Not Dead Yet

Though it may seem like it, since I haven't blogged in a little while... not sure what happened there.

Via Miss Snark, the list of 30 books to read before you die.

I've read sixteen. My life is more than half over!

Actually, it's 16.33 of the books 'cos I read the first book of the His Dark Materials trilogy but not the other two.

I can't read those other 13.66 books now, right? What if I don't read them and thus stave off death, like Dorian Gray or something?

I'm happy with To Kill a Mockingbird at number one. I love that book. You start reading it because you have to, and then the next thing you know you're crying and you don't want to leave. And then ten years later you're wondering how those people are doing, and are they all OK? The kind of writing we don't even think of achieving in our wildest dreams.

I'd put Great Expectations higher up - A Christmas Carol? c'mon, not even close - and I'd definitely dump the Poisonwood Bible off the list. That book just made me tired. The Curious Incident and Tess of the D'Urbervilles... well, they were good, but I feel I could die without reading them. For different reasons.

I'd add The Catcher in the Rye, but that's just me. Has that book gone out of style and no one told me? Would that put too many Americans on the list?

Book lists are inherently silly, but we love them anyway, don't we?

Not list-related, but two books to avoid, unfortunately: A Complicated Kindness and The Secret Life of Bees. The first one was ongoing torture of boredom (welcome to Canadian literature, y'all) and the second just left me scratching my head: "She just lived with black people? In the 60's South? And no one even commented?" Wherefore all the praise?

I'm a third of the way into this one, however: March. Um. Should I quit writing now, or should I keep illusioning myself until Geraldine Brooks gets even better?

Happy reading,
Abby