Reading stuff

This month I haven't done an awful lot of writing for my WIPs, but just a little awful writing. However, I have been reading quite a bit.


So I came across this book list, which I love and it gives me direction in the library, as I have two toddlers in tow and must accomplish my mission with stealth and speed. Btw, have you read anything lately? Anything on the list I haven't read, especially?


I'm such a nerd for doing this.


1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.

2) Italicize those you intend to read.

3) Underline the books you love.

4) Strike out the books you have no intention of ever reading, or were forced to read at school and hated.

5) Reprint this list in your own blog.




1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4. The Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling

5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6. The Bible

7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14. Complete Works of Shakespeare

15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (I've started this one, but put it down)

19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20. Middlemarch - George Eliot

21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34. Emma- Jane Austen

35. Persuasion - Jane Austen

36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis

37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden (likewise, started and put down)

40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41. Animal Farm - George Orwell (ditto)

42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50. Atonement - Ian McEwan

51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52. Dune - Frank Herbert

53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas (also started...you know)

66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy (I believe the point of this one was so obscure I missed it entirely)

68. Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding (why is this on the list?)

69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville (I guess I have to read this one)

71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72. Dracula - Bram Stoker (but I have read Frankenstein)

73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75. Ulysses - James Joyce

76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78. Germinal - Emile Zola

79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80. Possession - AS Byatt

81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White

88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94. Watership Down - Richard Adams

95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98. Hamlet- William Shakespeare

99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100. Les Miserables– Victor Hugo

Hmmmm...

I've lately been thinking about the differences between "secular" fiction and Christian fiction...at least the glaringly obvious differences. Christian themes, right? Let's see....Christian morals exemplified. Usually some dynamic character who gradually changes his/her perception of truth. All good.

But there is one really huge difference that may or may not be so great. A lot of people call this sanitizing the truth. Stopping short of reality. Not going into it, really, if it is something that could offend. Obviously, this is important in some instances: those same instances that make the lit. "safe" for anyone to read. But I just think there are some instances where we shouldn't be quite so guarded.

My question is: by taking away from the reality, are we taking away from the truth? By not revealing the ugly of the ugly, are we veiling the beauty of the beautiful?

I may not be making sense to anyone but me, but that is okay. If I do make sense, let me know what you think.

Amazing

If there's one thing I've learned about people, it's that they are consistently amazing. Seriously. I don't care if it's the librarian who looks like she drank a bottle of lemon juice with her breakfast, she is amazing...if you get to know her. She may not have a personality you totally adore, but she has some qualities, or she has had some experience, or she has some habits that would floor you. It's true.

As far as character development, this has to impact me in some way. I can't write about the good girl character who always did thus-and-such and maintains the same course until she dies on her starched sheets at a ripe old age. There has to be something deeper than that -- something that twists my preconceptions, at least by the middle of the book. There has to be something that challenges me to think differently, something disconcerting or striking or brilliant about her that I wouldn't have known unless I'd gotten to know her as a reader. Otherwise, I'm not representing true life, and the people that we encounter every direction we turn. Because every one of them would amaze us, if we got to know them...

Probably more about this later. I'm not committing to anything today:)

Predicting the unexpected

This Thursday thing is becoming a running theme, although I didn't really intend it. I love Thursday's--probably my favorite day of the week. I like anticipation, and that's what Thursday is. Besides, Survivor comes on Thursday's, which I considered my favorite show up until a month ago. Now, Lost is becoming a contender and will probably take the lead.

What I love about Lost is the constant fluctuation in plot structure, even in protagonist. You never know what you'll get when you sit down to an episode--which I'm sure annoys some people. That's what I'm curious about: is complete abandonment of the predictable in favor of the inconceivable something that the viewer appreciates? Or is this simply irritating? Does the viewer want to be able to follow his own reason as to how the story will end? Is level of mystery surrounding the plot an element that needs to be controlled?

Personally, I am consistently impressed by the writers of Lost. I think the twists are what bring me back week after week. But I have heard others criticize the show as too "far out." By that expression, I wonder if they are saying they'd like a firmer grip on the probable outcome(s). I think there must be two types of viewers. a)The viewer who craves the unpredictable and the unexpected b)The viewer who would like to predict the unexpected or expect the unpredictable, to an extent at least. How else would shows like Dawson's Creek have survived?

Which, of course, leads me to think there must be two types of readers. If you get me here, and have a thought, please share. I really am wondering.

milemarkers

So I've decided to start a blog about my journey writing the novel--it's really setting in that I have far to go. If you read my devotional blog, Thursday's Child, I'll just tell you now that this is not going to be like that. If you are interested in devotional thoughts, this is going to bore you. If you're interested in discussing critiquing, publishing, and some literary theory, then maybe you'll get something out of this with me.

The general process is getting kind of overwhelming, and I think it would be good to get some feedback about the things I'm experiencing from someone else. Writing in a household of four kids is not easy, especially since I cannot write at night. I think I am too drained, or whatever. I have little creativity (unless I'm wide awake from caffeine, in which case the morning that follows is never good). I started with an outline, which has evolved somewhat, and now I feel more unsure of what I am doing here. On the other hand, I think what I have is more involved and riskier, which could equal more exciting, but I don't know.

I'm also trying to figure out where to go from here. I'm "almost done" with the first draft, and I really miss the environmental editing of college writing courses. Professors are ideal editors: you know their motives and credentials. An awesome friend of mine is serving as a kind of "pre-editor" simply because she is interested in my novel, and wanted to read it. This has been great for me, but I wish I knew someone professionally and personally in this line of work.

Thoughts? Arguments? Sympathy:)?

More later...