P o c k e t CT

My last post on Columbus Day got me thinking about the books that have been my eye openers. Rebekah turned me on to A People’s History of the United States. This is where I realized that everything in my text books was slanted to make me a mindless drone. Well no problem but um…ah, no flippin thanks to dronehood for me.

Someone once asked me if I could have everyone read a book what would it be, well for everyone in the USA here it is. For the whole world I will have to rethink…any suggestions?

So from there I read a few other totally fascinating books that spanned a few subjects and could be put in the eye opener category. Lies My Teacher Told Me, The Cheating Culture and Freakonomics.

For another dose of inspiration in combat to the smart cynicism you will imbibe from the above, I can enthusiastically recommend Pronoia Theresa gave me this book to read which is turning into an over the top, boredom jamming, glee creating inspiration. In this book the author recommends that we print up business cards with the title “Beautifier” Thinking even bigger Theresa came up with a bunch of fabulous titles for herself. With that inspiration I came up with ten titles, coincidentally, the exact number to an avery business card sheet. Here they are:
artsy computer geek
pop culture dropout
happiness addict
asspole remover
Robin Hood wannabe
World Peace Believer
Queen of Lala Land
mushroom sleuth
dance junkie
telemarketer torturer

Feel free to call on me for any of my occupations. Most services are free. I will also make titles for you if you like, just drop me a line.

I am reading “Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey” by Chuck Palahniuk. At the beginning of this book there is a lot of foreshadowing of a plague who the main character plays a Typhoid Mary role in starting. A few days ago I had a dream I was infected, going to die shortly and was in quarantine. This all was bad news in my dream but what was worse was that no one would give me my computer. In my night consciousness dying is bad but not being able to email or draw with photoshop intolerable.
The book has just took a big turn – I give it an A+ for good mind fuck I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised from the genius that gave us “fight club”

Rebekah sucked me back into MySpace, Urgh, so now I have both Facebook and that. I deleted it a few years ago because it simultaneously made me feel like and ego maniac and a snob. Writing the profile caused the first and never checking the blasted thing caused the latter. Lucky for me, Rebekah knows my password and me really well so she dolled up my profile. Maybe I will less of a snob now as well. Maybe if you will befriend me I will be way better at it.

I am not so good with these social networking venues. Maybe she will also be able to deal with the onslaught of messages like “Your profile have intersted me, so I decided to write to you. I hope I can have a chance to talk to you and know you more and more. I want also to know Plus about your culture and your country.
I hope to hear from you soon. ”
what do you say to
“Hello..
Am <>.I looked into your profile and i which we could meet becuase it seems we are fit to be together..”
What I really want to say is I am not fit to be with anyone who whiches we could meet.
This may be even more fun than the train wreck that is yahoo personals. I can’t stand to watch so I just changed my status to married. Will that do the trick?

I just finished the book Love is a Mix Tape whose format of starting with a section with the mix title and track listing had me eating up the book and the getting teary about it. It was not only his poignant description of losing his wife but also the mourning for losing the progress and optimism of the 90s that had me crying. With lots of punk, much of the music is foreign to me. In fact I have never heard of his favorite band Pavement. Still the whole of the memoir grabbed me. So much of life has music threading in through it to tie into memory like strong sinew.

So many songs have direct access to memories. Peace Frog by the doors puts a perfect image of Leverett at three am, that latino-techno mix is being plunged into a warm summer waterfall and falling madly in love, Abba is for new found freedom and lingerie disco parties, Oasis is for the monkey and his specially made games just for me. Every person, phase, location and mindset from my life could be described musically. The very best combination of memory and music are mix tapes.

So now I have a playful idea. Who wants to do a little playlist pingpong with me? Start my sending me a song and I will add another back to you, we repeat until we get over the 60 minutes of music mark then next up reorders and the next person names it. Doesn’t that sound like fun.

I am about finished with the mass addition to the online read list. It was pretty fun. It involved thinking about what I have read, looking a top ### book lists on line, and perusing the library and Barnes and Noble with a camera or voice recorder to get more titles. I will still be adding more as I think of them. I have to do a bunch of work in the poetry and non fiction arena but I think I am happy with my efforts so far.

The sort order of the library is another matter. I muddled through the php to see how to change the sort order from the default, finished to author. This is primarily because I don’t have a clue exactly when I read most of these. To my utter dismay, it is sorting them alphabetically by first name. I am appalled. So much that I am going to figure out how to switch it and send the code to the creator as a gift. It will take a while though, so if you are browsing my library now and you are shaking your head, cut me some slack for a bit.

To celebrate, I am going to partake in my very first meme. This was seen at Secondhand Tryptophan I have seen a bunch before I realized what they were, skipped a bunch, but now Karl is my first. Don’t you feel special, 2HT?
I totally agree, it is quite sad that Harry Potter makes so many on the list, even considering I have read them all and will read the last before it is out a week. However, can it really deserve five spots of a list of a hundred that include: The Kite Runner, I Know This Much is True and Jane Eyre. To add insult to injury, this list doesn’t include Perfume, Patrick Suskind or Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston. It would be nice hear people also comment on what is missing from the list.

Look at the list of books below.

* (Bold) the ones you’ve read
* Italicize the ones you want to read
* Leave unchanged the ones that you aren’t interested in.
* If you are reading this, tag, you’re it!

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austin)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
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)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (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 Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling) (known as Sorcerer’s Stone in the US)
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 Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible Not all of it, of course, but some sizeable chunks.
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)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
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)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew 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 Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
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)
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 (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
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)

I love books. When I was a kid and got sent to my room as punishment, I would often think “cool” and grab a book, crook myself in the corner by my bed and night table and be lost. I wouldn’t emerge from that other world (most literally as I was a sci-fi/fantasy buff) until way after the punishment was over. My mother would throw up her hands at the idea that the only real way to punish me was entirely against the make-your-kid-smart-through-reading guidelines, to actually take away the printed matter.
I had to can it through college when I was working all the time. My only book love up was the text book variety, most of which were math. I different sort of love indeed.
Since then I have read with relish all the more. Especially taking recommendations from those conoscenti bibliofiles I seem to attract in my life. “Try this Christine, it is almost all olfactory imagery which I know you’ll love. Funny there is no dialogue yet it is a total page turner” I would eat it up, and ask for more. Then I learned while holding a job as a pizza delivery driver, that there existed …unabridged books on tape. Instant fan. I became an even more avid and totally indiscriminate “reader.” Fiction, nonfiction, how to, self help, short stories, politics, poetry, business, African history all made driving better; it made me happy to get in the car. After that for long commutes and all was made wonderful by audio books. I probably tripled my reading time with this.
Most of the die hard book lovers I know adore keeping them. They put their names in the cover and place them on their numerous bookshelves in posts of honor. They peruse their covers like people looking at photos of old lovers. Oh this one made me feel so…
I however have moved cross country twice, over seas for a season, five times in western Massachusetts, all lugging those heavy crates of “just the best”. I can’t part with my copy of “White Noise” it is from when I was waking up to the world. Alas I had to trim and to hone down. Add that to a zealous need to make my living space more sparse over thelast five years and I have given away all my books except my dictionaries, thesaurus and cookbooks. As I see the openess of my living space I am so glad I decided not to be a library but to use one however I never had the luxury of peeking at the covers and playing the remember when of reading.
Now however, I am making the digital equivilant. I am trying to put all the books I have ever read or listened to in my electronic library. Now I can gaze at the cover of “The Solitaire Mystery,” “Perfume” or “The Natural History of the Senses” with all the love, and none of the clutter. So can you.