Rain, rain, go away...

There's a big storm system moving in and I'm hoping it won't rain on formal this Friday! We've worked so hard to get everything worked out to have formal on the boat, it would be *super* frustrating if we just sat at the dock the whole night.

This weekend was really great, I drove down on Friday and made good time, got there a little bit before Jeremy and read for a while. I'm on to a few popular fiction series now, one of them thanks to Brunner. That one is Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series, and while they're totally cheesy they're a lot of fun and the library has like all fifteen of them. I'm also reading Kathy Reichs's books, the woman on whom the tv show Bones is based-- they're really good, and since I'm a big fan of show I'm enjoying them.

For the next couple of weeks, though, I'm going to be boning up on my Douglas Preston/Lincoln Child books-- the DeKalb County Library is bringing them for the Arts Festival weekend!!! Preston and Child, for those of you who don't know, are two of my favorite authors-- they co-write a great series of mystery thrillers that are quite Holmesian. Preston wrote some contemporary science-based stuff back in the day, one of my favorite books in middle/high school was his called "Hot Zone" about an ebola outbreak, and another I can't remember the name of about an anthrax-like virus. Child I only discovered recently, but he does sci-fi type stuff also based on contemporary science. They both do a lot of references to "real" literature, which is nice for dorky people like me.

Anyway, we got a chance to talk to Valerie and Ana on Friday night which was really nice. I know I like talking to them, and I know Jeremy really misses them a lot. Ana's getting so big, and she knows all the different parts of her body and can say a few words now. She's definitely getting in to the two year old parrot thing, Valerie called for Matt to come get her and she ran off going, "Maaaatt! Maaaatt!"

Went to the beach on Saturday with Ron and Kathy and the seat belt wore the sunblock off our shoulders and we both got pretty sunburned. Our legs were burned, and the tops of our feet, too! The beach was really nice, though, and we got to see some really cool rocks-- high tide obviously lasts a while because there is some massive algae growth, some of the rocks look like they have beards! After the beach, we went back and went swimming in the pool at the campsite where Ron and Kathy live. The water was a little chilly, but I can take cold water in a pool better than in the ocean-- the ocean is supposed to be warm! We had pizza for dinner and went back to the house to relax and watch a movie.

Sunday we didn't do much of anything, it was just a hang around and be lazy day. Jeremy looked at tools and toolboxes online (the Sears website is SO slow!) and I took a little nap after a while, we went and had lunch at Panda Express because they've a) got air conditioning and b) got some pretty good (and spicy!) food we like. Plus, you can feed two people for $7.50 if you want to be stuffed-- we usually just get two entrees, but we went for three since I hadn't eaten (Jeremy had some pizza before he went to church) that morning.

Drove back Monday and made great time-- when I got back, I realized that the storm I went through last time added almost TWO HOURS on to my trip!! In. sane.

Work's been decent the last couple nights, though I'm a little worried about tonight-- we have tornado warnings! Last night was surprisingly good considering it was Cinco de Mayo, which Americans celebrate more than Mexicans do... It was a strange night in the neighborhood, actually. The Mexican place across the street had a band that played "La Bamba" and then went on to play some Janis Joplin and Willie Nelson... Mezcalitos intermittently played Mariachi music, and we went with an XM station called Caliente which turned out to be a lot of fun-- they played some cheesy ballads, some Mariachi, some Reggaeton, some pop, it was a blast.

That's about all for now, really. I'm still on Desperate Housewives and Spooks as far as Netflix goes, and will be watching The Savages and The White Countess later this week. Quantum of Solace is still on looooong wait, The Human Stain, Namastey London, Venture Brothers, Northern Exposure, Sherlock: Case of Evil, Slumdog Millionaire, and The Reader are also all on wait, if you were wondering. I'm not sure when I'll ever get to see Quantum of Solace since it's been on wait since it came out! I'm keeping it at the top of my queue, so one of these days...

Ciao for now, all-- more later this week!

Alana's List

So, this is a long one but... totally worth it. I will doubtless embarrass myself ;)

The list is The Guardian's List of 1000 Must Read Books

Here are Alana's rules:

"Bold the ones you've read cover to cover. Italicize the ones you've read partially. Underline the ones you want to read. Put an asterix next to the ones you actually liked. And provide comments wherever necessary"

In addition, if it's italicized with an asterisk, it means that I liked the book well enough to finish it, I just didn't get a chance. You'll notice that is not the case with the Dickens novels, interestingly enough...

Comedy

*Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis

Money by Martin Amis

The Information by Martin Amis

The Bottle Factory Outing by Beryl Bainbridge

According to Queeney by Beryl Bainbridge

Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes

A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes

Augustus Carp, Esq. by Himself: Being the Autobiography of a Really Good Man by Henry Howarth Bashford

Molloy by Samuel Beckett

Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm

The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow

The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett

Queen Lucia by EF Benson

The Ascent of Rum Doodle by WE Bowman

A Good Man in Africa by William Boyd

The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury

No Bed for Bacon by Caryl Brahms and SJ Simon

Illywhacker by Peter Carey

A Season in Sinji by JL Carr

The Harpole Report by JL Carr

The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington

Mister Johnson by Joyce Cary

The Horse's Mouth by Joyce Cary

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin

Just William by Richmal Crompton

The Provincial Lady by EM Delafield

Slouching Towards Kalamazoo by Peter De Vries

The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens

Jacques the Fatalist and his Master by Denis Diderot

A Fairy Tale of New York by JP Donleavy

The Commitments by Roddy Doyle

Ennui by Maria Edgeworth

Cheese by Willem Elsschot

Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding

Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding

Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

Caprice by Ronald Firbank

Bouvard et Pécuchet by Gustave Flaubert

Towards the End of the Morning by Michael Frayn

The Polygots by William Gerhardie

*Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol

Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov

*The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Brewster's Millions by Richard Greaves (George Barr McCutcheon)

Squire Haggard's Journal by Michael Green

Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene

Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene

Diary of a Nobody by George Grossmith

The Little World of Don Camillo by Giovanni Guareschi

*The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

*Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House by Eric Hodgkins

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby

I Served the King of England by Bohumil Hrabal

The Lecturer's Tale by James Hynes

Mr Norris Changes Trains by Christopher Isherwood

The Mighty Walzer Howard by Jacobson

Pictures from an Institution by Randall Jarrell

Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome

Finnegans Wake by James Joyce

The Castle by Franz Kafka

Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor

Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov

The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester

L'Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane (Gil Blas) Alain-René Lesage

Changing Places by David Lodge

Nice Work by David Lodge

The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay

England, Their England by AG Macdonell

Whisky Galore by Compton Mackenzie

Memoirs of a Gnostic Dwarf by David Madsen

Cakes and Ale - Or, the Skeleton in the Cupboard by W Somerset Maugham

Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin

Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney

Puckoon by Spike Milligan

The Restraint of Beasts by Magnus Mills

Charade by John Mortimer

Titmuss Regained by John Mortimer

Under the Net by Iris Murdoch

Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

The Sacred Book of the Werewolf by Victor Pelevin

La Disparition by Georges Perec

Les Revenentes by Georges Perec

La Vie Mode d'Emploi by Georges Perec

My Search for Warren Harding by Robert Plunkett

A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell

A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell

Excellent Women by Barbara Pym

Less Than Angels by Barbara Pym

Zazie in the Metro by Raymond Queneau

Solomon Gursky Was Here by Mordecai Richler

Alms for Oblivion by Simon Raven

Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth

The Westminster Alice by Saki

The Unbearable Bassington by Saki

Hurrah for St Trinian's by Ronald Searle

Great Apes by Will Self

Porterhouse Blue by Tom Sharpe

Blott on the Landscape by Tom Sharpe

Office Politics by Wilfrid Sheed

Belles Lettres Papers: A Novel by Charles Simmons

Moo by Jane Smiley

Topper Takes a Trip by Thorne Smith

The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom by Tobias Smollett

The Adventures of Roderick Random by Tobias Smollett

The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle by Tobias Smollett

The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by Tobias Smollett

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

I'm not sure I'd say it was a comedy... in fact, I'm quite sure it's not... but it was quite good

The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark

The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark

Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark

A Far Cry from Kensington by Muriel Spark

*The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

Very strange, but once you've read it a couple of times, it's quite hilarious

White Man Falling by Mike Stocks

Handley Cross by RS Surtees

A Tale of a Tub by Jonathan Swift

Penrod by Booth Tarkington

The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray

Before Lunch by Angela Thirkell

Tropic of Ruislip by Leslie Thomas

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope

Venus on the Half-Shell by Kilgore Trout

The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain

The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike

Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh

Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh

Black Mischief by Evelyn Waugh

Scoop by Evelyn Waugh

The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh

A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh

The Life and Loves of a She-Devil by Fay Weldon

Tono Bungay by HG Wells

Molesworth by Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle

The Wimbledon Poisoner by Nigel Williams

Anglo-Saxon Attitudes by Angus Wilson

Something Fresh by PG Wodehouse

Piccadilly Jim by PG Wodehouse

Thank You Jeeves by PG Wodehouse

Heavy Weather by PG Wodehouse

The Code of the Woosters by PG Wodehouse

Joy in the Morning by PG Wodehouse

Crime

The Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren

Fantomas by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre

The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler

Epitaph for a Spy by Eric Ambler

Journey into Fear by Eric Ambler

The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster

Trent's Last Case by EC Bentley

The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley

The Beast Must Die by Nicholas Blake

Lady Audley's Secret by Mary E Braddon

The Neon Rain by James Lee Burke

The Tin Roof Blowdown by James Lee Burke

The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan

Greenmantle by John Buchan

The Asphalt Jungle by WR Burnett

The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M Cain

Double Indemnity by James M Cain

True History of the Ned Kelly Gang by Peter Carey

The Hollow Man by John Dickson Carr

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler

No Orchids for Miss Blandish by James Hadley Chase

The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

*The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

*The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

*The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie

*The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon

The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad

Under Western Eyes by Joseph Conrad

Postmortem by Patricia Cornwell

The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

Poetic Justice by Amanda Cross

The Ipcress File by Len Deighton

Last Seen Wearing by Colin Dexter

The Remorseful Day by Colin Dexter

Ratking by Michael Dibdin

Dead Lagoon by Michael Dibdin

Dirty Tricks by Michael Dibdin

A Rich Full Death by Michael Dibdin

Vendetta by Michael Dibdin

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier

*The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

The Pledge by Friedrich Durrenmatt

The Crime of Father Amado by José Maria de Eça de Queiroz

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

LA Confidential by James Ellroy

The Big Nowhere by James Ellroy

A Quiet Belief in Angels by RJ Ellory

Sanctuary by William Faulkner

Casino Royale by Ian Fleming

Goldfinger by Ian Fleming

You Only Live Twice by Ian Fleming

The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth

Brighton Rock by Graham Greene

A Gun for Sale by Graham Greene

The Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene

The Third Man by Graham Greene

A Time to Kill by John Grisham

The King of Torts by John Grisham

Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton

The Glass Key by Dashiell Hammett

*The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett

Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett

The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett

Fatherland by Robert Harris

Black Sunday by Thomas Harris

Red Dragon by Thomas Harris

Tourist Season by Carl Hiaasen

The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V Higgins

Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith

The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

Bones and Silence by Reginald Hill

A Rage in Harlem by Chester Himes

Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg

Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household

Malice Aforethought by Francis Iles

Silence of the Grave by Arnadur Indridason

Death at the President's Lodging by Michael Innes

Cover Her Face by PD James

A Taste for Death by PD James

Friday the Rabbi Slept Late by Harry Kemelman

Misery by Stephen King

Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King

Kim by Rudyard Kipling

The Constant Gardener by John le Carre

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carre

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carre

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

52 Pick-up by Elmore Leonard

Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem

The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum

Cop Hater by Ed McBain

No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

Enduring Love by Ian McEwan

Sidetracked by Henning Mankell

Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley

The Great Impersonation by E Phillips Oppenheim

The Strange Borders of Palace Crescent by E Phillips Oppenheim

My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk

Toxic Shock by Sara Paretsky

Blacklist by Sara Paretsky

Nineteen Seventy Four by David Peace

Nineteen Seventy Seven by David Peace

The Big Blowdown by George Pelecanos

Hard Revolution by George Pelecanos

Lush Life by Richard Price

The Godfather by Mario Puzo

V by Thomas Pynchon

The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon

Black and Blue by Ian Rankin

The Hanging Gardens by Ian Rankin

Exit Music by Ian Rankin

Judgment in Stone by Ruth Rendell

Live Flesh by Ruth Rendell

Dissolution by CJ Sansom

Whose Body? by Dorothy L Sayers

Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy Le Sayers

The Madman of Bergerac by Georges Simenon

The Blue Room by Georges Simenon

The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo

Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

The League of Frightened Men by Rex Stout

Perfume by Patrick Suskind

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey

The Getaway by Jim Thompson

Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain

A Dark-Adapted Eye by Barbara Vine

A Fatal inversion by Barbara Vine

King Solomon's Carpet by Barbara Vine

The Four Just Men by Edgar Wallace

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

Native Son by Richard Wright

Therese Raquin by Emile Zola

Family and self

The Face of Another by Kobo Abe

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson

Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood

Epileptic by David B

Room Temperature by Nicholson Baker

Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac

Le Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac

The Crow Road by Iain Banks

*The L Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel

Malone Dies by Samuel Beckett

A Legacy by Sybille Bedford

Herzog by Saul Bellow

Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow

The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett

G by John Berger

Extinction by Thomas Bernhard

Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles

Any Human Heart by William Boyd

The Death of Virgil by Hermann Broch

*Evelina by Fanny Burney

The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler

The Sound of my Voice by Ron Butlin

The Outsider by Albert Camus

Wise Children by Angela Carter

The Professor's House by Willa Cather

The Wapshot Chronicle by John Cheever

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

Les Enfants Terrible by Jean Cocteau

The Vagabond by Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette

Manservant and Maidservant by Ivy Compton-Burnett

Being Dead by Jim Crace

Quarantine by Jim Crace

The Mandarins by Simone de Beauvoir

Roxana by Daniel Defoe

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

My New York Diary by Julie Doucet

The Millstone by Margaret Drabble

My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell

Silence by Shusaku Endo

The Gathering by Anne Enright

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

*The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

The Sportswriter by Richard Ford

Howards End by EM Forster

Spies by Michael Frayn

Hideous Kinky by Esther Freud

The Man of Property by John Galsworthy

Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell

The Immoralist by Andre Gide

The Vatican Cellars by Andre Gide

The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith

The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene

Hunger by Knut Hamsun

The Shrimp and the Anemone by LP Hartley

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse

Narziss and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse

The Three Paradoxes by Paul Hornschemeier

Tom Brown's Schooldays by Thomas Hughes

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

The Ambassadors by Henry James

Washington Square by Henry James

The Tortoise and the Hare by Elizabeth Jenkins

The Unfortunates by BS Johnson

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

Ulysses by James Joyce

Good Behaviour by Molly Keane

Memet my Hawk by Yasar Kemal

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi

Sons and Lovers by DH Lawrence

Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee

Invitation to the Waltz by Rosamond Lehmann

The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing

How Green was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn

Martin Eden by Jack London

Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry

The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers

Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz

The Assistant by Bernard Malamud

Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann

The Chateau by William Maxwell

The Rector's Daughter by FM Mayor

The Ordeal of Richard Feverek by George Meredith

Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry

Sour Sweet by Timothy Mo

The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne by Brian Moore

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

I never ever want to read any more Toni Morrison for the rest of my life. If you read one a year, she's fine, but as much as I loved my Boswell class, I got really sick of her...

Who Do You Think You Are? by Alice Munro

The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch

The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil

A House for Mr Biswas by VS Naipaul

At-Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien

Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness by Kezaburo Oe

The Moviegoer by Walker Percy

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok

The Good Companions by JB Priestley

The Shipping News by E Annie Proulx

Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust

A Married Man by Piers Paul Read

Pointed Roofs by Dorothy Richardson

The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney by Henry Handel Richardson

Call it Sleep by Henry Roth

Julie, ou la Nouvelle Heloise by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger

Alberta and Jacob by Cora Sandel

A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth

Unless by Carol Shields

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

The Three Sisters by May Sinclair

The Family Moskat or The Manor or The Estate by Isaac Bashevis Singer

A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley

On Beauty by Zadie Smith

The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield

Confessions of Zeno by Italo Svevo

The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington

Angel by Elizabeth Taylor

Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson

The Blackwater Lightship by Colm Toibin

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend

Death in Summer by William Trevor

Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev

Peace in War by Miguel de Unamuno

The Rabbit Omnibus by John Updike

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Jimmy Corrigan, The Smarest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware

Morvern Callar by Alan Warner

The History of Mr Polly by HG Wells

The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West

Frost in May by Antonia White

The Tree of Man by Patrick White

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

I'll Go to Bed at Noon by Gerard Woodward

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

*Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss

Love

Le Grand Meaulnes by Henri Alain-Fournier

Dom Casmurro Joaquim by Maria Machado de Assis

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

*Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Emma by Jane Austen

I am going to ditto Alana here: Look, Austen's a good writer, but do we really need all of her books on the must-read list? Really? Even Northanger Abbey?

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

Nightwood by Djuna Barnes

The Garden of the Finzi-Cortinis by Giorgio Bassani

Love for Lydia by HE Bates

More Die of Heartbreak by Saul Bellow

Lorna Doone by RD Blackmore

The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen

The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Vilette by Charlotte Bronte

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Look At Me by Anita Brookner

Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown

Possession by AS Byatt

Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote

Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey

A Month in the Country by JL Carr

My Antonia by Willa Cather

A Lost Lady by Willa Cather

Claudine a l'ecole by Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette

Cheri by Sidonie-Gabrielle Collette

Victory: An Island Tale by Joseph Conrad

The Princess of Cleves by Madame de Lafayette

The Parasites by Daphne du Maurier

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

I started this one when I was in sixth grade and never finished it. If I can ever find my copy again I'll finish it...

The Lover by Marguerite Duras

Adam Bede by George Eliot

Daniel Deronda by George Eliot

The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald

It kind of makes me sad that I've read this one-- unlike everyone else in the world, I hated it.

Tender is the Night by F Scott Fitzgerald

The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford

A Room with a View by EM Forster

The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles

The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico

Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell

Strait is the Gate by Andre Gide

Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon

The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang Goethe

Living by Henry Green

The End of the Affair by Graham Greene

The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall

Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy

The Go-Between by LP Hartley

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

The Infamous Army by Georgette Heyer

Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer

The Swimming-Pool Library by Alan Hollinghurst

Green Mansions: A Romance of the Tropical Forest by WH Hudson

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

I'd rather read Morrison

Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

The Wings of the Dove by Henry James

The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek

Beauty and Saddness by Yasunari Kawabata

The Far Pavillions by Mary Margaret Kaye

Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis

Moon over Africa by Pamela Kent

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre-Ambroise-Francois Choderlos de Laclos

Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence

The Rainbow by DH Lawrence

Women in Love by DH Lawrence

The Echoing Grove by Rosamond Lehmann

The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos

Zami by Audre Lorde

Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie

Samarkand by Amin Maalouf

*Death in Venice by Thomas Mann

The Silent Duchess by Dacia Maraini

A Heart So White by Javier Marias

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham

So Long, See you Tomorrow by William Maxwell

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

Atonement by Ian McEwan

The Child in Time by Ian McEwan

The Egoist by George Meredith

Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

Patience and Sarah by Isabel Miller

*Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford

Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford

Arturo's Island by Elsa Morante

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

*Lolita, or the Confessions of a White Widowed Male by Vladimir Nabokov

The Painter of Signs by RK Narayan

Delta of Venus by Anais Nin

All Souls Day by Cees Nooteboom

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

Maurice Guest by Henry Handel Richardson

*Pamela by Samuel Richardson

Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan

Ali and Nino by Kurban Said

Light Years by James Salter

A Sport and a Passtime by James Salter

The Reader by Benhardq Schlink

The Reluctant Orphan by Aara Seale

Love Story by Eric Segal

Enemies, a Love Story by Isaac Bashevis Singer

At Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept by Elizabeth Smart

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif

Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann

Waterland by Graham Swift

Diary of a Mad Old Man by Junichiro Tanizaki

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Music and Silence by Rose Tremain

First Love by Ivan Turgenev

Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler

The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler

The Night Watch by Sarah Waters

The Graduate by Charles Webb

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

The Passion by Jeanette Winterson

East Lynne by Ellen Wood

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

Science fiction and fantasy

*The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Non-Stop by Brian W Aldiss

Foundation by Isaac Asimov

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

In the Country of Last Things by Paul Auster

The Drowned World by JG Ballard

Crash by JG Ballard

Millennium People by JG Ballard

The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks

Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks

Weaveworld by Clive Barker

Darkmans by Nicola Barker

The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter

Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear

Vathek by William Beckford

The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester

*Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Lost Souls by Poppy Z Brite

Wieland by Charles Brockden Brown

Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

The Coming Race by EGEL Bulwer-Lytton

*A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

The End of the World News by Anthony Burgess

A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Naked Lunch by William Burroughs

Kindred by Octavia Butler

Erewhon by Samuel Butler

The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino

The Influence by Ramsey Campbell

*Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll

Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter

The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

The Man who was Thursday by GK Chesterton

Childhood's End by Arthur C Clarke

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

Hello Summer, Goodbye by Michael G Coney

Girlfriend in a Coma by Douglas Coupland

House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski

Pig Tales by Marie Darrieussecq

The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R Delaney

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K Dick

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick

Camp Concentration by Thomas M Disch

Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco

Under the Skin by Michel Faber

The Magus by John Fowles

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Red Shift by Alan Garner

Neuromancer by William Gibson

Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

*Lord of the Flies by William Golding

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman

Light by M John Harrison

The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A Heinlein

Dune by Frank L Herbert

The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse

Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban

The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg

Atomised by Michel Houellebecq

*Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

*The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

The Children of Men by PD James

After London; or, Wild England by Richard Jefferies

Bold as Love by Gwyneth Jones

The Trial by Franz Kafka

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

The Shining by Stephen King

The Victorian Chaise-longue by Marghanita Laski

Uncle Silas by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

The Earthsea Series by Ursula Le Guin

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin

Solaris by Stanislaw Lem

Memoirs of a Survivor by Doris Lessing

*The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis

I think it's kind of cheating to lump what, 8 books? up in to one entry...

The Monk by Matthew Lewis

A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay

The Night Sessions by Ken Macleod

Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel

Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin

The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Ascent by Jed Mercurio

The Scar by China Mieville

Ingenious Pain by Andrew Miller

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M Miller Jr

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

Mother London by Michael Moorcock

News from Nowhere by William Morris

Beloved by Toni Morrison

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

Ada or Ardor by Vladimir Nabokov

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Ringworld by Larry Niven

Vurt by Jeff Noon

The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien

The Famished Road by Ben Okri

*Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

Nightmare Abbey by Thomas Love Peacock

Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake

The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and CM Kornbluth

A Glastonbury Romance by John Cowper Powys

The Discworld Series by Terry Pratchett

The Prestige by Christopher Priest

*His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais

The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds

The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by JK Rowling

Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie

The Female Man by Joanna Russ

Air by Geoff Ryman

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Blindness by Jose Saramago

How the Dead Live by Will Self

*Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

*The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

*Dracula by Bram Stoker

The Insult by Rupert Thomson

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien

The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien

*A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain

Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

Institute Benjamenta by Robert Walser

Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner

Affinity by Sarah Waters

The Time Machine by HG Wells

The War of the Worlds by HG Wells

The Sword in the Stone by TH White

The Old Men at the Zoo by Angus Wilson

The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe

Orlando by Virginia Woolf

Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

State of the nation

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Anthills of the Savannah by Chinua Achebe

London Fields by Martin Amis

Untouchable by Mulk Raj Anand

Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin

La Comedie Humaine by Honore de Balzac

They Were Counted by Miklos Banffy

A Kind of Loving by Stan Barstow

Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Oroonoko, or The Royal Slave by Aphra Behn

Clayhanger by Arnold Bennett

The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen

Room at the Top by John Braine

A Dry White Season by Andre Brink

Shirley by Charlotte Bronte

Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess

The Virgin in the Garden by AS Byatt

Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell

The Plague by Albert Camus

The Kingdom of this World by Alejo Carpentier

What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe

Disgrace by JM Coetzee

Waiting for the Barbarians by JM Coeztee

Microserfs by Douglas Coupland

*Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe

Underworld by Don DeLillo

White Noise by Don DeLillo

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

****Bleak House by Charles Dickens

OK, so I'm biased. What do you want from me?

Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens

Hard Times by Charles Dickens

Little Dorritt by Charles Dickens

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion

Sybil or The Two Nations by Benjamin Disraeli

Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin

The Book of Daniel by EL Doctorow

Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky

USA by John Dos Passos

Sister Carrie by Theodor Dreiser

Castle Rackrent by Maria Edgeworth

Middlemarch by George Eliot

Silas Marner by George Eliot

The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert

Effi Briest by Theodore Fontane

Independence Day by Richard Ford

A Passage to India by EM Forster

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

The Recognitions by William Gaddis

Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

The Counterfeiters by Andre Gide

The Odd Women by George Gissing

New Grub Street by George Gissing

July's People by Nadine Gordimer

Mother by Maxim Gorky

Lanark by Alastair Gray

Love on the Dole by Walter Greenwood

The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines

The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst

South Riding by Winifred Holtby

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

The entire. Unabridged. Monster. It was good, don't get me wrong, but wow. Not a spare time kind of book.

Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood

Chronicle in Stone by Ismael Kadare

How Late it Was, How Late by James Kelman

The Leopard by Giuseppi di Lampedusa

A Girl in Winter by Philip Larkin

Passing by Nella Larsen

The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing

Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis

Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis

Main Street by Sinclair Lewis

Absolute Beginners by Colin MacInnes

The Group by Mary McCarthy

Amongst Women by John McGahern

The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

Of Love & Hunger by Julian Maclaren-Ross

Remembering Babylon by David Malouf

The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann

The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni

Bel-Ami by Guy de Maupassant

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

The Time of Indifference by Alberto Moravia

A Bend in the River by VS Naipaul

McTeague by Frank Norris

Personality by Andrew O'Hagan

*Animal Farm by George Orwell

The Ragazzi Pier by Paolo Pasolini

Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton

The Moon and the Bonfire by Cesare Pavese

GB84 by David Peace

Headlong Hall by Thomas Love Peacock

Afternoon Men by Anthony Powell

Vineland by Thomas Pynchon

The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth

American Pastoral by Philip Roth

The Human Stain by Philip Roth

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

Shame by Salman Rushdie

To Each his Own by Leonardo Sciascia

Staying On by Paul Scott

Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr

The Lonely Londoners by Samuel Selvon

God's Bit of Wood by Ousmane Sembene

The Case of Comrade Tulayev by Victor Serge

Richshaw Boy by Lao She

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

Novel on Yellow Paper by Stevie Smith

White Teeth by Zadie Smith

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovtich by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

The Red and the Black by Stendhal

This Sporting Life by David Storey

The Red Room by August Stringberg

The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore

*Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell

The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope

The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Couples by John Updike

Z by Vassilis Vassilikos

Billy Liar by Keith Waterhouse

Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh

The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West

The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe

Germinal by Emile Zola

La Bete Humaine by Emile Zola

War and travel

Silver Stallion by Junghyo Ahn

Death of a Hero by Richard Aldington

Master Georgie by Beryl Bainbridge

Darkness Falls from the Air by Nigel Balchin

Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard

Regeneration by Pat Barker

A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry

Fair Stood the Wind for France by HE Bates

Carrie's War by Nina Bawden

The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano

The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles

An Ice-Cream War by William Boyd

When the Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

Auto-da-Fe by Elias Canetti

One of Ours by Willa Cather

Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Monkey by Wu Ch'eng-en

*Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

Nostromo by Joseph Conrad

Sharpe's Eagle by Bernard Cornwell

The History of Pompey the Little by Francis Coventry

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

*Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Bomber by Len Deighton

Deliverance by James Dickey

Three Soldiers by John Dos Passos

South Wind by Norman Douglas

*The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

Justine by Lawrence Durrell

The Bamboo Bed by William Eastlake

The Siege of Krishnapur by JG Farrell

Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford

The African Queen by CS Forester

The Ship by CS Forester

Flashman by George MacDonald Fraser

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

The Beach by Alex Garland

To The Ends of the Earth trilogy by William Golding

Asterix the Gaul by Rene Goscinny

The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass

Count Belisarius by Robert Graves

Life and Fate by Vassily Grossman

De Niro's Game by Rawi Hage

King Solomon's Mines by H Rider Haggard

She: A History of Adventure by H Rider Haggard

The Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton

Covenant with Death by John Harris

Enigma by Robert Harris

The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hasek

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope

*The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes

Rasselas by Samuel Johnson

From Here to Eternity by James Jones

Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor

Confederates by Thomas Keneally

Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally

Day by AL Kennedy

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler

The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski

If Not Now, When? by Primo Levi

*The Call of the Wild by Jack London

The Guns of Navarone by Alistair MacLean

All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

The Mark of Zorro by Johnston McCulley

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty

The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer

La Condition Humaine by Andre Malraux

Fortunes of War by Olivia Manning

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Children of the New Forest by Frederick Marryat

Moby-Dick or, The Whale by Herman Melville

Tales of the South Pacific by James Michener

The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat

History by Elsa Morante

Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky

The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh

Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy

Burmese Days by George Orwell

*Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig

The Valley of Bones by Anthony Powell

The Soldier's Art by Anthony Powell

The Military Philosophers by Anthony Powell

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen by Rudolp Erich Raspe

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

The Crab with the Golden Claws by Georges Remi Herge

Tintin in Tibet by Georges Remi Herge

The Castafiore Emerald by Georges Remi Herge

The Devil to Pay in the Backlands by Joao Guimaraes Rosa

Sacaramouche by Rafael Sabatini

Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini

Everything is Illuminated by Jonathon Safran Foer

The Hunters by James Salter

Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott

The Rings of Saturn by WG Sebald

Austerlitz by WG Sebald

Black Beauty by Anna Sewell

The Young Lions by Irwin Shaw

A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute

Maus by Art Spiegelman

The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal

Cryptonomicon by Neil Stephenson

A Sentimental Journey by Lawrence Sterne

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

A Flag for Sunrise by Robert Stone

Sophie's Choice by William Styron

*Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne

A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne

Williwaw by Gore Vidal

Candide by Voltaire

Slaughter-House Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Put Out More Flags by Evelyn Waugh

Men at Arms by Evelyn Waugh

*The Island of Dr Moreau by HG Wells

The Machine-Gunners by Robert Westall

Voss by Patrick White

The Virginian by Owen Wister

The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk

The Debacle by Emile Zola

So after looking over that, it's really no surprise that I came to Bleak House in the end for my senior paper... dystopia, here I come!

Bride Wars?

My friend and sister Hollis stopped by my Facebook today and congratulated me on my engagement-- as she got engaged a couple months ago and I hadn't heard about a date, I asked her when they were planning to get hitched. Imagine my surprise when she came back with... the exact same date as mine! (Dec. 19, 2009) In Atlanta. Blargh. I don't mind doing an afternoon ceremony, which would mean the oodles of people we share on our guest lists wouldn't have to pick weddings, but I really wanted a night wedding. I wish we could do Friday, but I'm not sure it would be easy for Josh (Jeremy's brother/best man) and I'm sure we're pushing it for Val & Co. to get there which is the whole reason we're having it in December to begin with. I'm trying to stay more amused by it than anything-- I mean, what are the odds of us both having the same wedding date totally independent of one another?! Probably about the same as the odds that she would be best friends with a girl I grew up with. Which is the case, bee tee dubs.

On another note, I've found my dress and it's on sale! If I'd made any money at work tonight, or had any faith in tomorrow (tonight?) I would go ahead and buy it right now but I'm pretty sure since it's been bouncing back and forth from $200 to $99, I'll have a chance. I'm going to make an appointment for next week with a shop in Inman Park to try on some similar dresses (in sillhouette) to make sure it won't make my arse look like Texas. Le dress:

It even has the right color obi on it to match my bridesmaids dresses! I'm pleased that the basic stuff seems to be coming together. Shelby even said she'd come in a couple days early to help out just 'cause she rocks. Mom suggested the two buck chucks at Trader Joes (their house wine, couple bucks a bottle, major discount on cases) for the reception, which is perfect because I'd like to have some wine and not just liquor.

Even though it was a devastatingly slow night at work (our total sales were $4.19 and about $2.10 of that was me), I did get a chance to start on Lauren's (my Maid of Honor) Christmas gift to me, a book called Bridal Bargains by Denise and Alan Fields. It's actually a really great book, and if you know someone who's getting married or planning a wedding, I totally recommend it. They're basically consumer advocates for people planning weddings-- they outline the legalities of bridal salons and deposits, and include warning stories:

"In 1992, a couple who owned a chain of Detroit area bridal shops was indicated on 60 counts of fraud in a "bridal scam." Over 5000 brides were bilked out of $1 million in deposits when the shops failed to deliver dresses."

They're not trying to make people paranoid or anything, but they do a really good job of letting you know how to be a savvy shopper. They also include their address and everything so you can write in if you have tips or want to share pictures, etc. from your wedding that might be helpful to other people, so I might try and do that.

Well, I'm yawning and drowsing (golly, and it's only 220!) so I'm off to bed. Ciao for now, dear readers!

Blurgh

Prayers said, fingers crossed, lucky rabbit's feet rubbed and all that jazz...

I had an interview last night (good lord have mercy, is it really nearly 3?! I need to be careful about this finishing a book in one day deal...) at a restaurant called Palate. It's really cute, kinda trendy-- very Decatur. The owner was really sweet, she liked my experience and my ability to take care of the place on my own. There were, I think, two other people to speak with and she'll e-mail us today. Do all of the above and anything else you can think of for me because I would love to work at this place. It's close by, I'd make at least $100 a week with the option to pick up shifts, and it would mean I could get the time off to see Jeremy at Christmas and New Year's which is all I want right now.

I miss Jeremy so much, and it hasn't been that long since I last saw him... the next eight months are going to be rough. Hopefully, though, with a job I can afford to go down there once a month after this and my Christmas/birthday present is to be a ticket down there. It will be nice, even though not as cold in Florida as Mississippi, to cuddle up and watch movies like we did last year. We've chided everyone for starting Christmas before Thanksgiving this year, and here I am talking about it! I blame Valerie for putting up adorable Christmas decorating photos of little Ana. For anyone who doesn't know who Ana is (who are you, where have you been, and do you really ever talk to me?), she's the best little (un)niece I could ever hope to have and just about the cutest little girl I've ever met (and yes, I've seen my share-- goooooo daycare workers!).

They put up her Christmas tree this weekend and she got to wander around with garland on her. I really miss working at the daycare sometimes-- kids can wear on your nerves, but the moment they make you smile it's all forgivable. Just remind me I still need to wait a few years before really wanting one of my own! At least to the point of being able to afford one... though maybe I'll have a girl and snag some hand me downs! ;)

I suppose I should go to bed now. I've ended my election commentary on my other blog, so tomorrow I'll go back to reviewing literature and movies like a good little elitist and included will be Philippa Gregory's novels The Other Boleyn Girl and The Queen's Fool, both about the Tudor reign in to the rise of Queen Elizabeth I. I gotta tell you, those Tudors were frickin' nutters. Not just the flip flopping of religions, but Henry VIII bedded like half the Howard/Boleyn family, and after beheading the one Boleyn girl (Anne), he went off and relieved another of her caput (Catherine Howard)! I think the only reason Catherine Pharr survived the Queenship was because she happened to outlive him... And they say Americans are debauched...

Anyway, save it for the reviews. Hopefully in the next 12 hours I'll have a celebratory post up, but I'll try not to jinx myself...

Tomorrow, tomorrow!

Jeremy's coming tomorrow! This makes me extremely happy. I don't know what the next 9 months will be like... it's only been a couple weeks and I miss him a lot. Though, if I can't find a job here, I may move down before tourist season and get a job there.

The Artemis Fall Social is tonight, so I need to figure out what I'm going to wear-- it's chilly enough now I have to wear stockings which is a little irritating, if you ask me, but whatev. The endless Sweetwater/brats/pretzels is going to be delish, but I'm most excited about the IMAX. Volcanoes and 3D... does it get much better?

Today is bookshelf day. I have a small bookshelf that I dragged out of my car and need to drag the oooooodles of books out to cram on it until we get to the new place. I'm happy I get to keep my books, but they are SUCH a pain to move! We went and looked at a place last night, but the landlord never showed up, so who knows. There's a larger house that we're looking at, 4 bedrooms and 3 baths, which is a lot closer to MARTA than this one, but is more expensive and may be more to rent. The smaller one is still bigger than the place we have now, and while the neighborhood is nice, the houses immediately around and across from it are empty which is a little creepy. If I could find a job, then I would put in the extra $100 a month to get the one close to MARTA just because it would be so much more cost effective for me to take the bus to work and back than have to drive, and the same for mom. We're also pretty sure that by the time we move, Casey will be out of Ridgeview so there will be no driving to Smyrna!

Speaking of Smyrna, I should go get those books out of my car. It's killing my gas mileage to drive around with all of them in my trunk!