Big Read Update - Mystery Solved!

Courtesy of Laughing at the Pieces:

"UPDATE: Alan M. informs me that 44 and 51 have been left off the list since time immemorial, but he discovered them on the original list and I put them in their respective positions. He also found this link about the murky origins and intentions of the list. Thanks, Alan!"

I don't know who Alan is, but would like to add my thanks!

In case you're too lazy or just not interested enough to read the whole murky history, the answer to the burning question of where this list came from is: the Brits. At least some of them. There was a poll asking people for "the most precious book they have read." I can only assume the Brits interpret "precious" as "dear" rather then "cutesy." The list, published in the Guardian, is entitled, "Books you can't live without."

P.S. I have updated my original entry to add in the elusive #44 and #51.

The Queen of Discounts Recommends...

Ok, this is a little self-serving, but only a little. Those who know me know I am the queen of the discount, particularly if it's for plays or restaurants.

So, I recently discovered this site that has discount tickets to all kinds of things all over the country: plays, comedy shows, concerts, sightseeing cruises, etc.

The hubby and I went to see Bill Maher at NJPAC a few weeks ago. The seats were cheap and great. We had a blast.

The site is totally free. You just need to register to use it. And, if you use this link to register, I get credit (read, an additional discount): https://www.goldstar.com/join?p=F689112N

I've only looked at the event listings for New York/New Jersey, but they also have events in:
- Metro DC
- San Francisco
- Chicago
- Los Angeles
- Boston
- San Diego
- Las Vegas

Intrigued? Then check it out. And tell'em I sent ya.

The Impending TV Conversion - Don't Throw Out That TV!

As you may have heard, after February 17, 2009, all the regular (i.e., non-cable) television stations will broadcast in digital format only. Viewers who receive their television free, over-the-air, using rabbit ears or a roof-top antenna and an analog television set will have three choices:
(1) purchase a digital-to-analog converter box,
(2) purchase a digital television set or
(3) subscribe to a pay service, such as cable or satellite delivery.

Research by Nielsen, the National Association of Broadcasters and the Consumer Electronics Association estimate that there are approximately 13-19.6 million households that only receive over the air broadcasts. That's a lot of TVs potentially heading to the landfill if folks choose option #2.

So, if you're in this situation, please consider purchasing a converter box (and make sure it's EnergySTAR certified). The government will even give you a voucher to offset the cost.

For more info, check out:
http://www.dtv2009.gov - you can request up to 2 $40 coupons here
http://www.epa.gov/ecycling/tv-convert.htm

The Big Read Mystery...

Ok, so we all know that I posted the "Big Read" list 2 posts ago. Since then, a couple of my fellow bloggers have posted the list on their blogs and a commenter on SharonGR's blog noted "where are #44 and #51?"

I have been trying to track down where they are but, more mysteriously, I can't figure out where the list itself came from.

Going through the blogger breadcrumb trail, I went through:
ktbuffy to
House of the D. to
The Perpetual Writer's Blog
and then dead-ended.

I also googled NEA Big Read 100 books and went through another blog trail which ends here:
The Publishing Curve

On NEA's Big Read page, they only have 16 featured books (and most aren't on this list of 100).

Can anyone solve this mystery?

I'm a Farmer!

Ok, not really. But we are growing tomatoes on our fire escape.

We picked the one that was ripe last night and used it in a salad with basil (also from our fire escape) and other ingredients from our CSA (lettuce, spring onion, garlic scapes) and it was YUMMY. But, look, there are more:


Can't see them? Here's a close-up:

The Big Read - Updated!

Courtesy of ktbuffy:

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Asterisk (*) the books you LOVE.
Courtesy of SharonGR, I'm adding:
4) Exclaim (!) those you HATED.

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 Traveller’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
38 Captain 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 Meaney - 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 - Enid Blyton
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

Happy Friday!