recommend a good book

These meme is out there on several of the blogs I frequent, so I thought I'd do it, too.

Books, books, books

*Bold the ones you’ve read.

* Italicize the ones you want to read.

* Leave in normal text the ones that don’t interest you.

*Put in ALL CAPS those you haven’t heard of. -- I've seen this list before and I don't remember which ones I hadn't hear of. So for me, all caps just means I don't know enough about the book to know if I want to read it or not.

* Put a couple of asterisks by the ones you recommend.

1. The DaVinci Code (Dan Brown)

2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)

3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee) ** (and the movie is good, too)

4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)

5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien) ++

6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien) ++

7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)++

8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery) - started but didn't finish

9. OUTLANDER (Diane Gabaldon)

10. A FINE BALANCE (Rohinton Mistry)

11. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Rowling)

12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)

13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)

14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)

15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)**

16. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)

17. FALL ON YOUR KNEES (Ann-Marie MacDonald)

18. The Stand (Stephen King)

19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)

20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)**

21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)**

22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)

23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)**

24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)

25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)

26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)

27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)**

28. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)**

29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)

30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)

31. Dune (Frank Herbert)

32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)

33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)

34. 1984 (Orwell)

35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)

36. THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH (Ken Follett)

37. THE POWER OF ONE (Bryce Courtenay)

38. I Know This Much Is True (Wally Lamb)

39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)

40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)

41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)

42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)

43.Confessions of a Shopahaulic (Sophie Kinsella)

44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)**

45. The Bible **

46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)

47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)

48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)

49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck) -- I started this, but never finished

50. She's Come Undone (Wally Lamb)

51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)

52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens) -- I started it, I have a hard time reading Dickens. Really want to, though.

53. Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)

54. Great Expectations (Dickens) -- I started it. I may have read the whole thing. I may just be thinking of the movie.

55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)**

56. THE STONE ANGEL (Margaret Laurence)

57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)

58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough) -- to long ago to know if I recommend it or not

59. THE HANDMAID'S TALE (Margaret Atwood)

60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)

61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)

62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)

63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)

64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)

65. FIFTH BUSINESS (Robertson Davies)

66. ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

67. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Ann Brashares) saw the movie

68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)

69. Les Miserables (Victor Hugo)

70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

71. Bridget Jones's Diary (Helen Fielding) -- saw the movie. blech

72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

73. Shogun (James Clavell)

74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje) -- saw the movie. Not impressed

75. The Secret Garden(Frances Hodgson)** also recommend The Little Princess by author

76. THE SUMMER TREE (Guy Gavriel Kay)

77. A Tree Grows In Brooklyn (Betty Smith)

78. The World According to Garp (John Irving)

79. THE DIVINERS (Margaret Laurence)

80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)**

81. NOT WANTED ON THE VOYAGE (Timothy Findley)

82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)

83.Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier) -- saw the movie

84. WIZARD'S FIRST RULE (Terry Goodkind)

85. Emma (Jane Austen)

86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)

87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)

88. THE STONE DIARIES (Carol Shields)

89. BLINDNESS (Jose Saramago)

90. KANE AND ABEL (Jeffrey Archer)

91. IN THE SKIN OF A LION (Michael Ondaatje)

92. Lord of the Flies (William Golding)

93. THE GOOD EARTH (Pearl S. Buck)

94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)**

95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum) - saw the movie

96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)

97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)

98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)

99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)

100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

Wow, I guess I really haven't read very many of these. If you want to do this on your blog -- just do it. I'm not tagging.

luna loco

I don't know about where you live, but here, people can be....shall we say...idiotic.

This really bugs me. See, I prefer to obey the law. I'm not going to blindly obey some law that calls for me to turn my neighbors into the gestapo, but if a law isn't actually harmful I will follow it. Even if I think it's dumb.

There is a long strip on the highway where they have lowered the speed limit by 15 mph. It goes far beyond the actual construction area, so it seems unnecessary and I don't particularly like it. I like to get where I'm going.

But I obey the law. So I slow down.

Yesterday I was on that particular highway and I was slowed down to only 5 mph above the speed limit, (I try, anyway). People were backed up behind me for a long way. Sorry folks -- not my law. Just being a good citizen.

They had also extended the double yellow line so nobody could pass. Although why they would want to, I'm not sure. I was going as fast as the law allowed.

But as soon as that double line ended, boy, a whole mass of people flew past me. And here's the neat part (you have to hear sarcasm in that) -- The first vehicle to pass me did me the great honor of showing me a big ol' splotchy moon.

Even though I was pretty steamed, I didn't want to exact revenge myself. But I was fervently hoping there was a cop around the bend to arrest them all!

While following construction speed limits, by husband got the bird.

So here's what I wonder. Do these people not see the signs? Are they oblivious -- all of them? Or do they see the signs, but they don't like them, so they just ignore them? Fine. But why is it a problem for them if some of us obey them? Honestly, I don't get it. Do they think I was slowed down for my own enjoyment and just to irritate them.

DO THEY NOT SEE THE SIGNS??

And if they see the signs and disregard the law so lightly, do they disregard all laws the same way?

Apparently not. Because, (I found this amusing) they wouldn't dare pass over that double yellow line! Even though there were no cars coming and it was a straight shot for miles. What's with that?

Well, I'm trying to let God love His people through me. And I know, hard as it may be to believe, that sometimes I am not very lovable either. So, I keep trying. Some days are just much more trying than others.

let's talk about me

I actually like memes. I like getting tagged. Maybe I just like talking about myself!

I was going to do the Friday's Feast, but some of the questions were too hard. Like what work of fiction I would choose to memorize - ha!

So, I am doing this thing that we have all probably had in our e-mail time and again.

Here goes:

Four Things about Me You May Not Have Known :

FOUR JOBS I'VE HAD IN MY LIFE:
1) McDonald's' employee - cook, drive-thru, counter, birthday parties, I did it all, man.
2) Short order cook
3) County Health Nurse for a county of 2000 people
4) Hospice nurse

FOUR PLACES I HAVE LIVED:
1) Pueblo, CO
2)Lynchburg, VA
3)Kansas City, KS
4)Colorado Spring, CO

FOUR TV SHOWS I LIKE TO WATCH
We don't actually have TV right now, but if we did...
1) Mythbusters
2) Dirty Jobs
3) Monk
4) Psych

FOUR PLACES I'VE BEEN ON VACATION:

I don't think visiting family is really a vacation, but I have to include it with my one real vacation and my missionary trips, because otherwise, I never go.
1) Yellowstone
2) Mexico
3) Haiti

4) Boston

FOUR OF MY FAVORITE FOODS
1) Ice Cream
2) Potatoes
3) Anything Indian
4) Middle Eastern kind of stuff

I WOULD RATHER BE RIGHT NOW:
1) Heaven
2) in the mountains
3) a friend's house
4) a museum


FOUR PLACES I LIKE TO SHOP:
1) Hobby Lobby
2) Whole Foods
3) boutiques in tourist areas. "hippie stores" my son calls them
4) Target

FOUR things I'm afraid of:
1) Illness - even the common stomach bug gives me panics
2) head under water

3) I don't know if I'm really afraid of heights, but I do have vertigo
4) flying

FOUR favorite beverages:
1) lemonade

2) grape juice

3) Root beer
4) Chai

and the winner is...

Ok, so I only placed third, but still. I was a winner in my first writing contest!
This is from the newsletter:

Distracting Big Toe Contest Winners

Thanks to everyone (48 of you!) who entered my "Ways to Distract Your Big Toe" contest. You can't IMAGINE how much fun I had reading your entries! Selections were difficult. Prizes will come within the next two months. I'm sorry for the delay, but I want to make sure they're deserving of your genius! (If I can remember where I saw the "mood toe ring," one of you will be getting THAT!)

If you simply cannot imagine why I'd hold a contest to distract a big toe, please click here to read the story. If THIS story is already posted, look for the May 2007 archived edition at the bottom of the page (or one close to that date).

HONORABLE MENTION: Margie Casteel

"I don't know which TwinkleGram had me laughing harder: this one or the one about distracting your toe! Maybe you could distract your toe by reading both TwinkleGrams to it!"
Hey, I'm a sucker for my own work.
THIRD PLACE: Kay Day
"Even though my toes are married, nothing distracts my big toe like a good-looking, well-dressed man toe. They got that from their grandma's toes."
She got me with the "grandma's toes" part.

SECOND PLACE: Yvonne Greer

"You can distract a big toe by taking it shopping at 'Toes R Us' and buying it a toey."
Now that is creative!

FIRST PLACE: Christina Berry

"See, there's this big toe, see, and he wants to go to the market, but I want to stay home, so I send my best friend out to meet him when he's leaving and she offers him some roast beef, but my friend's husband yells at him that it tastes nasty and he didn't have any himself, so now I'm resigned to a shopping trip, but little Piggy--he's our son--rides up on his bicycle a few blocks from our house and then Daddy has no choice but to turn around, commandeer the bike, put Piggy on the handlebars, and pedal all the way home. The whole time I hear Piggy 'wheeling,' all I can think is how glad I am that I don't have to go to the market!"
The rules said one or two sentences, and by golly, she wins on two counts: creative story and causing us to hold our breath between sentences while we read!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


And this is the site where I entered said contest.

i'm a star

Hat tip to Lisa Samson for this wonderful thing: My own movie!
I hope the link works. I was supposed to be able to embed it into my blog, but it wouldn't work.

readers'/writers' meme

This was created by BJ Hoff and I copied it from Robin Lee Hatcher's blog.

1. What's the one book or writing project you haven't yet written but still hope to?

Ha ha! Well, that would be my first ever book. Sure would like to get that written.

2. If you had one entire day in which to do nothing but read, what book would you start with?

I have a stack of books to read. I would probably just start with the next on the stack. Magdeline by Angela Hunt, I think is next.

3. What was your first writing "instrument" (besides pen and paper)?

I suppose a crayon was probably my very first :)

Just our PC. I now have my own laptop which is much nicer.

4. What's your best guess as to how many books you read in a month?

Probably four to five. Sometimes I have three or four going at the same time.

5. What's your favorite writing "machine" you've ever owned?

This Acer laptop is the only one that has been "all mine".

6. Think historical fiction: what's your favorite time period in which to read? (And if you don't read historical fiction--shame on you.)

I love them all. WWII (Europe and US) is probably my favorite. But I have read from the time of the Patriarchs, Medieval, Regency, Victorian, Pioneer, Depression and everything in between.

7. What's the one book you remember most clearly from your youth (childhood or teens)?

From my wee youth I loved a book called Never Tease a Weasel.

From my early teens I remember A Man Without a Face. I didn't even catch the homosexual part back then.

From my later teens, The Hiding Place.

But this is a hard answer because I have been a voracious reader since I was five or so.

I'm not tagging anyone. Just feel free to answer these if you want!

word for wednesday

Here's a word you can use. Two different ways, even.

snarf - ( )
1. To fall asleep with your clothes on
snarf - ( )
2. The act of laughing while drinking and expelling the fluid through one's nose

By the way, I get these words at the Grandiloquent Dictionary.