Tag: Reading

I didn’t copy her, I swear

Posted January 18, 2009 by Casee in Discussions | 6 Comments

Sometimes, Holly and I think so alike that it is like we’re one person. It’s kind of spooky. So I’m not surprised that we’re both Dedicated Readers.

What Kind of Reader Are You?

Your Result: Dedicated Reader

You are always trying to find the time to get back to your book. You are convinced that the world would be a much better place if only everyone read more.

Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm
Book Snob
Literate Good Citizen
Fad Reader
Non-Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You?
Quiz Created on GoToQuiz


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New Top 100 Classics

Posted July 2, 2008 by Holly in Discussions | 6 Comments

This has been making the rounds in Blogland and we thought we’d participate, too. This list is comprised of the top 100 books listed on LibraryThing. I think a lot of these are being referred to as the “new classics”.

Bold the ones you’ve read.

Holly’s List:

1. Harry Potter and the sorcerer’s stone by J.K. Rowling
2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6) by J.K. Rowling
3. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Book 5) by J.K. Rowling
4. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Book 2) by J.K. Rowling
5. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Book 3) by J.K. Rowling
6. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Book 4) by J.K. Rowling
7. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
8. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
9. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) by J.K. Rowling
10. 1984 by George Orwell
11. Pride and Prejudice (Bantam Classics) by Jane Austen
12. The catcher in the rye by J.D. Salinger
13. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
14. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

15. The lord of the rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
16. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
17. Jane Eyre (Penguin Classics) by Charlotte Bronte
18. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
19. Life of Pi by Yann Martel (I saw the movie..does that count?)
20. Animal Farm by George Orwell
21. Angels & demons by Dan Brown
22. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
23. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
24. One Hundred Years of Solitude (Oprah’s Book Club) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
25. The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, Part 1) by J.R.R. Tolkien
26. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
27. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

28. The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings, Part 2) by J.R.R. Tolkien
29. The Odyssey by Homer
30. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

31. Slaughterhouse-five by Kurt Vonnegut
32. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
33. The return of the king : being the third part of The lord of the rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
34. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
35. American Gods: A Novel by Neil Gaiman
36. The chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
37. The hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy by Douglas Adams
38. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
39. The lovely bones: a novel by Alice Sebold
40. Ender’s Game (Ender, Book 1) by Orson Scott Card
41. The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, Book 1) by Philip Pullman
42. Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Neil Gaiman
43. Dune by Frank Herbert
44. Emma by Jane Austen
45. Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
46. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Bantam Classics) by Mark Twain
47. Anna Karenina (Oprah’s Book Club) by Leo Tolstoy

48. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
49. Middlesex: A Novel by Jeffrey Eugenides
50. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
51. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

52. The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien
53. The Iliad by Homer
54. The Stranger by Albert Camus
55. Sense and Sensibility (Penguin Classics) by Jane Austen
56. Great Expectations (Penguin Classics) by Charles Dickens

57. The Handmaid’s Tale: A Novel by Margaret Atwood
58. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
59. Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt
60. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery
61. The lion, the witch and the wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
62. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

63. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
64. The Grapes of Wrath (Centennial Edition) by John Steinbeck
65. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
66. The Name of the Rose: including Postscript to the Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
67. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
68. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
69. The complete works by William Shakespeare (I’m going to bold this, but I don’t know that I’ve read THE ENTIRE WORKS – it’s got to be close, though.)

70. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
71. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
72. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
73. Hamlet (Folger Shakespeare Library) by William Shakespeare
74. Of Mice and Men (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century) by John Steinbeck
75. A Tale of Two Cities (Penguin Classics) by Charles Dickens

76. The Alchemist (Plus) by Paulo Coelho (7,710)
77. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (7,648)
78. The Picture of Dorian Gray (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (Barnes & Noble Classics) by Oscar Wilde
79. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition by William Strunk
80. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
81. The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials, Book 2) by Philip Pullman
82. Atonement: A Novel by Ian McEwan
83. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
84. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
85. Dracula by Bram Stoker
86. Heart of Darkness (Dover Thrift Editions) by Joseph Conrad
87. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
88. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
89. The amber spyglass by Philip Pullman
90. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Penguin Classics) by James Joyce
91. The Unbearable Lightness of Being: A Novel (Perennial Classics) by Milan Kundera
92. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
93. Neuromancer by William Gibson
94. The Canterbury Tales (Penguin Classics) by Geoffrey Chaucer
95. Persuasion (Penguin Classics) by Jane Austen

96. Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
97. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
98. Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt
99. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
100. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

47/100

Not too bad, I guess. Although….sometimes I wonder why it matters what “classics” you’ve read. I read the above books because they were required reading or because I enjoyed them or was curious about them. But is my life changed because of it? Not really. Why are the classics so cool? Just curious…

Casee’s List:

Before I start mine, I have to ask…is Harry Potter really a classic? Putting the HP books alongside To Kill a Mockingbird and 1984 just seems strange to me.

1. Harry Potter and the sorcerer’s stone by J.K. Rowling
2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6) by J.K. Rowling
3. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Book 5) by J.K. Rowling
4. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Book 2) by J.K. Rowling
5. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Book 3) by J.K. Rowling
6. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Book 4) by J.K. Rowling
7. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
8. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
9. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) by J.K. Rowling
10. 1984 by George Orwell
11. Pride and Prejudice (Bantam Classics) by Jane Austen (I own it, does that count?)
12. The catcher in the rye by J.D. Salinger
13. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

14. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
15. The lord of the rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
16. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
17. Jane Eyre (Penguin Classics) by Charlotte Bronte
18. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
19. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
20. Animal Farm by George Orwell
21. Angels & demons by Dan Brown
22. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
23. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
24. One Hundred Years of Solitude (Oprah’s Book Club) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
25. The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, Part 1) by J.R.R. Tolkien
26. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
27. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
28. The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings, Part 2) by J.R.R. Tolkien
29. The Odyssey by Homer
30. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
31. Slaughterhouse-five by Kurt Vonnegut
32. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
33. The return of the king : being the third part of The lord of the rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
34. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
35. American Gods: A Novel by Neil Gaiman
36. The chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
37. The hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy by Douglas Adams
38. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
39. The lovely bones: a novel by Alice Sebold
40. Ender’s Game (Ender, Book 1) by Orson Scott Card
41. The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, Book 1) by Philip Pullman
42. Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Neil Gaiman
43. Dune by Frank Herbert
44. Emma by Jane Austen
45. Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
46. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Bantam Classics) by Mark Twain
47. Anna Karenina (Oprah’s Book Club) by Leo Tolstoy
48. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
49. Middlesex: A Novel by Jeffrey Eugenides
50. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
51. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
52. The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien
53. The Iliad by Homer
54. The Stranger by Albert Camus
55. Sense and Sensibility (Penguin Classics) by Jane Austen
56. Great Expectations (Penguin Classics) by Charles Dickens
57. The Handmaid’s Tale: A Novel by Margaret Atwood
58. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
59. Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt
60. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery
61. The lion, the witch and the wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
62. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
63. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
64. The Grapes of Wrath (Centennial Edition) by John Steinbeck
65. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
66. The Name of the Rose: including Postscript to the Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
67. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
68. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
69. The complete works by William Shakespeare (I’m going to bold this, but I don’t know that I’ve read THE ENTIRE WORKS – it’s got to be close, though.)
70. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
71. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
72. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
73. Hamlet (Folger Shakespeare Library) by William Shakespeare
74. Of Mice and Men (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century) by John Steinbeck
75. A Tale of Two Cities (Penguin Classics) by Charles Dickens
76. The Alchemist (Plus) by Paulo Coelho (7,710)
77. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (7,648)
78. The Picture of Dorian Gray (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (Barnes & Noble Classics) by Oscar Wilde
79. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition by William Strunk
80. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
81. The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials, Book 2) by Philip Pullman
82. Atonement: A Novel by Ian McEwan
83. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
84. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
85. Dracula by Bram Stoker
86. Heart of Darkness (Dover Thrift Editions) by Joseph Conrad
87. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
88. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
89. The amber spyglass by Philip Pullman
90. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Penguin Classics) by James Joyce
91. The Unbearable Lightness of Being: A Novel (Perennial Classics) by Milan Kundera
92. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
93. Neuromancer by William Gibson
94. The Canterbury Tales (Penguin Classics) by Geoffrey Chaucer
95. Persuasion (Penguin Classics) by Jane Austen
96. Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
97. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
98. Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt
99. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
100. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

9/100.

I obviously don’t read the classics. It’s interesting though, I have a number of these on my shelf. One book I was surprised not to see on this list was Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl.

I think it’s time I dusted off some of those classics. Maybe.


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Danielle Steel: Yes or No?

Posted June 18, 2008 by Casee in Reviews | 14 Comments


So yesterday I was at home watching the Today show when Danielle Steel was interviewed. She was discussing her new book, Rogue. It got me to thinking…

Have you ever read a DS novel? Which one? Did you like it? Do you still read her?

One thing that stumped me in the interview is that she said it generally takes her 2-3 years to complete a book from start to finish. She has published a total of 106 books across all genres. Girl is looking good for being 212 years old, let me tell you.

Even though I no longer read her books, I have to admire the fact that a mother of NINE kids can crank out books like she can.


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Books and dads

Posted June 8, 2008 by Casee in Discussions | 7 Comments

So with Father’s Day coming up, it got me to wondering…does your significant other/boyfriend/husband read?

My husband has read the Left Behind series, but he only got to the 6th book before he called it a day. It also would take him about a month to read one of the books. Not that he didn’t like the books or didn’t have the time, but his concentration would go out the window after about 20 minutes.

The only reading material I’d get for my husband this Father’s Day is a subscription to Maxim magazine or Golf Digest.

What about you? Does the man in your life enjoy reading? Would he ever read a romance?


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Who’s your biggest book influence?

Posted June 4, 2008 by Casee in Discussions | 9 Comments

I first started thinking about who influences me most when it comes to books after Holly’s campaign to get me to read Bet Me. I thought about it last week, as I lay virtually dying (well it felt like I was) while watching re-runs of Charmed. As I sat there, deliriously hoping that someday I’d have the power to freeze, I honestly contemplated trying to blog about it before cutting my own head off. Unfortunately I didn’t have the energy to do either one, but it gave me time to think about who I listen to most when it comes to books.

I love finding new authors to try. When they’re great (i.e. Nalini Singh) I’ll shout it to the rooftops and harass forcefully suggest to my closest friends that they need to give the author in question a try. I’m relentless, I admit it. It took forever for Holly to try Nalini Singh. I even had Slave to Sensation mailed to her so she would read it. I considered it money well spent when she finally read it.

As for myself, I’m not an easy person to recommend to. I am extremely picky on what I read. I don’t like 1st person, I don’t generally like Chick-lit. I don’t like anthologies. The list goes on. That’s why it took Holly about two years to get me to read Bet Me. But read it I did. And that’s one of the reasons why Holly is my biggest book influence. Holly knows me. She knows my reading quirks and loves me anyway (don’t deny it, Holly). Because of that, I know that she would not recommend a book that I wouldn’t like. For example, she loved the first Stephanie Meyer book, but didn’t tell me I should read it. Why? Because she knew that I wouldn’t like it. Yet she knew I would love Bet Me, and I did.

So share with us…who is your biggest book influence? Have you ever been steered wrong?


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