What I've Read, Part 1

A friend of mine recently posted on her blog the top 100 list from BBC's Big Read and indicated which of the top 100 she had read. These are allegedly the top 100 most-read books. I always find it to be a good exercise as an English major (still maybe contemplating a Ph.D. at some point in the very distant future) to go through these types of list and see which books I have read and see where the gaps in my education lie. Since I'm obsessed with books and I have nothing else to blog about today, I'm going to go through the top 200 from BBC's Big Read and see what I've actually read. To help out, I'll put the ones I've read in blue. I'll add commentary if I feel the urge too. Feel free to skip this post entirely or fall asleep in the middle of it if you want.

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen - Of course I have read it! Only about a zillion times!
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman - These books are absolute crap. They're blatantly anti-religion, and they are not even written well.
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling - Multiple times. Why Goblet of Fire specifically, though, I wonder?
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell - May have read this. Not sure.
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis - I think the entire series is also on this list somewhere later. Weird. But yes, I have read this multiple times. I am so happy they are finally making good movie versions too.
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë - One of my favorite books of all time. Love the movie with Ciaran Hinds.
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller - I've started reading this several times but never even made it through the first chapter. It's not bad or anything - I just keep reading other stuff instead.
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë - Another of my all-time favorites. LOVE anything by the Bronte sisters.
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier - It's a rewrite of Jane Eyre, so yes, I love it.
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens - I've read most of Dickens, but Great Expectations might be the best. Now I want to re-read it actually. Joe Gargery and his mispronunciations crack me up. Reminds me of Cy.
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott - I actually really hate this book. It's a snoozefest if you ask me.
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell - An insult to my intelligence, but yes, I've read it.
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling - Ah, here are the rest of the Harry Potters.
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling - My 2nd favorite HP novel. My favorite is Half-Blood Prince.
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy - I HATE Thomas Hardy.
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot - Wanted to kill myself while reading it, and I love the Victorians. Snooze.
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson - Never heard of this.
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez - Love Garcia Marquez, even though he's kind of weird if you don't know much about magical realism.
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett - It's on my Kindle waiting for me to read it - does that count?
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen - Another great movie version with Ciaran Hinds.
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams - I read this last year and told Cy that he should read it because it's about "rabberts." I was trying to say "adventuring rabbits" and it came out "rabberts," so I now think "rabberts" whenever I see Watership Down. I also think of Sawyer on LOST. :)
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald - So many people hate this after having to read it in high school, but I've read all of Fitzgerald and I'm a fan.
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas - One of the greatest books and greatest movies ever. One time I had this awesome idea that I would read the unabridged version. Yeah, it's abridged for a reason. . .
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy - It was a long, hard, boring read but I pretty much made it through. 'Nuff said.
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth - Huh?
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer - Really?
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden - Also on my Kindle, waiting to be read. . .
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding - What is all the hype about? I finally read this a couple of months ago, and hated it. It was poorly written, had basically no plot, and was gross. I don't get it.
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins - LOVE Wilkie Collins. A very underrated Victorian writer.
78. Ulysses, James Joyce - HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE this book. Even though I've written two term papers on it. UGH.
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar - Fantastic kid's book. Actually has a surprising redemption undertone.
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez - My favorite by Garcia Marquez. Funny and sad.
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot - Hilarious.
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie - Read it a couple of times. Rushdie's magical realism almost reads like Garcia Marquez in this book. Might be on my top 10.
101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome - Jerome K. Jerome? Hah! I'll have to tell Cy his name could be worse - it could be Jerome K. Jerome!
102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
103. The Beach, Alex Garland
104. Dracula, Bram Stoker - The uber vampire novel. Fantastic. The vampires are actually scary. And no one sparkles.
105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz
106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens
107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz
108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy
112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾, Sue Townsend
113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Misérables, Victor Hugo - SO GOOD. I did not read it in the original French though - I was not nearly that ambitious. It was already a pretty big undertaking in English. Movie version with Liam Neeson and Geoffrey Rush is fabulous.
115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
119. Shogun, James Clavell
120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson
122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
124. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver - Love it except for the last 1oo pages or so. They needed cut.
126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
127. Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison - Haha, I've actually read several of the Georgia Nicolson books. They're pretty humorous, if you like British humor.
128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
129. Possession, A. S. Byatt - Neo-Victorian-ish.
130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood - Sitting on my Kindle, waiting to be read. . .
132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl
133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck
134. George's Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker - I took African American Lit. 'Nuff said.
137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson
141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson
143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby - Nick Hornby is so good at making his books hilarious and sad at the same time.
144. It, Stephen King
145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
146. The Green Mile, Stephen King
147. Papillon, Henri Charriere - Haven't read it, but the title is French for "butterfly"!
148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett
149. Master And Commander, Patrick O'Brian
150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz
151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett
153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement, Ian McEwan - Some of the best-written prose I've ever read.
155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier
157. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey - Kesey's such a drughead I thought I would hate this, but it was actually really good. Surprisingly not acid-trippy.
158. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad - HATE IT!!!! Hate it almost as much as Ulysses!!! Read it about a zillion times for school.
159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling - SNOOZE. Although this is a prime example of British imperialist writing in the Victorian era.
160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon
161. Moby Dick, Herman Melville - SNOOZE.
162. River God, Wilbur Smith - Actually a really good work of historical fiction about ancient Egypt.
163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx - Read an excerpt in one of my classes. Will not be reading the whole thing.
165. The World According To Garp, John Irving
166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore
167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson
168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye
169. The Witches, Roald Dahl
170. Charlotte's Web, E. B. White
171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley - Was on the comprehensive exams. (Had read it before too.) Could write a whole book of criticism on it, but won't.
172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway - I used this to put myself to sleep one time when I was suffering from insomnia. Not kidding.
174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco - This book is intricate and brilliant. I am not smart enough to keeping reading Umberto Eco.
175. Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder
176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr Fox, Roald Dahl
178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens - Wasn't this already on here?
183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner, George Eliot - Another book I love that everyone always hates after being forced to read it in high school. Hmm. Wonder what that says about me?
185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Grossmith
187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine - Read a bunch of these.
189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. LawrenceLife of Lawrence
191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera - Wanted to learn Czech so I could read it in the original. Obviously didn't happen. Another writer I am not smart enough to keep reading.
192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons
193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells
195. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans
196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White
199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle - Will be reading it to Gemma before too long.
200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews

Okay, so it looks like I've read a fairly decent percentage of these. I need to read the ones that are waiting on my Kindle for sure instead of just letting them sit there!

The Feeding Nightmare Continues

After much coercion and a lot of horrible face-making, gagging, and vomiting, we finally got Gemma to start eating bottles of half soy formula and half breastmilk. It was still very clear that she strongly disliked the taste of the soy formula, but we were hopeful that she would eventually get used to it, and she was at least eating it. Things seemed to be going well. . .until we realized she hadn't had a single bowel movement since we started giving her the soy formula. Even though she was still getting half breastmilk, the soy was still really affecting her digestion. We started her on the soy formula Tuesday evening. On Friday afternoon, I called the pediatrician. I spoke with a nurse who told me to give Gemma one half to one teaspoon of dark Karo syrup 3 times a day if she hadn't had a dirty diaper in the next 24 hours. She didn't. We tried the Karo. Nothing happened. We switched back to giving her straight breastmilk. Nothing happened. It is now Monday morning and she has not had a bowel movement since last Tuesday morning. We are calling the pediatrician again to see what the next step is. Gemma is now at the point where she won't even eat because her tummy is so backed up.

And again I am feeling the extreme mom-guilt. I am back to pumping regularly every few hours because I feel so terrible that my decision to switch Gemma to formula is causing her so many issues. I am planning to keep her solely on breastmilk again even though it is a painful experience for me. Nothing else seems to work for my little girl and I'd rather I be the one suffering. I'm hoping that since I've made it through to this point, I can make it through to six months where it will ease up a bit when she starts on solid foods and starts requiring less milk. I also have probably 200+ ounces stocked away in the freezer and I am blessed with a plentiful supply so hopefully I can keep putting some away every day and then I can wean earlier but continue to give her breastmilk. That one-year mark is a long way off - I guess I will just set small goals and take it one day at a time and just keep reminding myself that it is for sweet little Gemma.

I Have a Book for Sale on Amazon!

At long last, my book Norfanger Plantation is available for sale on Amazon! Norfanger Plantation is the book I wrote for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) last November. I wasn't planning to do NaNoWriMo last year (due to being in my last semester of grad school and also being pregnant), but decided at the last minute to do so. Since I didn't really have time to plan, I just decided to write a spoof of some of the popular young adult vampire novels. For the first time, I actually finished an entire novel during NaNoWriMo (I've always reached the word limit in the past without actually finishing the story.) I used CreateSpace to get a free proof copy, but then thought, why not just use CreateSpace to go ahead and publish the book and try to sell it on Amazon?

So at long last, after some editing and a bunch of prep work, it is finally up for sale on Amazon. It is available here:
http://www.amazon.com/Norfanger-Plantation-Carissa-B-Shealy/dp/1450569412/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1279189963&sr=1-1

I'm not expecting to sell too many copies (hopefully just enough to cover the small cost of publication), but so far it's just been a really neat experience. In case anyone is interested, here is the info from the back of the book:

Like the heroine of Jane Austen's novel Northanger Abbey, teenager Kate Blackmoor has read too many creepy novels. Vampire novels, to be exact. And when she moves in with her aunt for the summer, she starts seeing vampires everywhere she looks. Or at least she thinks she does. But when she meets the boy of her dreams, will her obsession with vampires ultimately jeopardize their relationship?

Don't say "Formula" in front of Gemma. . .

she might just throw up on you!

Last night, we tried feeding Gemma a bottle of the new soy formula. It did not go so well. Actually, it did not go at all. She got one little taste of it and scrunched up her face and spit it out. We tried again and she scrunched up her face some more. We finally gave up when she made herself gag so much that she threw up on Cy. Apparently she is REALLY not a fan. Not sure what we are going to do. The pediatrician suggested mixing a bottle with half breastmilk and half formula if she didn't respond well to the formula. I am going to try it, however, I am not very hopeful. With that strong of a reaction, I'm guessing she's going to be really aware that I'm trying to trick her and I don't think she'll buy it!

The whole thing was pretty weird. (And pretty hilarious because of the look on her face, until she started gagging.) The other day when I gave her the regular formula, she scrunched up her face at first but eventually ate 2 oz. She just then broke out in hives. Apparently the soy formula tastes pretty nasty. I'm not surprised - I smelled it and it certainly didn't smell like anything I'd want to eat! So we will see how it goes, but right now I'm kind of feeling like I might be doomed to struggle through with the breastmilk until she is about a year old.

Two-Month Checkup

Gemma had her two-month checkup this morning. Overall, she is doing well. The prevacid is pretty much working miracles with her acid reflux - like I mentioned in an earlier post, she's back to her old self again - we hadn't realized just how much the reflux was affecting every aspect of her life. She weighed right at 10 lbs. and was 22 inches long. I don't remember her head size, but her head and her weight were both in the 25th percentile and her length was around the 40th (which we found surprising, as she is half Shealy - we were expecting lower than that).

Feeding Gemma is still a work in progress unfortunately. I am trying to wean off breastfeeding, so am spacing out my pumping sessions further and further apart. I fed Gemma her first bottle of formula yesterday, and though she did not seem to like it at first, eventually she ate 2 oz. Unfortunately, it appears she has an allergy to the cow's milk based formula. A couple of hours after she ate the formula, she broke out in hives on her arms and right around her mouth. All around her mouth and chin was swollen and red and splotchy. She was also extra fussy yesterday afternoon. I couldn't think of anything else that might have caused her to break out, so I didn't feed her any more formula, and the hives went away by bedtime last night. (As an aside, speaking of bedtime last night, she pretty much slept through the night. We put her down around 8:30 or so and at 4:15 Cy heard her making some noises so he got up and fed her, but she probably would have kept on sleeping because she wasn't awake and didn't act terribly hungry. I got to sleep until 5:30, and couldn't believe how amazing a full night's rest felt.) Anyway. . .we talked to the pediatrician about the allergic reaction and he definitely agreed that it sounded like an allergy to the formula. He gave us a can of soy-based formula to try. Hopefully that will work, and hopefully we will get it sorted out before my milk totally dries up.

It was kind of funny at our appointment - Dr. Traynham always goes on and on about how beautiful Gemma is, so today I said, "You probably say that about all the girl babies." He adamantly said no, and said, "I can't tell someone their baby is ugly though, so a lot of times I'll say something like, 'What a cute outfit!'" I thought that was pretty hilarious. He also said he met with an expectant couple the other day who told him they are planning to name their baby Gemma. He said he told them that they had some pretty big shoes to fill, because he knew a Gemma already and she is one of the cutest babies he's ever met!

So her checkup went really well. Unfortunately, she had to get three shots though. They gave her an oral vaccine first, and she didn't like it and started crying. Then they gave her the first of the shots and my poor sweet little baby cried harder than I have ever heard her cry. By the time she had gotten all three shots, I was crying too. I know it is good for her and she needed the shots, but it was just so awful to see her in pain. I felt like a horrible mother for inflicting pain on my child, even if it was ultimately for her benefit. But she calmed down fairly quickly, and by the time we got home, she was smiling and talking and kicking her legs around, so that made me feel better. Hopefully she will not have any adverse reactions to the shots and will be feeling back to herself again quickly.

Gemma Talking in Her Swing

Strolling Around Downtown

This past Saturday, Cy needed to go downtown for a haircut and I wanted to get out of the house with Gemma, so we decided to tag along. We parked on Church Street and Cy walked up toward the barber shop, and Gemma and I went strolling along Church, Queen, and Chalmers streets taking some pictures. After Cy got done getting his hair cut, he met up with us and we wandered down to Waterfront Park. It was super hot, but we (or at least I) had a really good time getting out of the house and strolling around downtown.


I posted some pictures from our stroll on my photo blog here:
http://photosbycarissa.blogspot.com/2010/07/one-with-church-queen-and-chalmers.html