Catch up on my reading: Year 2

My first year of "reading Up" had a slow start. Unfortunately, this means that I did not complete the list of 4o books that I had made for myself, despite my Speed-Reader-Extrodinare status. (sigh) Ah, well. I did manage to finish 26 books on that list, which was no small feat (see post about Atlas Shrugged).

Onward to this year's reading quest! I am going to try to finish the fourteen books from the previous list along with the following 40. (Yes, I know that total is 54~more books than there are weeks in the year....It's a goal, okay?) This year I stuck with all male authors...and boy, are there a lot of them to choose from! When you start poking around famous novel lists (which are everywhere, btw), you see the disparity in the number of male vs. female authors. Anyway, it was even harder to narrow down this list than it was the last one...but I already have the beginnings of a list for AFTER I turn 40! (But that is another blog idea entirely.)

So without further ado, here it is, in no particular order whatsoever:

1. A Land Remembered by Patrick D. Smith


2. Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis


3. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol


4. Watership Down by Richard Adams


5. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden


6. Night by Elie Wiesel


7. Walden by Henry David Thoreau


8. 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marques


9. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett


10. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame


11. A High Wind in Jamacia by Richard Hughes


12. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas


13. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens


14. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemmingway


15. Dracula by Bram Stoker


16. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien


17. The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne


18. The Godfather by Mario Puzo


19. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson


20. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum


21. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy


22. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck


23. The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale


24. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson


25. In Defense of Food by Mihale Pollan


26. Winning Thru Intimidation by Robert Ringer


27. On the Road by Jack Kerouac


28. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert


29. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger


30. Crime and Punnishment by Fydor Dostoevsky


31. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey


32. A Study in Scarlett by Arthur Conan Doyle


33. Casino Royale by Ian Fleming


34. All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren


35. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe


36. The Call of the Wild by Jack London


37. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving


38. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty


39. 1984 by George Orwell


40. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

I learned a valuable lesson from my first list...make sure you counter heavy reading (ie: Anna Karenina, Crime and Punnishment) with light reading (ie: Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz), else your head might explode.

Cupcake Meltdown

Last week I realized that there is no way I am going to meet my goal of the first forty books of "2. Catch Up on my Reading" by October 8th. What is really disgusting to me is that I have read a zillion books in the last year: mysteries, vamps & werewolves & all manner of paranormal suspense, even a few kid's books on the recommendation of my step-son~ but not THE forty that I had chosen for this project. I have been cramming books in left and right these last few months to try to get there....but right now I am so sick of reading "UP" that I don't even want to look at a book, ANY book, much less read it. And somehow getting the Cliff Notes for this project seems more like cheating than it did in college....

I have realized that while most of my Cupcake goals are not difficult (hello! flossing, watching movies, making lists?!), they will take some time and planning, perhaps more than I first realized. And now my first year is almost gone. (sigh)

So today, as I am trapped inside looking out the window at a week's worth of rain, trying to decide if I should start on an ark or not...looking for some inspiration, I read this, written by Kristin Armstrong in her blog, Mile-Markers:

"This reminded me of some time I spent recently doing some goals and vision work, (try goaltender at goals.lululemon.com–it's great) imagining my life 10 years out, five years out, and one year out. It was a real mind-opener for me. The site explains that failing to reach your goals 50 percent of the time is a good indication that you are motivated and challenged. That was a "huh?" moment for me. Failing 50 percent of the time to me sounds like I'm not working hard enough. Or perhaps I'm not putting myself out there far enough to risk that 50 percent failure rate. Oh. Maybe I'm more willing to write down goals that sound achievable or are at least in the zip code of my comfort zone..."

Now I'd like to tell you that this made me feel instantly better...actually it made me wonder which goals on my Cupcake List weren't going to tank! The truth is I'm not very good at keeping up with my dreams (hence the list and the blog)...and so perhaps I should congratulate myself for making myself vulnerable enough to try, in public-no less, and stop self-flagellating over a less than perfect result.

I have read twenty-five books (of the first 40) to date that I would never have taken the time to read before. In no reality that I recognize should that be viewed as anything but success. And that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

More Books!

I told you I was reading! So to catch you all the way up on my progress, here are the remainder of the books I have read this summer...

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood: This was a surprisingly easy read. And interesting, as it takes place in some futuristic time period where the roles of women have been limited to a few and their rights have been all but taken away entirely. All for the greater good, of course. If you want to read a book that makes you think, but isn't going to make your brain explode, this is a good choice. And I loved the ending.

A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf: I read this after I finished Atlas Shrugged, which might be why I liked it so much. Another book that makes you think, but not in a head-achy sort of way. Woolf comes by her belief that in order to write fiction a woman must have some money and a room of her own by way of rational thinking. A thought-provoking look at women's place throughout history.

The Enchanted Wood by Enid Blyton: Written in the 1930's, this book is a sweet children's book that would be lovely to read aloud to a little one at bedtime. Three children move to the country and discover The Faraway Tree in an enchanted wood. They meet many new and unusual friends as they climb the tree, and at the tree-top there is always a new and strange land up through the clouds to explore. My favorite was the Land of Birthdays. I'd like my party there this year, please.

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand: In college I had a professor that extolled the virtue of writing concisely. Ayn Rand did NOT have this same professor. This was, hands down, the LONGEST 1068 pages of my life. The plot and the characters were interesting! Even the pro-capitalism bent got me thinking. But if you could cull out at least half of the lectures and rhetoric, one would have a more manageable treatise on her philosophy of Objectivism. The Major has forbidden me to ever discuss this book again in his presence.

Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell: If Atlas Shrugged made me want to beat my head against a wall every time I picked it up, GWTW was just the opposite. I was so surprised to find that I could hardly put it down once I started! Scarlett alternately impressed me with her fortitude and ability to follow her own heart without caring about the opinions of others and drove me crazed with her insensitivity and inability to understand anyone at all. Ms. Mitchell was a genius. And while not normally an avid reader of historical fiction (I leave that to my dads), I found the portrayal of the South and the description of the "War of Northern Aggression" fascinating. LOVED it. {And thanks to my dear friend Mina who stepped out of her normal genre and read it with me--and became obsessed with all things GWTW!!!...I'm so proud of you!} Next...the movie...all four hours of it....

Succulent Wild Women by SARK: I loved this book. SARK is part artist, part philosopher, part cheerleader and part shrink. Just looking at all the colorful illustrations made me happy. Her writing is inspirational and emotionally powerful~she has overcome much and found a way to heal and accept herself as she is, scars and all. A lesson most of us could learn something from. Her website, Planet SARK, is a wonderful adventure, also. I plan on reading more of her books.

Slowly but surely plowing through the list. Wish me luck...reading is my #1 priority over the next weeks to try to make my goal (gulp)!

Books

I have fallen into a swirling vortex that is called Hampstead. Moving and the subsequent settling in combined with summer have turned time on its ear for me and four months have sped by-practically overnight.

But I have not been idle during the summer! (Even if I have forgotten to write.) I have worked on #19 Join a Runner's Club, #27 Volunteer my Time, #32 Become a Registered Yoga Teacher, #39 Memorize 10 Favorite Poems, and especially #2 Catch up on my Reading.

More about the others later, but this reading business has been a challenge. I found that I have enjoyed some of the books on my list much more than expected, and a few much less. Starting with the ones above:

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett: Liked the characters, didn't enjoy the storyline half so much as her other famous work A Little Princess (possibly my favorite book of all time). The story seemed to just...well, END. Abruptly. I did like the friendly little bird....

Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende: Excellent. Interesting commentary on the California Gold Rush...and the heroine is wonderfully portrayed. The ending left what happens next to the reader's imagination.

My Life In France by Julia Child: I knew I liked Julia Child when I found out she didn't even learn to cook until her mid-30's, but I didn't expect to LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this book! The woman was even more amazing than I realized, and her story is incredibly interesting.

The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan: It took me a while to figure out what was going on here (it flashes back and forth between characters and the past/present), but once I caught on, I enjoyed the story. If you have read or seen The Joy Luck Club, also by Tan, this book has a similar feel.

Without Reservations by Alice Steinbach: If Julia Child's memoir doesn't make you want to visit France, this book will definitely give you restless feet. Steinbach is a prize-winning journalist and presents some of the loveliest prose I have ever had the pleasure to read. Her trip to Europe (or "Year of Living Dangerously", as she puts it) will make you want to hop a plane to somewhere immediately!

Rebecca by Daphne de Murier: I watched this Alfred Hitchcock classic on film years ago (and again just recently with my step-kids) and was pleasantly surprised that the book was so much better! (Why this surprises me, I have no idea.) de Murier is a great master of suspense and the book fleshes out the story in a way the film does not (as is usually the case). Loved it.

Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin: This book is a bit off the beaten path from Ms. Le Guin's normal sci-fi, but when researching books for my list this particular selection caught my eye, and justly so. Lavinia is a very minor character in Virgil's Aeneid that Le Guin has plucked out and proceeded to expound upon. The story is that of Lavinia's life in ancient Italy, from her perspective, and includes a cameo appearance from Virgil himself. It actually made me want to read Virgil's Aeneid...

The Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson: I know this book won a Newberry Award, but I didn't like it. I suppose I just want a happy ending, especially in a children's book. Sorry, Ms. Paterson.

I'm a little concerned about finishing out the list by my birthday this year. Apparently in the Land of Procrastination I have been crowned Queen, because in spite of my reading close to sixty books in the last ten months, I still have 21 left on my list to finish before October 8th. But I'm pressing on...let me get off this computer and go read.