100 Books December 5, 2010
Posted by nrhatch in Books & Movies, Word Play, Writing & Writers.comments closed
The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed below. How about you? Have you read more than 6 of these books? Count only those books you’ve read in their entirety.
1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen*
2 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
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte*
8 1984- George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens*
11 Little Women – Louisa May Alcott*
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare*
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
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
23 The Moonstone -Wilkie Collins
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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 (A Thousand Splendid Suns)
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*
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 Inferno – Dante
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 – 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
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*
Boldface = Read book cover to cover
Italics = Started but didn’t finish the book
* = Saw the movie (which doesn’t count)
So . . . how’d you do? More than 6? Shall we write the BBC and say it underestimated us?
W.T.F. December 5, 2010
Posted by nrhatch in Humor, Mindfulness, Writing & Writers.comments closed
W (a writer on WEbook) wrote a novel.
Then, W requested feedback on it.
F (a feedbacker on the site) posted one complement after another about W’s novel in the feedback box.
W was pleased, at first.
Then he realized that F hadn’t really read his novel.
Frankly, that pissed him off.
W sent an angry e-mail to F, accusing F of pretending to read his novel, without really reading it.
Then, he accused F of posting phony feedback so that F could become a top feedbacker on the site with as little effort as possible.
F replied that she had read it, it sucked, and that her comments had been sarcastic in nature . . . only W was to stupid to notice that F’s comments dripped with sarcasm.
W replied to F’s e-mail, telling her that she had no business being on the site, and adding a few other unsavory comments about F’s character.
Then W posted the chronology of events in a forum, in order to alert others to F’s proffer of phony feedback.
Forums can be a great place to vent anger, right?
W invited his friends on WEbook to come take a look at the forum thread.
Then . . .
Frankly, I’m sure you get the picture.
* * * * *
W asked for my Thoughts about F‘s actions. Here they are:
Wait a minute; Take a deep breath, count to Five, and let it all go.
Try NOT to take it personally. Just say “it’s all good,” and go back to your writing.
Focus on something else. Don’t give away your power and creative energy by hanging on to anger.
Related posts: WTF: Watch That Feedback * Our Field of Dreams * Our Internal Compass * Quotes for Writers from Writers (My Literary Quest) * Let Go, Ego! * The Inner Path to Peace * Pop Goes The Ego
Santa Claus Is Coming To Town December 5, 2010
Posted by nrhatch in Home & Garden.comments closed
In recent years, I’ve noted a divergence of opinion about how Christians should celebrate Christmas.
Some enjoy all the varied traditions of this festive holiday season: Christmas trees, twinkling lights, ornaments, presents, mistletoe, hymns, carols, nutcrackers, wreaths, and flying reindeer.
Others lament the commercialism and feel the focus on Santa Claus is misplaced.
So, who’s right?
For Christians around the globe, Christ is the “reason for the season.”
Christmas celebrates the advent of Christ’s birth (despite the fact that He was not born on Christmas Day, or even in December).
But does Christ resent sharing the spotlight with Santa Claus, Father Christmas, and Saint Nicholas?
Or would Christ applaud Santa’s kind spirit, loving nature, good-hearted generosity, and efforts to share magical moments with children around the globe?
And what about our other Christmas traditions? Would Christ want us to ban Jingle Bells, Christmas Trees, and Gift Giving from our holiday celebrations?
* Jingle bells fill the world with MUSIC and our hearts with JOY.
* Christmas trees instill PEACE on a winter’s evening.
* Twinkling lights remind us of the LIGHT emanating from within us all.
* Ornaments connect us with Christmases past.
* Angels help us remember loved ones who are no longer with us.
* Stars remind us of Three Wise Men who followed a star to Bethlehem.
* Gifts symbolize the enduring gifts of Peace, Hope, Love, and JOY.
Father Christmas
Perhaps the best way for devout Christians to celebrate the birth of Christ is to emulate the messages He came to impart . . . Peace, Love, Joy, Charity, Forgiveness, Hope, Acceptance, Benevolence, and Gratitude.
Santa, of course, embodies all of these attributes, not just at Yuletide, but throughout the year. As such, Jolly Old St. Nick seems like a fine addition to the Holiday Season, especially for families with young children.
Christians who wish to put Christ back in Christmas need not launch a full-fledged frontal assault on Santa Claus, Jingle Bells, Christmas Trees, and Gift Giving. Instead, they can use these seasonal symbols and shared traditions to spread (simply, clearly, and truthfully) the positive messages that Christ came to share:
Peace on Earth.
Goodwill towards Man.
May we all delight in the Peace, Hope, Love, and Joy of this Festive Season, whether (and however) we celebrate Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, or the Winter Solstice!
Related posts: Joy To The World * Ho~Ho~Ho! Merry Christmas! * 10 Holiday Classics + 2 Year Round Faves * Experiential Gifts * Gifts of Hope * Christmas Diamante * Join the Advent Conspiracy (Reflections) * Enter Into The Joy (Reflections) * Weekend Theme: Religious Holidays (View from the Side)
Spirit Lights The Way 