J's Pages

Okay I give in. The purpose of this blog was to be a journal of my reading, a chance for me to take my personal musings on the books I read and publish them to the world. These days, however, I don't have much time for musing. I still read, of course. But writing mini-reviews is something that I just can't keep up with. Sooooo, I'm going to take this stack of books I have sitting next to my desk, some of which I read back in September, and simply list them with my stock ratings. And this will be my practice for the future. Now and then, perhaps, I may be blessed with the time to give some more details. Or maybe I'll peruse a book that affects me so much that I just have to spout off about it. But for the most part, I now present to you a glorified list. Thank you and good reading.

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I must admit that I haven't been too faithful with posting my reviews. I've been writing many of them, but haven't found time to post them on here. (and on my LibraryThing and GoodReads accounts.) Of course, I've been back dating my posts, to reflect the date I actually finished reading the book, so those of you reading through my reviews years hence won't realize what a untrustworthy fellow I really am. So I thought I'd just fess up so that I can continue my laziness with a clear conscience. Anyway, I'm going to go post a book I finished last month now. have a good day.

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...a slight change in format. Back when I was coding this by hand, I used the colored phrases to indicate my rating. On one hand it was a unique way to do that. On the other hand, it often hobbled my writing as I needed to incorporate that magic phrase somewhere in my review. Well, with the tags now available through Blogger, my homegrown tags in the text were a bit superfluous. I considered tossing them out entirely, but nostalgia led me to compromise and now I'll leave my rating as a separate line at the end of the post. I'm sure you're all fascinated. Anyway, back to the reviews....

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(I know, I am totally breaking format here by posting a non-review. Ah, well, I already changed things by switching the reviews to Blogger, so why stop there?)
Here's a book meme I picked up from Sherri. I backtracked the meme to try and find the criteria used in making the list, but alas the trail ended at the blog of one M. D. Benoit who simply started that the meme is "going on right now at LiveJournal." So anyway:

Instructions: in bold=have read the book; in italics=want to read the book; with crosses=own the book; with asterisks=unfamiliar with the book; with X = never want to read the book; with double XX = wish you had not read the book. I also added a new designation: ? = I think I might have read the book but I wasn't paying attention.

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. †The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. †The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. †The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. †Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. *Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. *A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. *Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. *A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. *Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. †Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. †The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. †The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. †Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. *The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. *Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. †The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. †The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. *Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. †Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. †1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. *The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. *The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. *I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. *The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. *The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. *The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. *Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. *The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. †Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. *She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. †Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. *The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. *Fifth Business (Robertson Davies)
66. *One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. *The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. *Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. †The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. *The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. *The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. †Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. *Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. *Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. †Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. ?Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. *The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. *Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. *Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. *In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. *The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. *The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. *White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. *A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

When I look at the number of books I haven't read and the number of books with which I'm not familiar (I was very lenient when applying that rating), I'm tempted to think that I need to go back to school or something.

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