2011 Books---Final List

These are the stand out reads of the year to date.  I read more, but these are the ones I remember.

Alias Grace - Margaret Atwood

Howards End - E. M. Forster

Bleak House - Charles Dickens

David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

Mansfield Park - Jane Austen

Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (re-read) - J. K. Rowling

Wives and Daughters - Elizabeth Gaskell

Jane Austen: A Life - Claire Tomalin

The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs. Beeton - Kathryn Hughes

The Uncommon Reader - Alan Bennett

One Thousand Gifts - Ann Voskamp

The Postmistress - Sarah Blake

Lark Rise to Candleford - Flora Thompson

A Family's Affairs - Ellen Douglas


The Help - Kathryn Stockett


The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

Frankenstein - Mary Shelley


Inner Compass - Margaret Silf


Down the Garden Path - Beverly Nichols


Nicholas Nickleby - Charles Dickens


Morville Hours - Katherine Swift

2011 Books Thus Far

These are the stand out reads of the year to date.  I read more, but these are the ones I remember.

Alias Grace - Margaret Atwood

Howards End - E. M. Forster

Bleak House - Charles Dickens

David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

Mansfield Park - Jane Austen

Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (re-read) - J. K. Rowling

Wives and Daughters - Elizabeth Gaskell

Jane Austen: A Life - Claire Tomalin

The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs. Beeton - Kathryn Hughes

The Uncommon Reader - Alan Bennett

One Thousand Gifts - Ann Voskamp

The Postmistress - Sarah Blake

Lark Rise to Candleford - Flora Thompson

A Family's Affairs - Ellen Douglas

A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN

Virginia Woolf once said that a woman needs a room of her own to write.  She needs a place of refuge from the hectic nature of the world---the babies crying, the dirty dishes, the waiting bills, and perhaps even---perhaps especially---the judgment and contempt of those of the opposite sex who deem themselves far too erudite to stoop to read her work.  Woolf is just one of the many great female writers the world has seen thus far.  Why is it important that women in the past took up their pens and put ink to paper, why it is crucial that women today put fingers to keys?  Why do the achievements of such great women as Jane Austen, George Eliot, and Charlotte Bronte remain so pivotal over a century after they first sought publication?  Why must women continue to be women of letters, whether those strung together letters become words and whole thoughts on blogs, in essays, newspapers, e-mails, letters, magazines, memoirs, biographies, autobiographies, poems, and novels?  Because of misguided and delusional men like V. S. Naipaul.  Have you heard of him?  I tend to doubt it.  Have you heard of Jane Austen or Charlotte Bronte? I would certainly think so.  Perhaps there is a good reason for this.

What can you do to combat the misogynistic, backward, ignorant views aired by the Trinidadian Nobel laureate?  Pick up one of the masterpieces of these great authors.  They are literary greats who just happen to be women.  They wrote about issues close to women's (and men's) hearts---love, death, social mores, family, ambition, greed, honor, religion, and forgiveness.  Open their books and let their words come pouring out, letting each woman live through her words long after she was buried in the churchyard.  Lose yourself in the majesty of these great works.  When you close their covers, I guarantee that not only will you have been moved, but that you will also be amazed by what you have discovered about yourself and your world.

Reading To-Do List

I have a BA in English literature.  Before I acquired that, I had an unofficial degree in voracious reading.  I was the child with the flashlight and a novel under the sheets.  Or kneeling on the ground, book open, close up to the night light.  Most of my life has been dedicated to American literature.  Now I have fallen in love with the British.  I love British literature and have certain life goals when it comes to my reading.  I want to read the greats of British literature, the classics, the masterpieces!  Here is how far I have come and how far I have yet to go.  Don't you think it's pretty ambitious?  Thank goodness I have the rest of my life to accomplish this feat.

CHARLES DICKENS   

A Christmas Carol  ---  read it


A Tale of Two Cities  ---  read it


Barnaby Rudge


Bleak House  ---  read it


David Copperfield  ---  read it


Dombey and Sons


Great Expectations  ---  read it


Hard Times  ---  read it


Little Dorrit


Martin Chuzzlewit


Nicholas Nickleby


Oliver Twist  ---  read it


Our Mutual Friend


The Old Curiosity Shop


Pictures from Italy


American Notes


The Uncommon Traveller


Sketches by Boz


A Child's History of England


The Mystery of Edwin Drood


Christmas Stories

JANE AUSTEN


Northanger Abbey


Pride and Prejudice  --- read it


Sense and Sensibility  --- read it


Mansfield Park  ---  half way read it, must re-read in full


Emma  --- read it


Persuasion  ---  read it


CHARLOTTE BRONTE


Jane Eyre  ---  read it


Shirley


Villette


The Professor


ANNE BRONTE


Agnes Grey  ---  read it


The Tenant of Wildfell Hall  ---read it


EMILY BRONTE


Wuthering Heights ---  read it


ELIZABETH GASKELL


Mary Barton


Cranford  --- read it


Ruth


North and South


My Lady Ludlow  --- read it


Sylvia's Lovers


Wives and Daughters


GEORGE ELIOT


Middlemarch


Daniel Deronda


Adam Bede


The Mill on the Floss


Silas Marner --- read it


THOMAS HARDY


Far From the Madding Crowd


The Return of the Native  ---  read it


The Mayor of Casterbridge


Tess of the d'Urbervilles


Jude the Obscure


MARY SHELLEY


Frankenstein


KAZUO ISHIGURO


The Remains of the Day


E. M. FORSTER


Howards End


A Passage to India


A Room with a View


WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY


Vanity Fair


STELLA GIBBONS


Cold Comfort Farm


ANTHONY TROLLOPE


Barchester Towers


The Way We Live Now

David Copperfield

I finished David Copperfield last week.  It was Dickens's favorite of all his novels and considered the most autobiographical work he had ever produced.  This was the first Dickens novel to be narrated in the first person and would pave the way for my favorite of his novels, Great Expectations, also in first person.  This is Freud's favorite novel.  I'm not entirely sure what to make of that, but I know it's indicative of something.  The completion of David Copperfield is part of a larger project I have undertaken.  Almost two years ago, I purchased the collected works of Charles Dickens, the goal being to read every word he ever wrote.  Growing up, I read Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist, and A Christmas Carol.  Earlier this year, I read Bleak House, which I loved.

I first encountered David Copperfield when I was three years old and in a very circumvented way.  In fact, I was completely unaware that I had encountered Dickens at all; it was not until many years later that I even realized that I had undergone such an early exposure.  My mother made the ultimately life shaping decision of letting me watch Gone With the Wind at the tender age of three, thereby ensuring a lifelong preoccupation with the subject and a bit of melodrama that no amount of efforts in humility could break.  (Neither here nor there when it comes to Copperfield.)  During the scene when Scarlett's second husband Frank Kennedy and Ashley were going through the shanty town to find the man who had earlier attempted to attack her and to "clear it out," Scarlett, Melanie, and a host of other ladies sat around sewing and pretending that their husbands were at a "political meeting."  Melanie decided to read.  I will never forget the sound of her voice, "Chapter One, I am born. . ."  And a few chapters later "I passed a memorable birthday. . ."  And upon the banging on the door, "I remember nothing. . ."  What book was she reading?  Why, David Copperfield!  Twenty-six years after first encountering the scene, I encountered the words on the page when I opened one of Dickens's most famous works.  And I was not disappointed.

Entirely random and (I'm afraid) not particularly profound thoughts upon the completion of Charles Dickens's David Copperfield:

*  Dickens routinely outdoes himself in the amazing characters he creates.  This book was no exception. From the no-nonsense, high strung, amazingly liberated aunt Betsy Trotwood screaming at donkeys while chasing them with brooms to the bombastic, forever insolvent, and absolutely hilarious Mr. Micawber---I can't begin to describe the characters.  Each character would warrant pages of explanation. They are so developed, so unique, yet so universally sympathetic at the same time.  And of course, he always gives some of the best names.  Obviously a man named Uriah Heep was born to be a villain.

*I have never encountered a more favorable---in fact jubilant account---of being forced into circumstances that warranted a relocation to the penal colony of Australia.

*David's nurse, Peggoty, stands as one of the most beloved, nurturing characters in all of literature, while still managing to be comical.

*How convenient that Dora dies so that David could be with the woman he was truly meant to marry.  How nice to be able to kill off young, naive first wives when it suits the plot.

*This novel actually features a dog named Jip who walks up and down the top of the dinner table---as in between the plates---and lives in a doghouse made to resemble a Chinese pagoda.  This dog also curiously meets its demise simultaneously as his mistress does (one of the only disappointing moments of over sentimentality on Dickens's part).

*Copperfield's best friend and sidekick, Traddles, could possibly cause one to laugh out loud, particularly towards the end of the novel when he finally weds "the dearest girl of all" and then proceeds to spend their honeymoon catering to her nine sisters.

*When I read about David's travels, I long to see the cathedral in Canterbury and the cliffs of Dover, not to mention St. Paul's as is featured on Peggoty's sewing kit.

*I had no idea that rooks were birds.  They were featured prominently in this text, and since learning this, I have encountered references to rooks no less than 14 other times in other venues.

*How interesting that David's father marries a "child-wife" and that David goes on to initially do the same.

*The description of the forays of David's servants is laugh out loud funny.  They blatantly steal from him, and yet David tells it as if it is all an inevitability and truly stemming from his own character flaws.

*Who wouldn't wish to be Agnes?  Really?

*You feel for David, from the first page to the last.  You pull for him every step of the way.  I know how NOT post-modern it is and how lacking in sophistication it is for me to admit this, but I love a good hero you can get behind.  David is most certainly that.

The Reading Life

I've read 40. And the sad thing is, I've started so many of these and just never finished them.

Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here. Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. BOLD those books you've read in their entirety, ITALICIZE the ones you started but didn't finish or read an excerpt. 

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen  

 2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling- This really only counts as one? 

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- again only one book?

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 Faulk

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveler’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

40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez 

44 A Prayer for Owen 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

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

  

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville 

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens  

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett 

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76. The inferno- Dante

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 - E.B. 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



Best Thanksgiving Story Ever!

Pick up a copy for your little one. . .or for yourself!  :)