The Big Book List

Ok, so this ties in with Achie's blog. Had to do it.

The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed.
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicise those you intend to read
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own blog/fb note so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them

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 - JK Rowling (half)
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (own it, it's on my list)
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
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
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 Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
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 - C.S. Lewis
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 - AA 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 Meany - 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 (also on my list; also already own it)
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' 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 (again, owned and on the list)
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 have the complete collection but who knows when I’ll actually read it)
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

So, in total...

Read: 6

Intend to read: 11

Love: 1

Not impressive. I knew it wouldn't be, mainly cause I only started getting into classical literature about a year ago or so, so don't be so harsh. What impresses me is that out of those six listed I only love one, and it's the Bible! (I'll let you decide whether that really counts or not).

Oh and I did read Moby Dick, but the kid's version not the classic, so I didn't include it. I'm just sayin'.

Out.

On Girlishness

She looks like dark faded denim stitched straight through, with creased leather and belt buckles lacing their way around.

She looks like tea circles left on paper notes, camoflaged in lacy wording above and below the bars and staffs.

She looks like flowers neglected on the window sill, with the morning sunlight flooding into the messy living room.

She looks like a coffee table left out on the porch, paint stripping off and the cat asleep on top of it.

She looks like white bedsheets crumpled on the parquet floor, and mismatched coloured frames on the wall.

She looks like black and white photos of days on the beach, and the Cross of Christ crucified that I've had since I was a boy.

Out.

And a Glass of Wine

I've been thinking recently about experiences. If you take a look around you there are things eveyrwhere that reflect one aspect or another of life back to you. The music on your ipod, the series on tv, the book on your bedside table. They're all products of people's experience of life and everything around them, relayed back to you in one form or another.

Artists, musicians, poets, writers, dancers, actors; all of these people, these roles, have one thing in common. That they do precisely this. They observe the world around them, and not only around them but in them. Seeing how life affects us and moulds us, and in doing so becomes part of us. They take part of that life in them and try portray it in a way they find they're able to. A person may play a few notes or write a few lines, but there comes a point where it's not about what's in front of the creator or audience, but what it does to them. What feeling, drive or thought there is behind the action. That's the beauty of the arts; they go beyond themselves and the meagre means they have, to change those on the receiving end. To evoke emotion, thought, life.

There is another side to this picture. Who knows how many beautiful works are out there, unseen and unknown, made by people who have no need to show them to others, or perhaps don't have the opportunity to do so. But still they go on. Still they create, even if they know no one will see it. Still there is this urge to take nothing and make it into something, something that's an extension of ourselves. Looking at life and everything in it prompts us to take a journey into ourselves - how we relate to the world, and how that world reacts when we do. And afer coming out the other end of this journey, with whatever new observation we have, with the slightest hint of an epiphany, what do we do? We share it. Because after all, what use is it being an explorer of life if you don't tell of your discoveries?

Out.

Serious Business

"Where'd he go?"
"Down the alley, look."
"Oh right, now I see him. He can move pretty quickly when he wants to"
"Looks that way. Well, he's got the motivation to now. All he needed really."

The air tasted dank. It didn't smell of anything in particular, maybe a hint of tobacco flowing out of some old store. He licked his lips as the bitter steam washed across his face. He was moving fast now. Wall to pillar. Shadow to shadow. There wasn't any real need to hide, there wasn't anyone to see him. Not yet. There'd be noise. Lots of noise. That's what you remember after it's happened - the shouts, the confusion, the looks of surprise, quickly followed by intense, focused, anger. Keep moving, don't slow down. Keep going.

"D'you reckon he'll actually make it?"
"Not sure."
"Hang on, there they are! Look! There's about... twenty of them I think."
"Twenty two."
"Great. I was hoping it'd be more of a fair fight. It's hardly entertaining like this."
"Tell me about it. I've got a fiver that says he'll get through them in three."
"One and a half."
"You're on."

Out.

Fluorescent yellow

People commented! You're such sports, have a gold star :)

I've been sitting here in this very spot for.... carry the 4..... 8 hours now. I have read... one chapter of anaesthesia. Doesn't sound too productive does it? Then again the entire book only contains 6 chapters. My ass hurts a little bit now. And I think I've developed restless leg syndrome....

There's a certain beauty in being home alone though. Being in a familiar place, quietly going about whatever it is you're occupied with while the rest of the world goes about it's crazy business outside. The news goes on in the background (cause for some reason all the other channels won't come in tonight). The mug of tea gently warms my hands in between bouts of fidgeting with the highlighter. Some foreign students from the residence across the street burst out laughing very, very loudly. Just an ordinary night in. Lovely.

I leave you to potter about with my guitar and possibly attempt writing a song, but first...



Out.

Oh harsh!

I haven't blogged in quite a while. I've been really busy and, well, one of my new year's resolutions makes it harder to so. I'll explain in a bit, maybe. But I'm making excuses. And I'm making excuses to myself, because no one else really cares that much. Everyone's been busy. You know, Christmas, New Year's, and now exams. You would have said something if it bothered you. But you didn't. In any case I sit here with that urge to write a blog and yet have to needlessly justify the recent lack of one. So I try and bend my head around something random that can occupy some desperate minutes of your life and come up with naught but the lint from the inside-out pockets of my mind. So, here's some random facts:

1. I'm currently listening to Onehundredhours. Just two songs of theirs that are on a CD I got from Soul Survivor. I forgot that I actually really like their sound, and it's funny how listening to Tre sing brings flashes of his talks to mind. Though these songs remind me of Soul Survivor. More specifically their last gig. Mmm.

2. I was just looking at people's profile pages, thought about things, laughed, and said 'You know, sometimes I just give up'.

3. I just took a sip from my third cup of tea today, and you know, the stuff really makes me feel good.

4. Caring very deeply about something doesn't mean you have to be very good about it. Caring, and doing, is enough. More than that, it's amazing.

New Year's resolutions! I have three of them. I think I'll keep them up, I have done so in the past years, though I've never had more than just one. But hopefully I will, because I really want to. You know, maybe I won't tell you what they are after all. *suspense-disappointment-disinterest*

Ok, here's a twist. I propose a small "challenge": if you read this blog, comment. It doesn't matter what you say, that's not important. Just comment. And if you don't, well then no one will know, except you. Only you will know that really, when you get down to it, you're just not that much fun.

Out.

A blog in Time

Counting down the last few hours with the mo'. Can't say I'm going to miss it, but it feels like I've had it for ages and I think almost everyone's gotten used to it now. Enough of the lip hair.

I'm currently sitting in the chaplaincy office with Zoe and Mina. Winston and Andrew are selling doughnuts for some charitable cause. I already bought one earlier. I'm not going to buy another one. They tried to flog me one. I resisted. Woo.

And Mykel steps in. He's looking for the key for room 101. Mina and Zoe are eating doughnuts. Now I want one. Damn.

Christmas carols are playing on Vev's laptop and I can't begin to convey the tangible joy this gives me. I want to walk around some brightly-lit street/shopping mall with decorations and lame old christmas songs blaring out of randomly placed speakers, watching everyone go by wrapped up cause it's cold and raining out. This is what Christmas is all about. Well, not really, but it's a part of it, and to be honest probably the part I enjoy the most. There are other things, like waking up christmas morning and then going to meet your family. Then things like the Vigil and the great prayer that goes into it. When you look at it spiritually I find it to be really refreshing in a way. But those (important) things aside, it's this one little prelude to all that that I think I treasure the most.

Myke's making me tea. That's Christmas spirit for you. Wow Vev WANTS to make me tea. This is brilliant. I think I might just have another.

Out.

One Thankful Zombie

I need to shave. I really need to shave. Last week with the moustache, thankfully. If you've been meaning to donate money for the kids, now's your last chance to do it.

Just finished my exams this morning. It's good and done and I will speak no more of it. They're over. I'm free till January like normal people. Yay.

I've been having trouble sleeping recently. I go to bed at a normal (sane) time, lie down, turn off the lights, close my eyes. And then.... nothing. I don't fall asleep. As annoying as these random bouts of insomnia can be on normal days, this week they've coincided with the days I've had my exams. Currently I'm running on 3 hours of sleep. Lovely.

In other news, in an hour I leave for this year's Youth weekend. I'm really looking forward to it and I have a feeling God's going to show up in a big way. I'm so thankful for that, I think we all need to reconnect with Him at some level. Let's help Him change the world :)

Out.

Trains

New things are nice and beautiful, but it's always good to remember who we are.



I was going to talk about the things going on. About how my dad got me this big guitar pedal as an early christmas present and how playing it made me feel 8 years old again. About how I'm going up to London for the first time this March with a bunch of friends and I'm really looking forward to it (even if I have no idea how I'm going to scrounge up the money for it). About how I've got an exam tomorrow, but that's ok.

But you know what, I don't want to. Cause as I sit and type this and listen to the music I've just put on, I don't want to. I don't want to talk about myself, about my little world. I want to talk about something else. Something bigger than me. Even if it's just about someone else's little world. That's still worth it. Cause in the end, it's not about us. It's all only worth it, only beautiful, when it's not about us.

Out.

Eskimo

Out.

On feeling inadequate

I'm not quite broken, but there's a crack. It's like being lost at sea.

Out.

Moment

I remember my thoughts
distant and clear;
Of what was to be,
come and past and left behind.
So too wil be
my thoughts and futures,
come and past and left behind.

For what is a day,
a rising and a setting;
A break between
slumber and wake.
Fleeting moments,
unremarkable and gone,
sitting between slumber and wake.

But you are different,
constant and faithful.
In the moment you are.
Always, you are.

Out.

Ps. Movember starts today :D

I so liked Spring

"I so liked Spring last year
Because you were here;-
The thrushes too-
Because it was these you so liked to hear-
I so liked you.

This year's a different thing,-
I'll not think of you.
But I'll like Spring because it is simply Spring
As the thrushes do."

Charlotte Mew

Out.

On Time Spent at the Library

*click, clack... Click, clack clack*

*'How are you on Tuesdays?' 'Tuesdays and Wednesdays forget it I'm full all day' 'Illallu my time table really sucks, we're never going to be able to....'*


*Shift position in chair*




*thud thud thud thud Thud Thud THUD Thud Thud thud thud thud*


*Check the time*



*Huff*


*Leaf through pages. Go back to current page*





*'Hahaha!' *sniff* *



*Amusing ring tone*


*Check phone for messages*





*Shift position in chair*


Out.

Reason

It's 17:21. Outside the sky is grey. I think it might be raining, but then it might have stopped by now. My dad's sleeping on the sofa while the football's on TV. I'm sat here writing this, drinking my bottle of water and cracking my joints periodically. The weather always does this to me, at least when it's this humid. Nothing comes without a catch I suppose. I feel like sleeping, but I'm not tired and there are things I want to do. It is beautiful though. No rose comes without thorns.

People. The more time I spend with them, the more I realise the paradox that is this simple fact - we're all so different, but we're all the same. A lot of the things we do so often go unnoticed. The things we think. The things we feel. These things that we never say to anyone or ever act on. Or maybe sometimes we do, but nothing comes of it. The things we want to do but we're held back. We get tired. Tired of other people. Tired of ourselves. We get lost. And in our loss, we become a lost cause.

My cause is lost. That's why I need Jesus. Why I need Him to be my cause. Why everyone else becomes my cause. He changes everything.

Out.

Art. Hardbound.

It's been over a month since my last post. My apologies (though I'm unsure how many people could be bothered to notice, being summer and all... Yes? No?).

This morning it's cool and cloudy. I'm loving it. Starting to feel a lot like september does - cloudy, possibly rainy, and most importantly, cool. It's strange how in my mind I associate September with the notion of new beginnings and a new year more than I do for Spring. I know a lot of people share this, the school system being as it is. Point being September gets me excited for a new year. New possibilities. Time to do things well this year. The fresh air after the first rain. Jackets. Tea. Christmas.

The Handmaid's Tale - one weird book. That said, having almost finished it, I've gotten to enjoy it. Yes, this means I am actually going to sit for English A level this year. Also, I'm starting to be attracted to classical literature. This has never happened before, and something tells me that a few pages into most classical literature and I'll just give up and plonk it back down. But then again every time I walk into a bookshop (the way they re-designed agenda at Uni with the awesome classics section... Simon you know what I mean) I find myself desperate for smart card to come in so I can pick up volumes on Dante and Keates and those little green penguin classics that cost just 2 euros (well ok, I think I'd prefer the nicer looking covers, but still, they're there). I think that my love of literature has another philia superimposed on it - the love of books (bibliophilia :D). Just the way they look, they smell, they sit there on the shelves. Knowing that they contain some beautiful expression of the human experience, even if I myself don't appreciate it as much as another would. You don't need to be an artist to know when a work is a masterpiece. You don't have to be a musician to be moved by a piece. (I'm not sure if the latter really applies... technically. Hmm.). My reading list at the moment goes well into 2011. It's scary. And I'm building up more backlog as it is - decided I want to read most of Paulo Coelho and C.S. Lewis (except for the narnia stuff) when I can get down to it.

Something else that I've pondered is the different types of readers that there are. Well, types. Look at it in the way of the different qualities that readers portray. For example, Achie's blog had (has?) a quote (quote?) written on the top about how readers are stalkers by nature, being interested in the character's most personal details, be they fictional or not. Myself, I'm more the escapist. Reading propels you into a world where you have the privilage of knowing the thoughts and actions of characters on both sides, seeing the qualities of what makes us us portrayed, and working the wondrous tool that is our imagination. Reading lets me get away from it all, even if I'm still sitting in the midst of it all. What type are you?

Out.

Soul Survivor

It's 23:36, I have to wake up at 05:00 to get ready and make sure I have everything and be at the airport by 06:30. Most people are either going to sleep or trying to finish packing. I'm packed. I think I've forgotten something though. Don't know what it is (obviously), it's just that feeling. I need to go pray soon before I try and sleep. I hope I manage to sleep. I'm really, really excited. Really.

Out.

Extra dimensions... in my pants

Presently I sit here with my nice cuppa tea underneath the AC at my dad's after having just returned from exiles with lanf, krissie and zoe. It's been an uneventful day, but in a nice kind of way. Woke up to the builders next door banging on the other side of my bedroom wall. One glass of juice and a teeth brushing later and I'm out of the door on the way to my dad's to catch up with some PS3 time. I borrowed Resident Evil 5 from mike and spent a good 2 hours on it. It surprises me how much I'm no longer able to play games for hours on end like I used to. I just get bugged after a bit. Guess I'm growing out of it. I actually felt a bit bad for having bought a PS3 cause I hardly use the thing, I've only got like 5 games after almost 2 years... ajma.

Tomorrow my bookcase arrives and I'm really pleased about that. It's actually a kind of shelving unit for a cafe, but basically it's exactly the same as the actual bookcases in the range only it's a bit bigger and it's got mirrors in the back boards of the top two shelves. I know I'm ranting on about a bookcase but I kind of like the idea of having cafe furniture in my bedroom. I might have slyed my way into getting a modern double bed too, but we'll have to see about that XD

Been back from the north for less than a week but it feels like more than that, already adjusted to life back home again. Something about the string theory being a candidate for the theory on Everything just came up on national geographic. Num num.

Out.