18 of my favorite books

YTSL of Webs of Significance has (more-or-less) tagged me with a meme, by way of emails suggesting that I write about one (or more) of the (two so far) meme-related topics she’s posted on. One of the posts is on the book she couldn’t live without, inspired in part by a survey asking for people to list the 10 books they could not live without and a resulting list of the top 10 most frequently listed books. (The other meme-tagged post she’s written is called “wannabe“, which is about things she’s been and things she’s wanted to be. I may get around to this at some point, too.)

Because I don’t have a single favorite book, I’ll take some liberties with the meme concept, and write a list of my own favorites. The number of which will be determined when I get to the end of the list. And then hopefully I’ll get around to writing about the books in more detail. And because I have trouble determining which is my all-time favorite, I have not ranked them. Instead, I’m listing the books here roughly in the order in which I first encountered them. My list is in part selected to get a cross-section of the genres I enjoy reading, or phases I went through. I haven’t included any picture books, although that is a category of book that is very near and dear to my heart. Several of the books I list are meant to be representative of various works of that author, or a series by that author.

Some of my all-time favorite books

  1. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by C. S. Lewis

    2. a children’s fantasy, and my favorite of the Narnia series (U.K.)

  2. The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster

    3. a silly children’s fantasy that plays with words (U.S.)

  3. The Shadow of the Moon, by M. M. Kaye

    4. a historic novel of the British in India with a bit of romance flavor (U.K.)

  4. The Peacock Spring, by Rumer Godden

    5. another British in India novel, but a more modern coming-of-age novel, by one of my all-time favorite authors (U.K.)

  5. Tess of the D’Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy

    6. 19th century British Literature (U.K.)

  6. Emma, by Jane Austen

    7. witty 19th century British literature (U.K.)

  7. The Kitchen God’s Wife, by Amy Tan

    8. a novel of family, immigration and the meeting of cultures (U.S.)

  8. A Suitable Boy, by Vikram Seth

    9. a coming of age Indian novel (India)

  9. Winterdance, by Gary Paulsen

    10. a memoir featuring dogs (U.S.)

  10. Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

    11. a fun, funny work of science fiction (U.K.)

  11. Startide Rising, by David Brin

    12. a futuristic science fiction novel featuring talking dolphins, part of the Uplift series (U.S.)

  12. A Pale View of Hills, by Kazuo Ishiguro

    13. a poetic and almost surreal novel of memory, family and Japan (U.K.)

  13. The Witching Hour, by Anne Rice

    14. a novel of the supernatural, representing my Anne Rice phase (U.S.)

  14. The Dispossessed, by Ursula Le Guin

    15. a science fiction novel about social structure (U.S.)

  15. Bellwether, by Connie Willis

    16. a novel about fads by a favorite science fiction author, but this one’s more social scientist fiction (U.S.)

  16. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire

    17. a tale retold, about the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz (U.S.)

  17. The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver

    18. a novel of family, the meeting of cultures and living in Africa (U.S.)

  18. Thus was Adonis Murdered, by Sarah Caudwell

    19. one of only four books ever written by this author, a slightly racy, slightly academic, and very witty mystery and comedy of manners (U.K.)

Okay. So I ended up with 18. Which is a good number. For a start.

And as far as the meme business goes, I’ll try my hand at tagging some folks that I know to be book-oriented. Because I’d be interested in seeing your lists. Lists of whatever number you’d like to write. Perhaps within the range of 1-20. Erica, what’s your list? bs/Beckanon? jenny? John? Anyone else want to play?

a metaphorical filled pause (and a cute baby)

Ok, so I don’t have time to write tonight. I have lots of work to do, and am seriously sleep-deprived to boot. So I’m using this post to signal an expected delay. Think of it as an um.

But to distract you from my lack of writing, I feel compelled to show off this picture of Phoebe that I took at my sister‘s house, and that John cleaned up for me:

phoebe_hat.jpg

Also, please note that Phoebe is wearing a hat. I tell you this as an excuse to share with you that Phoebe can now say [hætʰ]. And I finally posted a bit to the Phoebe Blog about her latest verbal accompishments. Ah, the perils she’ll face of having a geeky linguist for a mother. (I’ve already been chasing her around with a microphone. But she tends to clam up when I try to interview her. I may have to resort to bugging her crib. Catch every word she says to her dolly and stuffed puppy dog.)

a song about pants

I have a lot of work to do tonight, so I should get back to it. But I thought I’d share this little bit of pants that I came across recently in the course of my ongoing pants research: The pants song.

Let there be pants!

the skies are falling (in our estimation)

John just sent me a link to an article entitled “US Airways Says Thousands Still Stuck:”

PHILADELPHIA (AP) – Thousands of weary travelers faced a third day waiting to reach their destinations Sunday as US Airways struggled to recover from the ice and snow storm that paralyzed airports in the Northeast.

The airline was still trying to find seats for 100,000 passengers systemwide whose flights were grounded by Friday’s storm, spokesman Andrew Christie said. Many of the passengers were diverted to US Airways’ hub in Charlotte, N.C., on Friday.

Holy crap. 3 days of waiting. And all this happened 2 days after we got home. So close. Here I was feeling put out about standing in line at the check-in counter for an hour and a half. (Admittedly, the weather was perfect so no flights were actually cancelled and I was wearing a remarkably patient but nevertheless wriggly, and eventually hungry, 23-pound 1-year-old that whole time we stood in line, as we got more and more worried about missing our flight because nobody was giving any information, only to be bumped to another airline, leading us to be flagged for the extra security near-stripdown search, and not getting seats together because we were added to the flight last minute, and then once we did get on the plane, having to beg, plea and avoid fisticuffs with an ornery passenger who didn’t want to change seats so we could use the carseat for Phoebe since we’d paid for 3 seats while the whole plane waited…)

I do feel sincerely sorry for those poor US Airways employees who were working the ticket counters. Dealing with all those people. Thousands of irritated people. For days. Ugh. I swear, I hope those employees have some vacation time coming. And I hope that if they need to fly somewhere, that they get there. Perhaps by means of another airline.

And another funny thing. I just saw this NYT article this morning about airlines writing apology letters. I guess somebody has their work cut out for them.

One last thing. In defense of US Airways. We did actually get home by way of our original reservations with them. Their computer system was actually working on Wednesday, at least at the time we checked in. Also, they actually are comparatively family friendly, assuming you can get on your flight. They had preboarding for families with small children, which I guess has largely been done away with on other airlines. And they had a changing table in the lavatory. Plus the crew members and some of the other employees we encountered were courteous. See? I can say something nice about them. So maybe I should rethink their slogan from the “Shut up and fly” I’d suggested before. Here are some possibilities:

  • “We do some things right.”
  • “Our flights are worth the wait.”
  • “We’re trying. Give us a break.”
  • “Hey, at least we’re not Jet Blue.

    • 5 things

    The guy over at //engtech is having another group writing contest. Last month, he had his first contest, and I participated with my “getting over V.D.” post. And while I didn’t win the prize, which was awarded by a random drawing, I did get selected on the favorites list, which is actually cooler.

    This time around, the contest involves writing a list of 5 things. Seeing as I love to write lists, I’m all over this one. You can even enter more than once, so I’ll probably write more than one post. So here’s my first list of 5 things.

    5 things

    1. thingamajig: a placeholder name
    2. whosiwhatsit: a filler word
    3. whoodger-doodger: a dummy noun phrase
    4. doohickymajig: you know, a thingummy or whatsit you say when you can’t remember the diddlethingy of the gizmo, doodad, dingle-dongle or dealybob
    5. whatchamacallit: a candy bar

    welcome home

    I hope I’ll have a chance to write some more about my trip out west soon. We had some fun activities, ate some great food, and the weather was absolutely gorgeous the whole time we were there. I thought I’d quickly share a couple of photos. First, here is a photo of us sitting on my sister’s front steps in sunny northern California.

    ca_steps.jpg

    Next, here’s a picture of my own front steps, back home in Massachusetts, taken earlier today.

    ma_doorstep.jpg

    Here’s a close-up of the front steps.

    ma_doorstep_closeup.jpg

    back to the rat race

    We got back home late, late Wednesday night (or early, early Thursday morning). I had an amazingly wonderful time on my trip, and felt totally decompressed.

    Of course, the problem with decompression is the shock of re-entry.

    I’m compressed again.

    Compression happened pretty quickly. I was hit, knocked down, and run over several times by the realization that I’d gotten no work done at all for over a week. (I managed to read 2 pages of a book I need to read. Does that count?)

    rats_left.jpg

    Once again, I’m faced with loads of deadlines. Reading for my program requirements. Reading for class. An assignment for class. Stuff for my job. And not a whole lot of time. Rats.

    rats_right.jpg

    By the way, today marks fourth months of this here blog. And I have a whole bunch of things I meant to write about that I haven’t gotten around to. For example, I have yet to write an “about” page. About me, about this blog, about the term tokens, about about. Maybe I’ll get around to this in the next month or so.
    rat_frenzy.jpg

    This post also marks my 100th post. Of course, I only wrote 99 of them. The first one was the auto-generated one I got when I signed up for a WordPress blog. And it got so many insightful comments, from a variety of fascinating personages, that I decided to keep it.

    to sleep, perchance to drive

    I just saw this NYT article, which discusses new warnings that the FDA will be issuing about certain drugs. It seems that some sleeping pills have been blamed for some “unusual side effects,” including sleepwalking, sleep eating, and sleep driving:

    The review was prompted, in part, by queries to the agency from The New York Times last year, after some users of the most widely prescribed drug, Ambien, started complaining online and to their doctors about unusual reactions ranging from fairly benign sleepwalking episodes to hallucinations, violent outbursts, nocturnal binge eating and — most troubling of all — driving while asleep.

    Night eaters said they woke up to find Tostitos and Snickers wrappers in their beds, missing food, kitchen counters overflowing with flour from baking sprees, and even lighted stoves.

    Sleep-drivers reported frightening episodes in which they recalled going to bed, but woke up to find they had been arrested roadside in their underwear or nightclothes.

    These freaky side effects were described in more detail in this NYT article from last year.

    Anyhow, such bizarro events do sound like they’d be truly disturbing, not to mention often downright scary. I’ve occasionally talked in my sleep, and have had a couple instances of sleepwalking in my lifetime. And they are freaky. But holy crap, driving while asleep? It’s pretty amazing what people can manage…Anyhow, while I think it’s great that the FDA is issue the warnings, I can’t help but think that the drug companies are missing out on some opportunities. I think there would be a market for pills that would allow you to get stuff done while sleeping. Here are some sleep-time activities that might be marketable:

  • yard work: Lawn need mowing? Garden need mowing? How about chopping some wood? Take a pill, and saw some logs while you saw some logs.
  • house cleaning: Who really wants to be awake for cleaning? Dream that dirt away, and awake to sparkling floors and counters.
  • car maintenance: Fall asleep reading the manual and you just might wake up to find your oil-changed and your tires rotated. Get a wax in twenty winks.
  • writing: Particularly popular for the academic set. Need a chapter written of your dissertation? Just sleep on it! Let the letters fill up the pages while you catch some “z”s.
  • awkward social obligations: Been avoiding that visit to the in-laws? Dreading dinner with the boss? You can snooze and schmooze!

    • I can just imagine the drug commercials:

    “I went to bed, and woke up to find the lawn mowed, the cabinets organized and the poodle shaved. Thanks, Somnambulex!”

    actual unretouched Phoebe photo

    Phoebe has started standing a whole lot over the last couple of days. And, man, has she been growing. She’s getting huge. “So big,” indeed. We managed to capture a few instances of her demonstrating her standing skills. Here’s one of her showing off a kung fu stance to an admiring crowd on this sunny spring day.

    so_big_phoebe.jpg

    By the way, this photo is totally authentic, unlike those news photos I’ve been reading about lately.