my final list

After a looong time to decide I finally made up my mind which books I'd like to read for the Something About Me Challenge. I made a list of all the books that would probably fall into what I can actually finish and so I came up with a looong list. Then I separated this list into books I already read and books I intend to read. But enough with the talking, here's my list - or my lists:

Those are the books I intend to read for the challenge - along with some alternates:
Emily Bronte: Wuthering Heights (Trish, Suey)
Sophie Kinsella: The Undomestic Goddess (Margo)
Audrey Niffenegger: The Time Traveler’s Wife (Dewey)
Stephenie Meyer: Twilight (Suey)
John Grogan: Marley And Me (Lynne)

alternates:
Bill Bryson: A Short History Of Nearly Everything (Raidergirl3)
Jonathan Stroud: The Amulet Of Samarkand (Suey)
Anne Frank: Diary Of A Young Girl (Pattie)

Those are the books I intend to read one day:
Orson Scott Card: Ender’s Game (Karlene, Becky)
Madeline L’Engle: A Wrinkle In Time (Juli)
Virginia Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway (Trish)
Louisa Mae Alcott: Little Women (Alyson, Lucca)
Geoffrey Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales (Faith)
Truman Capote: Breakfast At Tiffany’s (Lucca)
Cornelia Funke: Ink Heart (SheReads)
Anita Diamant: The Red Tent (Sarah Miller)
Eve Ensler: The Vagina Monologues (Soleil)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Crime And Punishment (JMC)
V.C. Andrews: Flowers In The Attic (Margo)
Jane Austen: Pride And Prejudice (Bookworm, Pattie)
William Shakespeare: Twelfth Night (Ellen)
Chaim Potok: My Name Is Asher Lev (Heather)
John Dunning: Booked To Die (Bonnie)

And those are the books I already read:
John Grisham: Runaway Jury (Historia)
Jodi Picoult: My Sister’s Keeper (Trish)
Helen Fielding: Bridget Jones’ Diary (Trish, Tiny Librarian)
Jasper Fforde: The Eyre Affair (Valentina, Heidijane)
Harper Lee: To Kill A Mockingbird (Janet, Stephanie)
Lois Lowry: The Giver (Sarah Miller)
Alice Sebold: The Lovely Bones (Chasida)
J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Bookworm)
Lorna Landvik: Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons (Tiny Librarian)
Earlene Fowler: Fool’s Puzzle (Nattie)
Kim Edwards: The Memory Keeper’s Daughter (3M)
Enid Blyton: The Naughtiest Girl In School (Sally)

About time - what I'll be reading:


The Never Ending Story - Michael Ende (Valentina's list)

Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery
(Gracie's /Trish's /EnnaVic's /Tiny Librarian's list)

The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kid (Karlene's /EnnaVic's list)

A Thousand Splendid Suns- Khaled Hosseini (Diane's list)

Chocolat- Joanne Harris (Chasida's /Margot's list)

Gautami's list: Time to post it

I know it is the last day to post. I had my list but did not get around posting. I am posting here both the lists.

The following list contains some part or the other ( by the way, I am a teacher) about myself:

1) Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

2) To Sir With Love by E R Wraithwaite

3) Identity by Milan Kundera

4) The Solitaire Mystery by Jostein Gaarder

5) The Places In Between By Rory Stewart


Here is list of books, I chose from other's lists:

1) The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri from HeidiJane's list

2) The Thorn birds by Colleen McCullough from Andrea's list

3) A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini from SheReads (Diane's) list

4) So Many Books, So Little Time by Sara Nelson from Vassily's list

5) Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham from Athena's list

6) My sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult from Trish's list

7) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl from Holly's list

There are some other books that I would like to read. I will add those to this list if I get around to those.

Do check out my blog, My Own Little Reading Room.

A Thousand Splendid Suns

This is the first "official" book I've read for this challenge. I know it's not quite August, but this book is due at the library this week, so I read it this weekend.... mostly all day Sunday and then dreamed about it all night last night!

Wow! What a painful, painful story! I knew it would be, but still, it's so hard to read about this stuff happening to the people in Afghanistan. What great, strong women these characters were! I just want to cheer for them. This author sure knows how to write emotion. Great book!

84, Charing Cross Road

I actually read this book awhile ago, but I reviewed it today because I saw the adaptated film today.

84, Charing Cross Road (1970) is the documented real life twenty year correspondence between New York write Helene Hanff and London bookseller Frank Doel. It’s been some time since I’ve read the book, but I watched the film today so it brings me memories about the lovely epistolary memoirs. I think anyone who truly loves books should read it because Ms Hanff expresses so many views of why we love prose, poetry (like her, I’m a Donne and Blake girl), and beautifully bound books. The letters are a testament to the relationships that are born and thrive under mutual, ardent bibliophilia. It’s quite a short book, and quite satisfying in my opinion since I love letters almost as much as I love books.

If you want to read a little bit about why I thought of the movie, it's over at my blog.

Review: Oh My Goth

Oh My Goth by Gena Showalter
3 stars

Summary: Jade Leigh values individuality above all else and has a small group of like-minded Goth friends who wear black and dabble in the dark arts. They're considered the freaks of their school, which is mostly very Gap-centric, but they're happy. But when Jade's smart mouth lands her in trouble once again, the principal decides to teach her and her arch-nemesis, Barbie-esque taunter of freaks Mercedes, a lesson. Taken to a remote location where they're strapped down and sedated, Jade and Mercedes wake up in a world where Goths (and therefore Jade) are cool and the norm and being preppy makes Mercedes a freak. Only Clarik, the mysterious new boy in town, operates outside the cliques. Jade and Mercedes have to work together to get back to their own reality but even if they do, will things ever be the same again?

Who would like it? Just judging by its good circulation in my library system, it seems to be generally popular with teens. I don't think actual hardcore Goth kids who are in the throes of misery would like it, but "Goth lite" kids would enjoy it. And any teen who feels like a non-prom-queen type of freak. It would be great if some mean girls could read it and realize they're really only one fad away from being freaks themselves, though I doubt that happens very often.

Overall: Well, an episode of South Park sums up my general thoughts on the Goth thing. After being dumped by his girlfriend, Stan can't stand the pain and decides to dwell on it by becoming a Goth. It's pretty simple to join them - "If you wanna be one of the non-conformists, all you have to do is dress just like us and listen to the same music we do." And that's where the whole individuality thing breaks down for me - in the wide world, you may be in the minority, but you still have to conform to the Goths. As far as I can tell, you can't wear pink and have blonde pigtails yet still care deeply about pain and be a Goth. You have to do the whole black clothes/black hair/dark makeup thing. So really, you're just conforming to another way of thinking. I kept waiting for someone to point this out in the novel and thankfully Mercedes eventually did - it always seems like such an obvious point to me.

That's not to say there's anything wrong with the whole black clothing, etc. thing. People should be free to express themselves. And it does often require more effort and creativity than just throwing on something from the Gap - I really enjoyed Jade's descriptions of all the cool Goth clothes she and her friends wear. It just seems that to rage against cliques but still be in one yourself (even though it's a small and not very powerful one) is a bit ironic. The popular kids in the book are really mean to the Goth kids, but the Goth kids aren't a whole lot nicer to the people outside of their circle, either, and have no more respect for their lifestyle than the "normals" have for the Goth one.

And that's pretty much the message of the book, not to judge people by their outward appearance (Mercedes' life isn't all that picture-perfect, for example). It's the age-old walk a mile in someone else's shoes lesson (whether they're Manolos or combat boots).

What I learned about Stephanie: Well, she said it all in her blurb about the book - she enjoys being different and has a penchant for wearing black, so this is definitely a book about her. And I also discovered that she enjoys a YA novel from time to time, which I'm always happy to see! :-)

Dewey catching up!

I started reading before the challenge date (obviously, since that's tomorrow!) so I'll just post links here to books I've already reviewed. In the future, I'll post the entire review here at the challenge blog. The book title is the link to my review.


Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery, Tiny Little Librarian's pick.

So Many Books, So Little Time, by Sarah Nelson, chosen by a.book.in.the.life.

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield Kristin's pick.

Luncheon of the Boating Party by Susan Vreeland, chosen by 3M.

Stick Kid by Peter Holwitz, JMC's choice. There are actually two books reviewed in one entry; scroll down to get to Stick Kid.