Let's Talk Books

Okay, so you know I have a book blog....oh wait, you dont? Well I have a book blog as well that I post on as well as a bunch of other awesome people (some of you!!). So it is probably fairly obvious that I heart books a whole lot. In fact I have read most of the classics like Flowers in The Attic and Twilight. (yes that WAS William Shakesepere that rolled over in his grave).

Actually I have NOT read many classics and I'm not sure why that is. Yes, I have read The Odyssee (oh, now I drive one....HA) and almost all of Shakesperes works but when I came across this list of "Books you really should read" I realized that I have not read many of them. So, here it is.....I will put the ones that I HAVE read in BOLD. Which ones have you read? Which should I not live another moment withOUT reading??? (oh and for one, ones I have never even HEARD of in italics)

1.Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible – Im sure I am missing a few books but I have read most of it
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare (maybe minus a few)
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. A Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Ouch

Before I grumble about my pain I would like to point you towards my book blog. I was given the opportunity to review a book called Reunion by Therese Fowler. My review is up and if you are interested I am giving away the copy that I was given....you have to post over there if you want to be entered and I am having random.org pick the winner on Friday.

Now onto my regularly scheduled bitching.

I am sore. Why? Yesterday I tried something new.....I ran. Without a fire, a sale in the wine aisle or Edward Cullen cheering me on (oh wait, more on that in a minute).

A few months back Kami (cool name right?) sent me a program to get started on a running program. While I have never EVER been a runner, or even WANTED to be a runner, I thought that it would be a good way to get in shape and drop some weight.

Then I was given a little more incentive to want to do this......My sweet friend Andrea lost her husband in a tragic work accident last fall. Andrea and the company that her husband Matt worked for are having The 1st Annual "Run for Row" Memorial 5k.

When I first heard about this I knew right away that I wanted to be there to support Andrea and my other friends that would be running, no way did I plan to RUN in it. Actually I still don't have plans to run in it but maybe I could run/walk it. We will see.

Yesterday was day 1 towards "maybe" doing this. We will see how I do in the next few weeks....this week was the easy week.

Today I hurt like hell. To say I am out of shape is being nice.

Oh and Edward......he actually DID kind of help. I had Twilight (the movie) playing on my iPod while I was on the treadmill....in my mind I was running to him........heehee

Guest Blogger Today!

Hello all! I was contacted by a new author a few weeks back asking if she could guest blog on GirlsWithBooks and of course I said YES and that I would love to have her HERE too! She also gave me the opportunity to read her book The Truth Lies In the Dark which I loved! You can read my review of it over on the book site but here is a guest blog from Kristin Callender!

Hi readers and fans of Girls With Books. I am happy to be here and want to thank Cammie and Kelly for having me as a guest. I love that you make reading sexy. In fact, it inspired me to make writing sexy, so I am wearing my bikini to write this ;) Brrr...and it is not quite a beach day here (24 degrees). I am Kristin Callender, author of The Truth Lies in the Dark. Please, sit down, grab a cup of coffee (or whatever your drink of choice is) and enjoy some girl talk.

I am asked all the time how I find time to write. Anyone that knows me knows that I am a full time mom of four kids, wife of one big kid :) and a part time substitute teacher (and not really wearing a bikini). My answer is usually, I don't find time; I make it. But I will let out a little secret here, just between us girls ;)...

It is not that hard to find or make time for something you enjoy. It is my escape from real life, which is why I love reading books also. Not to say that real life is all that bad, but it's real and if your lucky most days go by without much drama. You drive the kids here and pick them up there, figure out what's for dinner, throw in some laundry so you don't have to wear those same jeans again tomorrow, and so your kids don't steal your socks again, look at that pile of dishes in the sink and wonder where that dish fairy has been. You know what I'm saying; that kind of real life.

When I am writing I get to create the characters and place them in a story and see what happens. I can put them in dangerous situations or romantic embraces, basically I can control how much or how little drama they encounter. And unlike my real life creations, when my characters are not behaving the way I want them to I can turn off the computer and walk away. Try that with a temper throwing child who is starving for a cookie before dinner.

As much as I enjoy writing, I am amazed how much I didn't know about the whole publishing process. I thought that writing a book was the hard part. Then I had to find out how to get a publisher. It took a lot of research and a lot of rejections before I finally got my contract with BlueWater Press (Thanks Joe and Ardis!). Then it took another eighteen months to see my book in print. Now I am in the marketing and promotion part, and looking back I have to say that each step was equally challenging.

Thankfully there are also rewards along the way. I wrote a book and got it published, and to make it even better, my son, Michael designed the cover. Friends of ours said that his painting of New York City at night would make a great cover. So I took some pictures of it and submitted them to my editor and he agreed. Most moms get to show off their kids artwork on the refrigerator, I get to hold up my book. He is a talented artist and I am so proud to share this accomplishment with him.

Thanks again for stopping by Girls With Books. I hope that I have inspired other busy moms and non moms to make the time to do something you enjoy. If you want more information about me, the book, or my Book Blog Tour you can go my website. http://sites.google.com/site/kristincallenderbooks

The Truth Lies in the Dark by Kristin Callender is available on www.amazon.com/Truth-Lies-Dark-Kristin-Callender/dp/1604520140 and is the 'Featured Book of the Month' on www.bluewaterpress.com .

Girls With Books

One more quick post.....Kel from The Girl In Glasses and I have decided to start a separate blog for book type stuff....what we are reading, what we loved, hated, recommend, ect. We would love to have other people contribute to it as well, if you would like to contribute please send me an email and we will add you as an author. Please check us out at GirlsWithBooks Kel and I would love for it to be a blog where we can get lots of new book recs and give them as well. Now, please see below to return to your regularly scheduled blog read

Things I am looking forward to in 2009

I have so much to look forward to this year.

Most importantly THIS sweet "baby" will be starting Kindergarten this year. *sob* Now as a scrapbooker this event is WAY up there in things to get excited about....I will probably start buying things for this momentous event around June. I still cant believe my baby will be starting school.

But let's backtrack just a little bit. January is kind of going to suck due to Joe's work schedule so I am holding my breath and counting down the days until I am reunited with my mommy board BFFs. These girls are truly my sisters and I miss them all SO much. Our last big get together was in Boston back in 2007. We had that kind of fun that leaves you in tears with a sore face from laughing and smiling so much (not to mention the hangover we all took home with us) So in just a little over a month I will be playing with some of my bestest friends who I miss SO much.

In April I have a girly trip of a different kind....my very first visit to

That's right....I have never EVER been to New York City. So my mom, a few friends and some other people I don't know are hopping on the fun bus to drive ALL night to spend one fabulous day buying fake authentic Prada and Coach bags, and to stand in front of my favorite place EVER
Even though we have one now in the town that I live in.

My Sweet baby turns 3 in May and that means no more diapers.....right?

In July the fam heads to Holden Beach, NC for a week's stay in the In Law's beach house. We did not go last year and I have really REALLY missed getting my annual shot of Joe walking the kids across the pier.

2004

2005

2006
2007

Also in July....and it is about DAMN TIME

In November.....my fabulous husband has a big milestone......one we are hoping to celebrate in ChicagoAnd SOMETIME in 2009 this gem will finally be released so I can get my Twilight fix without reading the series over again for the 3rd time (which I am likely to do anyways)And of course NEW MOON the movie will be released. Did you REALLY think I would get this far and NOT mention my boyfriend Edward?

A busy year indeed but it will be a good one!!

What I did in 2008

Before I get into that....anyone on goodreads.com? Because I need ANOTHER social network to keep up with I wanted to throw my profile out there...fun times for peeps who like to read.....Cammie's profile....go friend me...I like friends....so long as you dont send an email ABOUT me to me....yeah.....still bitter.

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1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before? Took on a position at work that I swore I would never do. Guess what....I love it.



2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?I didn't make any last year. I have to this year though



3. Did anyone close to you give birth? YES. My friend Laura



4. Did anyone close to you die? Not to me but my sweet mommy board friend Andrea lost her husband in an accident this year....the way that it touched my community of friends made the loss painful for me as well.



5. What countries did you visit? MEXICO



6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008? fewer bills



7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? hmmm, my babies birthdays of course, Joe and I celebrating 6 years of marriage



8)What was your biggest achievement of the year? my kids-continuing to grow and learn



9. What was your biggest failure?dieting



10. Did you suffer illness or injury?I have some back drama, nothing to major though



11. What was the best thing you bought?Does the cruise we went on count?



12. Where did most of your money go? DAYCARE.



13.did you get really, really, really excited about? Discovering the Twilight Series



14. What song will always remind you of 2008?Bleeding Love by Leona Lewis



15. Compared to this time last year, are you:a) happier or sadder? happierb) thinner or fatter? sigh....fatter) richer or poorer? poorer



16. What do you wish you’d done more of? Had more time alone with Joe



17. What do you wish you’d done less of? had arguments with people I love



18. How did you spend Christmas? The night before with my family, Christmas day with Joe's side



19.Did you fall in love in 2008? Ummmm.....sadly.....yes.....ummmm....Edward Cullen....lol



20. What was your favorite TV program? Lost



21.. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? I don't hate...do I dislike anyone now that I did not this time last year? Yes.



22.. What was the best book you read? The entire Twilight Series



23.. What did you want and get? Ugg boots, and a kick ass new lens for my camera



24. What did you want and not get? A MacBook



25What was your favorite film of this year? TWILIGHT



26.. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 33 and I had dinner with Joe and my friend Kelly and her husband



27. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Stephenie Meyer finishing Midnight Sun



28.What kept you sane? My friends and zoloft



29. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Edward....okay okay...Robert Pattinson



30. What political issue stirred you the most?Listening to uninformed people talk about--- the election



31. Who did you miss? My mommy board BFFs



32. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008. Things and people are not always what they seem



33. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. the greatest gift is not found in a store nor under a tree, but in the hearts of true friends." - CL.

What Im reading.....

....Since Twilight is over that is. I'm current reading Change-of-Heart by Jodi Picoult. She is one of my favorite authors and she writes about very controversial topics like mercy killings, school shootings, pregnant Amish teens....good wholesome stuff like that. I am slowly making my way though her books since it has only been within the last year or so that I discovered her. I don't know where she comes up with the stuff she writes (I guess that is why she is a best selling author and I'm not...among other things of course) This one has made me think a lot about the choices I would make in this situation....A man is convicted of murdering a woman's child and husband. The woman is pregnant at the time of the murder. He is sentenced to the death penalty. Fast forward 11 years and his sentence is about to be carried out but he wants to donate his heart to the little girl who is the sister of the girl that he killed (did you follow that) who has a heart condition and needs a transplant. So, as a mother.....do you accept the heart of the man that killed your child and husband in order to save the child that you still have? I know that the chances of this situation ever really happening in the world are pretty non existent....but it is an interesting thought. I have yet to finish so I don't know what happens. I think I would do it though.....anything to save my child. I know there is always the chance that another heart would become available (although in this book time was running out) but how can you take the chance when you know you have what could be the fix right there? How about you?