the big read

I think I've come across this list before, but usually I've just looked at it in passing and thought, "hmm...I haven't read as many of those books as I thought. I should read more." But this time, I'm actually going to do what it says! Here goes...

The Big Read says that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read
2) Italicize those you intend to read.

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë (although I only vaguely remember this...I should read again)
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson (I know I've read part of it for school, but I doubt it was the whole thing)
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams (I've always wanted to read this...the evil bunnies!)
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell (I think I've read this. Maybe it was just a children's adaptation...maybe not!)
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden (maybe)
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

23/100...not bad I guess. Plus I intend to read several more. I was surprised at how much Roald Dahl they have on this list...I don't think he's that great, but he's ok. I feel pretty good that I've read 7 of their top 10 and that I intend to read the other 3. Maybe I'll get one of these (or more...?) read by the end of the summer. Right now I'm reading The Devil Wears Prada...haha. I think I need more enlightening reading material, and now I've got a list. What are your thoughts on this list?

fluffamuffagus

So here we are, sitting watching TV. Law and Order SVU is on, but it's not that interesting this time. We've pretty much just been going through the daily grind of work and school (especially for Eric), and we try to find interesting things to spice up our lives a little bit. The other day I went to Good Earth and bought wheat bran and flax seed and made some delicious Cranberry Bran Muffins. They are super. I'll put the recipe at the end of the entry in case anyone is interested.

We went to the Fourth of July parade and it was actually pretty enjoyable. We got to sit in a shady spot, in chairs on the grass; it was kind of cloudy outside, so not too hot; and we didn't get squirted with water by any obnoxious firefighters or politicians or their little friends. And! There were llamas! Of course I took a picture because I love them.

We're going camping somewhere this weekend with Eric's parents. I'm not really sure where it is though. Somewhere by Manti maybe? All I know is I'm getting a one-day fishing permit and they're going to make me fish! Hopefully I'll actually catch something this time, instead of the pathetic fishing performances I have given in the past. I'm kind of excited to use our tent a second time this summer (we really should use it more often...) since we didn't get to use it at all last summer.

Oh! I went to Tammy's going away/birthday party last weekend and won a little George Foreman grill! And it totally wasn't even rigged...maybe...

This is the most schizophrenic entry I've written in a while. Here's the muffin recipe:

Cranberry Bran Muffins:
1 1/2 c. wheat bran
1 c. buttermilk (lowfat)
1/3 c. applesauce
1 egg
1/2 c. brown sugar
2+ Tbsp. honey
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 c. white all-purpose flour
1/2 c. wheat flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
dash nutmeg
2 dashes cinnamon
1/2 c.+ Craisins (or whatever else you want)

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease muffin cups or line with paper muffin liners.
2. Mix together wheat bran and buttermilk; let stand for 10 minutes.
3. Beat together applesauce, egg, brown sugar, honey, and vanilla and add to buttermilk/bran mixture. Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Stir flour mixture into buttermilk mixture, until just blended. Fold in cranberries and spoon batter into prepared muffin tins.
4. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

finally, a new post.

It takes a couple of weeks before enough interesting things happen that I can blog about them. At least in the summer, anyway. Last week Shannon and I started our summer classes, which included Geology 102 and Beginning Scuba Diving. We hiked up Rock Canyon for our first geology class, but then decided we didn't want to write reports all the time, we didn't want to suffer in the hot sun hiking at someone else's pace, we didn't want to ride in 12-passenger vans (bleh), we didn't want to be exhausted after 6 hours of hiking for our 4-hour scuba class right afterwards, and I would be able to go to work on Tuesdays. So we dropped it. I don't feel bad about it. Oh, plus we'd both already taken geology so it was sort of a waste of time...

We had our first actual swimming part of scuba last night, since the first night we just sat in the classroom and they talked at us and we got out early (fortunately). Last night our class actually went over, til about 10:30 pm. But it was a lot of fun. We learned mask clears and regulator retrievals, and I felt cool wearing the whole scuba getup. My tank was really heavy and I almost fell over backwards. That's fun. Oh, and I float like crazy. Yay. I think I'm going to enjoy this class.

Last Thursday morning, we (Eric and I and Shannon and Zach and Kelly - Zach and Kelly in their own car...) left to drive to the family reunion in Oregon. It ended up taking us about 12 hours to get there, even though it's only about a 10-hour drive. We stopped in Boise (read: meandered around lost for an hour looking for the elusive Albertson's) so Shannon could see Kaitlin at work and we stopped just enough times for gas and food that it tacked on about another hour. The reunion was good though. We were a little sad the tram was closed, so we sort of brought our bikes for nothing (tried to make up for it by riding around the campground - not quite the same as riding down a mountain), but we still rode horses on Friday morning and rented a paddleboat for a while on Saturday evening. Fun. I got sunburned during the softball game standing out in left field, and for once I didn't do anything for the talent show. That's ok. We left on Sunday morning after breakfast but before the testimony meeting, hoping we'd get back at a reasonable time. We still got back at about 12:30 because there was all kinds of construction traffic in Ogden. Boo. It tooks us an hour to go maybe 3 miles. Maybe. Lame.

I'm sick for some reason. Also lame.

Our pictures from the reunion: http://picasaweb.google.com/adrien.mooney/FamilyReunion