Below is a list of the top 106 books tagged “unread” on LibraryThing.
The rules: bold = what you’ve read italics = books you started but couldn’t finish crossed out = books you hated
*= you’ve read more than once underline = books you own but haven’t read yourself
1. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
2. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
3. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
4. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
5. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
6. *Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
7. The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien
8. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
9. The Odyssey by Homer
10. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
11. Ulysses by James Joyce
12. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
13. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
14. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
15. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
16. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
17. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
18. The Iliad by Homer
19. Emma by Jane Austen
20. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
21. *Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
22. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
23. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer Mostly read. I took a upper division class at Uni.
24. *Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
25. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
26. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
27. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
28. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
29. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
30. Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
31. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
32. Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco
33. Dracula by Bram Stoker
34. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
35. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
36. Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
37. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
38. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
39. Middlemarch by George Eliot
40. *Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
41. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
42. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
43. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
44. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
45. Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson
46. American Gods by Neil Gaiman
47. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
48. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
49. Wicked by Gregory Maguire
50. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
51. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
52. Dune by Frank Herbert
53. The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
54. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
55. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
56. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
57. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
58. The Inferno by Dante Alighieri
59. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
60. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
61. *To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
62. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
63. Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
64. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
65. Persuasion by Jane Austen
66. One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
67. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
68. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
69. Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
70. The Once and Future King by T.H. White
71. Atonement by Ian McEwan
72. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
73. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
74. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
75. *Dubliners by James Joyce
76. Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
77. Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
78. Beloved by Toni Morrison
79. Collapse by Jared Diamond
80. The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
81. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
82. Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence
83. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
84. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
85. *Watership Down by Richard Adams
86. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
87. The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
88. Beowulf by Anonymous
89. *A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
90. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
91. The Aeneid by Virgil
92. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
93. Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence
94. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
95. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
96. *Possession by A.S. Byatt
97. Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
98. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
99. Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
100. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
101. Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
102. Candide, or Optimism by Voltaire
103. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
104. The Plague by Albert Camus
105. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
106. Cold Mountain by Charles Frazie
What really sticks out for me, (besides there a ton of books that I need to read and a few I need to revisit because I haven’t looked at them for 15 years) is I really need to call on Mr. Dickens.
Thursday night I wasn’t in the mood to go straight home, so I roped Al into going for just one. We left the pub at nine. All very civilized. I remember having three glasses of red. Al however said that there were four. Given what transpired next, I am inclined to believe him.
Three or four- That’s a lot of vino, but I can usually handle that. Not saying it’s a good idea- just that I can handle it. I usually however pace myself – especially when drinking wine. I will drink water between the glasses. Spread it out over six-eight hours. I also usually have food in my stomach.
But not Thursday. I drank four (large) glasses of red- basically a bottle if not more on maybe 350-500 calories. In three hours.
I woke up at 6 in the morning in bed. Naked. Luckily it was my bed and Stuart was lying next to me. I flipped the events of the evening Rolodex in my head.
Left the pub. Okay. Laying here in bed. Okay.
Left the pub. Bed.
Pub. Bed.
I was missing everything in between. This has never happened to me before.
Stuart had put a large glass of water and ibuprophen on the dresser for me so I took a couple even though I felt okay and drank half the water.
Stuart stirred and peeked his head over the duvet.
“How are you feeling?”
“Fine.”
“You were lashed.”
“Yeah. I don’t remember anything after leaving the pub.”
“You came home at 9:30 singing the French national anthem.”
“I tried to make you go to bed but you refused. I tricked you by saying you would be more comfortable in your dressing gown.”
Something was coming back. “You undressed me?”
“Yes. And you weren’t very accommodating. You kept rolling around. Then you screamed, ‘Stop hitting me!’ Then you giggled.
“That’s funny.”
“I’m sure our neighbours thought so. Do you remember talking to your mum?”
“I talked to my mom?”
“Yeah, something happened with you sister. She had to have a second surgery. I can’t believe you don’t remember.”
“Is she okay?”
“Yes. She’d called and left a message and you called back.”
“I called back?”
“At 12:30. You were sitting up talking really loudly and woke me up and I had to send you out of the room. I can’t believe you don’t remember.”
I can’t believe I can’t remember either. It’s rather scary. I did some quick research on the topic this morning and I found a really great article by Aaron White, PhD. Basically alcohol messes with your brain hitting the record button.
Alcohol primarily disrupts the ability to form new long-term memories; it causes less disruption of recall of previously established long-term memories or of the ability to keep new information active in short-term memory for a few seconds or more. At low doses, the impairments produced by alcohol are often subtle, though they are detectable in controlled conditions. As the amount of alcohol consumed increases, so does the magnitude of the memory impairments. Large quantities of alcohol, particularly if consumed rapidly, can produce a blackout, an interval of time for which the intoxicated person cannot recall key details of events, or even entire events. En bloc blackouts are stretches of time for which the person has no memory whatsoever. Fragmentary blackouts are episodes for which the drinker’s memory is spotty, with “islands” of memory providing some insight into what transpired, and for which more recall is usually possible if the drinker is cued by others. Blackouts are much more common among social drinkers than previously assumed and should be viewed as a potential consequence of acute intoxication regardless of age or whether one is clinically dependent upon alcohol.
There is one benefit of me not eating enough and going to bed without dinner. I was a pound and half lighter Thursday morning than I was on Wednesday. Maybe there is something with the whole starvation thing. (of course I am kidding. And anyone that knows me knows that would not be possible for me to ever do)
I told Al that I had a black-out.
He was surprised. “You must have been drunk!”
That made me feel mildly better that while my record button had been taped over, at least I was functional. . . to someone who had had four pints.
“How are you feeling?”
“I feel fine. Great. I’m hungry because I haven’ had breakfast, but other than that fine. Isn’t that terrible?”
“Are you kidding? That’s great. They should take your blood and study it. Do tests on you to find the secret to no more hangovers.”
While I don’t generally get hangovers, I really don’t fancy another memory gap.
Although, it would be rather fabulous, if deep inside me, are the words to The Marseillaise.
There’s an important facilitation that is being done for all of the teams. Our coordinator sent an e-mail to the Paris office asking questions about the room and equipment.
To the Paris Conference Center,
We have the room booked on the Xth of JuneXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. The audience in Internal. I sent an email earlier in the week with no reply…please let me know if there is someone else I should contact?
We would like to confirm with you the following:
• Projector & Screen (AV)
• Flip Chart in the room (pens)
• Speaker availability - Do you have speakers available for sound?
• Room Flexibility? - Can we have it set up as U-Shaped or Classroom Style? Is there a room coordinator who helps with the room set-up?
Your help is much appreciated. XXX is our contact in France for this course.
Kindest regards,
XXX
The first sentence of the reply back had me laughing so hard I was crying.
Hello XXX,
Unfortunately we aren’t concerned by your request.
A valuable, valuable lesson was learned by myself and others who had a particular individual that I used to work with as a friend on Facebook.
This weekend I was a bit shocked to see his status. Something like “X has been sent to his mummies because I caught him shagging prostitutes. Thanks for turning me into a single mum statistic you c**t.”
I hoped that it was (somehow) a bad joke but the additional statuses that came up over the next couple of days made it rather clear that it wasn’t. . . won’t go into detail but let’s just say it was jaw dropping bad.
Either X’s wife had lost the plot or X had been a very naughty boy and had been messing around on his pregnant wife and son or some mixture of both. In any case, it didn’t matter what the truth was because all these people that were detailed as his ‘friends’ could see it. Some were people like me who say “Hey how are you?” every six months or so. Some were real friends. Some were co-workers. Some were clients. . . Not good.
The lesson here, besides not shagging prostitutes and not letting your wife find out you have been shagging prostitutes or to not do something that makes your wife think you have been shagging prostitutes even though you really haven’t is to simply to not share your passwords. . . and clear your cache. . .
I was asked (by it appears someone who de-lurked- hello!) to post the recipe for my Monday roast. . . so here it is! There is a bit of a bite to it. So if you don’t do spicy. You won’t like it.
It was an organic top round roast. Rubbed salt and pepper on it then a mixture of ground cumin, chilli powder, cayenne pepper and minced garlic (fresh only please none of that jar abomination).
Let it sit in the fridge all day.
Pre-heat the oven to 150 C. I roasted until the meat thermometer said rare- Think it’s broken though as it wasn’t as pink as I would prefer. Think next time I would drop the temp slightly to do a slower roast. It took a couple of hours.
Set the meat aside with foil over it for 15, 20 minutes. Deglaze the pan with red wine and reduce. Add any juices from the meat.
Slice the meat as thinly as you can and serve with the red wine gravy.
Artichokes steam with minced garlic and olive oil drizzled over. If you bother to cut the tops off, squeeze lemon over so the don’t discolour.
Asparagus lightly steam then sauté (briefly!!) in a bit of olive oil with salt and fresh pepper.
Once in a while I make a meal for myself that I wish that I had invited guests to share. . . Tonight it was roast beef with a spicy herb rub and red wine gravy, steamed baby artichokes with garlic, asparagus and a green salad. . .
So since no one besides myself tasted it. . . I wanted to share. . .
One of the things that I love about my sister is what a character she is. She is a universe of energy that can be a lot of fun when it is being used for good rather than evil. I suppose it’s the whole bi polar thing. It’s amazing that such a little person is so enormous.
Was chatting (listening) to her yesterday.
Some of what I can remember:
“You know how I have a cigarette every now and then? Grey HATES it. So for his birthday, can you believe he’s THIRTEEN? So for his birthday one of his gifts as a joke I bought him some of those candy cigarettes. I tossed them to him and said ‘SMOKE UP SON!’ HAHAHA! He is SUCH a little prude. Such a PRUDE. And he’s very serious. You know me, I was a happy go lucky kid. But Grey is so VERY serious. He’s more of a little arty serious kid. Like how you were!”
“I’m just so glad they finally diagnosed me with the hernia. The doctor asked me to set a date for the operation and I said September. And he said, ‘No, we need to do it now.’ So we were going to do it Monday and then I changed it. I had to! Mercury is in retrograde! But it is a BLESSING. I’m scared to go under the knife but this is affecting my navel chakra, which is all about emotions. Once I heal, I am going to be such a stronger massage therapist.”
“I just bought WONDERFUL car. I had bought this hunk of junk and put 1000 bucks into it then it turned out to have cracked engine. Then I had a dream. I saw myself in my friend’s car. So I called her. Told her that the UNIVERSE was telling me I was supposed to have her car so she sold it to me!’
She cracks me up. She’s like a rich chocolate torte laced with hallucinogenics. It’s fun to visit her world for a little while, but then I need to pull away and find gravity before I spin out of orbit into her normal of exploding stars.
You see- while she may be a toasted flake. . .she’s right. I always was rather serious.
Not that I think that anyone would be silly enough to steal my ramblings, but in case you may be thinking about it. . . the very act of my writing this means that I own the copyright. Really. Look it up.
So, please don't plagiarize. It just ain't cool. And what I say just isn't that interesting. Trust me. Most of my friends don't even read this.
That being said, I do subscribe to the T.S. Eliot philosophy of "Immature poets borrow, mature poets steal." There is a difference between Stealing and stealing. . . This is not to say that I am mature. If anything. . . I'm rambling aren't I? That's what I do. I ramble. So, yeah. I'll shut up now.
