Rainbow Chills

Unread books

Below are the top 106 books tagged “unread” in Librarything.

The rules:
Bold what you have read, italicize books you’ve started but couldn’t finish, and strike through books you hated. Add an asterisk* to those you’ve read more than once. Underline those on your tbr list.

Jonathan Strange & M. Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights*
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi: a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre*
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A heartbreaking work of staggering genius
Atlas shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex*
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian
A portrait of the artist as a young man
Love in the time of cholera
Brave new world
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch*
Frankenstein*
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A clockwork orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One flew over the cuckoo’s nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles*
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The curious incident of the dog in the night-time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes
The God of Small Things
A people’s history of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A confederacy of dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners*
The unbearable lightness of being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood
White teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

A red spider fiat and matching lavalier necklaces

Women in their 30s all over the country are simultaneously cheering and cursing about the re-release of Francine Pascal's Sweet Valley High books.

There are pictures of me as a 9 year old, on the beach, reading a Sweet Valley High book. I wanted to BE Elizabeth Wakefield. I knew I'd never be cool enough to be Jessica but I could imagine myself with a best friend like Enid (much sweeter than Jessica's rich friend Lila) and a boyfriend like Todd. I eventually was the editor of the school yearbook and I'd like to thank Francine Pascal for introducing me to a character who loved to write (I also thank Lucy Maud Montgomery, Louisa May Alcott, and Patricia Hermes, the author of my all-time favorite YA book, Be Still My Heart*) for their literary-loving girls as well.

The anger that has arisen is because of one of the updates that have been made to adapt the series to today's world- changes like the girls sharing a Jeep Wrangler instead of the red Spider Fiat. Elizabeth is now the editor of the school website, rather than the newspaper. The big uproar is over the news that the girls are no longer "a perfect size 6." They are now "a perfect size 4."

A PERFECT SIZE 4.

No wonder I throw up my hands in frustration when I even think about my body and the ways I wish it were different. I have never been, and will never be a size 4. I wore a size 6 dress to my 8th grade dance. I still remember it because it never happened before and has never happened since. I will never wear a size 6, let alone a size 4 and I have pretty much known that since before puberty. The Sweet Valley twins are certainly not great role models for pre-teen girls anymore today than they were 20 years ago (what with Jessica's seduction of every boy who comes along and the cocaine that killed poor Regina even though she only tried it ONE TIME!) but girls are struggling with body image more now than ever before. And we shouldn't be contributing to that problem by making these fictional girls any thinner than they already were.

Links about this here:

• Gawker
• Oh No They Didn't
• Erin Shea: Totally furious and Just Mad
• Big Fat Deal- a blog I adore
• Elastic Waist

* Be Still My Heart didn't do any wonders for my body image either. Allison, the main character, is envious of her best friend who, of course, is perfect and blonde. Allison is a brunette and weighs an apparently atrocious 130 lbs. It's not until after Allison gets blonde highlights and loses 8 lbs that the boy she loves (who is, of course, dating her best friend) finally notices her. Can anyone explain to me me why I love this book?

Reading

I used to talk about books quite alot on this blog. Back in 2005, I faithfully posted each month the list of books I had read. I read 65 books that year, 18 in 2006, and 30 in 2004. In 2007 I read 32 books and enjoyed many of them. You can sort by date read on my LibraryThing catalog.

I have a plan for the next few books I'm reading.

I'm currently reading What is the What by Dave Eggers. This is the 2008 selection for the One Book, One Philadelphia project. I went to the Library to hear Dave Eggers speak earlier this week and really enjoyed it.

Next, I'm going to read Manic: A Memoir by Terri Cheney. This is a book that I got for free through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. This is the third book I've gotten in the past 6 months to review. The program is really great. Each month, publishers list books that they would like people to review. Members request books. LT runs some sort of algorithm to match the books with the people who request them based on books in their catalog (among other things, I think). Like I said, this is the third book I've gotten and I'm really looking forward to reading it.

Then, I'm reading the two books that are on their way to me from BookSwim. I spent alot of money on books in 2007, more than I have in years. As a Christmas gift, Michelle got me a subscription to BookSwim. They send me two books from my queue (like on Netflix) and when I send them back, they send me two more. I could very easily borrow books, for free, from the library which has a far bigger and more diverse catalog. The thing is, I SUCK at returning things to the library. I have spent hundreds of dollars in my life on overdue library fines. Seriously. So this works better for me. I can have the books, read them, put them in the mail. No late fees.

So there, that's my reading plan for the next few weeks. What are you currently reading?

Vacation Continues

Day 5 of vacation (it is Wednesday, right?).

Michelle is sleeping in today. I'll wake her in a bit to make sure she's up in time for her massage appointment today.

We're having a great time. We've done a bunch of outlet shopping as well as tons of browsing (and a little buying) in the boutiques on the main street. I've finished two books- Whistling in the Dark by Lesley Kagan and The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett. I loved them both. Today, I'm going to start The Kite Runner or Water for Elephants. Haven't decided yet.

I can't quite get enough of the beach. Michelle said to me yesterday "I don't think I'd ever get tired of this" and I agree. In all of the years I've vacationed at the shore, the weeks I spent with my grandparents as a kid, I have never once woke up in the morning and thought, I don't feel like going to the beach today. Michelle's going to drop me off before her massage appointment today. We'll see if she makes it down. It doesn't matter what Michelle does- she has gotten sunburn every day this week- multiple applications of sunscreen, a cover-up, sitting under a towel, under an umbrella- she still gets burned somewhere. She may need to take a break today.

We're planning on seeing a drag show tonight at one of the restaurants/bars in town. There's nothing like live entertainment.

I've been knitting a tiny bit- more squares with the sock leftovers. I brought a sock with me and the aran sweater but haven't worked on either one. I stopped at the yarn store in town and, for the second time, was disappointed. I was hoping to find some sock yarn but the pickings were slim- one colorway of Lorna's Laces, one colorway of Trekking, two colors of Tofootsies (one of which I have in my knitting bag with me) and a few balls of Fortissima, none in colors that appealed to me. Bummer. I left empty handed. I gave it a shot. I had the same experience two years ago when we were here.

Speaking of two years ago, my thoughts today are with those families who are still living with the fallout of Katrina. God bless them.

Pop Culture update

I heard the song Beautiful Girls by Sean Kingston in the Psychiatrist's office yesterday (coming from the gym next door).

You're way too beautiful girl
That's why it'll never work
You'll have me suicidal, suicidal
When you say it's over
Damn all these beautiful girls
They only wanna do your dirt
They'll have you suicidal, suicidal
When they say it's over

It was slightly uncomfortable. 

I was at McDonalds for lunch yesterday. A man shuffled to the counter with a cup asking for more soda. The cashier said, "No free refills. God is good." Seriously? Is God going to give that thirsty man a Hi-C?

I went to see Ratatouille on Monday. I was afraid of the rats. I wish I was kidding. I had to keep looking away from the screen. Alot. The animation was very good and rats are disgusting. I'm a mess.

Michelle and I did finish reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on Sunday night around 10:30. So as not to spoil any readers who have not finished, my thoughts are in the comments section of this post.

Progress

A Sockapalooza sock:

Pattern: Gentleman's Fancy Sock
Source: Knitting Vintage Sock
Designer: Nancy Bush
Needles: US 1 double points
Yarn: Schafer Anne
Start Date: July 19

Harry Potter Progress: 568 pages and still reading

I love books

Michelle and I spent yesterday at the Philadelphia Book Festival. We browsed about 2/3 of the vendors and have plans to hit the rest of them today. We're also planning to go to the Bob and Lee Woodruff reading and the memoir panel moderated by Jennifer Weiner and featuring Elizabeth Gilbert, Julie Powell and Darcey Steinke. I haven't read the Steinke book but it seems like just the kind of book I love.

These are the books I picked up at the Harvest Books booth, at which all books are FREE. No kidding. I was already in there and browsing when I heard someone say that the books were free. The bottom one is Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking II, which I was inspired to pick up for Michelle after reading Julie and Julia last week. The rest range from Anne Rice, to Oprah Books, to a book by liberal Christian Rev. John Shelby Spong who is also doing a reading at the Festival today.

It has been a great weekend so far!

The end of Swann's Way

I finished Swann's Way yesterday. Part one of In Search of Lost Time (or Rememberance of Things Past depending on the translation) is complete.

When I set out to 3000+ pages of Proust in 2007, I believed I would enjoy it but also knew that I was undertaking it as a project and not as a pleasure cruise. I was delighted to fall in love with Swann's Way on page 375. I hope the next part is as lovely and lyrical.

February 1 check in

Early in January, I set out to do two things:

• Read Proust's In Search of Lost Time in 2007
• Walk/run 100 miles by April 1

The Proust goal is going fairly well. I'm around page 260 - I'm hoping to read about 10 pages a day so I'm a little behind. I feel like I'm still pretty well on track though to finish this section of the book, Swann's Way, during February.

The other goal...well...not so much. I walk about 6 miles in the second week of the month but beyond that, nothing. I have nothing to say about it either. No excuses, no explanations.

On another topic, I should finish the Hourglass Sweater today or tomorrow. That was quick, huh?

Challenges

I've joined Rachael's Runagogo.

I'm going to use those $80 running shoes I mentioned last week and start moving. Today we're getting thunderstorms and are in a flood watch but I plan to start tomorrow morning. I think that the measurable goal and the support system will be helpful.

I love the Ugly button more than any of the others because I am completely in support of the Be Ugly in 2007 campaign. I adore the beautiful, smart, and talented America Ferrara and am thrilled that her image (however dramatic and fictional) is being used to promote girls to be THEMSELVES! I'll be running myself Ugly for the next few months-- not trying to lose weight, not trying to look like anyone else. I'm going to try to feel better about myself. To move and think about accepting myself for who I am and being comfortable with that person.

My other goal for 2007- to read In Search of Lost Time. I've been thinking about this goal for about six months. I picked up a copy of Swann's Way yesterday with the intention of beginning to read at least 10 pages a day for the next year. I read 30 pages last night before going to bed and so far, I love it. My copy of this first volume is 462 pages long so with 10 pages a day, I should finish the first part in February. Reading Proust seems to be something people do for bragging rights, even if the reader only brags in her own head. I just want to know what the fuss is about. It seems like something I SHOULD read-- like Ulysses, Lolita, The Wasteland. I'll keep you updated on my Proust progress.

It's going to be an interesting year.