Amazon's Top 100

My friend Sara knows that I am fond of lists, all lists, but especially reading lists. She found this list and posted it on my FB page and then she posted how many she'd read. I, of course, had to do the same. Thanks, Sara! 

Read red (54)

*Recommend (46)

Want to read blue (28)

Will never read green (4)

Not read normal (46)

1. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
2. Dune by Frank Herbert*
3. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat by Oliver Sacks
4. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
5. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
6. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
7. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
8. The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
9. The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien*
10. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
11. The World According to Garp by John Irving
12. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
13. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
14. The Year of Magical Thinking Joan Didion
15. The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright
16. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien*
17. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens*
18. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
19. Jimmy Corrigan: Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware
20. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins*
21. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
22. Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared M. Diamond
23. The House at Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne
24. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry*
25. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson*
26. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll*
27. Alice Munro: Selected Stories by Alice Munro*
28. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak*
29. The Shining by Stephen King*
30. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
31. The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
32. A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah
33. Moneyball by Michael Lewis
34. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald*
35. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
36. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
37. Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
38. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
39. Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
40. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
41. The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley*
42. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl*
43. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton*
44. Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
45. Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen*
46. Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder*
47. Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Book 1 by Jeff Kinney
48. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster*
49. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood*
50. Beloved by Toni Morrison*
51. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
52. Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
53. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison*
54. The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle*
55. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
56. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury*
57. Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
58. Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese
59. 1984 by George Orwell*
60. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote*
61. The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1) by Rick Riordan
62. Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
63. The Color of Water by James McBride
64. Charlotte's Web by E. B. White*
65. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle*
66. The Stranger by Albert Camus*
67. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen*
68. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown*
69. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
70. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris*
71. All the President's Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
72. A Series of Unfortunate Events #1: The Bad Beginning: The Short-Lived Edition by Lemony Snicket
73. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
74. Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
75. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
76. Angela's Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt*
77. Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain*
78. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
79. Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein*
80. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
81. The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert A. Caro
82. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
83. The Golden Compass: His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
84. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
85. Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich
86. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger*
87. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
88. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
89. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway*
90. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
91. The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
92. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larsen*
93. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi*
94. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
95. The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank
96. The Liars' Club: A Memoir by Mary Karr
97. The Giver by Lois Lowry*
98. Daring Greatly by Brene Brown
99. Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Dantica
100. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov*

30 Day Book Challenge: Day 11

Last year I found this book challenge (since then I have seen many variations of it, but I like this one best!), and have been intrigued about how I would answer the questions posed. Obviously, I started this challenge over 30 days ago...I just wasn't inspired. It isn't as easy to write about books as I thought.

Feel free to comment with your own answer or post the challenge to your own blog.

A Book That Disappointed You

Don't let this wondeful little cover fool you!
I'm pretty sure this is the book that Satan keeps on his nightstand!
If you like the cover, look at more pretty pictures from Donald Urquhart here.

This is seriously the only book where I truly said out loud at the end, "Did I really just read all those pages for that?!"...maybe I'm too happy with my life to get the point of Becky and her little puppet friends. Maybe I should have more regrets, maybe I should stop thinking before I act...or, maybe, as my friend Aimee suggested, I'm just not old enough! She read somewhere, hmmm, maybe I should find out where, that you should read this book in college (THANK GOODNESS I DID NOT HAVE THAT PLEASURE!), again once your married and then later in life so you can look back on how your life has changed. I cannot read this book ever again...ever...I am sad that I feel this way about it.

Day 01 – A book series you wish had gone on longer OR a book series you wish would just freaking end already (or both!)

Day 02 – A book or series you wish more people were reading and talking about
Day 03 – The best book you've read in the last 12 months
Day 04 – Your favorite book or series ever
Day 05 – A book or series you hate
Day 06 – Favorite book of your favorite series
Day 07 – Least favorite plot device employed by way too many books you actually enjoyed otherwise
Day 08 – A book everyone should read at least once
Day 09 – Best scene ever
Day 10 – A book you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving
Day 11 – A book that disappointed you
Day 12 – A book or series of books you’ve read more than five times
Day 13 – Favorite childhood book OR current favorite YA book (or both!)
Day 14 – Favorite character in a book
Day 15 – Your “comfort” book
Day 16 – Favorite poem or collection of poetry
Day 17 – Favorite story or collection of stories (short stories, novellas, novelettes, etc.)
Day 18 – Favorite beginning scene in a book
Day 19 – Favorite book cover (bonus points for posting an image!)
Day 20 – Favorite kiss
Day 21 – Favorite romantic/sexual relationship (including asexual romantic relationships)
Day 22 – Favorite non-sexual relationship (including asexual romantic relationships)
Day 23 – Most annoying character ever
Day 24 – Best quote from a novel
Day 25 – Any five books from your “to be read” stack
Day 26 – OMG WTF? OR most irritating/awful/annoying book ending
Day 27 – If a book contains ______, you will always read it (and a book or books that contain it)!
Day 28 – First favorite book or series obsession
Day 29 – Saddest character death OR best/most satisfying character death (or both!)
Day 30 – What book are you reading right now?

50 Books in a Year: Book #30 One Day

Please be warned this blog post contains SPOILERS for the following books: One Day, Message in a Bottle, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, The Lord of the Rings, The Way We Were, A Walk to Remember, Atonement, Bridges of Madison County, The Time Travelers Wife, The English Patient

Here's what I posted on GoodReads just mere minutes after finishing this book:

This is the first book that is so beautiful that I want to quote it and keep it with me, and, yet I hate it...I mean seriously hate it! I am sorry I read it, if I hadn't bought it on the Nook I'd burn it. I don't want to read anymore books by this author just incase he tricks me again! I want to...I am crying...shame on David Nicholls...*insert cuss-words here* And, no I WILL NOT be watching the movie...seriously! Yes, I hated the ending that much, not since Atonement have I felt this emotionally cheated.

Emma Morley dies and no, I,  in know way, saw that coming. Why didn't I see that coming because this book One Day by David Nicholls (a name that will be seared in my brain so I don't slip up and buy one of this books) was not advertised as a book in the same vain as Message in a Bottle. See, the thing is I hate when books have needless death and dying. I hate books that intentionally kill off characters you love (think the Weasley twin in HP7) to make you cry, not to propel the plot along. And, in this book, after reading about 360 pages of a wonderfully tormented friendship on the verge of something more I was relating to the characters, to the places (I mean Emma has a flat in Earl's Court, really, Earl's Court) and I was relating to the hurt and desire of wanting your best friend...hmm...I was relating soooo much, that when Emma died I felt like a friend died and my breathing became erratic and my world darkened. Frankly, if I'd known this was going to happen, I wouldn't have read the book as I do not read such books. And, that's just it...I feel that Mr. Nicholls had Emma die towards the end (because yes, there's still like 30ish pages after her death...I don't know why...I suppose so you can short out your Nook crying while reading) because that was the ending no one expected. This is what I feel Nicholas Sparks, who is on my banned book list did with Message in a Bottle and what I feel Ian McEwan did in Atonement (what a shame the ending of that was!) and what I feel The Time Travelers Wife was, I mean that book doesn't even adhere to the science of time-travel or the science it creates in the story (if you can...um...er...'meet' yourself, you can also 'save' yourself...I mean he even knew what was over there in the forest...gah!). I'm not into gimmicks and I am not into tricks while reading. I don't have to guess the ending and I don't have to see it coming, but I do have to feel, at the end, that the book and its characters led to the conclusion.

I have for many years read books that use to death or separation to propel the plot. I was a little sad that Boromir died in Lord of the Rings, I was a little sad when Jaimie died in A Walk to Remember, and, I cried like someone died at the end of Bridges of Madison County (you know the part where all she has to do is get out of the truck and leave her whole life behind to be with the one she loves and she's there grabbing at the handle and you know she isn't going to do it, but you want her to, you really want her to), I don't mind that The English Patient dies, I don't mind that Hubbell and Katie never get together in The Way We Were. I understand weakness and I understand death when it is used in a proper way to drive home the major themes and symbols of a book or movie. Nicholls used Emma's death to do neither.

I read a review on GoodReads (I read many reviews looking for closure and answers) that talked about how David Nicholls wrote a book that didn't really address any audience and therefore made a certain type of audience incredibly upset. This is true, maybe he didn't understand his audience. I know I'm all for learning about relationship mistakes in a work of fiction, I just don't need characters to die to do that. I also know that there are people who love this book, just like there are people who can't get enough of Nicholas Sparks.

I have had enough of both.

2 Stars