New House

One more day of moving and then we'll be in with the new and out of the old. There's still a ton of stuff to do at the Avery house, which I'm not too thrilled about, but c'est la vie. I have my own room now, which is sooooo nice. I also got one of the many chest/storage/table type things that mom has and it's supporting the TV and housing all of my subject/reference books that have now been happily divided in to genres-- Art, language, linguistics, sociology, psychology, theatre, and literature! We still have to pull in my chest of drawers and my vanity, but everything's kind of falling in to place. The room is strangely shaped and the window is like two feet off the ground, so I'm not really sure what the architecht thought they could do with it, buuuut that's ok. The only big problem is that the heat vents are in the ceiling and it blows directly on my bed and dries out my sinuses.

My birthday came and went without notice; I canceled the movie outing for tomorrow to Emily's dismay, but I just don't even want to deal with it. My mom didn't even bother to look for a cake at Publix since the Market didn't have one when I went yesterday.

I'm happy that I have my own space now, it'll make life easier, but I really want the next six or seven months to be over with so that Jeremy and I can get on to wherever we're going to be and start our own lives.

Sorry this update's not too cheery, but it's been a silly week. I really miss Jeremy and I hope he gets to come up for Valentine's weekend. I also hope I make enough money this week to do something to my car and also to get to go down to Savannah to see Sara! Jeremy might come up, but it depends on when Jan and Marc are getting down there for the conference, if they go Friday or Saturday.

I'll try to have something better to say soon, but for now... I'm going to put some clothes up and try to get back to sleep.

Taxes... ARGH

I really severely heinously dislike taxes. I do my stuff online at HR Block and there's a little window in the upper corner that reads out your refund as you plug in the numbers. I started on one and as I put in my W-2s (a total of $11,000 for the year) and my 1099-R (401k distribution), my refund went from over $1,000 to $800 and then when I plugged in my $1,000 in medical expenses for the year... It went down to $323!!!

Seriously? Really? I mean, I'm already insulted enough by the fact that I'd have to be making $6-7,000 to qualify for welfare or any type of assistance from the gov't to whom I have dutifully paid my taxes since I was 15 and now you have to tell me that since (with taxes and medical expenses deducted) I make $9,000 to live on for 12 months, you're not going to give me any of it back? Oh, oh, and lest we forget, the EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit) laws were changed last year, so since I'm not 25-65 it doesn't matter that I'm poor. Apparently they assume my parents are still supporting me?

ARGH!

People wonder what's wrong with our country, and I promise I'm not going to rant, but this has to give some kind of minor HINT as to what the deal is.

/rant

In the end I'm getting a fairly decent refund, it'll pay for the deposit on the wedding and hopefully a little more since it'll sit in a high-interest savings account until October, but it still just drives me up the wall that we (aka, the lawmakers) have such a skewed idea of what poverty is. We want people living in filth and dying because they can't afford medical care before we'll offer a helping hand. And, if you've paid taxes for almost 10 years and asked for nothing... oh, well! Wayne got fired and was making $275/week on unemployment. I work three days a week and don't make that.

/really end rant...

I didn't get much sleep last night, my brother was up and I finally had just been up so long I stayed up-- then I had an allergy issue and had to take a Benadryl so I don't think I made much sense when Jeremy called at lunch... I ended up sleeping until 2, so I didn't get any packing done, though it was raining so I wouldn't have been able to move it anyway. Work was really slow, though I did get the macadamia nut encrusted scallops and chocolate bread pudding (two of my favorites!), and basically the day ended up being pretty rotten which is kind of the story with my birthday every year. Except last year, I want to go back to last year. Jeremy made me some crazy brownie concoction, we got Papa Johns, watched Burn Notice, and he gave me my beautiful earrings (which have come off twice since-- both for surgery).

Apparently my birthday present is in the mail (from Jeremy) and he's more and more sounding like he'll come up for Valentine's day-- he says he won't if the weather is bad, but the weather was pretty rotten at Thanksgiving and he still came up. I'm also looking forward to going down to Savannah (at least, that's the plan) in a couple weeks to see Sara! I love both Savannah and Sara and haven't seen either in several years, so it ought to be a great weekend. Jan and Marc are headed down to Florida for a conference that weekend, so Jeremy doesn't know if he'll come up and meet us for Friday night or not.

Anyway, I'm gonna see if I can't get a couple bags packed up before I go to bed since I'm watching a House Hunters in Austin! Oooh, maybe I can use part of my refund to put towards my ticket to the best bridal party EVER this summer with Dill and Osso Buco by Casey! Yeehaw!

A little something

So I'm seriously considering starting up my own custom cards business. I hand make most of my special events cards and while Christmas got a little out of hand this year (as I custom-tailored each card for each family), almost all of the cards usually end up pretty sharp and darned cute, I think. I don't have the capability to do anything super fancy, but I can do some nice, hand-made cards and get the envelopes to go with them from like PaperDirect (if I need special colors) or something. I could sell them on Etsy and possibly market them to some of the boutiques in Decatur-- have some stock designs and then offer custom type stuff on a website? Plus, the materials aren't that expensive and since I only work part-time, my time isn't all that valuable...

I don't know, what do you guys think? I know there are lots of you who come by, but nobody ever says anything! Well, with the exception of Em who left a note last night :)

Things are going along here, I ordered my save-the-dates tonight and I'm really excited! Hopefully I'll have them out in the next week and a half/two weeks. The template that I ordered ($3 to save myself hours of screwing around with layout in Microsoft Word? Hells yeah!) is downloadable, so I can go ahead and figure out fonts and layouts and all that sort of thing before the actual paper gets here so I'll just print 'em out and address them on slow nights at work, maybe have Em over to help with the rest.

Work hasn't been too bad, and I have my car back which is a huge weight off my shoulders, so now I have to replace the Mass Air Flow sensor and plug the exhaust leak, which will hopefully get done by mid to late February so I can drive down and see Jeremy! He's also talking about coming up here for Valentine's day weekend, which would be really sweet. I have to work Valentine's night, but there's a good chance the dishwasher won't show up, so maybe he can make himself useful during that time and do some dishes... hey, it'd be an extra $30-50!

I'm finally exhausted enough to fall asleep without tossing and turning (not that I wasn't exhausted when I got home, but mom was still packing so I ended up waking up a little bit which was awful), so I'm going to hit the hay and try to prepare for the whirlwind of packing tomorrow morning...

I just realized what time it was...

I got on to add more info to my tax forms on H&R Block and... Sarah just got on Facebook and Josh put up pictures and Suehyla tagged me in a meme and Tati hadn't heard I was engaged and Krystal told me about her hideous china and Brian's computer spazzed... it was more than I expected. So, after all that, and eating my mac and cheese leftovers (which were supposed to be lunch tomorrow), I realized that not only had I NOT put in my tax info, BUT it was also almost 230 in the morning... wow.

The weekend was good-- I bought my dress (for $100!) and since it fits perfectly, I won't have to even have it altered! The "spa day" ended up being the afternoon from hell and we were preached at that Mary Kay allowed them to not be working mothers who left their children in (god forbid!) daycare of all the evil places. I thought my mother was going to jump across the table and throttle the over-made little twit and her "top-of-the-line" minivan. Oh, well, it was amusing and kind of fun to be there with Em, Laura, and mom, AND if I hadn't decided to go, then I wouldn't have gotten my last one in the store dress! I'm really REALLY excited about the dress-- it's pretty and it looks fantastic on!

I should probably go to bed now, but I thought I'd drop a note here right quick and check Val's blog, for which I was rewarded-- Analia is just so frickin' cute I can't get over it! I'm hoping that by Valentine's Day (which is Valerie's birthday, too!) Jeremy and I will both have webcams and be set up on Skype. That's my present to him, and then I'll get one for myself as well.

Ah, well, off to rest up for the big move! I'm so excited I get my own space now!

Hooray!!!

I found my wedding dress and bought it today!

The afternoon was a bit of a bust, but it was nice to spend time with mom, Laura, and Emily, and... I GOT MY DRESS!

I'm exhausted now, but that's ok. I'm just so happy with my dress :)

Pictures are up on Facebook, if you're on my friends list you'll have to just guess... sometime soon I'll tell you which one I picked, but I'm totally amused at the voting so far.

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!

Walk like a Penguin

Doesn't have the same ring as "Walk Like an Egyptian" but, according to the Boston Globe, it's the way to go.

(Thanks to Alexis for the link)

My Oscar Picks

Best Picture:
I haven't seen any of them yet, but I'm betting it'll either be Benjamin Button or Frost/Nixon. We love a good political movie for best picture.

Leading Actor:
Frank Langella- Frost/Nixon

Leading Actress:
I haven't seen any of these yet, either, but I'm going between Meryl Streep and Kate Winslet... I really want Winslet, but Streep's a shoo in...

Supporting Actor:
Heath Ledger. If for some reason he doesn't, then I'm hoping they'll go with Robert Downy, Jr. I mean, I love Phillip Seymour Hoffman, but it's about damn time comedic roles won more Oscars. We started with Streep a couple years ago, if we can't give it to Ledger (who does seriously deserve it), let's give it to Downy.

Supporting Actress:
Amy Adams and Marissa Tomei are both good choices, but I'm going to go with Marissa Tomei on this one.

Best Director:
From what I hear, it'll be between Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire. I'm hoping for Elyse's sake it's Slumdog-- It's on my queue so I'll hopefully be able to say more about it soon.

Best Screenplay:
It'll probably be Milk, but I'm rooting for WALL-E.

Previously-Based Screenplay:
I'm voting Frost/Nixon

Cinematography:
The Dark Knight

Costume Design:
Australia

Makeup:
This is a tough one-- all three of the movies nominated (Benjamin Button, Dark Knight, and Hellboy) all took some serious talent and design prowess... I'm going to put my money on Benjamin Button though since they do the whole aging backwards thing.

Music:
WALL-E

Best Original Song:
WALL-E

Sound:
WALL-E

Sound Editing:
WALL-E or Dark Knight

Visual Effects:
Another toughie-- Benjamin Button, Dark Knight, and Iron Man were all really well done, but I'm going to go with Iron Man or Dark Knight; especially if Button wins for makeup

Animated Feature:
WALL-E, duh. I mean, I liked Kung Fu Panda and I heard Bolt was cute, but let's face it-- WALL-E is the best.

I'll end with Foreign Film just because usually the one I've actually heard of when I'm not paying attention wins-- we'll say Vals Im Bashir (Israel) takes it.

If you want to see the full list, check out IMDB. I'm excited-- this is the first year it hasn't been a total disappointment, even though I will hurt someone if Angelina Jolie wins. No, really. I'm serious.

Anyway, we'll recap on the 22nd and see if I was right about any of them. Again, I've seen almost none of these so I'm going on what little I know. I'll feel very special indeed if I get any of them right!

I should be going to bed...

Work was slow tonight, but I got a lot of things done behind the bar, for which Jill was very thankful. I got over 100 sets of silverware rolled, cleaned up the stainless tops on the dessert case and the wine coolers, cleaned off the dessert plates, reorganized the coolers, coffee cups and the coffee plates/app plates (which are the same size and never separated properly) and other such organizational stuff. Hopefully it'll pick up again soon, once it's not so cold. It's been running about 33 during the day with a windchill down to 25 at 20mph. Brr!

I picked up more boxes which made Mewsette very happy. I have never seen a cat who loved boxes as much as mine does! She keeps hopping in one and looking out like, "Hmm, how's the view from here?" and deciding she wants to try another. I told Joe it's like Goldilocks and the three boxes with commentary. I assume she's found a box she likes now as I haven't heard from her, but I'm positive she'll move again before the night's over!

I also forgot to mention that Saturday is also Miss America. It's going to be awesome.

I served a Caprese salad at work tonight and now I really want one... it's the perfect salad, really.

Suppose that's all for now; I need to go to bed, but House Hunters is in Rome and it's a lot of fun! I mean, they're paying more for a 550 sq.ft. attico than most people pay for a three bedroom two bathroom house, but they're in the city center and there's a farmer's market right across the street! Well, they haven't bought that one, but it's totally nice! Even if it is appx. $369,000 USD...

Insomnia strikes again!

Well, it's 5a (almost 6) and a multitude of things are keeping me awake. Appropriately enough, the only thing on TV that isn't infomercials or baseball is an old episode of MY personal high school favorite-- Angel! And, even more appropriately enough, Angel can't sleep. Not even during the day... (y'know, since he's a vampire and all) though I totally forgot how cute Charisma Carpenter is.

Anyway, not much to report really but since nobody's on, here I am! Work's been getting slowly better, made enough tonight to make tires feasible tomorrow, which is really awesome! I'll finally have my own transportation again! I think instead of dealing with the changing the tire and jumping the car, I might just get the darn thing towed up there and let Tires Plus charge up the battery for me. Then I can be off to cash my paycheck, and head out for my candlelight and dinner with the AOIIs!

Semi-formal was a lot of fun, more than I thought it would be. The girls were really great, very well behaved, even if their dates weren't for the most part. I ended up having to clean up someone's vomit off a table, but the president is going to be asking him to write me an apology for having to do that. Other than that, things went really well! Here are a few pictures:


Me and India (madam president)

Me and Danielle
(social chair and one
of my advisees)

Becky (another AAC member)
Katie (most recent president)
Me and
Natalie (whose office I can't remember right now!)





(let's see if that spacing works...)


I continue to love and adore all my new sisters, not that I'm terribly surprised, but it's always wonderful to have a group of friends wherever you go who love you so unconditionally!

I'm trying to think about what else has gone on since I last updated (pre-sickness, blech!), but there isn't really too much. This week should be exciting and busy, which will be really nice since I've been getting a little bit of cabin depression (I totally stop functioning without anything to do...) and poor Jeremy's had to listen to it all.

Tuesday: Tires on the car, INAUGURATION DAY!! HURRAY PRESIDENT OBAMA!
Wednesday: Moving and Work
Thursday: Moving and vodka tasting at work, dad and Emmy are coming, possibly lots of other people I haven't seen in entirely too long
Friday: Moving stuff day
Saturday: Dress fittings at David's (pictures to come, I promise!) and then spa afternoon with Emmy, Becky, mom, and possibly Vicki and BC.
Sunday: More moving! Whoo!

I'm excited about getting in to the new house and having my own room and breaking out my old furniture from when I was little. Since the desk is staying in Southaven until we know where we're moving, I'm going to get out my old dresser/vanity to use and my old chest of drawers (the set mom got smells really funky and makes my clothes smell bad...) and if I get particularly motivated this summer, I may even finally strip them down and re-paint them since we'll have a deck and it will take QUITE some time to get off a bajillion layers of 30 year old paint!

Well, that'll do it for now. Probably won't get to update with anything interesting until after the vodka tasting on Thursday-- and will definitely update this weekend with pictures from the dress fittings. I'm going to Morrow and dealing with this David's Bridal crap, I will be trying on several gowns, believe you me! I won't have enough money to buy one this weekend, so I may take my leftovers and split it between getting a webcam for me and one for Jeremy so we can get on Skype and talk to each other and the multiple peoples we know around the world including Valerie and Ana, and Megan in Chile!

Oh, and here's your daily dose of cute-- Feist on Sesame Street: