No Surprise Here

I don't normally post these things on my blog, but this one is just too perfect to pass up. In case you don't know, I have a bachelor's degree in English. I am an avid reader. (See Proud Book Nerd for proof!) I took this tonight out of boredom, and have to tell you, this describes me PERFECTLY! I don't think I've ever had a result on one of these things be so accurate!

What Popular College Major Are You?

You Are English

You are a very verbal person. You can't help but pay attention to the actual words that people use. You are intuitive and wise. You can usually pick up on undertones that others are missing. You are analytical and critical. Very few details escape your observant eye. You have a great appreciation for art and expression of all sorts. You don't have to like a book to value it.

What Popular College Major Are You?

Blogthings: Quizzes and Tests and Memes, Oh My!

       

Blog Journal: Day 3

I hope these images are working OK for you to read them. Like last time, click on it to see it full size, and that should make it doable.

I feel this is one that requires some elaboration.

• My kids ~ Not just what doesn't require explanation, but also their births – especially the younger two. They were VBAC deliveries, and those were the most rewarding days of my life! Also, I'm very proud of who they are and who they are going to be. I cannot wait to see what God has in store for them – and for us through them.
• My blogs ~ Yes, this one, but especially Proud Book Nerd. I have put lots of blood, sweat, and tears into both. OK, maybe not those things – time, energy, and even in some cases money (this template wasn't cheap). But, it is so worth it. I'm having fun with both. But, I think in the book blog I've found my niche. I can't remember a time I wasn't a bookworm, so I shouldn't be surprised ... anyway, if you wanna know more about that, just go to the blog then click on the link (below the header) that says "About Me." I have a similar post here, but I need to rework it. I do want to add that I'm actually a bit surprised by this. An avid reader with LOTS of editing experience, I've never considered myself a writer. Never liked it much. But, well, maybe I just wasn't writing about the right things ...
• My bachelor's degree ~ I worked long and hard for four years to earn this degree. There's a reason the common way to say it is "earn" the degree. That is HARD work. While these days I don't do much with the degree, it's still an accomplishment of which I am quite proud.

And that's it for today. So, tell me, what are you proud of in your life? Head on over to Toddler Awesome if you wanna play along!

More on classic novels

I've been thinking about this since writing my post - er, I mean highlighting, bolding, etc. the post I got from Kelly. Before I express my thoughts, remember that I have a degree in English, so I've studied LOTS of literature from many genres. That said, there are many books I think should be on that list, and all of these I have read. (There is no particular order - just the order in which I think of them.)

1 Chaucer's complete works, especially The Canterbury Tales
2 Romeo and Juliet - Shakespeare
3 Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
4 Macbeth - Shakespeare
5 Beowulf
6 Beloved - Toni Morrison
7 Sarah's Key - Tatiana de Rosnay
8 Those Who Save Us - Jenna Blum
9 White Noise - Don DeLillo
10 Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

I also think it shouldn't be called a list of "classic" novels, as many of those aren't what I'd call classics - at least not yet. They're too new! ;-) And that includes some of those listed above, too! ;-) I think I'd prefer to call it "must-read" works. After all, not all are novels - Shakespeare and Chaucer come to mind ... That said, I feel better now! The first one to pop into my mind the first time I looked at the long list was Frankenstein. How that one didn't make it I'll never know. But, that's all right. It's on MY list! ;-)

ETA (edited to add): I didn't mention my degree to sound like a know-it-all. Upon reading this after submitting it, I realized that it kinda comes across that way. What I meant was that my degree should reflect my love for literature, and help explain why I can't leave well-enough alone when it comes to the book list. I hope that makes sense. I am so NOT a book snob - and I so don't have a superiority complex when it comes to this particular subject! ;-)

100 Classic Novels

I got this from my friend Kelly. She says,

I found this on a friend's blog. It's supposedly a list of 100 of the greatest novels of all time. And as Erin says... "Notice I didn't say THE greatest I said 100 OF the greatest."

The purple ones are the ones that I've read. The green ones are the ones on my to-read list. Supposedly the average American has read 6 of the 100. I've got 28 - not too bad, unless I consider the fact that I have a degree in English. Although, I have read most of the actual classics on that list, just less of the more recently written stuff. There are a few on there that I'm surprised I haven't read. And, honestly, there are plenty that I can't remember for sure whether I have read them - I've read countless books! It's definitely time to update my Goodreads to-read shelf, though!

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 nineteen eighty four- george orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia- CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion- Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe- CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha- Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm- George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code- Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies- William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi- Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World- Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones- Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo