the house

It's been almost 2 years since my Dad retired, and about a year for my Mom. In this time, they have, like most retired couples do, thrown around the idea of selling their too-big, too-hard-to-care-for house, and moving into something smaller. Perhaps a little 2-bedroom house in town with a little yard, or maybe a townhouse in one of those retirement villages, or possibly even a house far away in a much warmer climate, where my Dad's hips and knees won't bother him so much, and he will never have to snow blow another driveway ever again.

In my mind, this possibility has always been a "someday" kind of thing. On some distant day that I don't have to think about, my parents will move out of the house they've lived in for the past 20+ years. There will be a teary goodbye, all the neighbors will come over with their best wishes, and maybe we'll even bury a time capsule. Right next to the circle of cement at the top of the driveway that used to hold up the basketball hoop, but my Dad was never able to dig up because it went too deep, and maybe he didn't want to anyway since it has the hand prints of me and my brother and the paw print of our old dog Emily.

But it seems that "someday" is coming much sooner than I had hoped. They plan to put the house on the market either this Spring or next. They've already had two people come out to give them a recommendation on how much to list it for, and they've begun the staging process.

A few weeks ago, I was devastated to learn that my Dad had gone through half of the enormous bookcase (that he built) in the living room and given a ton of books to Goodwill. I got mad at him for not asking me if I wanted any of them, which I know was completely selfish and bratty. But I think that what I was really feeling was the sentimental attachment to the house and all the objects in it. Even though the books belonged to my parents, I felt like they had just given away a part of my life. The process was starting - the process that would end with them not living there anymore, and me having no reason to drive out to my old neighborhood anymore. The next day, my Dad called me up and told me he was sorry for upsetting me, and that he wanted me to be there when they went through the other half of the bookcase. As guilty and ridiculous as I felt for blowing up at them, I felt happier that they decided to include me in this process of change. And after the second book purge, I came home with a box and a half of great old books that either I'd loved as a kid (the Tolkien Bestiary), sounded like an interesting read (a biography of Jack Kerouac), or were just really cool (a leather-bound Atlas from the WWII era). The other night when I went over to their house for dinner, I found a couple more boxes of old stuff they wanted me to go through before they threw it out, sent it to Goodwill, or put it in the "garage sale" pile. This time it was kids books that had been in a bookcase down in the basement for who knows how long. Even though I have no idea what I'm going to do with them, I decided to keep quite a few of these old books, for various sentimental reasons (one of them was a personalized story about Mother Goose given to me by my Grandma, who passed away last year).

I am going to accumulate more "stuff" during this move than is physically possible to fit into my apartment. I know that my parents will only be taking one living room set with them when they move, so they've offered the second one to me. My Mom has also mentioned giving me the dining room set. And to my shock, they lately offered me the antique record player that we've had for as long as I can remember. Even in the house before this one.

The thing is, I'm not sure if hanging on to things from the house is going to make it easier or harder for me to accept that they're selling it. That house embodies my family. It was my uncle's construction company that built it. When it was just a hole in the ground, my Dad, brother, and I brought a maple sapling that we'd dug out from behind the garage of our old house, and planted it in the far corner of the backyard of the new house. It's a big, healthy, beautiful tree now, but for a long time, you could still see the crooks in the trunk caused by it's rough beginning. During construction, I used to make things out of the scraps of colored wires left on the floor after the electrical work. I remember the first thing I ever put in my bedroom closet - a My Little Pony corral - and I don't think the room even had walls yet. My little brother only remembers living in this house.

Saying goodbye to this place is going to be difficult, to say the least. We built that house in 1987 and it's always been home base for me and my brother. The place we knew we could always come back to. I visit my parents at least once a week, sometimes more, rarely less. I know that that won't change if they move, and my brother and I will be just as welcome in the new place, but will it feel right? Will it be home? And if they do decide to move out of state ... well I just don't know what I'll do on Wednesday nights anymore.

Harry Potter, and my weekend, and an observation about neither

So can I talk about Harry Potter just a little bit? If you haven't read it yet, and are planning to, I urge you to stop reading right here (and pick up again below where I will be changing subjects), because this post is bound to be full of SPOILERS!!!

So. It's over. It's done. No more Harry Potter books to look forward to, except maybe the rumored encyclopedia that J. K. Rowling may or may not be publishing in the distant future. I am sad about this. But I'm also happy that the story has finally come to its long-awaited conclusion. Having said that, however, I must admit that I was a bit disappointed by the way it ended. Deathly Hallows was a very exciting and intense book - so much so that I actually had to stop reading after one particular chapter ended because things kept happening, one right after the other, and since I knew the next chapter was going to be more intense than the previous, I just needed to take a break! My fragile constitution needed a chance to rest before plugging onward. It seemed as if Harry and crew were constantly averting capture, and constantly in danger of death at the hands of some evil-doer, if not Voldemort himself. This part was great fun. And it seemed to be building towards a crescendo in which there would be the ultimate battle between good and evil. Well, I guess it got there. The battle was fought, people were killed, people showed their true colors, and good triumphed over evil, as we always knew it would. But oddly enough, I felt unfulfilled. The final battle between Harry and Voldemort seemed to be over in the blink of an eye, as if to say, "All right, I just defeated the most evil wizard in existence, saving the world from certain disaster - I think I'll have a nap." I was left, bewildered, wondering, Hey, whatever happened to ... and the list was a long one. I wondered why certain purportedly important characters had so little to do, I wondered what happened to certain people after the war was over, and though it may seem strange, I wondered why more people didn't die. Maybe it's morbid of me, but I would think that a battle of such proportions would have had more casualties. Yes, some of my favorite characters did not make it, but honestly, I felt the good guys got off pretty easy. And the epilogue, though well-written, still left me hanging. But wait, what about ... ?

All in all, though, I did enjoy the book and I'm sad that it's over. Though it wasn't my favorite of the series (that distinction belongs to book 5), it was entertaining and exciting as they all have been. And any Harry Potter book is a worthwhile read in my mind.

END DISCUSSION OF HARRY POTTER!!!!!

Okay, now that that's over, I just wanted to chat about some random things I've been thinking about. There is this guy at work. I don't know him, but I always see him in the cafeteria around lunch time. He's on the taller side, and the first few times I saw him, he seemed pretty average in build, if not a bit on the overweight side. And its funny, but he was always eating lunch with someone who looked like a shorter, stockier version of himself. Weird. But anyway, one day I noticed that he had suddenly lost a lot of weight. It's possible that he wasn't around for a while, because honestly, I don't keep track of those kinds of things. But for quite some time, he resembled a skeleton a bit too closely for comfort. Very very skinny. Then, just as suddenly as he'd lost weight, he seemed to be gaining it back again at an INCREDIBLE rate. Now he is no doubt overweight, and growing in size every time I see him. I don't know what caused this metamorphosis from average, to emaciated, to obese - maybe he has a thyroid problem, or he was sick and now he's healthy again, with a healthy appetite to boot. But it got me thinking. I noticed this change in a complete stranger - so it made me wonder what people thought about me! When I am on Prednisone, my face goes through some very noticeable changes. Even though the shape of my body does not change TOO much (unless I let my new-found appetite get the better of me), the roundness of my face gives the illusion that I am a much more full-figured person. When I started working here is 2005, I wasn't on any medications. I was thin and healthy. Then I had a flare-up and went on the drugs and got puffy, then my dose went down, then up again, then I was off it, then back on again, and now I'm off it (for good?). All this over the course of two years. But it just makes me wonder what the people who don't know about my disorder thought about my changes in appearance. Did they wonder? Like I wondered about the guy I always saw in the cafeteria? Or did they even notice? Hmmm.

On another topic, I had a very busy, but very lovely weekend. It was a three-day weekend for me, so I took advantage of the Friday off work by finishing up Harry Potter, and going to the grocery store for ingredients to the various things I was cooking for the weekend gatherings. Saturday afternoon I went to a barbecue at K and C's, which was really fun. I just love hanging out with their kids!! :) And I made a tomato artichoke dip that seemed to please, so I was happy about that. I had to leave early, though, for an appointment with some other friends to watch some old episodes of "Lost" and eat homemade Mexican food. I attempted a new recipe for Mexican Corn Casserole, which might have been good, but I think it was a bit undercooked. The baking is done in two sessions, and I had to do one at home earlier in the day, and the second one once we got to my friends' house. I think if I'd been able to do them back to back, it would have turned out better. Oh well. Live and learn. THEN, the next day I went out to the burbs for a pool party and barbecue, which was a jolly good time. It was great to just be outside all day in the gorgeous weather, and have a fun time with some great people. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, but was EXHAUSTED come Sunday night.

Okay, anyway, that's all I have the energy to write about today. Laters!

I'm a sucker for these things

Instructions: In the list of books below, bold the ones you’ve read, red the ones you want to read, blue the ones you won’t touch with a ten-foot pole, put a cross (+) in front of the ones on your book shelf, and asterisk (*) the ones you’ve never heard of. (Movie) means I have seen the movie ... as if you couldn't figure that out yourself. No fancy font or symbols means I am undecided on whether or not I'd like to read it.

1. +The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown) (Movie)
2. +Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) (BBC Miniseries)
3. +To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee) (Movie)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell) (Movie)
5. +The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien) (Movie)
6. +The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien) (Movie)
7. +The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien) (Movie)
8. +Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery) (Miniseries)
9. *Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. *A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. +Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling) (Movie)
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) (Movie)
17. *Fall on Your Knees(Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. +Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban(Rowling) (Movie)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. +The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. +The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott) (Movie)
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) (Movie)
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) - Kristentatious gave this one to me!
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella) - maybe
44. +The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. +Bible - well, parts anyway
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas) (Movie) - can't remember if I own this or not ...
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) (Movie)
53. *Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens) (Movie)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald) (Movie)
56. *The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. +Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling) (Movie)
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) (Movie)
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) (Movie)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding) (Movie)
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) (Movie)
76. *The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. +A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith) - started but never finished
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. *The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White) (Animated Movie)
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) (Movie)
86. +Watership Down(Richard Adams) - started but never finished
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) (Movie)
93. The Good Earth(Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum) (Movie)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton) (Movie)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch) (Movie)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

Well, I'm embarrassed by how many of these I have not heard of, but impressed by the fact that there were none that I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole.

Comments? Recommendations? Reviews?

rebellion

List of the top 110 banned books. Bold the ones you've read. Italicize the ones you've read part of. Underline (blogger won't do underline, so I'm using **s) the ones you specifically want to read (at least some of). Read more. Convince others to read some.

#1 The Bible
#2 Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain **
#3 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
#4 The Koran
#5 Arabian Nights
#6 Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
#7 Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
#8 Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
#9 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne **
#10 Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
#11 The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
#12 Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe **
#13 Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank **
#14 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert **
#15 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens **
#16 Les Misérables by Victor Hugo **
#17 Dracula by Bram Stoker **
#18 Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
#19 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
#20 Essays by Michel de Montaigne
#21 Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
#22 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
#23 Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
#24 Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
#25 Ulysses by James Joyce
#26 Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
#27 Animal Farm by George Orwell
#28 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
#29 Candide by Voltaire **
#30 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
#31 Analects by Confucius
#32 Dubliners by James Joyce
#33 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
#34 Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
#35 Red and the Black by Stendhal
#36 Das Kapital by Karl Marx
#37 Flowers of Evil/Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire
#38 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
#39 Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
#40 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
#41 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
#42 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
#43 Jungle by Upton Sinclair
#44 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
#45 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
#46 Lord of the Flies by William Golding
#47 Diary by Samuel Pepys
#48 Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
#49 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
#50 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
#51 Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
#52 Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
#53 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey **
#54 Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus
#55 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller **
#56 Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
#57 Color Purple by Alice Walker **
#58 Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
#59 Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke
#60 Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
#61 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
#62 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#63 East of Eden by John Steinbeck **
#64 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
#65 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
#66 Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#67 Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais
#68 Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
#69 The Talmud
#70 Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#71 Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
#72 Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
#73 American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser **
#74 Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
#75 Separate Peace by John Knowles
#76 Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath **
#77 Red Pony by John Steinbeck
#78 Popol Vuh
#79 Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith
#80 Satyricon by Petronius
#81 James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl ** (how sad is it that I've never read this??)
#82 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov **
#83 Black Boy by Richard Wright
#84 Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
#85 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
#86 Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
#87 Metaphysics by Aristotle
#88 Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
#89 Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin
#90 Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
#91 Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
#92 Sanctuary by William Faulkner
#93 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
#94 Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
#95 Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
#96 Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
#97 General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
#98 Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
#99 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown
#100 Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess **
#101 Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
#102 Émile Jean by Jacques Rousseau
#103 Nana by Émile Zola
#104 Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
#105 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
#106 Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#107 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
#108 Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
#109 Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
#110 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes


Hm. Pretty disappointing. I need to read more.

Booooooks!!!

bold those you've read
italicise started-but-never-finished
** those you own but haven't gotten to yet
add three of your own
post to your blog

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. 1984, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
11. **Catch-22, Joseph Heller**
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
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 Sorcerer'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 Garcia Marquez
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**
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
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**
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. **Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden**
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 Susskind
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 Garcia Marquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
103. The Beach, Alex Garland
104. Dracula, Bram Stoker
105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz
106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens
107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz
108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy
112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13 1/2, Sue Townsend
113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
119. Shogun, James Clavell
120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson
122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
124. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
127. Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison
128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
129. Possession, A. S. Byatt
130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl
133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck
134. George's Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson
141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson
143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
144. It, Stephen King
145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
146. The Green Mile, Stephen King
147. Papillon, Henri Charriere
148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett
149. Master And Commander, Patrick O'Brian
150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz
151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett
153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement, Ian McEwan
155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier
157. **One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey**
158. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon
161. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
162. River God, Wilbur Smith
163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
165. The World According To Garp, John Irving
166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore
167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson
168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye
169. The Witches, Roald Dahl
170. Charlotte's Web, E. B. White
171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway
174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco
175. Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder
176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr. Fox, Roald Dahl
178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner, George Eliot
185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Gross-mith
187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine
189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri (Yeah, I have about 5 copies of this one...)
190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons
193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells
195. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans
196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White
199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews
201. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
202. The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan
203. The Great Hunt, Robert Jordan
204. The Dragon Reborn, Robert Jordan
205. Fires of Heaven, Robert Jordan
206. Lord of Chaos, Robert Jordan
207. Winter's Heart, Robert Jordan
208. A Crown of Swords, Robert Jordan
209. Crossroads of Twilight, Robert Jordan
210. A Path of Daggers, Robert Jordan
211. As Nature Made Him, John Colapinto
212. Microserfs, Douglas Coupland
213. The Married Man, Edmund White
214. Winter's Tale, Mark Helprin
215. The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault
216. Cry to Heaven, Anne Rice
217. Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe, John Boswell
218. Equus, Peter Shaffer
219. The Man Who Ate Everything, Jeffrey Steingarten
220. Letters To A Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke
221. Ella Minnow Pea, Mark Dunn
222. The Vampire Lestat, Anne Rice
223. Anthem, Ayn Rand
224. The Bridge To Terabithia, Katherine Paterson
225. Tartuffe, Moliere
226. The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
227. The Crucible, Arthur Miller
228. The Trial, Franz Kafka
229. Oedipus Rex, Sophocles
230. Oedipus at Colonus, Sophocles
231. Death Be Not Proud, John Gunther
232. A Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen
233. Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen
234. Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
235. A Raisin In The Sun, Lorraine Hansberry
236. ALIVE!, Piers Paul Read
237. Grapefruit, Yoko Ono
238. Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde
239. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
240. Chronicles of Thomas Convenant, Unbeliever, Stephen Donaldson
241. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
242. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon
243. Summerland, Michael Chabon
244. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
245. Candide, Voltaire
246. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More, Roald Dahl
247. Ringworld, Larry Niven
248. The King Must Die, Mary Renault
249. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein
250. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L'Engle
251. The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
252. The House Of The Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne
253. The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
254. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
255. The Great Gilly Hopkins, Katherine Paterson
256. Chocolate Fever, Robert Kimmel Smith
257. Xanth: The Quest for Magic, Piers Anthony
258. The Lost Princess of Oz, L. Frank Baum
259. Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon
260. Lost In A Good Book, Jasper Fforde
261. Well Of Lost Plots, Jasper Fforde
262. Life Of Pi, Yann Martel
263. The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver
264. A Yellow Rraft In Blue Water, Michael Dorris
265. Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder
266. Where The Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls
267. Griffin & Sabine, Nick Bantock
268. Witch of Black Bird Pond, Joyce Friedland
269. Mrs. Frisby And The Rats Of NIMH, Robert C. O'Brien
270. Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt
271. The Cay, Theodore Taylor
272. From The Mixed-Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg
273. The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Jester
274. The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
275. The Kitchen God's Wife, Amy Tan
276. The Bone Setter's Daughter, Amy Tan
277. Relic, Duglas Preston & Lincolon Child
278. Wicked, Gregory Maguire
279. American Gods, Neil Gaiman
280. Misty of Chincoteague, Marguerite Henry
281. The Girl Next Door, Jack Ketchum
282. Haunted, Judith St. George
283. Singularity, William Sleator
284. A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
285. Different Seasons, Stephen King
286. Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk
287. **About a Boy, Nick Hornby**
288. The Bookman's Wake, John Dunning
289. The Church of Dead Girls, Stephen Dobyns
290. Illusions, Richard Bach
291. Magic's Pawn, Mercedes Lackey
292. Magic's Promise, Mercedes Lackey
293. Magic's Price, Mercedes Lackey
294. The Dancing Wu Li Masters, Gary Zukav
295. Spirits of Flux and Anchor, Jack L. Chalker
296. **Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice**
297. The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices, Brenda Love
298. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
299. The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
300. The Cider House Rules, John Irving
301. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
302. Girlfriend in a Coma, Douglas Coupland
303. The Lion's Game, Nelson Demille
304. The Sun, The Moon, and the Stars, Stephen Brust
305. Cyteen, C. J. Cherryh
306. Foucault's Pendulum, Umberto Eco
307. Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
308. Invisible Monsters, Chuck Palahniuk
309. Camber of Culdi, Kathryn Kurtz
310. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
311. War and Rememberance, Herman Wouk
312. The Art of War, Sun Tzu
313. The Giver, Lois Lowry
314. The Telling, Ursula Le Guin
315. Xenogenesis (or Lilith's Brood), Octavia Butler
316. A Civil Campaign, Lois McMaster Bujold
317. The Curse of Chalion, Lois McMaster Bujold
318. The Aeneid, Publius Vergilius Maro (Vergil)
319. Hanta Yo, Ruth Beebe Hill
320. The Princess Bride, S. Morganstern (or William Goldman)
321. Beowulf, Anonymous
322. The Sparrow, Maria Doria Russell
323. Deerskin, Robin McKinley
324. Dragonsong, Anne McCaffrey
325. Passage, Connie Willis
326. Otherland, Tad Williams
327. Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay
328. Number the Stars, Lois Lowry
329. Beloved, Toni Morrison
330. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, Christopher Moore
331. The mysterious disappearance of Leon, I mean Noel, Ellen Raskin
332. Summer Sisters, Judy Blume
333. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo
334. The Island on Bird Street, Uri Orlev
335. Midnight in the Dollhouse, Marjorie Filley Stover
336. The Miracle Worker, William Gibson
337. The Genesis Code, John Case
338. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevensen
339. Paradise Lost, John Milton
340. Phantom, Susan Kay
341. The Mummy or Ramses the Damned, Anne Rice
342. Anno Dracula, Kim Newman
343: The Dresden Files: Grave Peril, Jim Butcher
344: Tokyo Suckerpunch, Issac Adamson
345: The Winter of Magic's Return, Pamela Service
346: The Oddkins, Dean R. Koontz
347. My Name is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok
348. The Last Goodbye, Raymond Chandler
349. At Swim, Two Boys, Jaime O'Neill
350. Othello, by William Shakespeare
351. The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas
352. The Collected Poems of William Butler Yeats
353. Sati, Christopher Pike
354. **The Inferno, Dante **
355. The Apology, Plato
356. The Small Rain, Madeline L'Engle
357. The Man Who Tasted Shapes, Richard E Cytowick
358. 5 Novels, Daniel Pinkwater
359. The Sevenwaters Trilogy, Juliet Marillier
360. Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier
361. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
362. Our Town, Thorton Wilder
363. Green Grass Running Water, Thomas King
364. The Interpreter, Suzanne Glass
365. The Moor's Last Sigh, Salman Rushdie
366. The Mother Tongue, Bill Bryson
367. A Passage to India, E.M. Forster
368. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky
369. The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux
370. Pages for You, Sylvia Brownrigg
371. The Changeover, Margaret Mahy
372. Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones
373. Angels and Demons, Dan Brown
374. Johnny Got His Gun, Dalton Trumbo
375. Shosha, Isaac Bashevis Singer
376. Travels With Charley, John Steinbeck
377. The Diving-bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
378. The Lunatic at Large by J. Storer Clouston
379. Time for bed by David Baddiel
380. Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold
381. Quite Ugly One Morning by Christopher Brookmyre
382. The Bloody Sun by Marion Zimmer Bradley
383. Sewer, Gas, and Eletric by Matt Ruff
384. Jhereg by Steven Brust
385. So You Want To Be A Wizard by Diane Duane
386. Perdido Street Station, China Mieville
387. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte
388. Road-side Dog, Czeslaw Milosz
389. The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje
390. Neuromancer, William Gibson
391. The Epistemology of the Closet, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
392. A Canticle for Liebowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr
393. The Mask of Apollo, Mary Renault
394. The Gunslinger, Stephen King
395. Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare
396. Absalom, Absalom, William Faulkner
397. The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
398. Dreamhouse, Alison Habens
399. Hyperion, by Dan Simmons
400. Prospero's Children, Jan Siegel
401. Gaudy Night, Dorothy Sayers
402. Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond
403. Enchantment, Orson Scott Card
404. Cetaganda, Lois McMaster Bujold
405. Beauty, Sheri S. Tepper
406. The Hour of the Star, Clarice Lispector
407. The Patron Saint of Liars, Ann Patchett
408. Sexing the Cherry, Jeanette Winterson.
409. A wizard of Earthsea, Ursula Le'Guin.
410. Assassin's Apprentice, Robin Hobb.
411. The Axis Trilogy, Sara Douglass
412. Peter Pan, J. M. Barrie
413. Sabriel, Garth Nix
414. Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman
415. The Silence of the Lambs, Robert Harris
416. The Hot Zone, Richard Preston
417. Talking to High Monks in the Snow, by Lydia Minatoya
418. The Women of Brewster Place, by Gloria Naylor
419. Their Eyes were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
420. The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Bird
421. The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown
422. Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut
423. Hannibal, Thomas Harris
424. The Hours, Michael Cunningham
425. A Home At the End of the World, Michel Cunningham
426. Dangerous Angels, Francesca Lia Block
427. The Truth About Unicorns, Bonnie Jones Reynolds
428. L.I.E., David Hollander
429. The Iliad, Homer
430. Bel Canto, Anne Patchett
431. Terraforming Earth, Jack Williamson
432. Acts of Faith, Erich Segal
433. The Hottest State, Ethan Hawke
434. All Creatures Great and Small, James Herriot
435. Remember When, J. D. Robb/Nora Roberts
436. Broken Doll, (Can't remember author at the moment)
437. Belinda, Anne Rampling
438. Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen
439. Circle of Friends, Maeve Binchy
440. Middlesex, Jeffery Eugenides
441. When Rabbit Howls, The Troops for Trudy Chase.
442. We Were the Mulvaneys, Joyce Carol Oates
443. Cujo, Stephen King.
444. The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien
445. Bats Out of Hell, Barry Hannah
446. The Remorseful Day, Colin Dexter
447. Therese Raquin, Emile Zola
448. Book of Famous Iowans, Douglas Bauer
449. Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto, Chuck Klosterman
450. Restoration, Rose Tremain
451. The Andromeda Strain, Michael Crichton
452. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, John Berendt
453. The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger
454. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Gregory Maguire