Avid Reader, or "100 Books"

Found on someones profile page:
According to the BBC if you've read 7 of these, you are above the average!

The cynic in me is disinclined to believe that without further research. A fact isn't a fact until it's properly sourced (and by that I mean reliably sourced, if you know what I mean). Anyhoo, it looked like something I was able to brag about since reading is something I can actually do. Perhaps I should add a 'currently reading' column down the right hand side of the blog. What do you think about that?

Here they are, 100 books the BBC seems to think I haven't read. Bold are the books I've completed, and the ones I've read some of are in italics:

oo1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

oo2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
oo3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
oo4. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - JK Rowling  [honestly, how old is this list?]

oo5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

oo6. The Bible
oo7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë

oo8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

oo9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

o1o. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

o11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

o12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
o13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
o14. Complete Works of William Shakespeare
o15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
o16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien [Bam! there's me at the so-called 'average.'  I think this is set up to make me feel good.]
o17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

o18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

o19. The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

o2o. Middlemarch - George Eliot
o21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
o22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
o23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
o24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

o25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

o26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
o27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
o28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
o29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
o3o. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
o31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
o32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

o33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

o34. Emma - Jane Austen

o35. Persuasion - Jane Austen

o36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis  [Actually, this book is one of the books in the Chronicles of Narnia, so the list is doubling up on itself there.  I guess only people who have read all books in the series would know that though.]
o37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
o38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

o39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

o4o. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

o41. Animal Farm - George Orwell

o42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

o43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
o44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
o45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
o46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
o47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
o48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

o49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding

o5o. Atonement - Ian McEwan
o51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel

o52. Dune - Frank Herbert

o53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

o54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

o55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
o56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
o57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
o58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

o59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime - Mark Haddon

o6o. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
o61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
o62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
o63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
o64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
o65.  Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
o66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
o67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
o68. Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
o69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
o7o. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
o71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
o72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
o73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

o74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

o75. Ulysses - James Joyce
o76. The Inferno – Dante
o77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
o78. Germinal - Emile Zola
o79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray  [I would have finished this but it wasn't mine and I wasn't fast enough.]
o8o. Possession - AS Byatt
o81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
o82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
o83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
o84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
o85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
o86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

o87. Charlotte's Web - EB White

o88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

o89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
o9o. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
o91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
o92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
o93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

o94. Watership Down - Richard Adams

o95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
o96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

o97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

o98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare

o99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

1oo. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Total: 27/100.  And I totally did not count LW&W, not even once, even though The Chronicles of Narnia is composed of seven books and all together they only counted for one.


But anyway, none of you really cared what I've read.  You all went through that list ticking off the ones you've read.  So... how many?  [And do you still believe 7 is the average?]

Hairy Maclarey

I grew up with these books, read to me so excitingly by my wonderful Mum, and as I've grown I've enjoyed being able to read them to other youngsters. I can't wait to read this and many more to all my nieces and nephews. Check out Hairy Maclarey on Wikipedia to see all the books. Apparently there have been over 5 million books sold, so I am guessing they're not just sold in NZ! I think I always liked Hairy Maclarey's Bone the best. (Don't say it Doug. I'm watching you.)

Now that you've seen the book, please vote on my poll. Tell your friends and get them voting too! Let's see what people are out there in the world!!

Endie Agrees to an Interview

The following questions were pulled from someones journal on Deviant Art.  My OC (original character) Endie agreed to answer them.
She was fairly brusque during the interview - I'm pretty sure she wanted to get back to her family and household shores.

1) What gender are you?
Female

2) What is your age?
Getting on now.  Forty-ish I think.

3) Do you want a hug?
Not from you thank you.

4) Do you have any bad habits?
My family and friends tell me I'm too suspicious of people.  My Uncle and Sister would tell me I'm too trusting.

5) What is your favorite food?
Coffee.

6) What is your favourite ice cream flavor?
I don't know what that is.

7) Are you an ass?
No.

8) Have you killed anyone?
Many times.

9) Do you hate anyone?
I have in the past, but not at the moment.

10) Do you have any secrets?
Everyone has secrets.

11) What is your favourite season?
Spring, when everything is fresh with new life.

12) Who are your best friends?
When I was a child my best friend was my sister Dawn.  Now it would be my husband Sebastian, and then my friends Hannah and Ellen.

13) What are your hobbies?
I don't really have time for hobbies. I do like to keep fit.

14) What is your favorite drink?
Coffee.

15) When is your birthday?
That is irrelevant.

16) What age did you die?
I do not plan to die anytime soon.

17) Are you nice or mean?
Heh, I'm mean on the outside, but I'm one of the good guys.  (Endie's manner is not particularly reassuring on this count.)

18) What do you think of your creator?
Uncle L and Cara? As to the former, well I kinda love the old man.  But the latter - I have no time for her and her meddling ways.

19) What is your weakness?
Chocolate.  And my family.

20) How long can you stay under water?
Longer than I can float.

21) What do you do on a regular day basis?
Get up, go through my drills and exercises, cook breakfast, get my children out of bed and fed, make sure they do their chores, go to work as a cook at the tavern.  Eat lunch at the smithy with my husband and children, go back to work, come home, school my children in reading writing and maths, cook dinner, get them to bed, relax with Sebastian.

22) Do you love someone?
Sebastian.

23) Does that person love you back?
Of course.

24) Do you like me?
I neither know you or trust you so what do you think?

25) What do you consider fun in the day time?
Fun?

26) At night?
Drinks with friends.  Going to bed with Sebastian.

27) Do you like meatballs?
Depends what spices Aunt Sadie has been growing for me to put in them.

28) Do you like Chef Boyardee's meatballs?
I don't know who that is.  Stop wasting my time.

29) Are you gay?
I'm not generally a merry person, no.

30) Say that you were trapped in a closet with your lover for 2 days straight. What do you do?
That depends.  If someone else trapped us in there then most of those two days would be spent trying to get out.  If we trapped ourselves in there to get away from the children then we would do every damn position we could think of.

32) What is your place of origin?
Mesocaronia.

33) Large or small family?
I was born into a small family, but Sebastian and I have bred rather a large one.  He also has quite a few relations.

34) Who are your parents?
Darkcloud and Geoff.

35) Do you have a ipod?
One more question like this and the interview is over.

36) Piercing/tattoos?
None.

37) Is this quiz over?
You're getting close.

38) Do you like cats?
Cats are fine.

39) Whats your lucky number?
There's no such thing as luck.

40) Whats your favorite color?
I guess I like blue and green.

41) What color are your eyes?
Hazel-green.

42) Quick! Someone kissed your love! what do you do?
No one would kiss Sebastian.  They are too scared of me because they know physical violence is my first reaction.

43) What is your favorite type of music?
The Old Songs.

44) No one cares about you...
That's unlikely.

45) Where do you want to be right now?
Safe with my children.

46) What are you in your Love's opinion?
A hard but loving woman.

47) You just walked into a room with 2 people having sex what do you do?
Depends who they are.  Probably apologise to them and step back out again.
Or take advantage of their distraction and complete the job I was there for.  That's theft or death if you were wondering.

48) What do you do for a living?
I am a cook.

49) You are in jail what do you do?
If I broke the law I would wait it out.  If I am unfairly incarcerated I would attempt to break free by any means at my disposal.

50) Wanna party with me?
No.

51) This quiz is over...
Good.

Number Twenty One: Favourite Movie Quote

I'm not really sure that I have a favourite movie quote.  My friends and I are quoting movies all the time.  In fact most of our conversations are in movie quotes really.  So I'm just going to put up a damn good one.
I bet you'll be able to pick the movie.


"Do I look like a cat to you, boy?
...Am I jumpin' around all nimbly bimbly from tree to tree?
Am I drinking milk from a saucer? Do you see me eating mice?
You stop laughing right meow!
Meow, I'm gonna have to give you a ticket on this one. No buts meow. It's the law.

...

Not so funny meow, is it?"

4th Thingie - Favourite Book

It's no secret to anyone who knows me that I am a big Fantasy geek. You know the kind - swords and dragons and the like. On occasion I will try out a sci-fi, and in those I mostly enjoy the Young Adult works of New Zealand author Ken Catran.

There are two main Fantasy authors who I admire and whose books I simply love to read.  The first I found was Mercedes Lackey who sometimes co-writes with her husband Larry Dixon.  She has two main 'worlds' in which she writes - the 'Valdamar' books and the 'Bard' books.  I prefer the first.  Her books are an easy read without being too light and have enough of both depth and length to keep me satisfied.  She tends to write in trilogies which nicely splits up what would otherwise be an epic for each character's story.  Her sets of trilogies require a timeline in the beginning of her books in order for the reader to appreciate the book's place in the time line, but each set can pretty much be read on its own.  Lackey apparently pumps out about four or five books a year so it's pretty surprising that she achieves a decent read.  She's well written and I enjoy her tales.  I am trying to collect the entire Valdemar chronicles.

The other fantasy author I'm enraptured with is Robin Hobb.  My flatmate first lent me the Liveship Traders trilogy and I am so very glad he did.  For years I have seen her books in the Sci-fi & Fantasy sections of the bookshops and have never been interested in giving her a go.  Talk about judging a book by its cover!  Hobb's tales are masterful tales which use the plot not so much as a driving force as a backdrop to intricate and competently written character development.  People I started of hating - wanting to shake them, slap them, smack them - turned out to be some of my favourites; and people whose side I took themselves take steps which were logical and believable according to their characters, but which I did not see coming.  Hobb is also a talented writer, and I have to admit that in many areas she outshines Lackey with little to no competition.  I began to read to my sister from the middle of the third book in the Farseer Trilogy and I actually had to hide the book from her so that she would not read the end before she had read the beginning.  That's how good Robin Hobb is.

In the area of non-fiction, well... I don't really read non-fiction.  But I do enjoy reading the travel novels by Bill Bryson and love my copy of A Short History of Nearly Everything.  I also love my Reverse Dictionary, does that count?

I also read a lot of rubbish.  I read trashy novellas and stories on the internet.  I pick up $2 fantasy novels from the second hand book store and put up with poor language skills and un-artistic writing for the sake of the gripping plot.  I think my writing is similar to this b-grade stuff but I'll keep working on it.  The more I read the more I should be able to see what won't work.

I like Mills & Boon (etc).  Forgive me if you feel you have to but they are also an easy read and I like the tension, the expulsion of the tension, the character interplay and, yes, the sex scenes.  (Why deny it?)  But I wouldn't say that anything from Mills & Boon is worth reading twice.  And that's what it comes back to isn't it?  Is that the real definition of 'favourite' ?  Something which is enjoyed over and over again without tiring of it?  I suppose it is... I just never thought about it.  I do really enjoy Ken Catran's novels, but I can't say I really read them more than twice at the maximum.  Some of Mercedes Lackey's works are worth reading many times - but not all of them.  To be fair though that's probably true of most authors.  Hobb I will definitely read again but since I am still going through her work for the first time I cannot yet include her in the running.  As an author she will definitely be included in my list of favourites.  Non-fiction... sorry, it just doesn't cut it for me at the moment.  Maybe one day when I'm older.

I included the Mills & Boon 'romantic fiction' up there because it follows the same basic framework of what is my favourite book.  This book (which hopefully both my Loyal Followers will have guessed at already) is a very typical story which follows the standard romantic fiction structure.  There is a girl and a boy.  The girl hates the boy with a passion and the boy is slowly but surely falling in love with the girl.  The boy expresses his love but she rejects him cruelly, (and the reader would be forgiven for thinking that she has really burned her bridges there).  But they are thrown together again by fate and circumstance (mostly circumstance), and the girl begins to realise the boy is really quite dashing and wonderful and perhaps she could like him.. just a little bit.
Then fate sideswipes them this time and something prevents them from ever being together.  This is the point at which the girl realises the boy is really the only one she could ever love.
Fate is left out of it at this point, although the girl doesn't know it at this stage.  The boy does everything in his considerable power to overcome the obstacle between them - not knowing for sure if it will even bring them together.  When she discovers what he has done she starts the conversation which brings them together forever.  Hurrah!
Have you guessed it yet?
What sets this romantic novel aside from trashy fiction is not just the depth and character development of both the main characters, but the side plots and stories, the rest of their families and acquaintances, the interaction between main and supporting cast I mean characters and the free-flowing and natural seeming dialogue of an intelligent and witty young woman and a man who won't be goaded.  I read it again and again.  Every time I am gripped by the tension.. each time I pretend I am she.  I pretend other characters are able to listen into conversations and wonder what their reactions would be if they had.  I wonder who I would be and how I would know them if I were in the book too.  And my heart never fails to ache and break when that ultimate moment comes.

This book is possibly only surpassed by this one:

(which has all of that and zombies)