Curiouser and Curiouser

Lee:
 I've started "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and I'm almost pleasantly relived. Unfortunately for myself, this is my first time reading about Alice. But since I've read "Alice in Zombieland" and seen the 3 different representations of "Alice in Wonderland," I didn't know what to expect.
Lex, and everyone else, I am glad to find myself not yelling at my book with frustrations. The main ideas are similar, and I am grateful. But going in this, I was already thinking of Alice as a silly little girl and she absolutely is not, in my opinion at least.

I'm only on the chapter, Pool of Tears, but I think I already love her. Alice, as a little girl, is already struggling with this idea of wanting to be something she is not, but loving, absolutely, who she is. She wants to be big, she wants to be small, she hates that she cries all the time, but she also has a moment where she is grateful she is only Alice, and not someone else.

I think what I like about this is in the "Once Upon A Time in Wonderland" series, the opening episode mentions Alice, who is most certainly older, that she would not be the first little girl to create a fantasy world to escape to, just the only one who refuses to believe it is fantasy. I don't think I could love Alice any less, even if I tried. This is so her personality, the belief that she should be normal and the fact that she is wonderfully not.

Lex..... What's with the baby turning into a pig? and Alice wishing more babies would turn into pigs? Is this an odd thing to find curious, out of all the other curious things I should find more curious?

(Haven't quite reached the baby turning into a pig. I've been so neglectful this week! I'm catching up!)

Lex:
I gotta agree. Alice is a lot easier to read! I don't find myself reading and rereading sections of it. I'm still on an ebook, someone at the library lost it and my used bookstores have failed me, but I suppose that's alright. I got the free kindle one on Amazon and this format is much friendlier. 

I got to Pool of Tears, too and still wasn't sure I liked Alice actually. She kind of scared me and I pitied her. The talking to herself part, the crying, her inability to understand why she was doing what she was was annoying. I hope she gets better. So far I can't place my finger on her. I don't think I like that her "thoughts" are said out loud. It feels filtered to me and I wonder if that's why I can't place her. 

"...just the only one who refuses to believe it is fantasy." I like that, Lee! As we keep reading I'd imagine we'd see more and more connection and... proof for this. :) I may have to start "Once Upon A Time in Wonderland." 

I kind of enjoyed Alice swimming in her own tears. 

...

As I read on, I, too, am liking Alice more and more. She's funny and seems to think in puns. I've just met the Mouse and wonder why he's so feisty when he's a mouse. Stereo-typically, I'd label him quiet, shy, and skittish. 

Lee:
I'm kind of used to kids talking to themselves, I know a five year old that goes into full discussions with herself while going to the bathroom. #isthatweird? (Can I hashtag in a blog?) .
I do agree on the puns, but I think she's almost trying to think in nursery rhyme. I'd hoped though, by reading the book, I would understand the "Off with their heads!"              I don't....

Though oddly, out of all the things Alice questions this is the one thing she kind of just accepts. I mean she questions in depth about how tea time would have to end, because how could tea time last forever at 2 o'clock, and how the Cheshire Cat could smile, why is the rabbit always late? She goes into full thought about these odd details, but when it comes to the Queen and King cutting heads, her only thought is how she does not want to lose her own. I mean, yeah... I'm totally with you but could we be a little bit more curious about why the Queen's beheading everybody, besides the fact that she has a problem with a temper. However, I do have a slight guilty happiness about the fact that the Queen is clearly in charge, over the King.
It's nice to see every now and then. 

Lex:
I guess I'm just not used to being around kids. Can't understand them and seems like I'm against understanding them! Ha. May explain my confusion and annoyance with Alice at first, even if she has grown on me. 

 I'd have to agree that we could really be more curious about the Queen and even in our everyday lives. And, like I mentioned earlier she has grown on me. I'm starting to understand a bit where and why Alice's thoughts go where they do. Part of me wonders though if some of that curiosity is partly her refusal (much like mine with her) to experience something new. Perhaps I'm back at square one and still unable to put my finger on her. 

Like you Lee, I enjoyed that the Queen is in charge. I loved that part where the King whines and asks her to remove Cheshire Cat. :) very child-like.

Lee: 
I loved that part as well!!!  I did have to wonder though if the author did this on purpose.... Was Lewis Carroll trying to create a space for Alice to one day fill, something a little girl would obviously want to become and maybe even do better, and in the continuing book she does become Queen. I'll probably bring this up 3-4 books down the line when I've had time to ponder. But for now, I'm ready to leave the land of wonder and probably go to New Orleans instead. 
What do you say Lex, you with me?

Lex:
Let's get moving!

Take 1 - "Carrie" By Stephen King.....

Lex:
Hello there!

I'm so glad you're reading! I gotta say when Lee suggested we start this I wasn't aware of how long that list was.... Now that I know and understand how great this project of ours can be, or am beginning to understand, I'm happy you're joining us!

We started the Gilmore Girls Reading list with Carrie by Stephen King. For those unfamiliar with the novel it was publish in '74 and was later adapted into a film ('76). They've just released another film adaptation which could probably account for the difficulty we had in finding the novel. I haven't seen the new version, so you'll have to let me know how it is. :)

Lee and I searched up and down and eventually ended up with ebooks. Just as a side note, we hate ebooks. This lead to some discouragement and lead to a longer start than anticipated, but we got it done!!


Well.....

I actually liked Carrie. I really did. It was a very intriguing story and I think it definitely got me to feel all the emotions I was supposed to. I'm not sure how developed Carrie as a character was, but then I don't feel that the novel was really about her so I'm not sure that her development is entirely necessary. I know, I know, "but the novel is named for her." Yeah, yeah. I'm not convinced.

The novel felt like a big, red, screaming warning. I couldn't help but think of the school shootings and the theater, work-place, home shootings going on/that happened. No, perhaps those children/adults weren't brainwashed or conditioned in the way that Carrie was, but what if they were suffering in a similar manner? See, if you haven't read Carrie you have to understand that it's written in fragments of evidence and stories and recollections of Carrie's Prom Night. Those fragments created this wonderful tension. Thoughts, stories, and articles aren't finished. They leave you hanging and wondering how these pieces fit together. It's frustrating(!!), but that tension is perfect as it allows you to go through the same emotions Carrie's going through. She's struggling and has all this pent up anger.

Back to the Prom Night though: The novel started talking about it before you're even aware it's talking about that night. It plants an egg without you noticing and little by little you're realizing how BIG that egg really was and is becoming.

I equated that "egg" to Carrie's telekinetic abilities. She was slowly rediscovering them as the novel went on. Oh, how difficult it was to read her self-discovery be part of her self-destruction. It was like she couldn't understand what she was learning or accept it. She was so unhappy with staying in line with her mother and still so unhappy with stepping out on her own.

I think the warning covers just about everything. Extremes. Family-being too involved with that leaves you alone and sometimes brainwashed (ha), love-it's complicated and doesn't necessarily happen because you're family. Sometimes we allow other things to triumph over family. Like, Religion! Let me insert another note here. I don't think King was warning against ALL religion or even the Christian Religion. I think he made that clear with his effort to completely separate and exclude Carrie and her mother's form of worship and religion from anything else. I mean, they stepped away from a Baptist church and we all know the stereotypes that go with that. It's hard to ignore the effort made to show just how EXTREME Carrie's mother was.

Power of the mind. We can convince ourselves of anything. We can make that scary movie even worse. We can fool ourselves into thinking we're prepared for that test or to face our fears. POWER. I think that's what it came down to. Carrie's classmates took her power by belittling and humiliating her. She was an easy target- even the "not so cool" kids could be cool-er than Carrie. She was the one that gave them power. Carrie gave her mother and her mother's religion power. By blocking her childhood memories and submitting to her mother's will, Carrie fed her mother power as well. Carrie's abilities fed her mother's religious power. She was evil. They took her power without realizing they were giving or rather awakening some power inside of Carrie, too.

When we think about interactions with others and with the world, it really is just all about power. power. power. did you come out funnier, smarter, faster than that other person?  Were you kinder? What connections do you have that could benefit them? How can you at least help that person find the power within themselves? Perhaps I'm wrong, perhaps I'm waaaay off, but that's what I felt.

With the articles and the studies that were written and published... they were using the story and Carrie, again, for their own power in their "world." It felt like... a government conspiracy book with the studying and especially with that little girl at the end. She's the next generation. They could do to her what was done to Carrie or heck, even study her, but it won't change what's done to people "like them." They'll still be used and taken advantage of. They'll continue to provide and never receive. They'll do it and do it until they break and in turn break everything in their path. And, I don't really mean people with powers like Carrie or that girl in the end. I mostly mean, those weaker or those perceived as weaker. We use people. It's terrible.

That's at least the doom and gloom part of what I received from this novel. :) Haha, let's hope Lee can cheer you up or at least leave you WANTING to read the novel.

Lee:
 I love blogging, so I'm more than excited to have Lex join me in being a blogger nerd. Mostly I love the way Lex thinks about things, it's always so insightful and completely different. So I'm excited you guys get to see that.
Quick note I have to agree on, We REALLY HATE EBOOKS!
That being said, I can move on.

"Carrie" was most definitely not the easiest read for me, excerpts from other people, the future, the present, the past, all within the same page, kept my mind bouncing along like a ping pong ball. But as the story developed, it seemed to get easier. I can't be sure if this was the writing, or my mind finally adjusting to the different view points.However, I definitely agree with Lex on a few points, mostly that I'm not sure that the novel was really about Carrie. Even when you are reading as Carrie, you still get the feeling that you're looking in at someone narrating the whole scene.
I think "Carrie" was meant to show extreme takes on certain ideals, such as religion, sexism, and bullying. The sad part was a lot of these are a very regular part of our lives now. Especially in bullying, we see it in the news, the internet, and furthermore we see the conclusions to bullying like, gun violence and suicide. Carrie is like this ticking bomb.... everyone, I do mean everyone, uses her as a scapegoat. She is this one target for everyone to make fun of, or abused in the case of her mother... each time it gets so much easier for her to reason that these people should die. When she is shown actual kindness, she believes it to be folly.
Carrie was often made fun of because of her crazy religious mother, that she also believed in God/Jesus, her weight, and by the fact that she wasn't incredibly beautiful. But something kept bothering me about all of this, obviously it was the references to why she was bullied but something else too; I think it was this idea that if you haven't had sex, you're a prude. If you've had sex, or been out with a boy, you are now a whore. These whole double standards of what is to be a woman and how incredibly difficult it can.Through the entire book I felt like there were these conflicting ideas, but maybe that was the point.

At the end of the novel, the courts, news media, science experts, all were trying to question if Carrie was always dangerous? If her ability was somehow this deadly weapon in female form, if so should it be rid of if shown in other women? Lex made a point, I really want to expand and twist a little bit. The very end changes our whole perspective, we're introduced to a little girl who seems to have these abilities, that the little girl's grandmother also had these strange abilities, and that the little girl herself was somehow even similar to Carrie as a little girl, but much happier. That's all we learn of her, that she's different but growing, beautiful, and very happy.
It seemed to make the point,  everything comes down to how you are treated in life. Carrie is routinely treated horrible and even when moments of kindness are shown to her, the damage has already been done, she believes the worst in all of them. So much so, you can't even be upset that she blows up the town. For a whole moment.... you understand. 

Lex&Lee Legends

Hello to all of our new found friends!

If you're reading this, we already like you and it also gets you a gold star in our book. 

But who are we? 

Well we are, Lex and Lee, of course.... and we both love, love, love, love, LOVE, books. 

So together we decided we wanted to take the Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge. Which is a short way of saying, we are going to read a TON of books off a list that neither of us are completely sure ever ends. However, since this is not nerdy enough for us, we have also decided to type up all of our discussion about each book. This means our thoughts, conclusions, aggravations, frustrations, jubilation's,  and pretty much anything our pretty little minds have thought about each book, we will write out for each of you to read.

Our hopes are for you all to definitely read the blog and join in. Leave us comments about your own opinions, on the book, on us, or because commenting can sometimes just be fun. 

We hope you like our blog and don't forget to check it out from time to time. 
The Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge:

1984 by George Orwell

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

Archidamian War by Donald Kagan

The Art of Fiction by Henry James

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

Atonement by Ian McEwan

Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

Babe by Dick King-Smith

Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath – read – June 2010

Beloved by Toni Morrison

Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney

The Bhagava Gita

The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy

Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel

A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Brick Lane by Monica Ali

Bridgadoon by Alan Jay Lerner

Candide by Voltaire – read – June 2010

The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer

Carrie by Stephen King

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger – read

Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White

The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman

Christine by Stephen King

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens – read – December 2009

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse

The Collected Short Stories by Eudora Welty

The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty by Eudora Welty

A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare

Complete Novels by Dawn Powell

The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton

Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas père

Cousin Bette by Honor’e de Balzac

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber – started and not finished

The Crucible by Arthur Miller

Cujo by Stephen King

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon – read – 2009

Daisy Miller by Henry James – read – 2013

Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende

David and Lisa by Dr Theodore Issac Rubin M.D

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

The Da Vinci -Code by Dan Brown – read

Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol

Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

Deenie by Judy Blume

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson

The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx

The Divine Comedy by Dante

The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells

Don Quijote by Cervantes

Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson - read – 2009

Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe

Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe

Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn

Eloise by Kay Thompson

Emily the Strange by Roger Reger

Emma by Jane Austen

Empire Falls by Richard Russo

Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

Ethics by Spinoza

Europe through the Back Door, 2003 by Rick Steves

Eva Luna by Isabel Allende

Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

Extravagance by Gary Krist

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore

The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan

Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein

The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom –

Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce

Fletch by Gregory McDonald

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger

Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers

Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut

Gender Trouble by Judith Butler

George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg

Gidget by Fredrick Kohner

Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen

The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels

The Godfather: Book 1 by Mario Puzo

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy – started and not finished

Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell – on my book pile

The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford

The Gospel According to Judy Bloom

The Graduate by Charles Webb

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald – read

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

The Group by Mary McCarthy

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Harry Potter Series by J. K. Rowling –

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (TBR)

Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry (TBR)

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon

Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris

The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton

House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III (Lpr)

The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer

How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss

How the Light Gets in by M. J. Hyland

Howl by Allen Gingsburg

The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo

The Iliad by Homer

I’m with the Band by Pamela des Barres

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee

Iron Weed by William J. Kennedy

It Takes a Village by Hillary Clinton

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë – read

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare

The Jumping Frog by Mark Twain

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito

The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Lady Chatterleys’ Lover by D. H. Lawrence

The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield

Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens

The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway

The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott – on my book pile

Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold – read

The Love Story by Erich Segal

Macbeth by William Shakespeare – read

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

The Manticore by Robertson Davies

Marathon Man by William Goldman

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir

Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer

Mencken’s Chrestomathy by H. R. Mencken

The Merry Wives of Windsro by William Shakespeare

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

The Miracle Worker by William Gibson

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion by Jim Irvin

Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor

A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman

Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret

A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall

My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and It’s Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh

My Life as Author and Editor by H. R. Mencken

My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim Guest

My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult – read

The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin

Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen

New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson

The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay

Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich

Night by Elie Wiesel

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen – read

The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism by William E. Cain, Laurie A. Finke, Barbara E. Johnson, John P. McGowan

Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell

Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Old School by Tobias Wolff

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan

Oracle Night by Paul Auster

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

Othello by Shakespeare – read

Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan

Out of Africa by Isac Dineson

The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton

A Passage to India by E.M. Forster

The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Peyton Place by Grace Metalious

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington

Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi

Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain

The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby – read

The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker

The Portable Nietzche by Fredrich Nietzche

The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill by Ron Suskind

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen – read

Property by Valerie Martin

Pushkin: A Biography by T. J. Binyon

Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw

Quattrocento by James Mckean

A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall

Rapunzel by Grimm Brothers – read

The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier – read

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman

R Is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton

Rita Hayworth by Stephen King

Robert’s Rules of Order by Henry Robert

Roman Fever by Edith Wharton

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

A Room with a View by E. M. Forster

Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin

Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi

Sanctuary by William Faulkner

Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford

The Scarecrow of Oz by Frank L. Baum

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne – read

Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand

The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd – started and not finished

Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman

Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen – read

A Separate Peace by John Knowles

Several Biographies of Winston Churchill

Sexus by Henry Miller

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Shane by Jack Shaefer

The Shining by Stephen King

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

S Is for Silence by Sue Grafton

Slaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Small Island by Andrea Levy – on my book pile

Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway

Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers

Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore

The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht

Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos

The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker

Songbook by Nick Hornby

The Sonnets by William Shakespeare

Sonnets from the Portuegese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Sophie’s Choice by William Styron

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

The Story of My Life by Helen Keller

A Streetcar Named Desiree by Tennessee Williams

Stuart Little by E. B. White

Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust

Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals by Anne Collett

Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Term of Endearment by Larry McMurtry

Time and Again by Jack Finney

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger – read

To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee – read

The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

The Trial by Franz Kafka

The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson

Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom – read

Ulysses by James Joyce

The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 by Sylvia Plath

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe – started and not finished

Unless by Carol Shields

Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann

The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray – read

Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground and Nico (Thirty Three and a Third series) by Joe Harvard

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

Walt Disney’s Bambi by Felix Salten

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

We Owe You Nothing – Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews edited by Daniel Sinker

What Colour is Your Parachute? 2005 by Richard Nelson Bolles

What Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell

When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka

Who Moved My Cheese? Spencer Johnson

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee – read

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire

The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole