The 1000 Book Challenge

 A friend I used to teach with referred me to Good Read's 1000 book challenge--just to see how many of them I had read.  Turns out I had only read 248 on that list.  There were a couple I think I might have read, but I couldn't remember anything about them, so I did not count them.   I have no idea why the list came up with double numbers.  That's weird.
 
Here's the list:

1. 1.      Adams, Douglas:  The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
2. 2.      Adams, Richard:  Watership Down
3. 3.      Aesop:  Aesop’s Fables
4. 4.      Alcott, Louisa M.:  Little Women
5. 5.      Alexie, Sherman:  The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
6. 6.      Anderson, Hans Christian:  The Complete Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales
7. 7.      Anderson, Laurie Halse:  Speak
8. 8.      Andrews, Jesse:  Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl
9. 9.      Andrews, V.C.:  Flowers in the Attic
10. 10.   Anonymous:  Go Ask Alice
11. 11.   Asimov, Isaac:  Foundation
12. 12.   Asimov, Isaac:  I, Robot
13. 13.   Atwood, Margaret:  The Handmaid’s Tale
14. 14.   Auel, Jean:  The Clan of the Cave Bear
15. 15.   Austin, Jane:  Pride and Prejudice
16. 16.   Austin, Jane: Sense and Sensibility
17. 17.   Babbitt, Natalie: Tuck Everlasting
18. 18.   Bach, Richard:  Jonathan Livingston Seagull
19. 19.   Backman, Fredrik:  A Man Called Ove
20. 20.   Backman, Fredrik:  My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry
21. 21.   Bradbury, Ray:  Fahrenheit 451
22. 22.   Barrie, J.M.:  Peter Pan
23. 23.   Boom, Corrie Ten:  The Hiding Place
24. 24.   Bradbury, Ray:  The Martian Chronicles
25. 25.   Bradley, Marion Zimmer:  The Mists of Avalon
26. 26.   Brashares, Ann:  Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
27. 27.   Bronte, Charlotte:  Jane Eyre
28. 28.   Bronte, Emily:  Wuthering Heights
29. 29.   Brooks, Max: World War Z
30. 30.   Brunt, Carol Rifka:  Tell the Wolves I’m Home
31. 31.   Buck, Pearl S.: The Good Earth
32. 32.   Bugliosi, Vincent:  Helter Skelter
33. 33.   Burgess, Anthony:  A Clockwork Orange
34. 34.   Burnett, Frances Hodgson:  A Little Princess
35. 35.   Burnett, Frances Hodgson:  The Secret Garden
36. 36.   Capote, Truman:  In Cold Blood
37. 37.   Card, Orson Scott:  Ender’s Game
38. 38.   Carroll, Lewis:  Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
39. 39.   Cather, Willa:  My Antonia
40. 40.   Chaucer, Geoffrey:  The Canterbury Tales
41. 41.   Chobosky, Stephen:  The Perks of Being a Wallflower
42. 42.   Clark, Arthur C.:  2001:  A Space Odyssey
43. 43.   Colfer, Eoin: Artemis Fowl
44. 44.   Collins, Suzanne:  The Hunger Games
45. 45.   Conrad, Joseph:  Heart of Darkness
46. 46.   Conroy, Pat:  The Prince of Tides
47. 47.   Corey, James S.A.:  Leviathan Wakes
48. 48.   Creech, Sharon:  Walk Two Moons
49. 49.   Crichton, Michael:  Jurassic Park
50. 50.   Crichton, Michael:  The Andromeda Strain
51. 51.   Dashner, James:  The Maze Runner
52. 52.   Defoe, Daniel:  Robinson Crusoe
53. 53.   Dicamillo, Kate:  Because of Winn-Dixie
54. 54.   Dicamillo, Kate:  The Tale of Despereaux
55. 55.   Dick, Philip K.:  Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
56. 56.   Dickens, Charles:  A Christmas Carol
57. 57.   Dickens, Charles: A Tale of Two Cities
58. 58.   Dickens, Charles:  David Copperfield
59. 59.   Dickens, Charles:  Great Expectations
60. 60.   Dickens, Charles:  Oliver Twist
61. 61.   Doerr, Anthony: All the Light We Cannot See
62. 62.   Donoghue, Emma:  Room
63. 63.   Dumas, Alexander:  The Count of Monte Cristo
64. 64.   Dumas, Alexander:  The Three Musketeers
65. 65.   DuMaurier, Daphne:  Rebecca
66. 66.   Elämä, Piin:  The Life of Pi
67. 67.   Fergus, Jim:  One Thousand White Women
68. 68.   Firch, Janet:  White Oleander
69. 69.   Forman, Gayle:  If I Stay
70. 70.   Frank, Anne:  The Diary of a Young Girl
71. 71.   Frazier, Charles:  Cold Mountain
72. 72.   Funke, Cornelia:  Inkheart
73. 73.   Gabaldon, Diana:  Outlander
74. 74.   Garcia, Kami:  Beautiful Creatures
75. 75.   Golding, William:  Lord of the Flies
76. 76.   Green, John:  Looking for Alaska
77. 77.   Green, John:  The Fault in Our Stars
78. 78.   Grafton, Sue:  A is for Alibi
79. 79.   Grahame-Smith, Seth:  Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
80. 80.   Grimm, Jacob & Wilhelm:  The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales
81. 81.   Grisham, John:  A Time to Kill
82. 82.   Grisham, John:  The Client
83. 83.   Grisham, John: The Firm
84. 84.   Grisham, John:  The Pelican Brief
85. 85.   Grisham, John:  The Rainmaker
86. 86.   Grisham, John:  The Runaway Jury
87. 87.   Gruen, Sara:  Water for Elephants
88. 88.   Haddon, Mark:  The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
89. 89.   Hardy, Thomas:  Tess of the D’Urbervilles
90. 90.   Harris, Thomas:  Red Dragon
91. 91.   Hawkins, Paula:  The Girl on the Train
92. 92.   Hawthorne, Nathaniel:  The Scarlet Letter
93. 93.   Heinlein, Robert A.:  Starship Troopers
94. 94.   Heinlein, Robert A.:  Stranger in a Strange Land
95. 95.   Heller, Joseph:  Catch-22
96. 96.   Hemingway, Ernest: The Old Man and the Sea
97. 97.   Herbert, Frank:  Dune
98. 98.   Herriot, James:  All Creatures Great and Small
99. 99.   Hesse, Herman:  Siddhartha
100. 100.                   Hillenbrand, Laura:  Unbroken
101. 101.                   Hinton, S.E.:  The Outsiders
102. 102.                   Hugo, Victor:  Les Misérables
103. 103.                   Huxley, Aldous:  Brave New World
104. 104.                   Ishiguro, Kazuo: Never Let Me Go
105. 105.                   Johnson, Dr. Spenser:  Who Moved My Cheese
106. 106.                   Kesey, Ken:  One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
107. 107.                   Keyes, Daniel:  Flowers for Algernon
108. 108.                   Kidd, Sue Monk:  The Secret Life of Bees
109. 109.                   King, Stephen:  Bag of Bones
110. 110.                   King, Stephen:  Carrie
111. 111.                   King, Stephen:  Christine
112. 112.                   King, Stephen:  Cujo
113. 113.                   King, Stephen:  Dolores Claiborne
114. 114.                   King, Stephen:  Different Seasons
115. 115.                   King, Stephen:  Firestarter
116. 116.                   King, Stephen:  Gerald’s Game
117. 117.                   King, Stephen:  IT
118. 118.                   King, Stephen:  Misery
119. 119.                   King, Stephen:  Needful Things
120. 120.                   King, Stephen:  Night Shift
121. 121.                   King, Stephen:  On Writing
122. 122.                   King, Stephen:  Pet Sematary
123. 123.                   King, Stephen: ‘Salem’s Lot
124. 124.                   King, Stephen:  The Dark Half
125. 125.                   King, Stephen:  The Dead Zone
126. 126.                   King, Stephen:  The Green Mile
127. 127.                   King, Stephen:  The Gunslinger
128. 128.                   King, Stephen:  The Tommyknockers
129. 129.                   King, Stephen:  The Shining
130. 130.                   King, Stephen: The Stand
131. 131.                   King, Stephen:  Thinner
132. 132.                   Kingsolver, Barbara:  The Bean Trees
133. 133.                   Kingsolver, Barbara: The Poisonwood Bible
134. 134.                   Kinney, Jeff:  Diary of a Wimpy Kid
135. 135.                   Kline, Christina Baker:  Orphan Train
136. 136.                   L’Engle, Madeleine:  A Wrinkle in Time
137. 137.                   Larsson, Stieg:  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
138. 138.                   Lee, Harper:  To Kill a Mockingbird
139. 139.                   LeGuin, Ursula:  A Wizard of Earthsea
140. 140.                   Levine, Gail Carson:  Ella Enchanted
141. 141.                   Levithan, David:  Every Day
142. 142.                   Lewis, C.S.:  The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
143. 143.                   Lewis, C.S.:  The Screwtape Letters
144. 144.                   Lockhart, E.:  We Were Liars
145. 145.                   London, Jack:  The Call of the Wild
146. 146.                   London, Jack:  White Fang
147. 147.                   Lowry, Lois:  Number the Stars
148. 148.                   Lowry, Lois:  The Giver
149. 149.                   Maguire, Gregory:  Wicked
150. 150.                   Martin, George R.R.:  A Game of Thrones
151. 151.                   Matheson. Richard: I Am Legend
152. 152.                   McCaffrey, Anne:  Dragonflight
153. 153.                   McCarthy, Cormac:  The Road
154. 154.                   McCourt, Frank:  Angela’s Ashes
155. 155.                   McCullough, Colleen:  The Thorn Birds
156. 156.                   McMurtry, Larry:  Lonesome Dove
157. 157.                   Melville, Herman:  Moby Dick
158. 158.                   Miller, Arthur:  Death of a Salesman.
159. 159.                   Miller, Arthur:  The Crucible
160. 160.                   Mitchell, Margaret: Gone with the Wind
161. 161.                   Montgomery, L.M.:  Anne of Green Gables
162. 162.                   Moriarty, Liane:  Big Little Lies
163. 163.                   Morrison, Tony:  Beloved
164. 164.                   Munsch, Robert:  Love You Forever
165. 165.                   O’Dell, Scott:  Island of the Blue Dolphins
166. 166.                   Oliver, Lauren:  Before I Fall
167. 167.                   Orwell, George:  1984
168. 168.                   Owens, Delia:  Where the Crawdads Sing
169. 169.                   Paolini, Christopher:  Eragon
170. 170.                   Patterson, Katherine:  Bridge to Terabithia
171. 171.                   Paulsen, Gary:  Hatchett
172. 172.                   Pelzer, Dave:  A Child Called “It”
173. 173.                   Pfeffer, Susan Beth: Life as We Knew It
174. 174.                   Plath, Sylvia:  The Bell Jar
175. 175.                   Pullman, Philip:  The Golden Compass
176. 176.                   Rawls, Wilson:  Where the Red Fern Grows
177. 177.                   Rice, Anne:  Interview with the Vampire
178. 178.                   Riggs, Ransom:  Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
179. 179.                   Riordan, Rick:  The Lightning Thief
180. 180.                   Roth, Veronica:  Divergent
181. 181.                   Rowling, JK:  Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
182. 182.                   Sachar, Louis:  Holes
183. 183.                   Saint-Exupery, Antoine De:  The Little Prince
184. 184.                   Salinger, J.D.:  Franny and Zooey
185. 185.                   Salinger, J.D.:  The Catcher in the Rye
186. 186.                   Satrapi, Mariane:  Persepolis
187. 187.                   Sebold, Alice:  The Lovely Bones
188. 188.                   Sendak, Maurice:  Where the Wild Things Are
189. 189.                   Seuss, Dr.:  Green Eggs and Ham
190. 190.                   Seuss, Dr.:  How the Grinch Stole Christmas
191. 191.                   Seuss, Dr.:  The Cat in the Hat
192. 192.                   Sewell, Anna:  Black Beauty
193. 193.                   Shakespeare, William:  A Midsummer Night’s Dream
194. 194.                   Shakespeare, William:  Hamlet
195. 195.                   Shakespeare, William:  Julius Caesar
196. 196.                   Shakespeare, William:  King Lear
197. 197.                   Shakespeare, William: MacBeth
198. 198.                   Shakespeare, William:  Much Ado About Nothing
199. 199.                   Shakespeare, William:  Othello
200. 200.                   Shakespeare, William:  Romeo and Juliet
201. 201.                   Shakespeare, William:  Tempest
202. 202.                   Shakespeare, William:  The Taming of the Shrew
203. 203.                   Shakespeare, William:  Twelfth Night
204. 204.                   Shelley, Mary:  Frankenstein
205. 205.                   Silverstein, Shel:  A Light in the Attic
206. 206.                   Silverstein, Shel:  The Giving Tree
207. 207.                   Silverstein, Shel:  Where the Sidewalk Ends
208. 208.                   Simsion, Graeme:  The Rosie Project
209. 209.                   Smith, Betty:  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
210. 210.                   Smollin, M.:  The Monster at the End of this Book
211. 211.                   Snickett, Lemony: A Series of Unfortunate Events:  The Bad Beginning
212. 212.                   Speare, Elizabeth George:  The Witch of Blackbird Pond
213. 213.                   Spiegelman, Art:  MAUS
214. 214.                   Spyri, Johanna:  Heidi
215. 215.                   Stedman, M.L.: The Light Between Oceans
216. 216.                   Steinbeck, John: East of Eden
217. 217.                   Steinbeck, John:  Of Mice and Men
218. 218.                   Steinbeck, John: The Grapes of Wrath
219. 219.                   Steinbeck, John:  The Pearl
220. 220.                   Stephenson, Neal:  Snow Crash
221. 221.                   Stevenson, Robert Louis:  Treasure Island
222. 222.                   Stockett, Kathryn:  The Help
223. 223.                   Strayed, Cheryl:  Wild
224. 224.                   Swift, Jonathan:  Gulliver’s Travels
225. 225.                   Tan, Amy:  The Joy Luck Club
226. 226.                   Taylor, Mildred D.:  Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
227. 227.                   Tolkien, J.R.R.:  The Hobbit
228. 228.                   Tolkien, J.R.R.: The Fellowship of the Ring
229. 229.                   Twain, Mark:  The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
230. 230.                   Van Allsburg, Chris:  The Polar Express
231. 231.                   Vonnegut, Kurt:  Cat’s Cradle
232. 232.                   Vonnegut, Kurt: The Slaughterhouse Five
233. 233.                   Walker, Alice:  The Color Purple
234. 234.                   Walls, Jeannette:  Half Broke Horses
235. 235.                   Walls, Jeannette:  The Glass Castle
236. 236.                   Warner, Gertrude Chandler:  The Boxcar Children
237. 237.                   Weir, Andy:  The Martian
238. 238.                   Wells, H.G.:  The Time Machine
239. 239.                   Wells, H.G.: The War of the Worlds
240. 240.                   Wells, Rebecca:  Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
241. 241.                   Wiesel, Elie:  Night
242. 242.                   Wild, Oscar:  The Importance of Being Earnest
243. 243.                   Wilder, Laura Ingalls:  Little House in the Big Woods
244. 244.                   Williams, Margery:  The Velveteen Rabbit
245. 245.                   White, E.B.:  Charlotte’s Web
246. 246.                   X, Malcolm:  The Autobiography of Malcolm X
247. 247.                   Yancey, Rick:  The Fifth Wave
248. 248.                   Zusak, Markus:  The Book Thief

May 20 through 23

Thursday, May 20

I didn't do much of note today.  I turned my roasted chicken into a chicken and rice hotdish. Then I put the New York strip steak into my small round roaster with some olive oil and cleaned and sliced up a vidalia onion and 8 ounces of white button mushrooms and baked it.  It was very tender and delicious, and the mushrooms and onions gave it a wonderful flavor.  I ate about half of that then put the rest in a plastic leftover box for another day.

I spoke to Lily today.  She picked me up a box of quart and a box of gallon ziplock bags when she was at Fleet Farm.  She gave me the good news that Roger, her son, had sold Jerry's motor cycle for $2,400 dollars.  I am encouraging her to use some of that money to buy herself a new mattress and box spring.  Her bed is as hard as a rock, and it is hurting her hip to try to sleep on it.  All day the pain runs down her leg.  I think a softer mattress might help. 

She also told me that she found an envelope in one of her drawers that she was cleaning--in it were two $100 bills.  She has no memory of putting them away like that.  But she was glad to find them.  She said she was going to use that money to buy flowers for her cemetery pots.

My shoulder has been bothering me a lot lately--it's been hurting so much at night that it is hard for me to sleep.  This morning, I took one of the oxy pills I had left over from my stay in the hospital. I don't know that it helped a lot--mostly it just made me sleepy.  

That's about it for today.

Friday, May 21

I had planned to work on my office all day, but I had promised to take my mother to the swamp to see if the swans had hatched out their babies yet.  Lily had asked if she could have my Shopper, so I stopped and got my mail on my way to pick up Mom.  I stopped at Lily's house and gave her the shopper.  She gave me the ziplock bags she had picked up for me at Fleet Farm yesterday and showed me the flowers she had bought at Fleet Farm and Hilltop Nursery.  

I picked up mom next and we drove to the swamp where no swans were visible.  I suppose they were in their nest deep in the tall weeds.  We drove around the back roads so she could see her friend Jody's progress on her garden.  She happened to be in her garden, planting tomatoes. 

I stopped the car and honked my horn at her.  She didn't recognize me, but I called to her that I had my mom in the car.  She hollered back for me to pull into the driveway.  She was so excited to see someone.  We talked for about 20 minutes with her, and she went and collected some asparagus for mom.  Mom was willing to share it with me, but I have 4 ears of sweet corn and both cauliflower and broccoli in the refrigerator that needs to be cooked and eaten.

From there, we went to the cemetery in Geneva.  There were lots of people there putting pots of plants on the graves. We just drove through; we didn't stop or do anything there.  Mom returned the plastic storage box I had given her banana cake in a few days ago.  In it was a $100 bill to repay me for the stuff I had bought for her from the Schwan's man and something else that I had paid for her.  

My two prescriptions had been delivered to me via FedEx and were sitting on the breezeway steps.

When I got home, I cleaned the litterboxes and carried my stuff into the kitchen. I had a big bag of mail. I had given Lily three or four of the catalogs that had come.  She likes to look through them, and I didn't want to be tempted by anything in them.  I did keep two of the clothing catalogs as I could use some new underwear.  I won't order anything till Wednesday next week as that is when my social security will drop into my account.  

I paid the four bills that were in my mail, recycled the junk mail, and opened my packages with pleasure. I got a lovely little package from Minoan Miss with adorable little magnets and some tasty treats too!  I also got four little outfits I had purchased from Etsy for some of my dolls as well as a few vintage patterns for the Tammy dolls and my Chatty Cathy dolls.  

While I was working on my mail, I could hear a lawn mower very close to my house.  I checked it out, and it was Tyrone, mowing my lawn!  I gave him his $25 and asked if he could come over in a couple days and drag my recycling out to the curb.  He agreed to do it.  He is such a kind young man.

I ate leftover chicken and rice, a big bowl of watermelon, and some Schwan's cheese cake for supper.  I did the few diry dishes that I had and settled into my recliner to watch some stuff off my DVR.

I ended up staying up till nearly three in the morning.  I was working on some stuff on my computer and going through the list of 1000 books on Goodreads. I don't know why some of those books were on there--some were pure crap.  I made a list of the ones I could remember reading.  There were a couple on the list that I think I read, but since I could remember nothing about them, I did not include them on the list.

My former colleague, Peter Jacobsen had challenged me to go through it. He had only read abot 145 of the books, but I had read 248--a lot fewer than I thought I would have read as I read A LOT of books.  

I had a facebook message that my former student Stephanie Balange's dad had received the book I mailed back to him.  I wish I had been able to finish it, but I just couldn't focus on it while trying to read it, and he had another person who wanted to read it.

I'm glad it made it safely back to him again.

Saturday, May 23

It rained a lot in the night.  It was supposed to rain most of the day, but it cleared up in the afternoon and evening.  My crabapple tree is almost in full bloom and is just lovely.  I was afraid that the rain might knock all the blossoms off the tree, but it was a gentle rain, so they have been able to hang on.  The lilac bush is also within fractions of an inch from bursting into full bloom.

I have spent the day watching stuff on my DVR and deleting it.  That's about it.

I ate leftover chicken and rice and the last of the New York strip and mushrooms and onions today.  Before I go to bed, I might eat another piece of that cheese cake.  Or maybe not.  We'll see if I get the munchies later.