Book Love Blog Hop

I've agreed to do a rare blog hop because it's about books, and because the lovely Cathy Ballou Mealey asked. :)

The idea is the brainchild of Carrie Finison and it's to highlight books that you think deserve more recognition than they're getting. Participants are to:
"Post reviews for the books you chose on Amazon/social media. The reviews can be brief - even a short review on Amazon helps. Posting on Goodreads or Shelfari is great, too, or Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, etc." and link back to Carrie's blog.

I would like to highlight four of my favorite books:
Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams - the rather depressing topic of species going extinct is covered by Adams in his characteristic droll British style
The Cosmic Code by Heinz Pagels - a very well written book for the lay person on quantum physics; my only beef is that there are virtually no equations in it
Half Magic by Edward Eager - Eager was inspired by the tales of E. Nesbit to write tales that are equally magical and fun for the upper elementary set. I find his writing more accessible than Nesbit's
The Chrysalids by John Wyndham - not nearly as well-known as Day of the Trifid by Wyndham, this book is a memorable post-apocalyptic story that has a hopeful ending

I want to point out here something that some of you may not realize, which is that a 5-star rating on Amazon is equivalent to a 4-star rating on Goodreads.

If you'd like to play along, please let me know as I'd like to check out your choices. Also, if you're not already friends with me on Goodreads, please friend me! I like to see what others are reading. I think my moniker is "writer64" there.

Have a great week!

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Never be bored again

I hear so many people complain about being bored or about their kids being bored, and I can't understand it. I've never been bored in my life and I don't think hubby had either. Want to know the secret to never being bored again? Read!

Read books, magazines, cereal boxes, blog posts...anything that you enjoy. Life is too short to read things you don't like.

We've shared this secret with kids since they were babies. They have never said the "b" word before. How can anyone be bored when there are books, etc., to be explored?

I'm only being slightly facetious about "the secret." It is true that our kids have never complained that they were bored, and it is true that it's all because of reading. I have photos to prove it.

Son1 around 10 months old; perusing the Sandra Boynton book, "But Not the Hippopotamus". It's a book I read to him from the time he was 2 months old.

Son1 around 1 years old, reading an issue of Babybug Magazine

Son1 around 1.5 years old, reading a Winnie The Pooh book

Son1 a little over 2; Son2 around 5 months old

Son1 about 2.5 years old; Son2 about 9 month old

 I wish I had a taken a photo of Son1 at age 3 when he was reading our "Organic Gardening's Guide to Insect and Disease Control." He was reading everything from board books to guide books for adults.

Son1 close to 3; Son2 around 1 years old

Son1 around 4 years old

Son1, still around 4 years old

Son1 around 5 years old; yes, that is "Socks" by Beverly Cleary

You've probably figured out by now that this was just an excuse to post cute baby photos of the kids. ;)

What about you? Do you, or your kids, complain of being bored?

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Do people not read?

When I see photos of people's bookshelves in magazines, I have to think "do people not read?" I know it's not that, of course, but merely that the photographers hide the books and other stuff so the place looks neat.

Take, for example, this picture from a recent Better Homes and Gardens:

Wow! There is room on these shelves to put up knick-knacks! What a concept.

Our shelves are so overflowing with books that I'm surprised there's even room for dust on them:

This one has overflowed on to the floor:

Nope. No room on these shelves either:

I really think it's time to purge and donate to the library.

How are your shelves holding up? Is it time for Spring Cleaning

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Obsessed with birds

Robin's posts about the books she's reading inspired me to post about all the bird books we have in the house.

Because we're a family of birders, we have, um, just a few books on the topic, as you can see - click on the image to pull it up larger if you're curious about all the titles:

The only guide that's missing in this pile is the Kaufman Guide which is ds1's favorite and we keep it in the car so that we can reference it anytime we're out and about.

And because I won another haiku contest from WildBird magazine on Twitter, we will have a Peterson's guide to add to our stash soon!

Right now, we also have 2 bird books that we borrowed from the library. As if books weren't enough, we also have a bunch of birding magazines:

So, what do you think? Just a little obsessed? Maybe for some future posts, I'll compile my art books, knitting/crocheting books, the craft of writing books and science fiction books.  :)

What about you? Do you have a hobby that you love and have too many books and magazines of?

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Author, author!

As some of you know, I write. Not for a living, although I've sold a few things to magazines (Ladybug, Babybug, Outdoor Indiana). Because I write, it stands to reason I enjoy reading too.

For daily doses of whimsical stories, I read The Blonde Duck's blog. Here, I'd like to highlight other writers that I have some connection to, real or tenuous. :)

One of the most delightful authors I've had the pleasure to meet in real life is Helen Frost. I took a workshop from her at an IN SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Publishers) conference and will remember it always for her wisdom, terrific ability at imparting knowledge, and warm personality. She is an amazing poet!Another wonderful Indiana author is Elsa Marston. I've taken a class and a workshop with her, as well as attended a talk given by her. She is a brilliant lady.
This next book is interesting because it's a beautiful collaboration: written by April Pulley Sayre, also a fellow member of the IN SCBWI (whom I've not met yet, but hope to soon), and illustrated by Annie Patterson, an inspirational blog-friend.
Douglas Florian is also a blog friend. His poetry is way cool, and his art is incredible. I highly recommend his science-poetry books for any child on your list!
The incomparable Lisa Yee is now both a blog-friend and a Facebook friend. She keeps her fans in stitches with her hilarious insights and thoughts on every topic under the sun. Someday, I hope to meet her in person. :)
We once attended a talk given by Lawrence Krauss. I am still speechless with awe. I love this book of his:
Remember when I said "tenuous"? Well, this one is it. I follow Phil Plait on Twitter. Lame, yes, but that doesn't mean this book isn't a darned good read. And most of the general population could stand to read it:
What have you been reading? Share some good books with me!

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

A NaNoWriMo "Vacation"

If you consider cranking out a 50,000 word novel in 30 days a vacation, then, woohoo, break out the sunscreen and bring on the cabana boys! For those of us who like to bang our heads against the wall and suffer the pain of a taunting blank screen (or a piece of paper), National Novel Writing Month is, indeed, a "vacation" to remember. Care to join me? I'm "writer64" at NaNo, and would love for you to buddy me there. =)

Before I neglect my crops on Lil Farm Life (cursed FB and its time-sucking games), and my blog, and my bloggy friends' blogs for an entire month, I thought I'd share some chapters from my life...which is not quite an open book. I apologize for my writing-related jokes.

Chapter 1: My experimental life
...in which we extract DNA...bwahahahaha! Who says biology is boring? Incidentally, would you believe "bored" and "boring" are two words my kids have never uttered in their lives? Seriously. Dh and I must be doing something right.

So, the kids in the biology lab class got to extract DNA from split peas. If you'd like to follow along, and I know you do, see these directions.

Well, they're not quite the strands the directions make them sound like they'd be. Here's ds#1 trying to "pull" them out:Kind of a murky mess. But after letting the test tubes sit for about an hour, the DNA stuff separated themselves out. Here they are, the infamous DNA clouds! Heh. So, what do you think? Cumulo-nimbus? Alto-stratus?Chapter 2: We'll have fun, fun, fun 'til our daddy takes the clay away
I'd like to see him try to stop us from having fun. More ceramics joy from our previous workout...here's a beautiful sycamore leaf by ds#2. I love the glaze on this one:Ds#1 made a sassafras imprint trivet, which can also be used as a wall hanging:
And I made a set of 5 little condiment dishes:I'm trying to decide whether to list them on our Artfire site, or start an Etsy store..

Chapter 3: Nerds R Us.
...or "why I think my kids are space aliens in disguise". Then, again, maybe it's just indicative of our wacky homeschooling lifestyle.

This is what's under my 13 year old son's bed. I think he has half the library's collection there.
I'd think that pre-teen and teen boys would have posters of rock stars, athletes, or, gack!, pretty models on their walls, but here're the walls over ds#1's bed. There's a poster of Vancouver, Newberry (children's fiction) winners, an Escher print, a Magritte print, a Toko print, a little poster of The Story of the Stars and Stripes, a small poster of some eagle (not the rock band) festival, the cover of a Harry Potter LEGO set, and a small print of some ancient sea creature (elasmosaurus or something).
And over ds#2's bed, we have...well, you can probably see this one pretty well yourself. The Parts of a Cell poster really rocks!
A model of the solar system hangs from the ceiling in this photo, and a how-to art poster and Geologic Time Scale poster adorn the wall.
I've asked the kids if they want some different (read: non-educational) posters up, and they said, "mmm, no". Okay then.

Chapter 4: Food, glorious food
I made another couple of pie crust a la Mark Bittman, and this time, I used the acorn squash that friends gave us to make "pumpkin" pie. Pre-mixing:After pouring into the crust:I used the pumpkin pie recipe by Jackie Clay who writes a column for Backwoods Home magazine.

Because we have a carpet of cilantro in our greenhouse (no exaggeration), dh bought some haddock and trout yesterday and cooked them with a creamy cilantro sauce, accompanied by green beans with sun-dried tomato paste (yup, both homegrown). It was totally divine; I'm drooling again just thinking about it:I've been baking today, in between loads of laundry. My friend Jennifer is having a food drive for the winter homeless shelter here in town, and needed donations of food. (Neither the Shalom Center (which normally serves breakfast and lunch) nor the Community Kitchen (which normally serves dinner) is open on Sunday.) I made a dessert - chocolate chunk blondies (a King Arthur Flour recipe, and, yes, I will post the recipe some time this month):and a couple of loaves of the 5 minute artisan bread:If other townies are reading this and would like to help, Jennifer will still need food for December 6, January 3, February 7, and March 7. Contact me and I'll get you in touch with her.

Chapter 5: Odds 'n ends...a happy doggie end
I saw this book advertised somewhere and am intrigued by it. It hasn't come out yet, but if anyone reads it before I do, please let me know if it's worth buying!
I have one of the One Skein Wonders book and really like it. :)

And here is the doggie end, just as I promised. A bit stinky, but happy, nonetheless.I hope to be able to visit your blogs a few times during the month, but if I don't get around to that, I promise I will be back with a vengeance in December. ;) Wish me luck with NaNo, please!

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Thankful Thursday

I'm very thankful for

1) living in a college town where there are always free academic lectures to take the kids to - for example, this very entertaining talk we went to last Saturday:
2) our terrific public library (which is ranked #2 in the country, apparently). It has a beautiful, open space, friendly staff, and it is very generous with buying patron requested materials. They bought all of the books/DVDs I have requested over the past several years! And because of their incredible number of offerings, I, once again, borrowed too many books yesterday. They're wonderful books: Physics of Star Trek, and Quintessence (both by the author in the above photo), In the Sweet Kitchen, and Scream-free Parenting, among a few others. I'd really love to read them all, and therefore think I need to stay off the computer for a few weeks in order to get my reading (and crafting and baking) in. :)

It's hard to give up blog reading, so I was thinking maybe I should just tackle 5-10 per day. Which ones I read will be determined by whether there's a new post and also going in order of appearance in my "follow" list...so, pretty random, and therefore, please don't feel slighted if I don't get to yours on a given day.

Today, I've read, or am going to read (when the satellite internet connection is actually working):
The Lisa Yee Blog
Gassner Custom Soap
Mud Puddle Girl
an open [sketch]book
Get In, Hang On
The Good Enough Witch
Indie Business Blog
Be Different, Act Normal
Craft Knife
Chocolate and Marmalade Tea
Rake Shovel Hoe
A Duck in Her Pond
Oikology 101
Let Me Think On It
Health Begins at Home
Family Forever
Soap and the Finer Things in Life
Making Soap, Living Well
Professional SAHM

Oops, exceeded my quota of 5-10 blogs to read...

Anyway, hope you all have something to be thankful for today! :)

"He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home." ~ Johann von Goethe

Giveaways Galore, and another award!

When it rains, it...is better than pennies from heaven, I'm tellin' ya! So here are a couple more giveaways I've found, as well as my own.

Over at Soapaholics Anonymous, Heidi is giving away a 16 oz bottle of calendula and comfrey infused oil! Go enter and read about how you can use this wonderful product.

Then, to celebrate her 100th post, Michelle at Chocolate and Marmalade Tea is giving away the sweetest Valentine set! You'll have to get yourself over there to see all the wonderful things included in it and to enter.

As for my giveaway, I'll bore you with the background story first (well, you have to suffer some to win, you know!). Dh wandered into my art/sewing/soaping/crafting room a couple of days ago when I was in there, and he remarks how it gives him the heebie-jeebies because it's so cluttered (thanks, dear). Then he peeked into the closet and groused about all the books in there that I had bought when I used to be the Scholastic Book Club coordinator for my homeschool group, and asked that I please get rid of them, and soon.

So, the first part of my giveaway is a set of kids' books, fun facts for kids of all ages, but probably especially perfect for homeschoolers. If you can't see the titles from my photo (because you all know what wonderful photos I take...NOT), they are the Usborne Encyclopedia of Planet Earth, a Scholastic Science Supergiants volume on the Wright Brothers, and an Ocean Origami book (with origami paper and stickers to complete your creations).

The second part of my giveaway is a 2 oz bag (3 if I can sneak some more out without dh noticing...heh heh) of our very own dried tomatoes - both cherry and grape tomatoes - grown with love in our garden and without pesticides or other harmful chemicals. I'd tell you how we pick the tomato hornworms off by hand, but I'd probably gross you out. Here it is in a jar, but I'll be mailing it in a baggie. Sorry, this second part is only available to those in the U.S. as I'm not sure what the mailing protocol for veggies is to other countries.These dried tomatoes are perfect for making sundried tomato paste, and kicks the tom kha soup up another notch with their tangy sweetness.

Please leave me a comment to be entered for the drawing; make sure it has your contact info somewhere, either a link to your blog/website or your email addy (your username on the comment usually has a link to your blog or email). Tell me which part, books or tomatoes or either, you'd like to be entered for.

I'm not trying to drum up traffic to my site, but if you do post about this contest please put that in your comment and you'll have a second entry. Or if you tell a friend about it and the friend drops by to enter, tell this friend to let me know you sent them, and that's another entry for you.

Finally, more blog love! This time, it's from The Blonde Duck, whose "A Duck in Her Pond" blog is one of the most creative ones I've ever read . She bestowed the following on me:Muchas gracias, Duckie!

This just in (added at 3:35pm), Cynthia at The Good Enough Witch (how can you not read a blog with that name??) also bestowed the above on me.

And, flaky me, I just realized that I was supposed to list 10 honest/interesting things about myself with this award. I'm not sure I know what that means...I've always been honest with my readers, unless I'm making some sarcastic joke, of course. If I'm to tell you things about myself, why would I make it up? My sister will just show up here and tell me off if I lied.

So, here goes nuthin':

1) My cell phone's ring tone is the call of a Wood Thrush. It throws me because when I hear a real wood thrush, I want to answer my phone.

2) I have to clean my toilets/bathrooms every weekend or I go nuts. Wait, I am nuts. I'd go more nuts, then.

3) I know I'm gonna get an earful from a lot of folks, but watching baseball or football puts me right to sleep.

4) I still have an unrequited love for astrophysics.

5) I used to dislike cilantro, but now I can't get enough of it.

6) I was once asked to be a Miss Hong Kong contestant.

7) I used to get strep throat at least 3 times a year when I lived in Hong Kong.

8) I don't have an addictive personality, and can break away from just about anything in a New York minute (although you wouldn't know it the way I'm glued to the computer).

9) I fear crowds. I blame it on being short and fearing being trampled, but I think I just fear the mob mentality that can stem from a crowd.

10) I don't know how to program the downstairs VCR; we've had it for about 5 years now.

I don't know if those are interesting or not, but that's all I've got for the day. I'm supposed to pass it along to 7 other bloggers, but....well, those of you who show up often enough will know that I shirk that duty as a duty. ;)

And happy Sunday, everyone!

"He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home." ~ Johann von Goethe

Book-tagged by Michelle

Michelle over at Chocolate and Marmalade Tea tagged me with this one.

The rules are: Grab the nearest book. Open the book to page 56. Find the fifth sentence. Post the text of the next two to five sentences in your journal/blog along with these instructions. Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST. Tag five other people to do the same.

Well, I have 2 books at equi-distance from me. The first one says, "We were right! Not for nothing is this our most populr sweater! Daniele knit up a killer sweater in a matter of days and it looks fabulous on her. Beginner knitters like it because it is knit on really big needles and has no ribbing or neck shaping."

The second book says, "Try to do this by visualizing your memorized color wheel. (If necessary, consult the wheel on page 24.) Find a bright-colored object among your surroudings, and name the source hue of that color."

Uh, does it sound like I read the most boring books in the world?

The first book is The Yarn Girls' Guide to Simple Knits by Julie Carles and Jordana Jacobs, and the second book is Color by Betty Edwards (of the Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain fame).

Since I know most of my blog friends are super-busy this time of year (either making products for the holiday season, or in the throes of homeschooling), I won't tag anyone specifically, but if you play, please post a comment and let me know so I can read your book excerpts!

"The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet." ~ James Oppenheim

The "my vice" giveaway

Hello, my name is Teresa and I'm a confirmed bookaholic.

I can't resist buying books. This is my worst vice of all my vices (I also tend to hoard fabric, art supplies, yarn, soaps, soap-making supplies, sewing supplies, jewelry supplies, and recipes, but we'll talk about those some other time).

Anyway, I'm going through the bookshelves clearing books out. I plan to turn over a new leaf and get rid of at least 2 books for every new one I bring into the house. So, I'm getting rid of many of the kids' books. Hah! Just kidding.

It's a good exercise, going through my bookshelves. It helps me to realize how many books I've bought that I never even cracked open, and how many are mainly duplicates in subject matter (don't even ask how many homeschooling books I have).

While I'll be donating the used books to our library's book sale, I feel that it's a shame to donate brand new books to a used book sale. I thought some of my online friends might want them instead.

The first book I'm giving away - I'm certain there will be more to follow - is The Creativity Book by Eric Maisel.

I was just going to put everyone whose blog I normally read into the draw, but then I realize that some of you might not be interested in the book. Therefore, if you're here reading this and are interested in being entered, please post a comment! I'm going to choose a recipient at random on Sept. 7th (dh's birthday, because he'll be thrilled I'm getting rid of books...heh heh).

"To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act." ~ Anatole France (1844 - 1924

Meg's Book Meme

Meg had a book meme that I liked because it made me think about what I have and haven't read in my life. Embarrassingly, ds#1, nearly 32 years younger than I, has read as many as, if not more than, I have.

The RULES:

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read (as in the book is bought and sitting on my shelf).
3) Underline the books you LOVE.

There are 98 books on the list.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen - read this on the tour bus while touring Europe. Actually, my best bud from highschool was reading it, and I kept reading over her shoulder, and reading faster than she, so she just got fed up and gave it to me to read.
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien - It's a guy thing, I've heard. I can't deal with it, but ds#1 has read every one in the volume at least a couple of times.
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte - I think that was my precursor to the Victoria Holt phase.
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling - everyone in the family did, although ds#1 was the only one who has read each one several times and it only took him about 6 hours to read #7.
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee - still moves me. The kids read it in our homeschool literary co-op a couple of years ago.
6. The Bible - King James version, NSE version, did several classes on it
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell - like Meg, we have it, but I haven't read it.
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman - This is a partial read. I started reading Golden Compass several years ago, recommended it to ds#1 who, then, read all 3 books, and I've not yet finished the first.
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott - this was the first novel I read after learning English in grade 3. I credit this with my love of the English language and for wanting to be a writer.
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy - want to, but haven't yet.
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare - also a "partial-read", my favorites being Macbeth and The Tempest.
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier - does it count if I've seen parts of the movie? ;)
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien - ds#1 read it
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell - it was a juicy read for an 11 year old...me, that is; I'm not letting ds#1 read it yet.
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald - I'm not quite sure why this received the critical acclaim that it did. I read it when I took an online course from the Gotham Writer's Grp.
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy - I'd be happy if I could just finish Anna Karenina one day.
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams - LOVED this book...the whole series, although the first 2 volumes more than the others. Ditto for ds#1. His "Last Chance to See" is excellent too! I have his "the Salmon of Doubt" on the book shelf to read one day.
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh - I may just borrow the BBC series to watch
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky - nope...I think it'll be too depressing for me. There is a cute scene in "Wallace & Gromit: A Close Shave" where Gromit is lying in his cell bed (in jail) and he's reading Crime and Punishment by Fido Dogstoyevsky. I love Wallace & Gromit!
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll - both ds#1 and I read it. I think I liked it more than he did.
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame - I thought this was one of the most boring books I had ever read (I was 11, and Gone with the Wind was a lot more exciting then), whereas it was ds#1's favorite book from ages of 5-7. I couldn't believe he could read that over and over and over again. :P
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy - "partial read", gotta finish
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens - if it seems like I avoid Dickens, it's probably true
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis - read the whole series, but don't remember any of it because I didn't like it very much. Ds#1 read the whole series and liked it a lot more than I did.
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini - I'm so not up to date with modern lit.
37. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
38. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
39. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne - surreal and lots of fun, much like the Mary Poppins books (NOT at all like the movie)
40. Animal Farm - George Orwell - ds#1 really enjoyed it; I haven't read it yet
41. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - "partial read" - I tend to start a lot of books and never get around to finishing them.
42. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
43. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
44. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
45. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery - It was all right; not sure why the cult following. I preferred the Betsy-Tacy series by Maude Hart Lovelace more.
46. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
47. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
48. Lord of the Flies - William Golding - I hated this book so much, I told the kids they were not allowed to read it as long as they lived in this house.
49. Atonement - Ian McEwan
50. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
51. Dune - Frank Herbert - dh loved this one; I thought it was ok, and I'm the sci-fi fan.
52. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
53. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
54. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
55. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
56. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
57. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
58. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon - this one really affected me. I cried, and I really enjoyed it even though it's depressing (I say this as a mom of a child with mild autism).
59. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
60. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
61. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
62. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
63. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
64. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas - ds#1 is reading it, but I don't think he cares much for it.
65. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
66. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
67. Bridget Jones’ Diary - Helen Fielding
68. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
69. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
70. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens - ds#1 read it.
71. Dracula - Bram Stoker - ds#1 read it
72. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett - both kids read it too. Not sure that they liked it any more than I did.
73. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
74. Ulysses - James Joyce
75. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
76. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
77. Germinal - Emile Zola
78. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
79. Possession - AS Byatt
80. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens - ds#1 read this a couple of times.
81. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
82. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
83. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
84. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
85. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
86. Charlotte’s Web - EB White - we all enjoyed this one.
87. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
88. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - It's a "partial-read" for me, and ds#1 loved all the books.
89. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
90. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad - I don't know why I liked this so much, but I did.
91. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery - This was another book we did a couple of years ago in our homeschool literary co-op. Ds#1 was 10 and loved it. I watched the movie and a stage play of it back in high school and thought it clever and sad.
92. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
93. Watership Down - Richard Adams - watched the animated movie...
94. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
95. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
96. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas - like Meg, I watched the '70s Michael York movies
97. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl - I find his works interesting and probably have read a half a dozen books of his, but it's ds#1 who was totally infatuated with all his books.
98. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

"To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act." ~ Anatole France (1844 - 1924)

Thursday Thirteen

Books!!! Part 2Fiction this week, as I had promised. :)

A) Books I've read and recommend:
1. Edward Eager's "magic" series - e.g. Half Magic, Magic by the Lake, and The Well-Wishers. These are children's books, but even after all these years, I still love them. And the nice thing is, the boys have come to love these books too.
2. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Based on his own time spent at the Gulag, this book, while not exciting, touched me deeply with his observations on human behavior in sub-human conditions.
3. Dawn by Octavia Butler. Chilling, page-turning, thought-provoking...the late Ms. Butler was an amazing writer (she had won one of those genius awards). The storyline is about aliens helping humans to salvage their post-apocalyptic world. My friend, Carol, recommended this excellent book to me; Carol has wonderful recommendations. She was the one who told me about The Primal Teen (in my last TT list).
4. The Princess Bride by William Goldman. All the hilarious subtleties that didn't make it into the movie (because Hollywood rarely deals with subtleties) are in this fabulous book.
5. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. While I don't agree with Crichton's politics necessarily, this is a fun adventure thriller with just enough science to keep me happy. Much more grim and better than the movie, which was not bad but was made Hollywood-fluffy.
6. Door Into Summer by Robert Heinlein. Time travel, cryogenics, a cute cat...what more can one want?
7. The Chrysalids by John Wyndham. Not as famous as his Day of the Triffids, but this was an excellent social commentary about superstition and triumph of hope in a post-nuclear war world.
8. Every single robot story and short story Isaac Asimov wrote. I have the 3 Laws of Robotics memorized.
9. Mary Poppins books (Mary Poppins, Mary Poppins Comes Back, Mary Poppins Opens the Door, and Mary Poppins in the Park) by P.L. Travers. Again, the book is infinitely superior to the movie (I honestly don't have anything against Hollywood, I just prefer original movies to those made from books). Mary Poppins is not a pretty young thing like Julie Andrews was. MP is a conceited, funny-looking, not terribly loveable character who happens to be a super fun read because of her oddities. Despite Travers' zenophobia, or perhaps because of it, every story is highly memorable with surrealistic characters.
10. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. The first is the best, but the whole series is pretty fun. Very droll.
11. Cricket In Times Square by George Selden. Illustrated by Garth Williams! I'm generally not too big on anthropomorphic stories, but this series is superbly written, and I'm a big fan of Garth Williams' art.

[As you guys can probably tell, I've read mostly children's books and sci-fi.]

B) Books that I haven't read, but are recommended by others:
12. Happenstance by Carol Shields. Thanks, Diane!

C) Books that I'm reading currently:
13. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. I started this a few years ago, and haven't gotten past the second chapter. Like I said before, I don't read a whole lot of fiction these days.

Join the Thursday Thirteen fun! Visit other Thursday Thirteeners at:
http://thursdaythirteen.com/2008/06/19/thursday-thirteen-150th-edition/ and let the TTers know you're participating by leaving the link to your Thirteen in your comment.

"To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act." ~ Anatole France (1844 - 1924)

Thursday Thirteen

BOOKS!!!
Now that I've outed myself as a bibliophile, I think it's appropriate that this TT is going to be about books. This week, it'll be non-fiction because that is the bulk of my reading these days. Next week, I'll tackle fiction. For this particular topic, I wish it were Thursday Thirty or Thursday Three-Hundred instead of Thirteen!

I'm putting this list into sub-categories for greater clarity. And I wonder where ds#1 gets his penchant for classification from.

A) Books I have read and highly recommend:
1. Getting Things Done by David Allen. Inspiring! I've put some of his ideas into practice already. I have read lots of books on organizing, and this is, by far, the best one.
2. Craft Inc. by Meg Mateo Ilasco; in a similar vein, many books by Barbara Brabec are really good too.
3. The Real Science Behind the X-Files by Anne Simon. How can one make a great show even more enjoyable? Find out about the science that drives the episodes.
4. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. My only complaint about this book is that it doesn't have enough equations in it. The expression "a picture is worth a thousand words" applies to equations too.
5. The Primal Teen by Barbara Strauch. I am so not letting my boys drive until they are in their 20s!
6. Homeschooling for Excellence by David and Micki Colfax. This was the book that helped me convince dh to homeschool the kids. They are a fascinating family.
7. Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. Our family listened to this as a book on CD (ds#1 subsequently read it when he was 10), and was very moved by it. For our homeschool literary co-op couple of years ago, I recommended we read the kids' version, Chew On This: Everything You Don't Want to Know About Fast Food, and the kids liked it so much, they still quote from it.

B) Books I have not read, but that come highly recommended to me, so I have put them on my list (loooong list) of to-reads:
8) The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory by Brian Greene. I saw part of the PBS show on this topic, and it was fascinating.
9) Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen. I actually have started reading a couple of chapters of this during a Native American History homeschool class my kids took, and I plan to do a history unit with the boys based on this book.
10) The Portable Atheist by Christopher Hitchens. I hear this man is articulate and witty. This would round out our study of world religions...or non-religion as this may be.

C) Books I'm currently reading:
11) The Small Business Bible by Steven D. Strauss. Lots of info - I think my brain is on overload...
12) The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan. Mr. Pollan is an excellent and thought-provoking writer. I am planning on reading In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto at some point too.
13) The Simple Living Guide by Janet Luhrs. I need a constant reminder on how to simplify my life, and this is it.

Join the Thursday Thirteen fun! Visit other Thursday Thirteeners at:
http://thursdaythirteen.com/2008/06/12/thursday-thirteen-149th-edition/ and let the TTers know you're participating by leaving the link to your Thirteen in your comment.

"To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act." ~ Anatole France (1844 - 1924)