My 2012 Reading Challenge

Back in 2009, I first read the BBC books challenge. I'm not sure if the one I found was unadulterated, but in any case, it came with this little note that said the BBC said they thought most people had only read 6 out of this list of almost 100 books. I was offended. I'd read 30 of them. I'm using this year to not only finish out their list, just because I'm mad at their pretension, but also add on a couple of books that I've been meaning to read and haven't. The three that I've already blogged about were on that list and here are the remaining challenges for my year:

Great Expectations; Charles Dickens

Catch 22; Joseph Heller

Finish the Complete Works of Shakespeare

Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier

Birdsong; Sebastian Faulk

The Time Traveler's Wife; Audrey Niffeneger

Middlemarch; George Eliot

Gone with the Wind; Margaret Mitchell

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

Bleak House; Charlie D.

War and Peace; Leo Tolstoy

Brideshead Revisited; Evelyn Waugh

Crime and Punishment; Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Anna Karenina; Leo Tolstoy

David Copperfield; Charlie D.

Emma; Jane Austen

Persuasion, Jane Austen

The King's General; Daphne du Maurier

The Kite Runner; Khaled Hosseini

Captain Correlli's Mandolin; Louis de Bernieres

Memoirs of a Geisha; Arthur Golden

Winnie the Pooh; AA Milne

The Da Vinci Code; Dan Brown

A Prayer for Owen Meany; John Irving

The Woman in White; Wilkie Collins

Far from the Madding Crowd; Thomas Hardy

The Handmaid's Tale; Margaret Atwood

Atonement; Ian McEwan

Life of Pi; Yann Martel

Dune; Frank Herbert

Cold Comfort Farm; Stella Gibbons

A Suitable Boy; Vikram Seth

The Shadow of the Wind; Carlos Ruiz Zafon

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime; Mark Haddon

Lolita; Vladimir Nabokov

The Secret History; Donna Tartt

The Count of Monte Cristo (UNABRIDGED); Alexandre Dumas (if I can even find it)

On the Road; Jack Kerouac

Jude the Obscure; Thomas Hardy

Bridget Jones's Diary; Helen Fielding

Midnight's Children; Salman Rushdie

Moby Dick; Herman Melville

Oliver Twist; Charles Dickens

The Secret Garden; Frances Hodgson Burnett

Notes from a Small Island; Bill Bryson

Ulysses; James Joyce

Swallows and Amazons; Arthur Ransome

Vanity Fair; William Makepeace Thackeray

Possession; AS Byatt

A Christmas Carol; Charles Dickens

Cloud Atlas; David Mitchell

The Remains of the Day; Kazuo Ishiguro

A Fine Balance; Rohinton Mistry

The Five People You Meet in Heaven; Mitch Albomy

The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (only have a few to finish)

The Faraway Tree Collection; Enid Blyton

Heart of Darkness; Joseph Conrad

The Wasp Factory; Iain Banks

Watership Down; Richard Adams

A Confederacy of Dunces; John Kennedy Toole

A Town Like Alice; Nevil Shute

Les Miserables, Victor Hugo

Reflections on the Revolution in France; Edmund Burke

1001 Arabian Nights

Hawaii; James Michener

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; Robert Louis Stevenson

Don Quixote; Miguel Cervantes

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea; Jules Verne

I've never even heard of some of these books. I hope I'm going to be able to find them. And I hope inter-library loan isn't always charging me $3 a book, because our local public library isn't what you would call incredibly well-stocked.

I'm doing War and Peace next. I feel like "doing" is a better word than "reading", in this case, because I'm actively scared of this book. It is massive. It is the longest single book I've ever taken on and so far, in my life, I haven't been a fan of Russian literature. But Patrick promises me this is better than Notes from the Underground and I'm trying not to be intimidated by Leo Tolstoy. I'm also going to try to finish this book before January is over. And at the latest before mid-February. I haven't decided if I'm going to mid-book updates on how I feel about.

I feel so far like I've been really unfair about these books. I've done a lot of the proverbial judging by covers. That's not right. And I'm glad I'm learning my lesson about that.

The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath

I had this novel in my head as a piece of rabid feminism. I think that's because it was in 10 Things I Hate About You, which I watched far too many times with my brother.

I guess it could be construed that way; it having been published in '71, and the way she goes on about sex and marriage, especially when she's lucid.

I think it's a well-written book. I'm not saying it's going to go into my favorites file, but the beginning is entertaining - the thoughts and actions of the main character college girl seem sort of true to form. What she wants from life and what annoys her, what disheartens her, all the everyday things she does, are understandable. It reads almost like some sort of sitcom.

And then everything changes and you're swept up into this different life and you're sucked into her pain and everything she doesn't understand and her disillusionment and learning why the novel is called the Bell Jar.

It's pretty dang good. But, it is without hope, which is why you won't see it on my bookshelf at home or in my favorites file (which exists in my head, so ... hopefully no one's gonna see that.)

I read this in a night. Less than. I started it at like 5:45 and finished it around 10. And that's with stopping for dinner and long chats with my husband, so if you're curious about it, it's not really a time-consuming read.

The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold

I made it my goal to finish this book today; because I knew it was going to disturb me and I didn't really want to prolong the experience.

I was right, too, by the way.

The first thing you have to put aside when you start this book is theology, if you care, which I do. The portrayal of heaven really bothered me at first because it was so based on the individual. But then I remembered this was a work of fiction and it didn't need to conform to reality; God, as I recall, is never mentioned in this entire work of human pain, difficult situations, growing up and letting go.

I'm not prepared to say that it was a bad book, because it wasn't. The characters were really well done. The narration, from the point of a murdered fourteen year old girl, sounded right.

It reminded me of Night Road, in a way, by Kristin Hannah.

I can't understand the depth of pain that encompasses the loss of a child, to violence or otherwise, so I have a really hard time understanding all of the differing reactions. I can only imagine how I would respond to that kind of a tragedy - and I would hope for myself that I would have both of my arms wrapped around God's knees and trusting Him - His plan. So when a story is told about this kind of grief, and God is left out of the picture, I can't understand it.

However. The book was well-written, if incredibly disturbing. I now need to go listen to something else to get parts of it out of my head. But I liked the ending. By the way.

Germinal, Emile Zola

I have an ambitious reading list for 2012. Ambitious is the word Patrick used. But I feel pretty good about having read one book already this year.

I started the year off with this book, Germinal by Emile Zola, because I was dreading it. And in a way, it was terrible. But it was also extremely compelling and interesting.

The action takes place during Napoleon III's reign. It takes place between a series of coal mines and is about the struggle between capitalism, socialism, and anarchism.

I appreciate the author's rather characterization of all three, which is rather objective, and that he seems to stress that no way is right when it goes too far.

One quote I particularly liked was from the main anarchist character to the socialist:

"Can you understand this? A couple of hat-makers at Marseilles have drawn the lucky number in a lottery - a prize of a hundred thousand francs - and straight away they have invested it in annuities, saying they were never going to work any more! Yes, all you French workers have that one idea: you want to dig up a treasure and live on it for evermore in selfish and lazy isolation. You make a great song against the rich, but when fortune gives you some money you haven't the guts to give it back to the poor. You will never deserve to be happy so long as you have personal possessions, and your hatred of the bourgeois simply comes from your mad desire to be bourgeois yourselves in their place!"

It seems like that is still true today. The loudest voices against capitalism are only the most envious.

It's true also that capitalism is wrong when it goes so far as to drive people to starvation and death, only because it can. Exploitation for profit is wrong.

The book is way better than my poor ability to describe it, especially at midnight. Zola gives amazing descriptions of factories and the degeneration of people into animals. I'd recommend it if you are interested in socialist or anarchist ideologies, or want an interesting and slightly challenging read. It does have some pretty horrifying descriptions of death and dying though, so be prepared.

I'm not sure what I'll read next, but Germinal was a great start to 2012.

Rambling

We only get one life. It is composed of these seconds and minutes we race through or cherish. It's really hard. It's difficult for me to work out. I don't want to waste a minute. But what counts as waste, and what counts as something you just have to get done because life isn't just about having fun, but about responsibility. I guess some people would argue that you can't make every second meaningful. And what is meaningful anyways? I love the time I spend sitting next to Patrick while he plays Oblivion and I ask him questions (because I want to figure out my own course of action in the game) and he answers so patiently while he's trying to fight off morts, which stresses me out. Are we wasting time? Maybe. But I just love being with him, and I know playing these games is a way of relaxing for him. And if I can share that relaxation time, I'm there.

I guess part of determining the meaningfulness of a moment is figuring out what your endgame is. Being close to my husband and spending time with him is important to me. Thus our meaningful computer game moments.

But what about in jobs? I sit at this desk all day wondering if what I do counts. Or if I'm working against what I believe. In that case, I should go! But, I don't know where to go next. And part of life is responsibility - and I need to work to stay busy and to help us reach our goals.

Rambling.

Dancing in the Rain on Sunny Days; Part 8

Or you could actually dance. That is fully acceptable and I think it would be awesome for someone to come in and, with some amount of joy in their heart, give you some terrible news. (You've just been laid off, downsized. Your dog was just taken by the pound. Your kid was caught at school making a pipe bomb.) And you look that mean little person in the eye, and you stand up, still looking them in the eye, and start dancing. You could feel joy in the movement and the act of defiance against all rain, and that person would be confused, but you would be dancing. (You may even start a dance revolution in your workplace.) Which really does make everything better. Literal and figurative dancing. Also, the pirate koala agrees. So do the sticky notes-- because I've decided they do have feelings. And their feelings on this subject are agreement.

Dancing in the Rain on Sunny Days; Part 7

In the end, though, what is the point? What is the point of all of this? All of the beauty and freedom and musings are all for nothing if the final conclusion doesn't affirm or change or edify anything inside of you. That doesn't mean the product isn't nice, or funny or that it should be shunned for all time. It just means it is without meaning. Or substance. Your takeaway from something meaningless should just be a good feeling or, you know, maybe even a bad feeling, but it will be something that fades because it meant nothing. But what is really important is creating something that will give someone else something worth keeping. What is my point? What is the point of all this typing and the strain I feel, strangely enough, in my forearms? It is to dance in the rain on sunny days. That doesn't mean anything, does it? But it gives you something to think about. I guess what I mean is this: You can be having a truly fantastic day. Sunny through and through- and then something terrible happens. A deal breaker. Day-ruiner. A great big crap on the lawn of your happiness. Joy-killer. It's the rain. It's come for you. What are you going to do about it? I submit- dance. Dance in this rain. It's YOUR sunny day and never let the rain ruin it. Take it. Take that bad situation and make it yours. Revel in something small- that normally would never even make you smile, but that is pretty cool. Let it overwhelm you and grace your day. Be happy because you know that it is your choice. Look at those sticky notes and make them your dance in the rain of your sunny day. Don't forget that that it is only with the combination of sunny and rain that rainbows happen- and that they are a promise.