Canadian content...

This silly cartoon made me smile on a cold, snowy morning.

Reading material...

I got this from przed:

"These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish."

This is not a meme I could resist.

( The books... )

Some nice memories here. Persuasion is the only Austen I unreservedly like, and I still haven't read Emma. Love all the Dickens. To be strictly honest, we did study A Tale of Two Cities in high school, but I'd already read it by then, and read it again several times afterwards. (Aaah, Sidney Carton! - And this the list incorrectly had the title listed as The Tale of Two Cities. Faugh.) Most of this list doesn't reflect our assigned work at school at all - for instance, we studied The Moon Also Rises instead of The Grapes of Wrath, which I still haven't read - though I like Steinbeck. I'm surprised to see so much Neil Gaiman here, though it's no secret that I prefer his comics to his prose by a long shot. I thought everybody liked his novels but me.

There are a few things here I intend to read (e.g., Gravity's Rainbow, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Dubliners), some I wouldn't read at gunpoint (Oryn and Crake, Angels and Demons), and a few I never heard of (The Blind Assassin, White Teeth).

If I wish upon a star...

From December 13, 2008:

1. Do you get to read as much as you WANT to read? (I’m guessing #1 is an easy question for everyone?)

2. If you had (magically) more time to read–what would you read? Something educational? Classic? Comfort Reading? Escapism? Magazines?

1. No, never. I want to read an infinite number of books, all the time. Magazines, too. I average about a fraction of one one-thousandth of that. So it goes.

2. I would read novels, poetry, fanfic, mysteries, romances, popular science, and lots and lots of history. I would read YA and fantasy and science fiction and memoires and classics and catch up on my favourite authors. Of even just the stuff I own and haven't read yet... I seem to have a backlog of biographies. I'd read cookbooks and books about words. I'd read physiology and psychology and whatever you call the discipline that Steven Pinker writes. I'd read travel books and adventure books and plays. Political theory. Sociology.

And I'd read more in foreign languages like French, Italian, Latin and Esperanto.

I'd read many, many comics and graphic novels.

I keep a little notebook with me at all times, in which I write things I want to know or remember. I started a new notebook on November 4. When I did that, I started listing books I want to read right away in the back. Some are recommendations from friends, some are reviews I've read, some I came across while browsing in bookstores and libraries. Since November 4, I have listed approximately 125 such books. And that's just the beginning of the list. First think on the list: Domino by Ross King. Last thing on the list: Making Globalization Work by Joseph E. Stiglitz.

Oh, and I'd read those three Torchwood novels I bought recently, that are calling loudly to me.

Writer's Block: Coast Range

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Ocean. Unquestionably: I've always wished I could live on or near an ocean. The only thing I don't like about Ottawa is its lack of an ocean.

Mountains, I'm pretty much indifferent to. Comparatively speaking.