Please don't say Baby Bump.
Please don't write Baby Bump.
Please don't think Baby Bump, or put it on a license plate, or tattoo it on your shoulder, or spell it out in the foam on your latte.
Please. I'm begging.
While you're at it, also please don't say It is what it is, It's all good, or Twenty-four seven.
I might actually pay good money not to hear those phrases or read them or have to be in the same room with them.
Thanks.
Saturday, June 29, 2013
What to Read
For no good reason, here's a list of books that someone has decreed ought to be read by all who are or fancy themselves intellectuals. Anything bolded is something I've read; anything italicized is something I tried to read. At the bottom of the list I've added some essentials that were left off the list by what must have been unfortunate oversight.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights: I'm sorry, Emily Bronte and her characters' pretentious angst wearied me. And, what in the blazes is "wuthering" anyway?
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi: a novel: Admittedly a gripping piece of fiction, but by the end the extravagant gruesomeness turned me off.
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote: I think I might have read this as a younger person. All I remember is that he dies in the end. Doesn't he?
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary: This one was heartbreaking and absorbing, and the death scene at the end was viscerally disturbing.
The Odyssey: Haven't actually read this one from start to finish, but I've seen the fifth grade play, twice.
Pride and Prejudice: Over and over again, annotated, BBC, A&E, I don't care what version but please, no sequels, no zombies, no vampires, and no fair trying to cram the entire thing into a 120 minute film.
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities: The best of times, the worst of times, a far far better thing; but watch out for that Madame DeFarge because she'll give you the Dickens.
The Brothers Karamazov: No, but I saw them in concert once. They tried to juggle a carton of eggs. It didn't end well.
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies: I have enough reasons not to be able to fall asleep at night, thanks.
War and Peace
Vanity Fair: Becky Sharp is everything I could never be.
The Time Traveler’s Wife: Four years later and I'm still trying to figure out the timeline.
The Iliad
Emma: Rereading it right now, as a matter of fact. Fond memories of first making acquaintance with Emma on an extended trip to England, where I enjoyed reading a copy I bought in Cambridge, sitting in St. James's Park in London, eating chutney, cheese and bread purchased in the Harrod's Food Halls.
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner: Annoying
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations: That dusty, venomous white spider, Miss Havisham
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran: a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha: More like Mehmoirs
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West: Okay, okay -- I get it: you've read all the Oz books, you know all the ins and outs of all major and minor characters. Did you have to use up so much paper beating me over the head with your knowledge? But -- the musical is divine.
The Canterbury Tales: A looong time ago, probably not long after they were first written.
The Historian: a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World: less spine chilling than 1984
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein: Much sadder than I'd anticipated it would be.
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange: Really, who could slog through this book? It has a glossary, for heaven's sake!
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath: Many times, and always with an abundant supply of snackage at hand.
The Poisonwood Bible: a novel
1984: see above
Angels & Demons: thriling, yes, but a must read?
The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise): No, but I did read all of Paradise Lost, aloud.
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility: Pride and Prejudice wins, by a mile
The Picture of Dorian Gray: Hellooo nightmares
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse: Does one chapter count?
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables: But I liked the play, and in fact the music is right now running through my head.
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince: No, but I've read The LIttle Prince many times
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes: a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States: 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces: ah, New Orleans
A Short History of Nearly Everything: This. Is an amazing book. It's recently been reissued with photos and graphics, which makes it eminently browsable. This book deserves a place on every nightstand in the country.
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved: I don't care what Oprah said; in fact, I don't care about most of what Oprah says. I made it all the way through this book and was like "huh?"
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: a classic?
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake: a novel
Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita: Gave me the willies.
Persuasion: a lot of Jane Austen on this list
Northanger Abbey: here's another one
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics: a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit: I made it through the entire series and thought to myself: "why did I waste my time?"
In Cold Blood: a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences: This is an extraordinary book. The first time I read it I had nightmares and couldn't touch it again for a very long time. I reread it last summer and now I absolutely revere the book and its author.
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers
And mine; seriously, how could any of these have been omitted?:
The Phantom Tollbooth
To Kill a Mockingbird
Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (annotated, if you can get it)
Candide
The Diary of Anne Frank
The Great Gatsby
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The entire Harry Potter series
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights: I'm sorry, Emily Bronte and her characters' pretentious angst wearied me. And, what in the blazes is "wuthering" anyway?
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi: a novel: Admittedly a gripping piece of fiction, but by the end the extravagant gruesomeness turned me off.
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote: I think I might have read this as a younger person. All I remember is that he dies in the end. Doesn't he?
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary: This one was heartbreaking and absorbing, and the death scene at the end was viscerally disturbing.
The Odyssey: Haven't actually read this one from start to finish, but I've seen the fifth grade play, twice.
Pride and Prejudice: Over and over again, annotated, BBC, A&E, I don't care what version but please, no sequels, no zombies, no vampires, and no fair trying to cram the entire thing into a 120 minute film.
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities: The best of times, the worst of times, a far far better thing; but watch out for that Madame DeFarge because she'll give you the Dickens.
The Brothers Karamazov: No, but I saw them in concert once. They tried to juggle a carton of eggs. It didn't end well.
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies: I have enough reasons not to be able to fall asleep at night, thanks.
War and Peace
Vanity Fair: Becky Sharp is everything I could never be.
The Time Traveler’s Wife: Four years later and I'm still trying to figure out the timeline.
The Iliad
Emma: Rereading it right now, as a matter of fact. Fond memories of first making acquaintance with Emma on an extended trip to England, where I enjoyed reading a copy I bought in Cambridge, sitting in St. James's Park in London, eating chutney, cheese and bread purchased in the Harrod's Food Halls.
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner: Annoying
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations: That dusty, venomous white spider, Miss Havisham
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran: a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha: More like Mehmoirs
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West: Okay, okay -- I get it: you've read all the Oz books, you know all the ins and outs of all major and minor characters. Did you have to use up so much paper beating me over the head with your knowledge? But -- the musical is divine.
The Canterbury Tales: A looong time ago, probably not long after they were first written.
The Historian: a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World: less spine chilling than 1984
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein: Much sadder than I'd anticipated it would be.
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange: Really, who could slog through this book? It has a glossary, for heaven's sake!
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath: Many times, and always with an abundant supply of snackage at hand.
The Poisonwood Bible: a novel
1984: see above
Angels & Demons: thriling, yes, but a must read?
The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise): No, but I did read all of Paradise Lost, aloud.
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility: Pride and Prejudice wins, by a mile
The Picture of Dorian Gray: Hellooo nightmares
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse: Does one chapter count?
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables: But I liked the play, and in fact the music is right now running through my head.
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince: No, but I've read The LIttle Prince many times
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes: a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States: 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces: ah, New Orleans
A Short History of Nearly Everything: This. Is an amazing book. It's recently been reissued with photos and graphics, which makes it eminently browsable. This book deserves a place on every nightstand in the country.
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved: I don't care what Oprah said; in fact, I don't care about most of what Oprah says. I made it all the way through this book and was like "huh?"
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: a classic?
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake: a novel
Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita: Gave me the willies.
Persuasion: a lot of Jane Austen on this list
Northanger Abbey: here's another one
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics: a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit: I made it through the entire series and thought to myself: "why did I waste my time?"
In Cold Blood: a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences: This is an extraordinary book. The first time I read it I had nightmares and couldn't touch it again for a very long time. I reread it last summer and now I absolutely revere the book and its author.
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers
And mine; seriously, how could any of these have been omitted?:
The Phantom Tollbooth
To Kill a Mockingbird
Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (annotated, if you can get it)
Candide
The Diary of Anne Frank
The Great Gatsby
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The entire Harry Potter series
Friday, June 28, 2013
My Latest Excuse For Not Exercising
Yesterday I took the dog for a walk. We fit in only 30 minutes, since I had to be home in time to see The Big Bang Theory.
Tonight I took the dog for a walk. No Big Bang Theory tonight. Still, we fit in only 30 minutes, since she started limping after fifteen, so we headed back home.
I suspect there's a conspiracy between biology and TBS to prevent me from taking exercising vigorously.
Yep. That's what it is.
Tonight I took the dog for a walk. No Big Bang Theory tonight. Still, we fit in only 30 minutes, since she started limping after fifteen, so we headed back home.
I suspect there's a conspiracy between biology and TBS to prevent me from taking exercising vigorously.
Yep. That's what it is.
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