More

We went to a discount/used bookstore today, and I bought more books! Because the "to read" pile atop my piano isn't quite at avalanche level yet. I found...

1. The Canterbury Tales: A Prose Version in Modern English by David Wrighta
2. The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton
3. Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton a
4. Welcome Home: Travels in Smalltown Canada by Stuart McLean
5. The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler

In addition, I have borrowed the following books from my Mom's bookshelf:
1. Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town by Stephen Leacock a
2. Slumdog Millionaire by Vikas Swarup a
3. What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwella

My piano's going to get pretty full!

And I finished reading "The First Time" by Joy Fielding before I left on vacation. Joy Fielding is a really good fiction writer. Her novels are easy to read, but they draw you in and often leave you with something to think about. In this one, a woman splits up with her husband because he is cheating on her, and then discovers she has a fatal illness. It inspired thoughts on selflessness and relationships, and how sometimes the things we pretend eventually become true.

Book Sale!

I was a little delayed in making this list, but here it is! These are the books that I bought at the CBC Calgary Reads Book Sale a few weekends back!

1) "Cold Mountain" by Charles Frazier
2) "Who Killed Canadian History?" by J.L. Granatstein
3) "The Famous Five" by Nancy Miller
4) "Everyone Worth Knowing" by Lauren Weisberger
5) "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" by James Joyce
6) "The Great Canadian Trivia Book" by Mark Kearney and Randy Ray
7) "101 Reasons to be Proud to be Canadian" by David Kieser
8) "The War of 1812 Against the States: Heroes of a Great Canadian Victory" by Jennifer Crump
9) "Anne of the Island" by L.M. Montgomery

Book Sale!

Today we went to a used book sale and restocked our bookshelves. Here's what I came home with:

1. The First Time by Joy Fielding a
2. Puppet by Joy Fielding
3. Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare
4. Timeline by Michael Crichton a
5. Star Wars: Children of the Jedi by Barbara Hambly a
6. The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence
7. The Children of Men by P. D. Jamesa
8. What Went Wrong: The Clash between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East by Bernard Lewis
9. Speaking Out by Jack Layton
10. Worth Repeating by Pierre Berton
11. The Canadian Rockies Trail Guide by Brian Patton & Bart Robinson (n/a)
12. Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus by John Gray
13. Boundaries in Marriage by Henry Cloud and John Townsend a
14. Cheats, Charlatans, and Chicanery by Andreas Schroeder a
15. How to be a Canadian by Will Ferguson & Ian Ferguson a
16. Whitethorn Woods by Maeve Binchy (a gift for my Mom) (n/a)
17. Five Complete Novels by Agatha Christie
- Thirteen at Dinner
- Murder on the Orient Express
- The ABC Murders
- Cards on the Table
- Death on the Nile
18. The Noonday Demon by Andrew Solomon

Hooray for books that only cost $1! Together with the few books I have from my last reading list, these will provide much of my reading for the next little while.

hope springs eternal

ok, here's the list of books i hope to read before march 21. most of this is catching up on gifts i've neglected for too long.

1. "i have to move my car: tales of unpersuasive advocates and injudicious judges" by david pannick
2. "what the dog saw and other adventures" by malcolm gladwell
3. "winter vault" by anne michaels
4. "pleasures and sorrows of work" by alain de botton
5. "gulliver's travels" by jonathan swift
6. "hoard of mathematical treasures" by ian stewart
7. at least five short stories from "elements of fiction"
8. if i get really ambitious, "the satanic verses" by salman rushdie. it's a bit heady right off the bat.

these are real books, for the most part, but i'm not giving up mysteries in the meantime! they should bring me up to 10. in fact i've already read two of the four novels folded into the "miss marple omnibus, volume 1." those count, don't they?

New on the Shelf

Due to Chapters coupons that required several large purchases, finding cheap used books at Goodwill, and receiving gifts, I have many new books on my shelf. (And these days I am much more likely to actually read the new books I get than I used to be, instead of letting them sit unattended forever.) Here's some of what I plan to be reading in the near future:

1. At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon a
2. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink a
3. Anthem by Ayn Rand a
4. Dune by Frank Herbert a
5. Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert a
6. Essays by George Orwell a
7. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert a
8. Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
9. How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton a
10. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
11. The Piano Man's Daughter by Timothy Findley a
12. The Birth House by Ami McKay a
13. Gourmet Rhapsody by Muriel Barbery a
14. Candide by Voltaire a
15. The Toss of a Lemon by Padma Viswanathana

Do any of these interest you guys? Would you care to join me?

promises, promises

new year's resolutions!

how many (not for school/work) books do you intend to read by march 31? june 30? september 30? december 31, 2010?