A Novel Idea

The rules:
bold = what you’ve read,
italics = books you started but couldn’t finish
crossed out = books you hated
* = you’ve read more than once
underline = books you own but haven’t read yourself... yet
( ) = You've seen the movie. (I added this one — go figure)

1 (The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide) by Douglas Adams
2 Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
3 (The Kite Runner) by Khaled Hosseini
4 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
5 Life of Pi: a novel by Yann Martel
6 Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra
7 Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
8 One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
9 Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
10 The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien
11 Ulysses by James Joyce
12 War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
13 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
14 The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
15 Catch-22 a novel by Joseph Heller
16 Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte*
17 The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
18 Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle I) by Neal Stephenson
19 A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
20 The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
21 Middlemarch by George Eliot
22 Reading Lolita in Tehran : a Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
23 The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
24 The Kor'an by Anonymous (I've read bits and pieces)
25 Moby Dick by Herman Melville
26 The Odyssey by Homer
27 The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
28 Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (it's next on my reading list)
29 The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
30 The Historian : a novel by Elizabeth Kostova
31 Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
32 Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
33 The History of Tom Jones, a foundling by Henry Fielding
34 The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
35 (The Count of Monte Cristo) by Alexandre Dumas
36 The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner*
37 The Iliad by Homer
38 Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
39 Emma by Jane Austen
40 Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
41 Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence
42 Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
43 The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
44 (Guns, Germs, and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies) by Jared Diamond
45 (Dracula) by Bram Stoker
46 Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
47 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
48 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
49 The Once and Future King by T. H. White
50 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
51 To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
52 Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
53 Oryx and Crake : a novel by Margaret Atwood
54 (Great Expectations) by Charles Dickens
55 Labyrinth by Kate Mosse
56 Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
57 Collapse : How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond
58 The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen*
59 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
60 Underworld by Don DeLillo
61 Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
62 The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
63 ((Jane Eyre)) by Charlotte Bronte*
64 The Gormenghast trilogy by Mervyn Peake
65 The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
66 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
67 The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
68 Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
69 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce*
70 A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
71 The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
72 The Inferno by Dante Alighieri
73 Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
74 The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
75 Swann's Way by Marcel Proust
76 The Poisonwood Bible : a novel by Barbara Kingsolver
77 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay : a novel by Michael Chabon
78 Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
79 The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
80 Silas Marner by George Eliot
81 The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde*
82 The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas
83 The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
84 The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
85 The Confusion by Neal Stephenson
86 (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) by Ken Kesey
87 Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
88 Bleak House by Charles Dickens
89 The System of the World by Neal Stephenson
90 The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and… by Brian Greene
91 Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
92 The Known World by Edward P. Jones
93 The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
94 The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
95 The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje*
96 Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon
97 Dubliners by James Joyce
98 Les misérables by Victor Hugo
99 The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan
100 Infinite Jest : a novel by David Foster Wallace
101 Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
102 Beloved: a novel by Toni Morrison
103 Persuasion by Jane Austen
104 (A Clockwork Orange) by Anthony Burgess
105 The Personal History of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
106 Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

Very unimpressive, I know. And like the friends who've also participated in this meme, most (but not all) of those noted as owned and/or read above are a result of my studies... which isn't to say I didn't enjoy them all the same (particularly The English Patient — perhaps one of the most beautifully poetic novels I've ever been assigned).

Exceptions include The Corrections, Hitchhiker's Guide and Madame Bovary... the first two I read independently and loved; the last I'm reading now.

Also of note, I'm just OCD enough that when I was initially tagged for this meme, I went though and capitalized all of the book titles that were in need of it.

Yeah, I have problems.

The Seven Wonders of Me

So I was tagged by Beth, the game being to list seven things y'all don't already know about me. While some of you may, in fact, know one or two of these things (that means you, XOXO), most of these will be new to the majority.

1. My first celebrity crush as a kid was Erik Estrada (of CHiPS fame). My second was Hulk Hogan.
2. I've seen every episode of Full House. Twice.
3. I was gifted Highlights and Ranger Rick subscriptions when I was 7. I enjoyed both immensely, but by the age of 10, I requested to instead have a subscription to Time.
4. I created, organized and orchestrated martial art lessons during recess back in my elementary school days. Sometimes more than half of the playground would join me in what I called "Ancient Retarded Karate" (or "ARK" for short).
   
5. I can balance coins on my elbow and then catch them mid-air.
6. With the proper brand of chewing gum, I can blow a bubble within a bubble within a bubble.
7. Y'all know how much I hate driving in the city, and all the rudeness that entails. But here's a driving pet peeve that knows no boundaries: smokers who throw their cigarettes out of the window. If ever I feel a genuine sense of road rage, it's then.
   

Tag! You're It

So for the first time in my blogging career, I've been "tagged" (thank you, Woodrow, for being my first*). To be entirely honest, until now I thought "tagging" was a polite way of saying you'd just been shot by a paintball gun.

And before any of you ask: yes, I should be busy cleaning and unpacking. That's precisely why I didn't delay on this tagging opportunity.

A-Available or Single? Neither.
B-Best Friend: I'm lucky to have a few of these.
C-Cake or Pie: I'm generally not fond of either, though I will occasionally indulge in freshly-baked pie or chocolate cake... though secretly all I really want is the icing [Stop grimacing, it's unattractive.]
D-Drink of Choice: Strawberry lemonade with real strawberries. Or are we talking alcoholic here? In which case I like any sweet, mixed drinks in small quantities.
E-Essential Item(s): A good bike, a backpack stuffed with essentials (including a compass, and a map), and LOTS of water.
F- Favorite Color(s): Burgundy, burnt orange, sky blue
G- Gummi Bears or Worms?: Worms? Or gummy worms? Because a worm without "gummy" is just gross... unless you are a fish.
H- Hometown: Can I just say the eastern half of the Midwest?
I- Indulgence: Silly t-shirts, bags (purses, backpacks, messenger bags, you name it), long naps
J- January or February: February... still enough snow for snowshoeing, but with the imminent promise of spring.
K- Kids: Does an obnoxious little cat count? No kids, though I get a kick out of playing with them.
L- Life is incomplete without: A puzzle is incomplete if any piece is missing. I can't expect anything less from life (though, for the record, I could do without mosquitoes, and I really dig smart comedy).
M- Marriage Date: October 7, 2006 in a private ceremony. Just kidding. Calm down, Mom. Never been married.
N- Number of Siblings: 2
O- Oranges or Apples? I like 'em both. But I REALLY love clementines.
P- Phobias/Fears: I enjoy camping and don't mind getting covered in mud, or making nature my restroom. But throw me into a dirty bathroom at a public place, and I get all sweaty and anxious.
Q- Favorite Quote: The first that comes to mind is Woody Allen: "I don't wish to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality by not dying."
R- Reasons to smile:The smell of burning leaves, road trips through rural America, hiking new terrain, reaching peaks, traveling with friends, spoiling my nephews.
S- Season: Autumn
T- Tag Three: Winter, XOXO and Michele
U- Unknown Fact About Me: I always say I don't watch much television, but I secretly love old reruns (Munsters, Diff'rent Strokes, etc.)
V– Vegetarian or Oppressor of Animals? Neither. I haven't eaten red meat or pork in years. I grew up states away from good seafood (unless you like fried catfish — yuck), so I never got into that. But I need to get my protein from somewhere other than just Boca Burgers, so I occasionally indulge on chicken. More than you ever wanted to know, right?
W- Worst Habit(s): Sure, I'm a jokster. But I can also be quite the loner. A terrible combination which results in some folks thinking I'm off my rocker.
X– X-rays or Ultrasounds? I prefer to stay uninjured. Thanks.
Y- Your Favorite Foods: Good chicken parmesan, butternut squash ravioli with a sweet vinaigrette sauce, anything with blueberries
Z- Zodiac: Pisces


*But not that kind of "first"