Have You Read It?

So, being the complete and utter book nerd that I am, I found this meme and just had to post it on here. Feel free to copy it yourself, if you wish.

These are 100 great books listed by the BBC. According to them, most people have read only 6.

Instructions: Copy/paste this list of books. Bold the ones you've read in their entirety; italicize ones you've read in part.

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
(I’ve read all the New Testament and most of the Old Testament, but there’s probably parts of the Old Testament that I’ve never read.)

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
(Ugh, this book is so depressing)

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier (I'm planning on finishing this one at some point)

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien 

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

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

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
(Love, love, LOVE this book!)

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 - A.A. 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 (and the 7 other books in the series)

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 (The only Jane Austen book I haven’t gotten all the way through)

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
(I read the first chapter once)

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
(We read an excerpt in my 10^th grade American Literature class)

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
(I’ve read the condensed children’s version, that counts as partial, right?)

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 Inferno - Dante

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
(read the first bit, saw the movie, then didn’t want to finish the book)

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 - E.B. 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 (One of my favorite books EVER!)

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 (But I think it was the abridged version)

That’s 45 I’ve read in their entirety! Almost half! And 11 partials. Wow. Maybe I have done something productive with my life, after all.

Weeding Funnies

I've been doing quite a bit of weeding at the library lately in preparation for a collection development project and sometimes, I find really funny things. Today, I pulled a couple of outdated computer books from the juvenile section and found this in the glossary at the end of the book, alongside other things like mouse, RAM, and printer:

Zorxyl: There really isn't anything in a computer called a zorxyl, but everybody knows you have to end a word list with "Z"!

That's from Kermit Learns How Computers Work: Starring Jim Henson's Muppets.

So, everyone, now you know that you have to end word lists with "Z"! Kermit the Frog says so!

What I Did Today

Woke up
Went to work
Messed around with the thermostat while at work (We're having difficulties with it)
Rejoiced as I got in my car and turned on the cold air full blast
Stopped at Walmart on the way home from work
Bought blueberries (among other things)
Got home and ate lunch (which did indeed include blueberries)
Watched an episode of Avatar: the Last Airbender on streaming Netflix (I love you, streaming Netflix, will you marry me?)
Played a couple rounds of DXBall while listening to iTunes shuffle my music library
Spent the last hour or more downloading new music (artists include London to Tokyo, The Alexandria Quartet, and The Veronicas, 500 points to anyone who knows what these artists have in common that made me download them all together)


Other Things I Have Done Lately:
Made a jellyfish out of a paper plate
Watched the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie (the only good one)
Saw Toy Story 3 at a midnight showing
Got my favorite pillow in the world back from my aunt
Made up a song about roadkill (specifically, dead armadillos)*


*Sometimes I get really really bored during my daily commute. And this one time, I saw a dead armadillo on the road. As this lady at the library said one time, "Armadillos kinda look like armored opossums." Man, that needs to be a line in the song.

So Confused...

So, I was browsing Barnes and Noble, just checking out their rare books section on the website, when I came across this complete rip-off. What?!? I didn't realize someone would actually pay that much for one of those. I definitely wouldn't. Not for an author inscribed copy, not for a first edition. Ever. Such bizarre things you find on the internets.

An historic account

I’m not sure how I became drawn to the genre of historical fiction. My mother left regency romance novels lying around the house when I was a teenager, and I pretty much devoured any fiction I could get my hands on at that age, so maybe that had an influence. Several non-romances had an impact on me as well. I absolutely adored survival stories: think My Side of the Mountain or The Island of the Blue Dolphins. (No wonder I love Lost so much!) Also, I was somewhat of a medieval junkie: enter my brief affair with Karen Cushman. When school librarians plugged award-winning books, I paid attention. There’s a reason those books win awards. My middle school library had the Newbery winners separated out from the other fiction and I’m pretty sure I read almost all of those. (The Nancy Drew books were also separated out, but I didn’t go so much for them. To this day I’m still not much of a mystery reader.) The Newberys I read included such historical fiction as Caddie Woodlawn, Adam of the Road, Johnny Tremain, King of the Wind (I had an affair with Marguerite Henry, too. Influenced by my elementary school librarian.), The Door in the Wall, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, The Bronze Bow, Julie of the Wolves, Sarah, Plain and Tall, Number the Stars, and The Midwife’s Apprentice.

I have just realized that I must go back and read some of those old Newberys. Also, apparently, I read a lot more historical fiction as a child and teen than I originally thought.

Anyway, as time went by, I suppose I lost touch with historical fiction. During high school and college, I don’t remember reading historical novels. I remember reading a whole lot of fantasy. And a smidgeon of science fiction. But then, one day, I picked up a little (hah!) book called Sarum by Edward Rutherford. It took me a while to get through the darn thing (and I’m not a slow reader: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in six hours! Woot!), but it sparked my interest and I delved into the genre again. I’ve become a fan.

There’s so much history to choose from, if I ever get bored with a time period, I can just pick something different. And I feel like I’m learning something, too, especially from the big fat novels with lots of research, like The Pillars of the Earth. I tend to neglect the classics, though I finally did get around to reading all of Jane Austen’s works. However, the classics aren’t really in the same genre. There, I found some justification for myself. I’ve also found some delightful little books that have become favorites like The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. In conclusion, I don’t think I’ll be drifting away from historical fiction ever again.

At least until the next book in the Hunger Games series comes out.

Times When it is Totally Awesome to Work in a Small Town Library

1. When you get to ride on a float in a local parade (And there were, indeed, giant tractors)
2. When people buy you lunch from the local Mexican restaurant and bring it to you in the library
3. When people give you freshly baked chocolate chip cookies
4. When small children recognize you as the librarian outside of the library
5. When groups of old ladies walk into the library and flatter you with compliments about how nice the library is
6. When a small girl reads "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" aloud in the cutest little southern accent
7. When a little boy stands with his face right up against the glass front door of the library, looking inside

Numbers 6 and 7 are reasons why I really should have a video camera with me at all times.

Also, a little boy asked me how old I was today. I told him to guess. His first guess was...wait for it...70. Apparently, I am quite ancient to 7 year olds. This was one of the kids riding in the float with me. He kept asking me, "Where are we going?" and "When are we gonna get there?" and "Are we there yet?" It was the cutest thing! Then again, I'm sure when I grow up and have 7 year olds of my own, those same questions will be highly annoying and bothersome, especially on excruciatingly long 18-hour car trips.

Events

Let's see, what's been happening in my life lately?

Well, I recently went to Washington, D.C., for my cousin's wedding reception. I got to hang with lots of family on my dad's side and I visited the Library of Congress with an old roommate. We saw the amazing reading room and did some fun little learning activities around the exhibits. Very nerdy stuff. Perfect for me. Thank you so much, Maya, for taking me!

The town where I work is having a town celebration this weekend and guess what? I'm going to ride on a float in the parade. The Friends of the Library built this apparently awesome float with a giant book on it. I have no idea what it looks like, but the Friends have assured me that it is amazing. I guess I will see on it on Saturday morning.

Marie, one of the Friends, tells me that throwing things from the float is explicitly forbidden. Darn. I was going to suggest that I toss books at the parade-viewers. I really need to weed out the reference section.

From what I hear, this town really knows how to throw a parade. Years ago, when the local high school was still in town, people would line the streets for the homecoming parade. It was a big deal. In my head, I imagine tractors. Giant tractors. Like this.

Also, in random news, my library is adopting a sea turtle!

Yes, I know I've been gone awhile...

but I'm still here.

I just have some random thoughts today.
First, I absolutely love when the UPS man delivers packages to my library. It's just like Christmas! I open the boxes and inside are beautiful, wonderful, brand-new books. It's pretty much the best part of my job.

Second, spring is a glorious time of year. Today I drove over the mountain and smiled when I saw the gorgeous splashes of purple from the dogwoods. Also, it's not snowing. Yay!

Third, I'm super excited to see my nieces this weekend! Hopefully, Kate will like me more than the last time I saw her.