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Tuesday, March 17, 2009
 Ganked from everyone - the BBC supposedly says most people have only read 6 of these books. Here's how I measure up!
Bold those books you've read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish. 1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen 2 The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien 3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte 4 Harry Potter series - J.K. Rowling 5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee 6 The Bible 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 13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller 14 Complete Works of Shakespeare -- I've read or seen unabridged onstage (alphabetically) Comedy of Errors, Hamlet, Macbeth, Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, The Twelfth Night, a handful of sonnets, and the Reduced Shakespeare Company. :D 15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier 16 The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien 17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk 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 22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald 23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens 24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy 25 The HitchHiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (complete "trilogy") 26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh 27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky 28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (and I was one of like three people in my year that actually read the whole thing. Most people stopped at 200 pages. Not that I'm bitter.) 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 - C.S. Lewis 34 Emma - Jane Austen 35 Persuasion - Jane Austen 36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis (why is this on here twice?) 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 - L.M. Montgomery 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 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 66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac 67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy 68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding 69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie 70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville 71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens 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 Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath 77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome 78 Germinal - Emile Zola 79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray 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 - EB White 88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom 89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle -- I've read a few, but by no means all 90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton 91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad 92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (in French) 93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks 94 Watership Down - Richard Adams 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 Total read: 31 Total partially read: 18 Wow. I'm actually embarrassed that I've gone without reading so many of these. Who are these people who have read fewer than six, and can I direct them to the nearest library? I'm amazed anyone can graduate high school without reading at least six of these. Heck, I'm surprised people can get through childhood without reading nearly that many. Priscilla said at 12:42 PM
Friday, February 27, 2009
This afternoon, I went to the Doctor Who NY meetup. They hold two meetups per month: a pub meetup for booze and conversation, and a "video" meetup for watching of classic episodes. This month was a tribute to the third Doctor, and we watched "Terror of the Autons." It was cool to see an instance of how the old school monsters were resurrected for the new series. I also got to chat with some fun folks about costuming. Yay for getting out of my apartment!
Heading over, on my way out the door, I tucked my copy of The Name of the Wind in my purse. I finished Barrayar the night before last, and Watchmen is too big to fit without shoving, and I wasn't about to risk damaging a copy signed by Dave Gibbons. NotW has been on my mind a lot recently, and even though it's no longer coming out April 7th, I decided to go forward with the reread as scheduled. Good lord, I'd forgotten how much I love this book. I remember loving it, but getting that thrill of readerly intrigue at the end of the prologue--every bit as effective the second time around--reminded me of exactly why this story kept me spellbound for a week. Looking back, I'm amazed I managed to drag it out that long, despite my slightly mad work schedule. I was caught in a bizarre tango of savoring and devouring. I wanted to forgo sleep and ignore my job and just keep reading, but I also wanted to ration it, because when it was gone, it was gone. I knew the sequel wouldn't be coming any time soon, and the author hadn't written anything else in that vein. It was my favourite book I read last year. Even though I've "known" for ages, but it's still somewhat disheartening to see it in writing: yes, the sequel to The Name of the Wind has been delayed. It was originally slated for April 7th, the same day as Jim Butcher's Turn Coat, and watching Jim barely scoot under the publication deadline while Pat continued to blog about writing and revising, writing and revising, the frustrating reality set in. I'm glad Pat is taking the time to get the book right, though. The last thing I want to see is the sequel getting rushed out the door before Pat is satisfied. I'll happily wait another year or longer to have another experience like that I had reading NotW. For now, I'll savor my reread! It's kind of odd, though. Last year, after I finished NotW, I was at a loss as to what to read next. What could follow it? Finally, I picked up Bujold's The Warrior's Apprentice, the first book I read in that series. As I mentioned earlier in this post, I just finished Barrayar, my last book. Funny that such an awesome novel would bookend such an awesome series for me. Labels: books, doctor who, pat rothfuss is my other master now Priscilla said at 10:50 AM
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Aww, I love my coworkers. Work has been very stressful the past few days, especially as my partner, Chris, took off Friday and Monday to move into his new apartment, and his alarm didn't go off this morning, meaning he got in around 11. My job feels about four times harder when doing it on my own, and some of the time frames our producers have been giving me alone would be tight even with both of us working on the characters at the same time.
Anyway, I got a text message from Chris after work: "Thank you so much for all your hard work lately. It is not going unnoticed obviously. You rock." Warm fuzzies. :D Though alas, on the cold, non-fuzzy front, Michael Crichton died yesterday. His were some of the first "adult" novels I read. I remember being nine years old, and my mom (quite wisely) wouldn't let me see Jurassic Park, so I checked out the book from the library and read that instead. Then I picked up Sphere, which became one of my favourite books at that age. My sister asked me if I was carrying around "big books" to make me look smarter. I don't think I've read anything of his since junior high, but... he had a hand in shaping the craziness that is my brain today. He was singly responsible for kicking off my paleontology obsession phase. He will be missed. Labels: books, i love my job Priscilla said at 8:07 PM
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Gg83 brings it to my attention that I neglected to include the 7th Harry Potter book on my "List of Books I Read This Year." There's one for the "I'm sure there are some I'm forgetting" list!
Labels: books Priscilla said at 8:29 PM Books/Short Stories I Read in 2007! Rereads not included. I'm sure there are some I'm forgetting, but here we go:
Labels: books Priscilla said at 11:12 AM
Friday, October 19, 2007
Ah, finally, time for a sane post! Life continues to go swimmingly in La Vida Cellie. Here, have a recap:
Last Thursday (as in a week from yesterday), I saw Tori Amos in concert for the first time, and she was excellent. She's such a strong performer! Playing two pianos at once = pretty awesome. I can't even play one piano.  As I alluded to before, work has been somewhat mad lately, but madness breeds humor and silliness, so all is good. In addition to my usual duties assembling characters, I did some work painting body textures, drawing heavily on the anatomy lessons from my figure modeling class. Mmm, anatomy! I need to find time to do some drawing soon. I need to experience Dr. Sketchy's. Speaking of art, I mentioned the other day that Dabel Brothers Publishing is making the Dresden Files into graphic novels. Well, the news gets COOLER! I can now reveal that I've been brought in as a Thematic Consultant, meaning that I, along with Jim and the other two Consultants, will be the first to see the artwork as it comes out. We give our thoughts on the artwork and help keep everything canon-friendly. We got to suggest the scenes depicted for the promotional posters, and the art we've seen so far is EXTRAORDINARY. I can't wait until it's revealed to the public! Also, our names will be credited. Yes, we are awesome. :D This weekend, I'm going to York, Pennsylvania, to attend a Halloween bash at the home of Courtney and Ryan, the coolest couple EVER, whom I met at the PA Shindigs. Kristin, hostess of the Shindigs, is giving me a ride. Many of the attendees are part of the Star Wars 501st, so I'll be among fellow costuming enthusiasts! A splendid time is guaranteed for all. Also, I just found out that Ko, roommate extraordinaire, will be in New York next week, so it'll be all kinds of fun to catch up with her life. Also, it's likely we'll meet up with Veronica, who was my favourite professor at Penn. She taught the Feminist Fairy Tales course, which changed the way I view storytelling and revision. In other news, I've been doing a lot of reading lately. My daily commute allots me about an hour of reading time per day, which I didn't realize I so desperately craved until it was imposed upon me. I'm currently reading Robin McKinley's Sunshine, which is excellent. I read her Deerskin in said much-beloved Fairy Tales class last year, and it became my favourite book of the course. This summer, I read Beauty, which was also wonderful, and The Blue Sword is now on my shelf, jockeying for a position on my To-Read list. Mmm, such a great author! Recently, I have read:
And now, gotta pack! Labels: books, dresden files, jasper fforde, libraries are awesome, working for the new york yankee dollar Priscilla said at 10:05 PM
Monday, June 18, 2007
*gaaaaaaaaaaaasp!!!!*
How is it I'm only now learning that there's to be a fifth "Thursday Next" novel? Thursday Next: First Among Sequels hits bookshelves July 24th. For those that haven't been introduced to the series, they're brilliant and book-nerdy and WONDERFUL and I thought the fourth book was the last one! They take place on an Earth where the Crimean War is still going on, people keep Dodos as pets, and instead of Rocky Horror, fans stage audience-participatory versions of Richard III. SO MUCH LOVE. AND NOW THERE IS GOING TO BE MORE OF IT! Labels: books, jasper fforde, nerd glee Priscilla said at 8:00 PM
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Hello, all! I'm selling (nearly) all my Discworld books to whoever wants them in order to make more room on my bookshelves! I'm offering them at half the price I originally paid for them, which means $3.50 for paperbacks and $12.50 for hardbacks, plus the cost of shipping. All Hardbacks are in excellent shape, and while paperbacks vary in how creased the spines are, they're all still in good condition, with very strong bindings.
Comment saying which ones you want, and please check the comments to make sure the book you want hasn't already been spoken for. I'll be out of town from May 23 to June 10th, so I'll probably send everything out June 12th or thereabouts. Here's the full list. "UK" indicates a British edition, "HB" indicates a hardcover.
Labels: books, terry pratchett Priscilla said at 1:50 PM Title cartoon by Bruce Eric Kaplan, used without permission.
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