Book Nerd? (Updated)

I did this inventory more than a decade ago, and I decided it was time to see how I stack up now! How many have you read?

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen-X
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien-
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte-X
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling-X
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee-X
6 The Bible-X
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte-X
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell-X
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman-
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens-X

Total: 9

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott-X
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy-
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller-X
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien-
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faul-
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger-
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger-
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot-X

Total: 3

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell-
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald-X
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-X
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck-X
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carrol-X
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame-

Total: 4

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy-
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens-
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis-
34 Emma-Jane Austen-X
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen-X
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis-
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hossein-
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres-
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden-
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne-X

Total: 3

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell-X
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-X
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy-
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood-X
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding-
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan-

Total: 3

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel-
52 Dune - Frank Herbert-
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons-
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen-X
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-X
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon-
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez-

Total: 2

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck-X
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-X
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding-
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie-
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville-

Total: 2

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens-
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker-
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett-X
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson-
75 Ulysses - James Joyce-
76 The Inferno – Dante-
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome-
78 Germinal - Emile Zola-
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray-

Total: 1

80 Possession - AS Byatt-
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens-
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell-
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker-X
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-X
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom-
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle-
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton-

Total: 2

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad-
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery-X
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-X
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl-X
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo-X

Total: 4

Grand Total: 33

I discovered a couple I missed last time that I'd definitely read in high school. Must've blocked it out... LOL

Happy New Year!

A couple months ago, I was in a habit of walking every day at sunrise. Even when it was hard to get out of bed, I never regretted it once I was out, and I always regretted it if I didn't. Then the rainy season really took hold, and a cloud-covered sunrise is just not as inspiring, so I fell into laziness. Even as I visited a sunny state for the holidays, I found myself giving in to sleep, using insufficient rest as an excuse. Sure enough, every day I regretted it, but nothing could motivate me out of that bed!

I decided last night I would start off the year right. This morning I finally got to the park with a hill I've been wanting to walk to see the sunrise. It was just a short walk, but one should never underestimate the power of seeing the sun peek over the horizon, or the crest of the hill in this case. Let me share.

Ducks on a misty pond

Fog behind trees before sunrise

Mountain in the distance just before sunrise

Sun peeking over the top of a mountain at sunrise

Cholla plant illuminated by sun

Fallen tree in misty pond

Hummingbird overlooking misty pond

Cottontail munching a green plant

Jackrabbits enjoying breakfast at sunrise

I try not to set resolutions because I struggle with perfection. (Although I often resolve to be more intentional in certain ways.) Instead, I set goals. This year, I'm rebooting many goals I've already had, like walking at sunrise and sunset, writing daily, and meditating morning and night.

Last year I was determined to appreciate the natural rhythms and celebrate feasts and festivals from around the world. I can't recall (must've been effective), but I think my word for 2019 was rhythm, or maybe ritual. Even though I made great strides, I fell quite short of my vision. As I was watching the last sunset of 2019, the word savor popped into my head, and I knew that had to be my word for 2020.

My word for 2020 is savor

I believe if my focus on savoring, perfection and FOMO (fear of missing out) won't take hold. I can relax into the rhythm of the year. I have a dear friend who experienced a lot of the same sense of missing out on what mattered because there was too much going on. We have committed to helping each other stay the course this year as we homeschool our children together.

I've also become accountability partners with two other dear friends who write. The three of us are going to encourage each other to finish our outstanding projects and keep going with new ideas. As a boost to my yet-to-be daily writing habit, I've decided to start writing letters again. I picked up half a dozen new pen pals and stocked up on holiday clearance note cards last week. I also have an excuse to pick up some real stationary again, a habit I forced myself to break years ago because I wasn't using it. Yay for new office supplies!

My focus this year is going to be getting the most out of every experience, not having the most experiences. That will be hard for me, but I know it is the right thing to do right now.

I don't know if you set resolutions or create goals with the coming of the new year. I don't know if you have traditions for welcoming the new year or saying goodbye to the last one. I don't know if you had a good last year or a bad one. There's only one thing I do know: I hope you carry hope into this new year.

Happy New Year!