Memes and reading

A meme caught my fancy so I'm passing it on for the one reader of this blog. A meme is idea or behavior that passes from one person to another.

This is a list of the top 106 books most often marked “unread” by LibraryThing users. The rules: bold the ones you’ve read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn’t finish.

• Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
• Anna Karenina
• Crime and Punishment
• Catch-22
• One Hundred Years of Solitude
• Wuthering Heights
• The Silmarillion
• Life of Pi : a novel
• The Name of the Rose
• Don Quixote
• Moby Dick
• Ulysses
• Madame Bovary
• The Odyssey
• Pride and Prejudice
• Jane Eyre
• A Tale of Two Cities
• The Brothers Karamazov
• Guns, Germs, and Steel
• War and Peace
• Vanity Fair
• The Time Traveler’s Wife
• The Iliad
• Emma
• The Blind Assassin (gripped me from the first paragraph)
• The Kite Runner
• Mrs. Dalloway
• Great Expectations
• American Gods
• A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
• Atlas Shrugged
• Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
• Memoirs of a Geisha
• Middlesex
• Quicksilver
• Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
• The Canterbury Tales
• The Historian : a novel
• A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
• Love in the Time of Cholera (on my shelf waiting to be read)
• Brave New World
• The Fountainhead
• Foucault’s Pendulum
• Middlemarch
• Frankenstein
• The Count of Monte Cristo
• Dracula
• A Clockwork Orange
• Anansi Boys
• The Once and Future King
• The Grapes of Wrath
• The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
• 1984
• Angels & Demons
• The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise)
• The Satanic Verses
• Sense and Sensibility
• The Picture of Dorian Gray
• Mansfield Park
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
• To the Lighthouse
• Tess of the D’Urbervilles
• Oliver Twist
• Gulliver’s Travels
• Les Misérables
• The Corrections
• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
• Dune
• The Prince
• The Sound and the Fury
• Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
• The God of Small Things
• A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
• Cryptonomicon
• Neverwhere
• A Confederacy of Dunces
• A Short History of Nearly Everything
• Dubliners
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being
• Beloved
• Slaughterhouse-five
• The Scarlet Letter
• Eats, Shoots & Leaves
• The Mists of Avalon
• Oryx and Crake : a novel
• Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
• Cloud Atlas
• The Confusion
• Lolita
• Persuasion
• Northanger Abbey
• The Catcher in the Rye
• On the Road
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame
• Freakonomics
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
• The Aeneid
• Watership Down
• Gravity’s Rainbow
• The Hobbit
• In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
• White Teeth
• Treasure Island
• David Copperfield
• The Three Musketeers

School was so long ago that I probably have read most of the classics, but honestly do not remember. I have kept a list of every book I've read since graduate school days. My list is now in a database with over 1,200 titles.

So many books, so little time.

Mostly librarians SF/F complete list of books discussed

I've just published a Google spreadsheet of the books that have been discussed since mid-1996 of our nameless science fiction and fantasy book club. I've been a member of the group since late 1998. I'm hoping other members of the group will add comments. Annotations came from the NLS (National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped) catalog, a nice source for brief descriptions of books.

For your reading pleasure: The list Note, there are two tabs/pages as there is a limit of 100 rows per tab.

Memory check with the help of serendipity

My sister has been concerned about my mother's memory so when I visited my folks last weekend I observed her with that in mind.

My folks had just moved from one senior independent living apartment complex to another three days earlier. My mom spoke of the manager of the old place, how Ms. Manager choses favorites of the residents and had already found a new favorite to replace my parents. The newly blessed resident became that because her son is a member of a rock band and he came by to have lunch with her. I asked my mom (who has never had an interest in anything musical after the Tijuana Brass stopped recording) if she knew the name of the band or the band member's name. She said she thought it was something like Eagle. "The Eagles?" we asked her, they are pretty big. Was the son about our age or very young? About your age she said, but long hair. She thought his name was something like Schmit. I really don't know rock music and S.O. couldn't remember the band members names so we just filed it away as a maybe true, maybe confused story.

The next day I was at my athletic club and walked by the magazine rack. Usually it just has old issues of Time magazine and various trade journals left by other members. This time, front and center, was an issue of Rollingstone and who should be on the cover, you guessed it, The Eagles. One bandmember's name sure enough is Timothy Schmit. Guess my mother's short-term memory is pretty good. Her long-term memory is legendary, so I'm not concerned about memory issues.

Mostly librarians science fiction/fantasy book club

I am coming up to 10 full years of participating in a science fiction and fantasy book club. Established years earlier by a group of state agency librarians, the group has been meeting monthly for lunch and book discussion at a downtown location near most of our workplaces.

We have members from a number of agencies, including the state library, the secretary of state's office, corrections, and now several lucky retirees. Some members are extremely well-read and knowledgeable about SF and fantasy, for others each author and book are a new experience. We gather once a (fiscal) year for a pot-luck on a weekend to choose the books for the coming year. We try to have a nice mix of genres, with at least one classic and usually a vampire book for one fan of that genre. One member is an expert in horror, so his suggestions are highly valued.

Here are the books we will be reading this fiscal year (thank you RF for compiling the list.) Read along and comment if you'd like. I'm hoping to soon create an online spreadsheet or database to list all the titles that have been read in the last eleven years.


8/08 Chabon, Michael / The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (alternative history)

9/08 Miller Jr., Walter M. / Canticle for Leibowitz (classic post-apocalyptic)

10/08 McDevitt, Jack / Seeker (space opera, archaeology, mystery)

11/08 Zelazny, Roger / A Night in the Lonesome October (fantasy)

12/08 Stirling, S.M. / Dies the Fire (post-apocalyptic)

1/09 Adams, Douglas / Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (comic sci-fi)

2/09 Robinson, Kim S. / The Years of Rice and Salt (alternative history)

3/09 Hill, Joe / Heart-Shaped Box (horror, ghost story)

4/09 Huxley, Aldous / Brave New World (classic dystopia)

5/09 Scalzi, John / The Android’s Dream (interstellar diplomacy, satire)

6/09 Maguire, Gregory / Wicked: the Life and Times of The Wicked Witch of the West (fantasy, cautionary tale)

7/09 Meyers, Stephenie / The Host (alien invasion)

Exploiting the Gullible

Maybe you've seen it on TV, an exclusive offer to purchase (limit 5 per customer) a September 11th commemorative "coin"

They include their website: http://www.911twenty.com/

Here's part of their description of what they are selling (my emphasis):

Today history is being made as National Collector's Mint releases this Government Authorized Non-circulating Liberian legal tender September 11th Commemorative. This $20 Silver Leaf Coin-Certificate is payable like a Silver Certificate in coin-of-the-realm.

Its giant 3-1/8" inches by 7-3/8" inches size dwarfs every U.S. legal tender note in circulation

Struck in .999 Pure Silver Leaf!

Each is individually numbered!

On the front, the frosted Twin Towers stand out against a mirror-like background, much as they did in the gleaming sunlight of that fateful morning, double dated 2001-2008 with our promise - "We will never forget!"Another historic first: This Silver Leaf Coin-Certificate displays a standard $20 denomination on one side. But on the other side, it's the first time ever that two separate numbers have been used to add up to the full $20 face value - it uses 9 and 11 to commemorate the 7th anniversary of the World Trade Center tragedy.

The final issue price was to be set at $39 but during this special release, it can be yours for its face value of just $20.00!

Now, let's not forget that this is Liberian legal tender. The U.S. dollar is worth approximately 57 Liberian dollars, making the face value more like 35 cents.

Please folks, DON'T buy one. Oh, lest I forget, you can purchase a box for your "coin" for $9.95. And wait, there is shipping and handling too.

Caught on Google Street View

Me on Google Street View
Originally uploaded by siegel_jackie.

Wouldn't it be cool to see the vehicle used to photograph Google Street View we all thought when the service was announced.

Little did I know that one of those vehicles was following behind me as I rode my bike to my athletic club (score a point for me for actually going to the athletic club.) I wish I had eyes at the back of my head, what a big missed opportunity.

I came across myself on Google Street View quite by accident. Of course I checked out my house and my block when the local newspaper announced that Google had added our city to the Street View locations. Not a soul on the street.

But, the other day I was checking out a real estate listing and wanted to make sure the address listed was the house I was thinking of. I thought it was pretty cool that they seemed to have captured a bicyclist on three or four of the waypoints. Looking closer I realized it had to be me. Confirmed by my S.O. and my sister (who else would recognize my backside)

Anyone else find themselves on Google Street View? My S.O.'s middle brother was out gardening when the vehicle came by his neighborhood in Los Angeles. Nice butt shot of him too.

He brings home an award

Datsun Roadster Meet 2nd place award
Originally uploaded by siegel_jackie.

S.O. won a 2nd place award for his category of car. He was jazzed that his dented Datsun roadster got any award, let alone 2nd place. His elation was tempered by the realization that only three cars were entered in his category. But, at least he didn't come in dead last. Could be the 3rd place finisher was there by himself and didn't have a spouse to vote for him.