Super Quick Book List

Rules: Don’t take too long to think about it. List fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. (The first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes.)

1. Moby Dick
2. Little Women
3. Beowulf
4. Little House in the Big Woods
5. Bless Me Ultima
6. Catcher in the Rye
7. Gerald's Game
8. Love is Walking Hand in Hand
9. Sense and Sensibility
10. Jane Eyre
11. Moll Flanders
12. Great Expectations
13. The Gregg Reference Manual
14. Heidi
15. The Grapes of Wrath

Thanks to my friend over at little bitty bites for the idea of this post.

"Free" Time

The company for which I work has some pretty cool benefits for being such a small organization...I get to keep my airline miles (which makes vacations easier); When I am working in the office, I come in at 7:30am and leave at 4:30pm (I can pick back up tomorrow); if I need to leave for something, I have a no-questions-asked personal time off policy (with 10 days of PTO to use in 15 minutes increments); we have lunch-and-learn once a month during which we learn something useful, get a free lunch, and get to leave one hour early; and, my favorite (at least today) - cookouts once a month during the summer! We each brought in a side dish or dessert, the managers bought the main course (today was chicken), and we have a social hour (or two) on a Friday during the summer. Then, we all clean up and the president of the company tells us when we can go home - today it's 2:30pm! Two hours early!

Ah. Free time!

Wait. Is it "free?"



What am I going to do with those two hours? Well, first I am going to drive home. While I am leaving earlier in the afternoon than usual, it is Friday, and there will be people on the road. So, there's about 40-45 minutes. When I arrive home I'll decide to relax, but I'll see the dishes in the drying rack from last night's dinner. I'll put those away, wipe down the counters, wipe down the stove, sweep the floor, realize the rest of the floors need to be swept, remember that the tub needs to be cleaned, etc., etc., etc. until about 4:30pm. Okay - that's still about 90 minutes before I would usually be home. I'll sit down to read. Then I'll remember that I need to go to the library to pick up some book about some vampire and some girl and some werewolf... I'll head out to the library, hunt down the book, think of a few more I remember I want to read, check them out, and get back home by 6:30pm. Just as I would have anyway.

So, that time may not be "free," and I may not have been able to really relax, but I will have accomplished some things that will allow me to sleep in tomorrow!

Woo hoo!

My Latest Read

I was looking through my bookshelves on Sunday night (now that they are all unpacked, organized by category, and alphabetized by author) because I was ready for a new book to read. Having finished the first in the Anne of Green Gables series, followed up with Deja Dead by Kathy Reichs, I wanted something different.

I scanned the sections of my personal library:



Antique Books: No, I fear damaging the pages too much to pull one of those out.






"School" Fiction: (books I've read for grades since junior high, and I reread them because I like them...) No, I've read all those at least twice, some four or five or ten times. I want something different.









Anthologies: Like those above, this is a collection of collections of works which I have read numerous times...no, this is not exactly what I am in the mood for, but close...








Mysteries, Suspense, etc.: Kinda my "other" section...Dean Koontz, Stephen King, a couple Danielle Steel novels for good measure, and some random hard cover novels that I don't believe go with my school fictions. No, these are of the same vein as Kathy Reichs, and I want something different.







Comic Books and Related Texts: Yes, comic books. Wonder Woman, Spiderman, Justice League of America, random comics from authors I know and/or like, anthologies of comics, etc. No - I'm in the mood for a deep read, not a quick read.








Business and Self-Help Books: Why Good Girls Don't Get the Corner Office, Negotiation Skills, Men are from Mars..., etc. No, I am not in the mood to improve my negotiating skills or determine why it is that I am still in a cubicle at age 35.







Books for Which I Was the Developmental Editor: What? If your name was on the inside of a book, wouldn't you want to keep those you put blood, sweat, and tears into? The shelf includes the first text I ever worked on, which won First Edition of the Year for the company, as well as some that I was so proud just to get into print. The majority of that shelf, however, holds my pride and joy, in every version I published, as well as all its supplemental works: The Gregg Reference Manual, Tenth Edition. Go find it in a bookstore and check out the Copyright Page. I'm on there (maiden name). No, I don't really want to read the rules for using commas right now.







Books about Writing: For some reason, I have a whole collection of books that are supposed to teach me how to be a writer...No, not in the mood to ponder why it is I can't sit down and right the next great American novel.









Writing Manuals: This section is different from the above...APA, MLA, Harbrace, Chicago Manual, etc. Style guides. No, I don't need to know how to put in the correct citation right now.










Reference: Still different from previous categories. Includes dictionaries, thesauri, language dictionaries, etc. No. I don't want to know what the Spanish word for "imagination" is right now, or what all the different definitions of the word "strike" might be (but maybe later).






Finally! I found the section that called out to me, as it were:

Bibles: An entire section. All the Bibles I have ever owned, from childhood through high school through college and into adulthood. I remembered that many times I've tried to read the Book completely through, and many times I've failed...so, I wanted to try again.

I'm not even through "Genesis" yet, but here are some "Things That Make You Go Hmmm" moments that I have re-discovered:

"Genesis" has many sections on the "begets." If you can make it through all those, you can make it through the rest of the book.

When God created the firmament (Heaven), He made it to separate the water from the water...so, there is water in Heaven.

When God created land, He put it all in one place - historically known to us humans as "Pangaea" before the great Continental Drift...cool, huh?

Did you know that Noah was directed by God to collect SEVEN of every clean animal, a male and his female, and TWO of every unclean animal, a male and his female? So, that would mean 14 of every clean animal and four of every unclean animal. Also, SEVEN of each bird, a male with his female. Another set of 14...sure, they walked in two-by-two, but there were more than two of each animal!

Here's to learning and re-learning things I've been learning all my life...

Reading Makes Me Happy

I have a degree in English, with an emphasis in writing. I took several different types of writing classes because I didn't want to chain myself down to one genre. Business writing, novels, short stories, poetry, research writing, and technical writing were among the many different classes. I think because of the varied writing styles I studied I am drawn to many different genres for my reading as well.

When we moved into our new house, the first book I could find not packed away was Grave Secrets by Kathy Reichs (the Temperance Brennan series from which the t.v. show Bones is derived). It is an intense novel with lots of intrigue, suspense, horrific real atrocities, and even some hot romance.

My fabulous husband JR gave me the book as a gift a while ago, and I read a chapter or two before I became too busy to sit down and finish it. With the new house, I decided to designate a place to read and devote just a little time each week. Having finished that first book (very proudly in only a few weeks), I was eager to pick up another.

Sticking with the plan of finding whatever was the easiest book to get to (since the book cases and boxes and boxes of books are not yet completely unpacked), I reached in and pulled out Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery. Having watched the mini-series long ago and reading the books as a child, I find this re-reading quite fulfilling.

It is a new experience to read a childhood book as an adult. The stories mean something completely different. I see things in the characters I never realized existed before. My own life experiences relate in new ways to the development of the story.

I am about one-third of my way through Anne of Green Gables. I wonder what magnificent find I will pull out the box next...