Books!

The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books theyʼve printed.1) Look at the list and * those you have started but did not finish.2) ** those that you read.

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 **

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 **

10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller14. Complete Works of Shakespeare *

15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier **

16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien **

17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

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 **

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 **

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 Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath *

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 - 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 *

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 **

It snows..

it's november in northern norway.

i've been waiting for it to snow for weeks now, getting all jazzed up thinking about christmas cards with landscapes covered in powder snow. beautiful, fluffy and pristine. soft shapes and air so cold it makes your breath freeze and your nose tingle. children with red cheeks and bright eyes, making snow-angels.

when i watch the snow fall, it looks nice and perfectly white. i remember what falling snow sounds like. like absolutely nothing. all sounds are muffled, there's complete silence to be found in between falling snowflakes. it gets too much to watch from inside, too many memories of the pretty white stuff. i wake up the dog and head out.. and reality slaps me in the face. i've moved just south of the arctic circle and i live on the coast. not exactly good conditions for powder snow. as soon as the perfect snowflakes hit the ground they turn into grey slush, the dog runs around in the grey wetness, thrilled to be able to splash around outside. i keep my christmascard-images in a mental vise as i look around. if i stand completely still, it still sounds like snow. like absolutely nothing. and i am happy.

Poem

HOW CLEAR SHE SHINES
by: Emily Brontë (1818-1848)
How clear she shines!
How quietlyI lie beneath her guardian light;
While heaven and earth are whispering me,
"To morrow, wake, but dream to-night.
"Yes, Fancy, come, my Fairy love!
These throbbing temples softly kiss
And bend my lonely couch above,
And bring me rest, and bring me bliss.

The world is going; dark world, adieu!
Grim world, conceal thee till the day
The heart thou canst not all subdue
Must still resist, if thou delay!

Thy love I will not, will not share
Thy hatred only wakes a smile
Thy griefs may wound--thy wrongs may tear,
But, oh, thy lies shall ne'er beguile!
While gazing on the stars that glow
Above me, in that stormless sea,
I long to hope that all the woe
Creation knows, is held in thee!

And this shall be my dream to-night;
I'll think the heaven of glorious spheres
Is rolling on its course of light
In endless bliss, through endless years
I'll think, there's not one world above,
Far as these straining eyes can see,
Where Wisdom ever laughed at Love,
Or Virtue crouched to Infamy;

Where, writhing 'neath the strokes of Fate,
The mangled wretch was forced to smile;
To match his patience 'gainst her hate,
His heart rebellious all the while.
Where Pleasure still will lead to wrong,
And helpless Reason warn in vain
And Truth is weak, and Treachery strong
And Joy the surest path to Pain
And Peace, the lethargy of Grief
And Hope, a phantom of the soul
And life, a labour, void and brief
And Death, the despot of the whole!

blog

heh blogging..what to blog?

my kids slept in today and i was thrilled, and now i've had a liter of coffee and i do believe happiness is a twixbar. that of course makes coffee a lifesaver, not just another addiction. i'm sure someone already blogged that though, but there it is. and now i got a birthdayscrapbook to work on, such the *in* present to give i know. heh, and no, i'm not all trendy n shit, i just think they make nice presents. fun to make, personal and always appreciated greatly by whoever gets them.

so yeah, happy saturday to one and all, and coffee's on the house.