Books

So now that studying has come to and end for perhaps once and for all, reading for fun can actually (or at least potentially) begin. And with that a quest for new reading materials is born.

This list of 100 titles printed by The Big Read, an organization that---according to their Web site---hopes to "restore reading to the center of American culture." They say, though, that the average American has only read six of the following hundred.

Since I am who I am and love a good list, I thought this was a very fine place to start when BFF-MD shared this article with me =)

Key
1) Bold the books you have already read
2) Italicize the books you intend to read
3) Personally added: Notes in parentheses next to note-worthy titles.

***********************

1) Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
2) The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
3) Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
4) Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling (okay, so only two, but that was enough for me)
5) To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
6) The Bible
7) Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
8) Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell
9) His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
10) Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
11) Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
12) Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
13) Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
14) Complete Works of Shakespeare (okay, so not "complete", but AP English brough my pretty darn close!)
15) Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
16) The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
17) Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
18) Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
19) The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
20) Middlemarch by George Eliot
21) Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell
22) The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (I vaguely remember this...it may or may not have actually happened)
23) Bleak House by Charles Dickens
24) War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
25) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
26) Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
27) Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28) Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (I vaguely remember this...it may or may not have actually happened)
29) Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
30) The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
31) Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
32) David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
33) Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis (over half-way through...it's my most current "read")
34) Emma by Jane Austen
35) Persuasion by Jane Austen
36) The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by CS Lewis
37) The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
38) Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis De Bernieres
39) Memories of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
40) Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne
41) Animal Farm by George Orwell
42) The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
43) One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44) A Prayer for Owen Meaney by John Irving
45) The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
46) Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery
47) Far From The Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
48) The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
49) Lord of the Flies by William Golding
50) Atonement by Ian McEwan (started it...)
51) Life of Pi by Yann Martel
52) Dune by Frank Herbert
53) Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
54) Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
55) A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
56) The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57) A Tale Of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
58) Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
59) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
60) Love In The Time Of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61) Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
62) Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
63) The Secret History by Donna Tartt
64) The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
65) Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
66) On The Road by Jack Kerouac
67) Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
68) Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding
69) Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
70) Moby Dick by Herman Melville
71) Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
72) Dracula by Bram Stoker
73) The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
74) Notes From A Small Island by Bill Bryson
75) Ulysses by James Joyce
76) The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
77) Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
78) Germinal by Emile Zola
79) Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
80) Possession by AS Byatt
81) A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
82) Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
83) The Color Purple by Alice Walker
84) The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
85) Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
86) A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
87) Charlotte's Web by EB White
88) The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom
89) Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90) The Faraway Tree Collection by Enid Blyton
91) Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
92) The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93) The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
94) Watership Down by Richard Adams
95) A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
96) A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
97) The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas (I vaguely remember this...it may or may not have actually happened)
98) Hamlet by William Shakespeare
99) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
100) Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

Compared to 6 I feel like 30-ish is a respectable number...and there are definitely a handful of the "would like to read" titles that I have on my shelf and have gotten about half-way through before other things got in the way of finishing...there were definitely some titles I was surprised were not on the list though. No Mark Twain and although Narnia got two nods (?) no other CS Lewis titles? There are several other works I felt "missing" although perhaps it was because this list did not include playwrights such as Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller...but I definitely think those are "must reads" as well.

Looks like I have my work cut out for me...now where to start...

=)

Friends

Committing to Each Other
by Jon Walker

A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. Proverbs 18:24 (NIV)

*** *** *** ***

Truth teaches that the quality of our friendships is more important than the quantity. We don't need a lot of friends in this life, but we do need a few good ones.

By moving beyond superficial acquaintance with specific Jesus-ones, we become friends who are closer than family (Proverbs 18:24).

This requires considerably more commitment than our standard "to each his own" approach to getting along. Instead, we agree there will be "none of this going off and doing your own thing" (Colossians 3:15 MSG).

We see each other as individuals, unique creations of God and vessels of God's grace. We "develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results" when we "do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor" (James 3:18 MSG).

Although this describes what a family should be, it's a stone, cold fact that many people find closer relationships among friends than their blood relatives. But there is a different type of blood relative, sisters and brothers who are grafted together through the blood of Jesus Christ. His power within us gives us the ability to become companions who stick together closer than a brother, or sister.

Again

Tennessee, again.
Jack's BBQ, again.
Neel's Nachos, again.
Smokey Mountains, again.
A good time, again.

We're insane, but we love it =)

Bingham BBQ Tour: Tennessee Round 2

Coming August 30th to a blog near you ;-)

Shoes

It has happened. I found the shoes I have been searching for the past year. Those semi-casual non-flip flop flats that can be worse with capris, skirts, etc. both for work and for play. At long last I have found "them" (I say, "them" because technically I found three pairs...0=) )

After all was said and done, I may or may not have casual mentioned that I was "done" shopping for shoes which leads to my next goal/task/adventure. Which then lead to a lengthy discussion with Husband and this promise:

I will not buy another pair of shoes until July 25, 2009.

We'll see how long this lasts...

Christmas

My Christmas in July Wish-List:

- A citrus zester
- A pie pan with a travel lid
- Subscription to Everyday with Rachael Ray
- A lifetime supply of Starbucks Skinny Mochas and/or Mint Mocha Chip Frappuccino
- New clothes from NY & Co.
- Subscription to Martha Stewart Living
- The movie "Enchanted"
- A One-Year Chronological Bible
- Two tickets to see The Dark Knight 0=)
- Meal at Jack's BBQ in Nashville

Yes

Four years ago today I said, "Yes".

I said, "yes" to a man that continually makes me laugh. Laugh at myself, at him, at life, at strangers, at circumstances, at food, at the world...

Today I am reminded of the time in the recent past that this man admitted to drying himself off after a taking working hard all afternoon with a roll of paper towels, after discovering that his bath towel was still in the dryer. The same man that once threw his socks in the toilet instead of the hamper. This makes me love him all the more since I am confident that I am the woman that continually makes him laugh, at myself, at him, at life, at strangers, at circumstances, at food, at the world. My supernatural ability to fall down and up stairs at a moment's notice. The squeak-hiccup that happens pretty much on a daily basis. My evening tear. My ridiculous obsession with all things LOST. The way I dance and sing...constantly.

Six years ago today we went on our first date.

We ate chili on a hot DC summer night.

Meant to be?

I think so; who else but us would have thought it was a good idea?

Green

So, probably a year ago I started gathering my thoughts on the "Green Movement". My thoughts were scattered and I don't think ever made it into an actual blog. There is such a fine line between worshiping the world we live in, and fulfilling duty to care for God's creation that was first bestoed upon Adam and Eve. People far too often, I fear, choose one over the other. Thankfully, Beth Moore's daughter, Melissa, has taken the time to do this topic justice in one of her latest blogs on the Living Proof blog. She puts this so much more eloquently than I could have done, even with another year of study and revisions.

http://livingproofministries.blogspot.com/2008/07/melissas-soapbox-of-day.html