Monday, September 13, 2010

Books That Have Stayed With Me


Once again, I am borrowing an idea from a friend on Facebook. Mostly I ignore these things, but one of my book club friends did this and since I really do love reading, I thought that I would give it a try myself. Here are the instructions.

List books you've read that have stuck with you. List as many as you can recall.

In Alphabetical order:




All Quiet on the Western Front
– Erich Maria Remarque
This novel tells the story of a WWI veteran from the perspective of a German soldier.

Animal Farm – George Orwell
Definitely not a children’s book.

The Bread Bible – Beth Hensperger
This is the book that really got me started making my own bread in a way that my bread machine ultimately failed. Because of the awesome recipes in this book, I now happily make pretty much all of my own bread by hand. Normally I hate a cook book without pictures, but the recipes are so good that despite this failing, it is still probably my most used reference book in the kitchen.

A Brief History of Time – Stephen Hawking
This is a book about Physics that is written for mainstream audiences. It is a great overview of various subjects in cosmology that is simple enough to understand without specialized knowledge, but with enough scientific detail to keep it interesting and genuinely informative.

The Brothers Lionheart – Astrid Lindgren
It’s a children’s book about two brothers who have adventures in a fantasy world while fighting battles against the forces of evil. I remember reading it at night in my room with a flashlight and loving it. This is the same author that wrote the Pippi Longstocking series.

The Blue Castle – L.M. Montgomery
I read this one as a teenager and it is probably the least well known of her books, but totally the best (in my humble opinion), about a woman that decides to stop caring about conventions and to say/do exactly what she thinks and feels, with hilarious consequences.

A Christmas Carol- Charles Dickens
Great Christmas reading.

A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
This is a dystopian novel that takes place in the near future. In describing the adventures of the violent and amoral protagonist/anti-hero, the author practically invents a new language, which is meant to portray futuristic slang but is oddly understandable within the context of the story.

The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
This was the first book that I read by her and definitely my favourite. I wish that they would make a better movie version.

The Importance of Being Earnest – Oscar Wilde
Hilarious comedy of manners.

Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
What’s not to love about Jane and Rochester’s forbidden love affair?

Les Liaisons Dangereuses – Choderlos de Laclos
A controversial and much banned book written in the 1700’s as series of letters between two morally corrupt aristocrats, this was the book that movies like Cruel Intentions and Dangerous Liaisons were based upon (originally set in 18th century France).

Like Water For Chocolate – Laura Esquivel
This is a story of doomed young love set during the Mexican Revolution. The heroine is forbidden to marry her true love due to a family tradition that demands the youngest daughter must not marry so that she can care for her mother until she dies. She is only able to express herself while cooking, and each chapter begins with a recipe. Reading this will make you hungry.

Moll Flanders – Daniel Defoe
The full title is really the best plot summary I can think of so I will quote that:
The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, Etc. Who Was Born in Newgate, and During a Life of Continu’d Variety For Threescore Years, Besides Her Childhood, Was Twelve Year a Whore, Five Times a Wife (Whereof Once To Her Own Brother), Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon In Virginia, At Last Grew Rich, Liv’d Honest, and Died a Penitent. Written From her own Memorandums.

The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco
A murder mystery set in an Italian monastery in 1327.

Night – Eli Wiesel
A haunting and tragic memoir of a Holocaust survivor.

Pride & Prejudice – I started reading Jane Austen in High School way before it was cool. Other kids thought I was weird (and probably still do, oh well), but I am glad about the current trendiness because it means lots of movies and adaptations. I love anything by Jane Austen, but P&P will always be my favourite.

The Road – Cormac McCarthy
I know, I know, the movie was sketchy, but I love post-apocalypse stories and the book really drew me in with its sad tale of a man and his son trying to survive and retain their humanity in a world gone terribly terribly wrong.

The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
About a young boy that finds a mysterious book and attempts to find out more about the author, only to discover that someone has been systematically destroying all of his works.

Stitch’n Bitch: The Knitter’s Handbook – Debbie Stoller
This is the book that really got me addicted to knitting. I am a pretty lazy knitter and mostly stick to easy stuff like hats and bags, but I love that I can make something by myself that is one of a kind, inexpensive and fabulous.

A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” Set in London and France during the French Revolution. It took me some time to get into it, but I loved the story and particularly some of its unforgettable characters. My personal favourite is the twisted and vengeful Madame Defarge.

The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
I love time travel stories, especially when the various time jumps do not result in inconsistencies. It’s confusing, but they all line up in the end. I am hoping that the movie will not be a disappointment.

The Velveteen Rabbit - Margery Williams
A classic children’s story about a much loved stuffed bunny. I really have to get this out of the library to read to the monkey.

War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
Epic novel set in Russia in the period leading up to Napoleon’s invasion and how this eventually impacts the lives and fortunes of various aristocratic families. It is long, but totally readable.

The Zombie Survival Guide - Max Brooks
It's nice to know that I am not the only one out there that is obsessed with zombies. When in doubt, aim for the head.

Friday, April 2, 2010

How Many of These Books Have You Read?


Okay, I stole this from a friends facebook.

Supposedly, the BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. I don't know if that is actually true or not, but I thought I would see how my own reading habits stack up, mostly because I really love to read books.


[x] 1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
[x] 2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
[x] 3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
[ ] 4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
[x] 5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
[x] 6 The Bible
[x] 7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
[x] 8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
[ ] 9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
[x] 10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
[x] 11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
[ ] 12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
[x] 13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
[ ] 14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
[ ] 15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
[x] 16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
[ ] 17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
[x] 18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
[ ] 19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
[ ] 20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
[ ] 21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
[x] 22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
[ ] 23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
[x] 24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
[x] 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
[x] 30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
[x] 31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
[ ] 32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
[x] 33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
[x] 34 Emma - Jane Austen
[x] 35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
[ ] 36 The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
[x] 37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
[ ] 38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
[x] 39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
[x] 40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
[x] 41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
[x] 42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
[ ] 43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
[ ] 44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
[ ] 45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
[x] 46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
[ ] 47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
[x] 48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
[x] 49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
[x] 50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
[x] 51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
[ ] 52 Dune - Frank Herbert
[ ] 53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
[x] 54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
[ ] 55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
[x] 56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
[x] 57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
[x] 58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
[x] 59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
[x] 60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
[ ] 61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
[x] 62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
[ ] 63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
[ ] 64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
[x] 65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
[x] 66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
[ ] 67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
[x] 68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
[ ] 69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
[x] 70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
[ ] 71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
[ ] 72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
[x] 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
[x] 79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
[ ] 80 Possession - AS Byatt
[x] 81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
[ ] 82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
[x] 83 The Color Purple
[ ] 84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
[x] 85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
[x] 86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
[x] 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
[x] 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 Beloved - Toni Morrison
[x] 99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
[x] 100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Assuming that I counted correctly, I got 51 out of the 100 titles on this list, so I guess that I am doing alright. I suspect most people would have read rather more than six though. I might refer to the list in the future when I am looking for books to get out of the library.

Friday, January 8, 2010

Attack of the Zombie Borg


So, the husband and I were going off on a bit of a tangent the other day, and for whatever reason, we happened to be discussing the Borg (yes, we are geeks, in fact we were watching Deep Space 9 season 5 at the time, so there), and he brought up the interesting question as to whether or not the Borg would be able to assimilate Changelings. After some debate, we decided that they could not, but we both agreed that they could and would assimilate the Jem Hadar (spelling???) if they ever got the chance.

Anyhow, this led to the even more interesting (in my opinion) question of what the consequences might be of the Borg finding themselves exposed to the zombie virus. At first, we felt that what with the Borg nanoprobes and such, that they might be able to maintain remote control over the zombie Borg, despite their zombie-ism. The infected Borg would become zombies, but the collective would maintain control over them through the nanoprobes and their linked consciousness.

The more I thought about that though, the less sense it made. Maybe, the nanoprobes could succeed in destroying the virus, but assuming that they could not, I think that the virus would cause the infected Borg's conciousness to be severed from the link with the Borg collective. What seems more likely, would be that an infected Borg (in the early stages of the infection) would probably spread the virus throughout the cube when it tried to link up with its friends (kind of like spreading it through a blood transfusion), and once the virus took over completely, their link with the collective would be severed and they would start feasting on whatever brains they could get its hands on.

Probably, the rest of the collective would realize that something had gone terribly wrong, and use their linked minds to set the infected cube on auto-destruct or something. Or else they would just destroy it with weapons, since the zombie Borg wouldn't be able to operate the cube and what with being in outer space, they would be rather effectively isolated. It would be cooler if the virus could be spread to other cubes, but that somehow seems unlikely. So anyhow, yes, this is the sort of thing that we sometimes like to think about.