TSS: A Bookish Birthday Wishlist

On April 27th I will turn 32.  I know I should be over birthday excitement and making gift lists and such, but I like to use my birthday as an excuse to splurge on books.  Let me define a splurge for you; typically a book splurge is around $30.  Before I had two kids (yay daycare costs) I would sometimes spend $80 - $100 once a year at my birthday on books.  This is where the wish list is exciting.  I hardly ever buy new books or books online and most of my purchases stem from thrift store shelves or charity bookshops.  The chances of me running into that wishlist book on a random jaunt to the thrift store are slim, so I keep a dream book list to whittle away at on my birthday.  Birthday money is being saved for bookish purchases!

Alright, here we go, 32 books for a 32nd birthday:

Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset
Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang (I eventually want all of these)
No Name by Wilkie Collins

 

The Glass of Time by Michael Cox
Falls the Shadow by Sharon Kay Penman
The Reckoning by Sharon Kay Penman
Cousin Rosamund by Rebecca West

 

The Red and the Green by Iris Murdoch
William -- An Englishman by Cicely Hamilton (Persephone!)
The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford

 

 

The Complete Stories of Evelyn Waugh
Man of Property by John Galsworthy (vintage Scribner's)
To Let by John Galsworthy  (vintage Scribner's)
 Shaking a Leg: Collected Journalism and Writings by Angela Carter

 

To the North by Elizabeth Bowen
Elizabeth Bowen by Victoria Glendinning
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
The Autobiography of Henry VIII with Notes by his Fool, Will Somers by Margaret George

 

Virginia Woolf by Hermione Lee
The Diary of Virginia Woolf, volume 1
The Corner That Held Them by Sylvia Townsend Warner
The Element of Lavishness:  Letters of William Maxwell and Sylvia Townsend Warner, 1938-1978

 

Dangerous Ambition: Rebecca West and Dorothy Thompson: New Women in Search of Love and Power by Susan Hertog
The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch
Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym
Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith

 

The Shadow of the Sun by AS Byatt
The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Tales by HP Lovecraft
Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories by MR James
The Haunted Doll's House and Other Ghost Stories by MR James

A To-Do List for Tomorrow....

I was going to write a Readerly Rambles post.... but I'm feeling a bit discombobulated.  So very much to do.  This is such a busy time of year; spring truly seems to burst in.  I know this is because I'm changing out wardrobes, the University is ramping up for finals, and I get a cleaning bug. 

I'm going to try something a wee bit different.  Tonight I am posting a to-do list for tomorrow.  Tomorrow I will check-in and see what I actually accomplish.  My list includes the essential, the mundane, the workish, and happy things.

Thursday:

1. Final weigh-in for the weight loss contest at work
2. Take kiddos to Target (today was a thrifting day) to scrounge up more summer shorts and socks and other necessary clothing items
3. Drink a latte.
4. Get my weight loss reward pedicure (finally -- I've put this off for weeks).
5. Ready our bill payments for payday.
6. Brow wax (ugh)
7. Throw winterish clothes to the basement and try on my spring wear.
8. Go for a walk.
9. Make Gazpacho for dinner.
10. Bake that loaf of bread.
11. Make the bed.
12. Call Wells Fargo.
13. Return library books.
14.  Work the evening shift at the library
15. Do at least a dozen things on my work to do list
16. Journal for 15 minutes
17. Read some Catching Fire
18. Shower
19. Throw a load of clothes in the wash.
20. Tidy the kitchen
21. Hug my family

The Sunday Salon: Classics Club

Okay, I've tried very hard to not sign-up for any new challenges until May and when I have a few completed (which reminds me I need to see where I'm at with my challenges).  BUT this isn't a year long challenge; this is a  five year challenge to read 50+ classics.  Of course we have the her bookishness Jillian to thank for this inspiring idea and pulling it all together.  I've picked 100 books to complete in the next five years (01 March 2012 - 01 March 2017).  You may notice that there are more than 100 books (technically) listed.  All of the novels composing The Forsyte Saga (9) and Kristen Lavransdatter (3) are not individually listed.  This will give me some wiggle room in case there are books I don't care to finish.  I have "shorter works" on my list, but I've chosen to read the entire short story collection to make it count.  I do have one play, Richard III, that is the shortest work on the list. 

I also set a few rules for myself:  1) all the books had to be published prior to 1950 and 2) I can reread, but only if I've read the book once or it has been over 5 years since I read the book).  So, alas, I cannot reread Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights over over over and over again. But the good news is that I will hopefully increase my list of classics I adore.

On to the list!  Turquoise books are rereads and Greens are Viragos!

1. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte (completed 04/17/12)
2. The Leavenworth Case by Anna Katherine Green
3. The Dead Secret by Wilkie Collins
4. This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
5. Uncle Silas by Sheridan Le Fanu (completed 07/29/12)
6. The Warden by Anthony Trollope
7. Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope
8. Doctor Thorne by  Anthony Trollope
9. Framley Parsonage by Anthony Trollope
10. Small House at Allington by  Anthony Trollope
11. Last Chronicle of Barset by  Anthony Trollope
12. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
13. Kristen Lavransdatter (all three books) by Sigrid Undset
14. Hunger by Knut Hamsen
15. No Name by Wilkie Collins
16. Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
17. The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen
18. Gothic Tales by Elizabeth Gaskell
19. Orlando by Virginia Woolf
20. Adam's Breed by Radclyffe Hall
21. The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham
22. The Collected Stories of Elizabeth Bowen (completed 07/01/12)
23. Howard's End by E. M. Forster 
24. The Golden Apples by Eudora Welty
25. The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang
26. Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens 
27. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens 
28. Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens 
29. Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens 
30. Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens 
31. Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens 
32. Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens 
33. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens 
34. Bleak House by Charles Dickens 
35. Hard Times by Charles Dickens 
36. Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens 
37. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens 
38. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens 
39. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens 
40. Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens 
41. The Monk by Matthew Lewis
42. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
43. Richard III by William Shakespeare
44. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
45. Middlemarch by George Eliot
46. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
47. Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
48. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackery
49. The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
50. The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton
51. The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen
52. Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
53. The Forsyte Saga (all 9 books plus the "interludes")
54. The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
55. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
56. The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope
57. Diana of the Crossways by George Meredith
58. No Signposts in the Sea by Vita Sackville-West
59. The Friendly Young Ladies by Mary Renault
60. Hunt the Slipper by Violet Trefusis
61. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
62. The Italian by Ann Radcliffe
63. Lorna Doone by Richard Blackmore
64. Daniel Deronda by George Eliot
65. Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert
66. Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
67. The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
68. He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope
69. East Lynne by Ellen Wood
70. The House in Paris by Elizabeth Bowen
71. The Professor by Charlotte Bronte
72. The Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost Stories
73. The Rising Tide by Molly Keane
74. Without my Cloak by Kate O'Brien
75. Harriet Hume by Rebecca West
76. Persuasion by Jane Austen
77. Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin
78. Trilby by George Du Maurier
79. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
80. The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
81. Passage to India by E M Forster
82. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
83. The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Tales by H P Lovecraft
84. The Call of Cthlulu and Other Weird Tales by H P Lovecraft
85. The Thinking Reed by Rebecca West
86. Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
87. The Three Sisters by May Sinclair
88. Shirley by Charlotte Bronte
89. Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
90. War and Peace by Leo Tolstory
91. War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
92. A House and Its Head by Ivy Compton-Burnett
93. The Collected Shorter Fiction of Virginia Woolf
94. Summer will Show by Sylvia Townsend Warner
95. The Judge by Rebecca West
96. The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy (completed 12/31/12)
97. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
98. All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville West
99. A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh
100. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

I've thought long and hard about my list.  Over three quarters of the novels are books I own.  I'm also incorporating my desire to read all of Dickens's novels in order, complete a Trollope series, and read a stack of Viragos.  My approach is that challenge success is based on making challenges work together.

Okay -- mini-rewards.  For every 5 books off of this list I read I will purchase one classic novel NOT ON THIS LIST in a nice copy.  By nice copy I mean that it isn't a ratty paperback in a thrift store bin -- it could be a vintage something in good condition, a Penguin clothbound, a newish edition with a lovely introduction.  See, I'm already prepping for 2017 onward!  At the end of my 100 books read I will have 20 new-to-me classic novels that are lovely, pristine, and will beautify my shelves, my mind, and my imagination.

I hope you'll join us in the Classics Club!  I think this will be an amazing experience.

Thirteen Things I'd Like to Accomplish Before the Weekend is Up

1. Plan out and whip-up interesting lunches and quick dinners.  I'm moving my grocery shopping day from Sunday to Saturday and spending Saturday afternoon prepping/cooking/freezing a few meals for the week.  It is too rough coming home from work, exercising, and then rushing to cook.
2. Get some of my plants in the garden if it isn't too rainy.  We're planning on planting spinach, lettuce, carrots, onions, and sweet potatoes.
3. Convince Atticus that big boy bathes in the bath tub are fun and not a form of torture.
4. Finish The Poisoner's Bible and take it back to the public library.  
5. Attempt to have Hope squeeze me into her busy social calendar.
6. Write a long letter to a dear friend in Colorado and put a something special in the mail to a Georgia friend.
7. Talk my future sister-in-law into letting me throw her a Batman themed wedding shower.
8. Speaking of Batman, I need to rent the new Justice League movie to watch with Sam (<<<< good wife points!).
9. Stitch. Stitch. Stitch. Stitch. Stitch.
10. Shave my legs; which is a pain because I have to shave AROUND the healing leg tattoo.
11. Make a half-assed attempt to clean my house.
12. Brew up some chai and read some Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
13. Let Jillian Michaels kick my ass even more. 

Top 50 Books

The other day Heather posted her top 50 books.  I decided to post my top fifty list.  I tried to type the books as they came to mind.  So here they are in random order and straight from my brain to blog: 

 The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
Villette by Charlotte Bronte
The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
Save Me the Waltz by Zelda Fitzgerald

Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

Frost in May by Antonia White

A Few Green Leaves by Barbara Pym

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

A Few Figs from Thistles by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Transformations by Anne Sexton

Ariel by Sylvia Plath

Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson

The Waves by Virginia Woolf

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

Howards End by E.M. Forster
The Collected Short Stories of Elizabeth Bowen
Persuasion by Jane Austen
The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy
The Corner that Held Them by Sylvia Townsend Warner
Swans on an Autumn River by Sylvia Townsend Warner

The Priory by Dorothy Whipple

The Birds Fall Down by Rebecca West

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

Germinal by Emile Zola

Count Magnus and Other Short Stories by M.R. James

Nothing Meets the Eye: The Uncollected Stories of Patricia Highsmith

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Good Apprentice by Iris Murdoch
In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden
Saplings by Noel Streatfeild
Drood by Dan Simmons
Affinity by Sarah Waters
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch

Some Ether: Poems by Nick Flynn
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West
The Tempest by William Shakespeare
King Lear by William Shakespeare
Armadale by Wilkie Collins

J is for Junk in my Bag

I've seen these voyeuristic  "Junk in my bag" posts around the interwebs and I think it is interesting.  I'm being honest when I say that you won't find bits of receipts in my bag.  I hate a sloppy bag, so I tend to clean them out almost daily.  Here's what was lurking in my bag today:

•  Keys
• Android phone
• Journal
• Planner
• Cotton yarn
• Size 6 Bamboo Knitting Needles
• Basketweave Dishcloth knitting pattern
• Green pen for making notes on pattern
• Curious Lists book
• Burt's Bees tinted gloss
• Mini-tube of Avon lipstick
• Oily face blotting papers
• Lotion 
• Raisins
• Notebook for lists and jottings
• Bookmark
• Bag of pens
• The Bad Seed by William March
• Wallet

There you are, pointless information about my life, or more specifically, my bag.  You're welcome.

Friday Fill-in and a List

1. I'm looking forward to spending the weekend reading and sleeping.
2. Egypt is a place I always wanted to visit and haven't made it there yet.
3. I've fallen in love with an Inky Darcy..... shhhhh.... don't tell!
4. Six of one, huh?
5. Addiction to brie, pear, and turkey sandwiches is likely.
6. The things Hope says cracks me up!
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to reading, tomorrow my plans include coffee with Erin and Sunday, I want to avoid work, but alas, it isn't possible!

I've got lots to do today. On the docket is:

1. shop for groceries
2. caulk the bathroom
3. clean the house
4. bake bread
5. finish Innocent Traitor
6. finish embroidering a blouse
7. get some writing done

Onward! Expect some sort of an update later.