mini-prayer that the person who receives it will benefit and be watched over.

4) And while we're on the subject . . . what about the other great religious works out there? Are they more to your liking?

I've read the Tao Te Ching - which is sort of like Christianity without the personalities - everything comes from the Tao, everything returns to the Tao, the Tao that can be encompassed in words is not the Eternal Tao. Maybe it's the same with Christianity - Jesus' love lives in our hearts and actions, not in some sermon.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

On the knitting front, I finished the green rag-tag & the purple shawl and turned everything (3 rag-tags & 3 shawls) in yesterday.



The green rag-tag is more square - wider & shorter - than I usually make, but it should still keep someone warm. I was actually running shy on the creams & off whites for the center section and unable to get into the craft room at the Sr. Center on Monday to pick up more as there was an "Ask A Lawyer" session going on in there.



The color on the shawl came out all wrong - it's royal purple, not magenta.

I have a blue rag-tag and a pale willow green shawl on the hook & the needles right now.

Booking Through Thursday

I was web wandering this morning and found A Bluestocking Knits where, through her latest post, I wound up on Booking Through Thursday "Ah ha!", I said to myself, "Given my love of reading & knitting, this seems to be a perfect match. A Me-Me where a question about reading is posted every Thursday and participants answer it on their blogs & leave a link." So, without further ado, my first Booking Through Thursday entry:

Where do you do most of your reading? Your favorite spot?

It's usually on the love-seat in the living room with my feet up on a mismatched footstool so I can prop my book against my knees while I knit or crochet. Second most common place is the recliner in the family room where I can do the same while watching TV and read during the unending commercials. The third one is the recliner in Mom's living room when I'm visiting her. The first two locations are surrounded by my books & yarn, Mom, however, is still Mrs. Clean so I have to keep my "junk" more contained {g}..

I'm over half done on both the green rag-tag and the purple shawl. Last Thursday I almost forgot about the K4 meeting and when DH reminded me I rushed out forgetting the bag with the first two rag-tags & the two shawls. Hopefully, next week I'll remember them and have one more of each finished.