Umm, too many books?

How many books bought is one day is too many? Is this too many?

How about this?

How about both of these piles put together? :-)

These are the books I picked up on my day out in Hay-on-Wye, a lovely village on the border between England and Wales, famous for its bookshops. Yes, it's a village full of bookshops! And I got to spend a day there on my own this year, which was fantastic. Well, it was fantastic until my backpack became ridiculously heavy and browsing - squatting and standing up with a huge load on my back - became more like excercise and less like fun. But hey, by then I had over 30 books added to my collection so I suppose it was time to go anyway. :-)

Here they are in list format, in case anyone wants to advise me on which ones to read next - I've already read Dating Big Bird by Laura Zigman (very funny!) and I'm currently reading The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley - I couldn't resist Flavia any longer. What should be next though?

Animal Husbandry by Laura Zigman
Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani
The Boys from Brazil by Ira Levin
Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres
Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones
Cuban Heels by Emily Barr
Dating Big Bird by Laura Zigman
The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud
Empress Orchid by Anchee Min
Enna Burning by Shannon Hale
Feed by M.T. Anderson
Five on a Treasure Island by Enid Blyton
The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson
Hector and the Secrets of Love by Francois Lelord
Holes by Louis Sachar
Ireland by Frank Delaney
The Keepers of Truth by Michael Collins
Lost Souls by Michael Collins
The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli
The Marriage Bureau for Rich People by Farahad Zama
A Morbid Taste for Bones (Cadfael Chronicles 1) by Ellis Peters
Northern Lights by Philip Pullman
Private Life by Jane Smiley
Queen Mum by Kate Long
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian
Suchi for Beginners by Marian Keyes
Things to Make and Mend by Ruth Thomas
The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley
Why not Catch-21? by Andrew Dexter
The Witching Hour by Anne Rice

London, baby!

Yep, that's right, I'm in London all day today. You know what that means? A couple of hours of alone time on the train over, about 3 hours of alone time to browse and generally hang out until I meet colleagues for lunch (at Wagamama's, with plenty of gluten-free and dairy-free choices) and then attend a meeting and then another couple of hours of alone time on the train back. Bliss...

I'm taking my kindle and hoping to get lots of reading done. :-)

Have a good Wednesday everyone!

Four Things

I've seen this one going around, most recently at Iliana's, and I think it's really fun. Plus, since book reviews have been lacking from this blog and since things won't get any better until after our handfasting this weekend, I thought this would be a nice, quick post to do.

Four jobs I've had in my life:
1. Waitress
2. Marketing Officer
3. Au Pair
4. Translator

Four books I would read over and over:
1. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
2. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
3. The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
4. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Four places I have lived:
1. Queens, New York, USA
2. Manila, The Philippines
3. Seoul, South Korea,
4. Warsaw, Poland

Four books I would recommend (that I read in 2011):
1. The Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale (audiobook)
2. The Little Lady Agency by Hester Browne
3. The Rights of the Reader by Daniel Pennac
4. The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary Pearson

Four places I have been:
1. Barcelona, Spain
2. Dublin, Ireland
3. Beijing, China
4. Ft. Lauderdale, Florida

Four of my favorite foods:
1. Pizza
2. Peanut butter
3. Falafel
4. The Chili con Carne my husband makes

Four of my favorite drinks:
1. Red wine
2. Lemonade
3. Ginger Ale
4. Mango juice

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. At home with my family
2. Wherever, catching up with my girlfriends
3. Visiting my parents in Poland
4. On our upcoming vacation in Wales

Four things that are very special in my life:
1. My family
2. My health
3. My books
4. My theatre activities

Four bloggers I hope will do this meme - why don't you all do it? It's fun! :-)

Gluten-free, dairy-free ideas, please!

Please, give me some gluten-free and dairy-free ideas, I'm going crazy trying to figure out what I can eat! :-( Anyone have any favorite meals or snacks that would work here?

Anyone in the same situation and can give me some thoughts on what to order when eating out??

It's becoming less of an adventure and more of a pain. On the plus side, it seemed to be working until I cheated slightly and my skin got worse again. Sigh.

The good and the bad about this week

Why is this week being so slow??? Here's what's happening:


This sucks:

• Work is annoying me. I'm responsible for a project that nobody is happy with. I have to make a lot of compromises and in the end no one is satisfied. It's stressing me out.
• I'm rehearsing for The Threepenny Opera by Kurt Weill and Bertold Brecht - the show is really cool, but rehearsals are just too consuming at the moment, it's too much pressure!
• I didn't even get a chance to do a wrap-up post for the read-a-thon, in which I participated rather casually, but still. It would have been nice to re-cap and link up.

This is making me happy:

• We're going to Poland on Saturday and staying for a week - yay, no work, no rehearsals, and two grandparents eager to look after Baby S. I can't wait.
• I just had the yummiest ever falafel wrap. I discovered a fabulous Lebanese around my workplace and I'm there all the time now.
• We're about 600 people working in the same building and some colleagues organised a book swap table. You put books you want to swap and take whatever you want in return. Today, I found what I think is a real gem - Can Any Mother Help Me? by Jenna Bailey. It's based on a collection of letters/articles written by a group of women, housewives, in the 1930s and 1940s, basically about their lives. It seems to be a fascinating piece of social history.
• I subscribe to audible.co.uk and recently got The Journey Into Yourself by Eckhart Tolle, which is not a book but a retreat. Tolle is famous for preaching focussing on the now rather than dwelling on past event or wishing your life away waiting for the future. It really relaxes me. And it's both enlightening and funny. So far, of course, I only just started listening a few days ago.

How's your week going?

Time to talk about books

I've been off work for two weeks and now I'm back. Which means that blogging will be back in my life too. I try not to spend too much time on the computer when I'm at home, I try to read if I have a spare moment instead, which means blogging breaks. But I like to blog on my breaks at work, so here I am.

My time off was great. The wedding was great of course and in the week that followed I managed to squeeze in a day all to myself as well as a honeymoon day with Joe. The day with Joe was taken up with life stuff like grocery shopping but I made sure that my day off included nothing that I 'should' do. I was so lazy that I didn't even do laundry, seriously, basically I had my own private read-a-thon. It was great. As I was saying to Alexandra during lunch today, that's really the one thing I miss from my days before baby came along. Not going out, not spontaneity, but those days when you can sit on the couch and read all day, with nowhere to go and no responsibility. So I take one from time to time, it's just more of an effort to plan it in.

What did I read? I finished Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta, I read Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt and I finished Fables 3: Storybook Love by Bill Willingham. It was a great day. :-) Reviews will be coming soon, I just need to catch up and review the books I read before!

So yes, I guess that wedding post spent enough time in first place and I need to go back to normal life now. Good thing we're doing another ceremony in June, I'm already looking forward to it! :-)

Last Saturday, I got married

That's right. :-) I'm now Joe's wife. And oh so happy.

It was a beautiful ceremony and a great party. We're having our spiritual ceremony in June only so we get to do it all again too! :-)

I'll be back blogging at some point, but not just yet, I need a longer break...

A book and a head full of thoughts

I'm still here! And I'm still  reading! I just don't have the time (or sometimes the energy) to blog!

Book-wise, I'm continuing the Gallagher Girl series by Ally Carter and have now finished Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover. You'd think that the spy thing should be getting old by now, but no, it still entertains me. This series is the perfect antidote to my stressful days, I highly recommend it if you're in need of something light and fluffy. It's like watching Gossip Girl, clears the brain. :-)

I'm going through a lot at work. There's just so much to do and I'm struggling to fit everything into a workday that actually has to end because I need to pick up Shane. If I was still childless and my only problem for the evening was where to eat, I could manage a stressful month. As it is, I'm struggling.

I've also started rehearsals for a couple of projects which is a good thing because it gets me out of the house a couple of evenings a week, but a bad thing for the same reason.

I have so much on my mind that I think I can actually feel it getting crowded up there. Does that ever happen to you?

That's it for now. I'll be a better blogger in a couple of weeks, things should calm down by then.

2011 Goals, part 1: Non-Bookish Goals

I love the start of a new year. I love being able to leave behind what already happened and love being able to look forward. And I love making lists of what I'd like to accomplish. :-)

I expect that 2011 will be pretty busy. Here are a few things that I'd like to get done:

1. I'll be getting married in 2011 and I'd like things to go smoothly. If all goes well with documents, translations and other administrative things, our civil ceremony will take place in February. Our handfasting (a pagan wedding ceremony) will be in June, provided we can find someone to perform it - our party will celebrate that as well as Joe's 50th birthday. We're really looking forward to our marriage and to the related celebrations.
2. I'll be turning 35. This milestone won't happen until December, but I'd still like to keep it in mind throughout the year and mark it by growing, both spiritually and intellectually. To me, life makes sense as long as I'm learning something and sometimes that requires more of an effort than I like to admit. Also, I understand that spiritually 2011 will be the year of embracing those unique attributes that make you YOU. Learning more about myself and accepting what I find are definitely on my to-do list.
3. 2011 will be the second year of Baby S's life. I want to cherish the times we'll have together and stop whining. He's a baby and that means he acts like a baby. Seriously, I need to focus on the huge positives that he brought to my life. Sometimes I loose myself in the little things that don't matter and lose sight of what's important.
4. Get in shape. This has been a goal of mine for soooo long and I soooo want it to be done. I will eat healthy and I will excercise and I will be fit by the time 2012 rolls around.
5. Get finances in order. Even in these tougher times, I remain a big spender. I want to become better with money, there's no other way of saying it. Grocery shopping is my downfall so I guess that's where we'll start.
6. Travel. I already have a few trips planned, but I wan't more... I just want to take advantage of the holidays we get and make sure I start visiting some of the countries I've been wanting to go to. There's no time like the present, right?
7. Cook more. I love cooking and I have a about a million cookbooks. I want to make time on the weekends to cook meals for the week so we end up eating pizza less often!
8. Chill out. I want to be balanced and zen, not stressed out and crazy. Any tips on how to get to my goal?

Birthday thoughts

Yay, it's finally here. :-) I wait for my birthday each year as if I was still a kid, the day still feels so special to me. I have friends and family over each year and whereas it's sometimes stressful to do all the preparation (this year with an 11-month-old trying to get into the kitchen cupboards), I do love making food that my guests will enjoy and spending time with those I love.

The party turned out great. :-) The food was yummy - and I added two dishes that are definite keepers to my repertoire. One is a Layered Mexican Dip - there are loads of recipes for this online, but mine came from the New Basics Cookbook. It's basically layers of kidney beans in some form, guacamole, sour cream, tomatoes and cheese. What's not to love?

The other is Nigella Lawson's Ritzy Chicken Nuggets recipe - chicken strips marinated in buttermilk, covered in Ritz cracker crumbs and baked. The recipe is available on the Food Network and is fabulous, definitely worth a try!

On to the presents... Joe got me a Kindle - but I he actually gave it to me way early, because I couldn't wait and was becoming unbearable. :-) It's fabulous. I love having all those reading choices with me at all times and I'm enjoying my purse not weighing a ton because the one or two books in there. I heart my kindle.

I'm currently adding books like crazy - good thing that so many of them are free.

I got lots of beautiful things from my friends and family - I feel truly spoiled. People don't normally get me books because they can't keep up with what I've already read and I already own, but I did get one - the third book of Fables by Bill Willingham from Alex. Thanks Alex I can't wait to start on it! :-)

And - I had the sweetest surprise this morning, when I found two gifts and a card marked To Mommy, from Shane. How cute is that? One was a candle and the other was a book on how to cook healthy food for your family. Hmmm - is this a hint from an 11-month-old baby? ;-) I think I'll keep those gift tags forever and ever.

So here we are. I'm 34 years old today and I feel like the luckiest and happiest woman on Earth. So grateful.

Blogger to Wordpress?

One of my plans for the New Year is to get my own website. I understand that the easiest way to do this is to switch from Blogger to Wordpress, which I hear is better anyway. But I know nothing about what to do - including anything about this web hosting thing. Is it ok to just buy a package from one of the hosting companies that Wordpress recommends? Will everything else be simple?

Advice from anyone who has done this would be appreciated!

Motherhood, reading notes and a possible early birthday present

Motherhood is wearing me out. Little S is amazing, his sunny personality is really coming through, he seems to already have a sense of humor and he's incredibly cute. But he has soooooo much energy and I don't. He wakes up so early, at around 5 am and I'm just not functional at that hour. Plus he's been testing out his lung strength. Constantly. I'm surprised that I have the brain power to read The Odyssey on my commute to work.

I'm really behind on my reviewing... I haven't even reviewed what I read for the Read-a-thon! One of the books I read was Suzanne Collins' Mockingjay, which I absolutely loved. The story is amazing! As is the fact that all three books in the trilogy were total pageturners, usually at least one is weaker than the others. I know that some people didn't like the introspective aspect of Mockingjay, but it worked for me. I thought that it was a perfect state to be in following all that happened. I'd need some recovery/introspection time too. I was satisfied with the ending too. Maybe it didn't have that 'happily ever after' touch to it, which made it more realistic. That melancholy tone added an extra layer to the story, I thought.

There, can that count as my review?

My kindle is in the house! Joe ordered it early so that it would get here in time for my birthday in December and now it's way early! It's sitting in the spare room in its amazon box. And mocking me. I think it's cruel not let me have it, don't you? I mean it's RIGHT THERE. I'm negotiating with Joe, last year's present was late so I think it's only fair that this year's is early. Right? ;-)

Historical novels - reading by age/century

A quick post to share an idea with you. I went to a charity booksale today and picked up a couple Georgette Heyer novels, my first ones. I got to thinking though that I know nothing about the time period she writes about and that I'd like to put everything together and in historical context. Then I thought that it would be fun to focus on a century and read about and from it for a while. And then I found this amazing site, which groups all kinds of books by century.

What do you think, fans of historical fiction? Would a project like this enhance my enjoyment and understanding of authors like Georgette Heyer?

Hello, I'm back!

Hi Everyone! :-)

I've actually been back for a week but have been very busy and haven't had a chance to blog at all! I'm now in a new job, which I absolutely love, and am trying to get myself organised before September madness starts. This is a job I've been wanting to be in for years and years and I'm thrilled that things have finally fallen into place.

My vacation was fantastic. If you haven't been to Wales, I suggest you add it to your list. It's a wonderful place to spend a few weeks. We stayed in South Wales, in the Brecon Beacons, which is a national park. Lovely countryside, amazing scenery, picturesque towns... Ahhh....

We also spent a few days on Cardiff, the Welsh capital. What a great city! Admittedly, all I really did was shop, the shopping was amazing!! I live in Belgium, where the shopping really doesn't compare... :-( Although that's probably good for my wallet. Although not anymore, since many British stores now deliver to continental Europe. But I digress.

Seriously, visit Wales, it's so beautiful. It reminded me of Ireland, which makes sense, with the Celtic connection and all. If you're looking for a relaxed holiday that's in an interesting place, Wales is a great option.

I didn't get all my reading done, as expected, but I did some and I have several reviews of some great books coming up. Looking forward to catching up on your blogs to see what you've been up to!

Holiday Reading

That's it folks, I'm finally off on vacation tomorrow. YAY! I am SO ready. The past two have totally worn me out, with a combination of the shock of going back to work after maternity leave, starting a new extremely busy job and trying to get that life/work balance right. I can't wait till we're on our way tomorrow.

Obviously, I cannot go on vacation and not bring a car load of books with me. Even though I've been told that the area of Wales where we'll be has tons of second-hand bookstores that I'm sure I won't be able to resists. But books don't take up that much space, right?

Here's what I'd like to accomplish -


I plan on finishing the following started books:

• Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
• The Secret Life of the Unborn Child by Dr Thomas Verny
• Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris
• Bad Science by Ben Goldacre

And I plan on reading the these ones as well:

• Baby Signs: How to talk with your baby before your baby can talk by Linda Acredolo and Susan Goodwyn
• The Power of Now; A guide to spiritual enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle
• The Full Cupboard of Life by Alexander McCall Smith
• In the Company of Cheerful Ladies by Alexander McCall Smith
• The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
• Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella
• The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
• The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
• I'm Not Scared by Niccolo Ammaniti
• The Dogs of Riga by Henning Mankell

Seeing that I'm going away for two weeks and not two months and that we're bringing the baby, how many of these do you think I can get through? :-)

Welcome to the world, Baby Shane!

Here he is, the reason I've been missing in action for so long... Our son Shane was born on January 20 and has been keeping us busy ever since. He is a lovely baby, calmer than some others I've heard of, thankfully! :-) He's a good eater and an ok sleeper - there isn't much more you can ask for at this point!

I can't believe that today we mark 5 weeks since he arrived - time is going very quickly!

I feel much better since he was born - being pregnant sure didn't suit me AT ALL! :-)

I'm reading, but I haven't had time to post, as you have seen... I will try and start up again in the next few days.

Anyway, just wanted to let you all know, hope you're all well!

A belated Thank You to my Secret Santa!

Thank you, thank you, thank you Secret Santa (aka Melody) for all the great gifts! I've been out of circulation for a while and apologise for not posting this sooner, but better late than never, eh? Although I'm not totally ready to come back to blogging full-time, I love the book bloggers' holiday gift exchange and didn't want it to suddenly be February with me still not posting this, so here we are.

Thanks Melody, I love all the gifts you sent and can't wait to read the two books: Chicken with Plums by Marjane Satrapi (I loved Persepolis and have really gotten into graphic novels so am immensely looking forward to this one) and Dark Visions by L.J. Smith, a new vampire-type book which Melody says she hasn't read yet either - it sounds fantastic and I can't wait to sink my teeth into it. Ha ha. :-)

Melody also sent me a cute keychain that says "Friendship is not won by the giving of things, but by the giving of the heart". So cute and SO true!

I also got a beautiful Christmas card with an actual personal message - I don't get that many of those anymore and it was much appreciated!

Hope Melody and everyone else had a wonderful holiday season! I did and am now trying to cope with the end of my pregnancy and the waiting for baby to arrive - I've had all sorts of painful ailments throughout and am SO ready for him to come out so cross your fingers that he'll be early! :-)

New books and Secret Santa

I can't believe we're working our way through November already and that it's almost time for Christmas again. And that means almost time for the baby to finally be here too... time is definitely flying!

And since it's almost time for Christmas, the book blogging community is getting ready as well - it's time to sign up for the Book Blogger Holiday Swap. Sign up before November 12 and you'll be sent the name of the blogger to whom you need to send a holiday gift. What fun!

And speaking of presents, I needed to kill some time in town this week and ended up at a bookstore of course. Here's what I got:

• The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
• The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
• The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
• Gone by Michael Grant
• Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
• Nation by Terry Pratchett

Which one do you think I should start with? :-)

Reading bites

Well, it doesn't look like I'll actually finish another book any time soon. My attention span is getting worse and worse so I just keep starting books and then I feel like reading something different after all... so I start some more. Rather than let you think that I've fallen off the side of the Earth (again), I thought I'd at least let you know what I'm reading:

Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer - it's about an American man of Ukrainian origin who travels to the Ukraine to find the family who saved his own family from the Nazis. The best part of this book is the language - especially when the guy the American hires as translator is speaking. His use of English is fantastic - clearly learned from books and very, very unique. You have to get into the swing of the language but after you do, it's great. I'm over half-way and enjoying it, but it's sad of course so I'm not always in the mood to read it...

The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs - I picked this up one evening when I wanted to read, but I didn't want to read about Jews in World War II... This is simple chick-lit about a group of women who get together to knit every Friday evening. I'm just at the beginning, but from what I've read I don't expect the rest to be earth-shattering... but it's perfect for that half an hour of light reading before bedtime.

Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery - another book I'm reading in the evenings, but I'm reading it in Polish and I don't always feel like reading in Polish, so... it's going slowly. It doesn't matter though, because I already know I love Anne and no matter how slowly I re-read the books, it's still as great as it was the first time I read them.

The Secret Life of the Unborn Child by Dr Thomas Verny - I always try to have a non-fiction book going on top of all the fiction I read and nowadays a lot of the non-fiction is pregnancy or baby related... This one is very interesting in that it talks about the baby understanding more than we think while it's in the womb. It also says a lot of fascinating things about how a woman's emotions and thinking influence the baby - although the author tries not to make sweeping statements like 'if you're negative your child will be depressed forever', I do wonder if he'd like to make those statements if he could... I'm only about a third into it, so I'll report back! In any case, I like the thought of my little boy being aware in there.

The Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus - comics telling stories that happened before season 1 of Buffy began. I finally ordered this and couldn't leave it for later so I'm slowly savoring... Looking at the amazing graphics is especially good when my brain doesn't want to concentrate too hard!

Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link - I have this in e-book format from the internet somewhere and just discovered that it isn't complete... as in it doesn't include all the stories that are in the print edition. Oh well, I'll read it anyway, the stories I've read so far are very strange so I haven't made up my mind about whether I'll want to read more anyway.

That's quite a lot going at the same time! Hopefully I'll manage to finish a few of these before October is over!!

Borders' 100 Favorite Books of All-Time

I saw this re-release of Borders' 100 favorite books of all-time on Another Cookie Crumbles and couldn't resist yet another list! I love lists like these and am always very intrigued by the books I'd never heard of - dangerous, since many of them end up on my TBR list!

Anyway, here it is. The ones in bold are the ones I already read and the ones with an asterix are ones I own but haven't touched yet.

1. Jane Austen – Pride & Prejudice
2. Harper Lee – To Kill A Mockingbird
3. JRR Tolkien – Lord Of The Rings*
4. Jodi Picoult – My Sister’s Keeper
5. Stephanie Meyer – Twilight Saga* (I've read the first one...)
6. JK Rowling – Harry Potter & The Philosopher’s Stone
7. Audrey Niffenegger – The Time Traveler’s Wife
8. Markus Zusak – The Book Thief
9. George Orwell – 1984*
10. Raymond E. Feist – Magician
11. Khaled Hosseini – A Thousand Splendid Suns
12. Paullina Simons – Bronze Horsemen
13. Gregory David Roberts – Shantaram*
14. Margaret Mitchell – Gone With The Wind*
15. Bryce Courtenay – Power of One
16. Dan Brown – The Da Vinci Code
17. Dan Brown – Angels & Demons
18. Paulo Coelho – The Alchemist
19. Charlotte Bronte – Jane Eyre
20. Tim Winton – Cloud Street
21. Khaled Hosseini – The Kite Runner
22. Emily Bronte – Wuthering Heights
23. Arthur Golden – Memoirs of Geisha
24. LM Montgomery – Anne Of Green Gables
25. Joseph Heller – Catch-22
26. Elizabeth Gilbert – Eat Pray Love*
27. Niv Mass Market Bible With Bible Guide – International Bible Society Staff and International Bible Society
28. JRR Tolkien – The Hobbit*
29. Yann Martel – Life of Pi
30. AB Facey – Fortunate Life
31. Douglas Adams – The Hitch-hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy
32. Lewis Carroll – Alice In Wonderland & Through The Looking Glass
33. Diana Gabaldon – Cross Stich*
34. Rohinton Mistry – A Fine Balance
35. David Pelzar – A Child Called It
36. Li Cunxin – Mao’s Last Dancer
37. John Marsden – Tomorrow, When The War Began
38. Frank McCourt – Angela’s Ashes
39. Frank Herbert – Dune*
40. JD Salinger – A Catcher In The Rye
41. F. Scott Fitzgerald – The Great Gatsby
42. Gabriel Garcia Marquez – One Hundred Years Of Solitude
43. Bryce Courtenay – April Fool’s Day
44. Ken Follet – Pillars Of The Earth
45. Patrick Suskind – Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer
46. Matthew Reilly – Ice Station
47. Carlos Ruiz Zafon – The Shadow Of The Wind
48. Stephen Hawking – A Brief History Of Time*
49. Christopher Paolini – Eragon*
50. Louisa May Alcott – Little Women
51. Mitch Albom – Tuesdays With Morrie*
52. Jane Austen – Persuasion
53. Alice Sebold – The Lovely Bones
54. Ian McEwan – Atonement
55. Leo Tolstory – Anna Karenina*
56. George Orwell – Animal Farm
57. Anthony Burgess – A Clockwork Orange
58. Antoine de Saint Exupéry – The Little Prince
59. Roald Dahl – Charlie & The Chocolate Factory
60. CS Lewis – The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe
61. Gabriel Garcia Marquez – Love In The Time Of Cholera
62. Bill Bryson – A Short History Of Nearly Everything*
63. Fyodor Dostoevsky – Crime And Punishment*
64. Anthony Bourke – Lion Called Christian
65. Arundhati Roy – The God Of Small Things
66. Paullina Simons – Tully
67. John Grisham – A Time To Kill
68. John Grogan – Marley & Me
69. Vikram Seth – A Suitable Boy
70. Alexandre Dumas – Count Of Monte Cristo
71. Neil Gaiman – American Gods
72. Cormac McCarthy – The Road*
73. Aldous Huxley – Brave New World
74. Brendan Shanahan – In Turkey I Am Beautiful: Between Chaos And Madness In A Strange Land
75. Tim Winton – Breath
76. Bryce Courtenay – Jessica
77. Graeme Base – Animalia
78. Donna Tartt – The Secret History
79. Mario Puzo – The Godfather
80. Anne Rice – Interview With The Vampire
81. Steig Larrson – The Girl With A Dragon Tattoo
82. Stephen King – Stand
83. Helen Fielding – Bridget Jones’ Diary
84. Eckhart Tolle – New Earth
85. Matthew Reilly – Seven Ancient Wonders
86. Jung Chang – Wild Swans*
87. Nicholas Sparks – The Notebook
88. Bret Easton Ellis – American Psycho
89. David Eddings – Belgariad Vol. 1: Pawn Of Prophecy; Queen Of Sorcery; Magician’s Gambit
90. Louis De Bernieres – Captain Corelli’s Mandolin
91. Melina Marchetta – Looking For Alibrandi
92. Celia Ahern – PS I Love You
93. John Irving – A Prayer For Owen Meany
94. Colleen McCullough – The Thorn Birds
95. John Kennedy Toole – A Confederacy Of Dunces*
96. Terry Pratchett – Good Omens
97. Hunter S. Thompson – Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas*
98. Joanne Harris – Chocolat
99. William Goldman – Princess Bride
100. Charles Dickens – Great Expectations*

So - 38 read. Not bad, but so much scope to do better! :-)