Tales of the Unread
Samurai Frog recently wrote about a meme which involves the list of books which have been more frequently marked ‘unread’ on librarything. Perhaps they’re in line to be read or just tomes which look impressive on the bookshelf.
Unwashed philistine that I clearly am, I hadn’t even heard of some of them.
Code:
Read
Read for school
Started but unfinished
I’ll never read it, and will never own it
*I own and intend to read it at some point
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (I don’t know why, but I’d like to read it.)
Anna Karenina (ditto)
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude (I’d like to see what all the fuss is about)
*Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion (um, never heard of it)
Life of Pi: A Novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote (I’m looking forward to reading this at some point)
Moby Dick
Ulysses (Dubliners was enough for me)
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey (I’d like to read this someday too)
Pride and Prejudice (a satisfying read)
Jane Eyre (heart-wrenching)
A Tale of Two Cities (writing books always quote the first line of this, I want to read the rest)
The Brothers Karamazov (I’m curious)
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (nah, mate)
War and Peace (maybe when I’m retired)
Vanity Fair (somewhat curious)
The Time Traveler’s Wife (amazing novel)
The Iliad (one day)
Emma (I have a noble mission to read all of Jane Austen’s books, so I’ll get to this one eventually)
The Blind Assassin (it’s a possibility)
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations (I should read this one)
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (with a title like that, who i am to refuse?)
Atlas Shrugged (I’m curious)
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (I doubt it)
Love in the Time of Cholera (I’m curious about this one)
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch (definitely one for the future)
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo (loved the film, definitely want to read the original)
Dracula (of course)
A Clockwork Orange (not sure I’d like it, but i’d give it a go)
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise)
The Satanic Verses (from what I’ve heard I wouldn’t like it)
*Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
*Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (one for my to read list)
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables (think I’ll watch the musical instead)
The Corrections (eh?)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (never heard of it)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States: 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Scarlet Letter
*Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita (diabolical, pure genius)
*Persuasion
Northanger Abbey (awful book)
The Catcher in the Rye (read it as a kid, then read it again last year - it was so true)
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid
Watership Down (the film was so sad)
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers
What say you?
Thanks to: Windowshoppist, Michael, PJ, and Chris. Leave comments (4)
50,000 Visitors to the Inn
These cute toothless kids are celebrating the fact that I’ve had 50,000 unique visitors to this blog.
I wasn’t expecting to reach this total for another couple of weeks, but then someone stumbled an old Thursday 13 post from last November and sent more than 3000 visitors there since last night! It’s all too bizarre really.
Anyway, I just wanted to use this opportunity to thank you all for visiting, whether you’re a regular commenter, lurker, subscriber or friend.
Thanks to: Liane Spicer, PJ, China blue, and Jules Joyce. Leave comments (5)
It’s Official: Men are just Big Babies
Thanks to: PJ, Byahh, Liane Spicer, and China blue. Leave comments (5)
Dropping Like Flies
It was like a scene from a horror movie. I looked around the room wondering where the dead body was hidden. It was like the episode of CSI where a room was infested with flies, but the body was well hidden and Grisham’s team had to knock down the walls to find it. I looked in the rubbish bin, and there wasn’t even a mouldy ham sandwich which could have attracted such a following.
The window of room 5 was dotted with hundreds of black dots, and several more were flying around the room nonchalantly, like they owned the place. They had claimed their domain, but it was time for us to reclaim it.
Armed with just a Nippon Fly Killer spray and wet towels around our faces to avoid breathing in too much toxic air, we got to work. The instructions said that for a “knockdown” you should spray in strong bursts then leave the room for 15 minutes. That done we sorted out the lesser gatherings in reception and other rooms.
We had to be ruthless. Not one fly survived our reign of terror. The cowards who tried to escape were also defeated.
The spray didn’t have an immediate effect, it wasn’t just a matter of spraying once and that’s that. A fly might get a whiff of the spray and start to fly at a lower altitude, like it couldn’t control its flight path as much. Another spray or two and it might drop to the ground and wriggle its legs in the eternal death dance.
It was disgusting. We have to show the bodies to the health inspectors next week, so we couldn’t completely destroy all trace of them and had to leave them on the window sills in reception and room 5. Yuck.
Thanks to: PJ and China blue. Leave comments (2)
Clearly the Force is strong in me
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| Which attack of the Clones character are you? created with QuizFarm.com |
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| You scored as Anakin Skywalker
You’re Anakin Skywalker, dude. Lucky you.
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Thanks to: PJ and Yoda. Leave comments (2)
Ramalama Bang Bang
This song by Roisin Murphy is guaranteed to cheer me up, and this video by a film student is very cute. The choreography reminds me of the Everybody (Backstreet’s Back) video:
Confession time: When this video was released I bought the making of edition so that I could have the full-length version and learn the routine. I was quite a big BSB fan back in the day, I even went to one of their concerts. My favourite one was Howie, who makes a lovely vampire…
Stewing
“I need to show you something,” my father said to me. I followed him to the living room where he switched on the television. After a few seconds I realised that I was watching a morbidly obese man being given a stomach bypass.
“If you’re not careful, one day that will be you.”
I went back to the kitchen to wash up, feeling humiliated and hurt. As he walked past me I said the one thing guaranteed to annoy him, “You’re always talking about the “Babylon” (the Police), well you’re acting just like them now.”
So how did this conversation arise? Well, I’d noticed in recent days that my father had been talking to me in quite a brusque manner. As I didn’t think that I’d done anything that could upset him I attributed it to the fact that he’s started a new job which might be giving him some stress. When I was eating dinner and he entered the kitchen he seemed quite annoyed at me, and I asked him if his job was stressing him out. That’s when he made his comment.
I should have expected it really. Last week I overheard my mum saying to him, “Maybe she’ll listen to you.” The next day she decided to have another go at me about my weight, and about the time I spend on the computer. Since she’d done the dirty work I’d wondered whether he would still bother to raise the issue.
It still hurts. The more they tell me to lose weight the more that they become a part of the issue. Instead of it being my problem, in my twisted mind it has increasingly become me vs them. I have told them so many times that telling me off doesn’t help me at all, but they don’t hear what I’m saying.
Now spending time on my computer has become something bad, yet another thing that I mustn’t do. I sit in this chair cringing when they walk past the room, waiting for that look at me or comment about me spending too much time on the computer.
Sometimes I go out just so that they don’t have to look at me with disgust for a few hours, just so that the comments stop for a little while. There are only a few hours each week when I can have the house to myself. I’m planning to get up early tomorrow morning to take advantage of one of those times, though it’s not enough to make a real difference.
I feel so inhibited around my parents. I would like to have an exercise routine, but I feel so awkward about exercising when they’re around. Though I know that I’m hurting myself in the long run, exercising with their knowledge feels like I’m agreeing with them about my weight, like it’s a victory for them. Part of me knows that it shouldn’t matter, but I’m finding it difficult to think straight about this issue.
It’s not like I don’t want to lose weight. Especially now that the weather is hot I’d love to have a fit body to wear nice clothes, to be more active outdoors, etc. Last week I bought myself an exercise bike, as I’d been thinking about the spinning classes I used to enjoy and wanted to replicate them at home. I think about slimming down every day.
I’m not blaming my parents for me being overweight, but their comments aren’t helping me to feel better about myself, which is the only way I’m going to find the strength to commit to it. I feel like I’ve been kicked when I was already down.
I wish I had a friend who I could talk to about all this stuff. I saw my counsellor yesterday afternoon so I’ll have to wait another week before I can talk to her about it. I feel myself unravelling. I used to be so strong, but now I feel so weak, like one more stab of negativity would destroy me.
I want to leave here. Move out. Maybe even move abroad. Have a fresh start. A new life. One step at a time. Next step is to make a plan.
Thanks to: PJ, Liane Spicer, Martin, Yoda, Dr. Monkey, and China blue. Leave comments (9)
To be or not to be
Your Score: Hamlet
You scored 69% = Tragic, 31% = Comic, 21% = Romantic, 23% = Historic
You are The Tragedy of Hamlet. Highly regarded as the best play ever written by anyone ever, Hamlet tells the story of Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, and his desire to enact revenge on his Uncle for the murder of his father. When performed in its entirety, Hamlet is just under 4 hours long and contains many of the most recognizable phrases in the English language. But enough of that - let’s get back to you. Your results tell us that you are no doubt of high intelligence and cultural grace. While sometimes a bit dark and moody, you still have the poise and respect of a royal noble. Your tragic flaw, however may be that you tend to over-analyze situations and think too much when you should act. You also may be a bit long-winded, but we like you anyway!
Et tu, Ben?
Ben memed me, the brute.
Roolz:
A) The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
B) Each player answers the questions about himself or herself.
C) At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.
1. Ten years ago I was:
Preparing for my A-Level exams (I got a B in Spanish, C in English Lang/Lit and D in Sociology - I dropped French at the last minute)
Working weekends in a wholesaler’s
Single
Having complicated friendships
Preparing to go to university…
2. Five things on today’s to do list:
Write a few blog posts
Write to my American penpal
Tidy my room
Prepare some items for ebay
Relax
3. Things I’d do if I were a billionaire:
Buy myself a house in Bayswater or Battersea
Pay off my mum’s and brother’s mortgages
Give some away to good causes
Have some fun
Disappear for a while
Invest
4. Three bad habits:
Eating junk food
Neglecting my appearance
Spending money
5. Five places I’ve lived:
Born in Bedford
Raised in South East London
Now living in Croydon
6. Six jobs I’ve had in my life:
McDonalds Burger Maker (4 days)
General Assistant in a Wholesaler’s (3 years)
Cinema Assistant (1 year)
Box Office Assistant - Arts Centre (3 years)
Office Manager (2 years)
Administrator (1.5 yrs)
I’m not in the mood for tagging anyone, but go ahead if you want a go.
Thanks to: PJ and Maya. Leave comments (2)
Walk it Out - 60s Stylee
Much better than the Teletubbies’ version. This is the best mashup ever.
(via electro^plankton)
