books

I am a reader. I love to read. I've read all sorts of books in my lifetime, and I am always looking for the next great read. In fact, sometimes the greatest quandary I experience in a day is ending one book and trying to decide what to read next. So many to choose from!! I recently finished reading Same Kind of Different As Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore. It was a fantastic book, an autobiography of a friendship, a memoir even. A rich guy, a homeless guy, and the woman who brought them together. It is full of simple, yet profound truths about faith and friendship. I strongly recommend this book to anyone with the inclination to read.

However, maybe its due to pregnancy, or the lack of sleep pregnancy causes, but my emotions can only handle so much heavy material at one time. So, when I finished that book, having cried through the entire last third of it, and found myself looking for something new to read, I decided I needed something light, fun, an easy read in today's English. When it comes to literature, our bookshelf at home is filled with the classics, mostly written more than a hundred years ago. And though these are without a doubt some of my favorite books ever, they're not exactly what I'd call light, fun and in today's English.

However, as I was looking for a book at 10:00 at night, I had to grab SOMETHING, so I decided to grab a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories. Who doesn't love Sherlock Holmes and his trusty sidekick Watson? I'd read some of the stories before, and figured the short stories would be a nice break until I could figure out what to read next. I brought it upstairs, snuggled into bed with all my covers and my pillow behind me, opened the book, and found this:



At first I thought maybe just the first couple pages were printed this way. You know, to show some historicity to the Sherlock Holmes stories and how they were originally printed in a newspaper. But no ... the ENTIRE book was printed this way! I swear that font can't be any bigger than 6-point. Its ridiculous! I read a couple pages before giving up and turning out the light. As I fell asleep I determined to head to the library the next day for a greater selection of light, fun, and in today's English books.

This is what I found:



Intensity by Dean Koontz, Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult, and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (don't ask me how to pronounce his name, I don't know). Intensity was a recommendation by Stephen King, whose books I don't read, because I'm afraid of them, but whose opinion as an author I respect. Nineteen Minutes is my chick lit / murder mystery pick, and the Oscar Wao story was a Pulitzer Prize winner in 2007, I believe, and got a lot of attention in major publications as one of the great books of that year.

So, with three weeks in which to read my three books, I headed back from the library ready for my light, fun and in today's English books.

I started with Intensity last night. Now, I don't know what I was expecting in a book recommended by Stephen King ... maybe not kittens and ponies and how they love each other, but ... and I've never read Koontz before, so I didn't know what to expect of him, but ... I had no idea that after just the first two chapters I'd have to pray warfare prayers just to fall asleep! The first two chapters describe a grisly murder in minute detail, full of all the fear and, well, intensity, that a survivor is experiencing, only to end with that one survivor ending up on a motor home WITH the psycho killer! Its certainly riveting, and I actually can't wait to get back to it, but I won't be reading it before bed any more.

So much for light and fun, though Koontz does write in modern-day English, which I appreciate. Koontz is a fantastic writer, about that Stephen King was spot on. Even though the story scares me, I can't wait to find out what happens ... as long as its in the daylight hours. I'll let you know how it goes.

a new book

After deciding the last 40-60 pages of Three Cups of Tea weren't worth finishing (only because what had read quickly and interesting turns slow and boring at the end), I started a new book this week. And for the first time in my life I'm using the word "delightful" to describe John Steinbeck. Yes, John Steinbeck, author of "East of Eden," "Grapes of Wrath," and "Of Mice and Men." These stories I would call genius on many levels, captivating and moving, but they're not the kind of stories that inspire spontaneous smiles as the reader pours over the typewritten lines.



"Travels with Charley" is a totally different Steinbeck experience. I admit I'm only 20 or so pages into the book, but not a single paragraph has yet disappointed. The whole book revolves around a 3-month cross-country trip Mr. Steinbeck takes with his French poodle, Charley (who mostly understands only French). His goal is to reacquaint himself with America, its land and its people. And of course to just go, to explore and find adventure of the kind that can only be found on such a trip. He's writing in his later years, so his style is practiced, refined and clear, an easy read. And his subject matter is so engaging, perhaps because he's on an adventure few would pass up given the opportunity.

Though I've barely started the book, I have no choice but to highly recommend it. Its been a long time since I've really looked forward to having more time to sit and read. I imagine I'll have this one finished in no time. And then you can borrow it.

the big read

I was just reading a friend's blog and she was talking about The Big Read. Its an NEA program (that I only just learned about 4 minutes ago). The NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) funds programs around the country that encourage people to read and communities to come together to talk about what they're reading. Of their top 100 books (a list designed more to get people to read than of your traditional top 100 pieces of literature), they estimate the average American adult has read only six. Six! I'm a reader, I love to read, and so I don't understand when people don't read. I felt compelled to see how many I've read. So, the following is their top 100 list, the ones bolded are the ones I have read, italicized means its on my list of books to read. How many have you read?

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 Faulks
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
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
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
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 - AA 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 Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
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 - EB 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

Almost a third, I've read almost a third. 31 to be exact. Of course, they have a few series in here which include several books for one entry ... and I've read almost all of those (that would bump my score up to about 45). How many have you read?

In case you're a reader and you haven't heard of Good Reads yet, you MUST check it out. Its a great place to organize all the books you've read, the ones you want to read, the ones you tried to read and couldn't. You can write your own reviews and read others' reviews of books you're interested in. Its a fantastic site! http://www.goodreads.com/