The meme of unread books

The LibraryThing Top 106 Unread Books.

Bold books read
Italicize books started but unfinished
Strikethrough books were hated
Asterix books read multiple times
Underline books on "to read" list

Jonathan Strange & M. Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi: a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveller’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-Present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

Which Austin Heroine are you?

I'm not exactly sure how I feel about this. I guess it generally accurate but not really exciting.

Take the Quiz here!

A Healthy Level of Insanity

I saw this posted to the wall at the car wash yesterday and couldn't stop laughing. Enjoy!

20 Ways To Maintain A Healthy Level of Insanity

1. At Lunch Time, Sit In Your Parked Car With Sunglasses on and Point A Hair Dryer At Passing Cars. See If They Slow Down.
2. Page Yourself Over The Intercom. Don't Disguise Your Voice.
3. Every Time Someone Asks You To Do Something, Ask If They Want Fries with that.
4. Put Your Garbage Can On Your Desk And Label It "In."
5. Put Decaf In The Coffee Maker For 3 Weeks. Once Everyone Has Gotten Over Their Caffeine Addictions, Switch To Espresso.
6. In The Memo Field Of All Your Checks, Write "For Sexual Favors"
7. Finish All Your Sentences With "In Accordance With The Prophecy."
8. Don't Use Any Punctuation
9. As Often As Possible, Skip Rather Than Walk.
10. Ask People What Sex They Are. Laugh Hysterically After They Answer.
11. Specify That Your Drive-through Order Is "To Go."
12. Sing Along At The Opera.
13. Go To A Poetry Recital And Ask Why The Poems Don't Rhyme
14. Put Mosquito Netting Around Your Work Area And Play Tropical Sounds All Day.
15. Five Days In Advance, Tell Your Friends You Can't Attend Their Party because You're Not In The Mood.
16. Have Your Co-workers Address You By Your Wrestling Name, Rock Hard.
17. When The Money Comes Out The ATM, Scream "I Won! I Won!"
18. When Leaving The Zoo, Start Running Towards The Parking Lot, Yelling
"Run For Your Lives, They're Loose!!"
19. Tell Your Children Over Dinner. "Due To The Economy, We Are Going To Have To Let One Of You Go."
And The Final Way To Keep A Healthy Level Of Insanity.......

20. Copy this and Send an E-mail To Someone To Make Them Smile.. It's Called Therapy...

greece sock

I have just returned from Greece! An awesome place. Walk around Athens and you can't get more than a few blocks without running into some OLD stuff. Not just old in the American sense where 200 years is old. I'm talking 2000 or more years! Walk down the street and, oh look, Roman Baths found when digging a ventilation shaft for the Metro. Just awesome! Can't say more.
Visiting Greece means lots of travel, especially if you're island-hopping which I was. Airplanes and ferry boats. And knitting of course. This is the Greece travel sock.

I might have completed the second sock as well if I hadn't needed to get up and walk around the ferry boat every few minutes to gaze at the lovely islands passing by.

Summer Days

Hard to believe it; summer is over. Well, yes, it's sticky hot outside at the moment. But the week of cool and rainy weather we just had was a warning and these 2 days of heat are a last gasp. But for me, the lazy days of summer are over. Work has jumped up into full speed, chorus rehearsals start on Monday, and the romance of summer has been derailed. But, hey, I've got a trip to Greece to look forward to. Yippee!

So, on to knitting. Here's my latest contribution to Summer of Socks KAL.

Pretty, huh?
Yarn: Steinback Wolle, Aktiv Effect
Pattern: Standard toe-up, short row toe and heel, 3/1 rib on US0

Then I added the pair to pile of socks and they looked so pretty all lined up in a row I had to take a photo. Four pairs of socks completed this summer. Not too shabby! For me anyway. Don't forget before this summer I had never knit a sock. I'm quite proud of myself.



But socks are not the only things on my needles in the last few weeks. Did I mention that my sister is having a baby? So, I'm also knitting baby things. Such as this blanket.



I'm finding this a supremely comforting knit (just what I need right now). Could be the soft, cozy feel of the yarn (TLC Cotton Plus), could be the soothing colors, could be calming repetitiveness of stockingnet. Or the combination of all three. Whatever it is, I'll take it!

I'm off now to commune with my cotton blankie.

It's a Mystery

On the sock front I've started the Socktopia Mystery Sock. So far only the cuff has been released. This is the first top-down sock I've ever done and I'm a bit apprehensive about how badly I'm gonna mess this up. But then, we don't learn if we don't try.



I'm researching and reading lots of patterns for baby socks, booties, hats, and blankies. I've recently learned that my sister is expecting. I already have 4 nephews and 2 nieces but this will be the first baby since I've taken up knitting. I don't usually put too much pressure on myself but I really, really want to gift new baby with a knit treasure that will become a favorite.



This is my first baby garment. The cutest hat using this pattern. Haven't done the flowers yet but even without them it is soooo cute!

Does anyone have suggestions of best yarns for babies? Preferably machine washable and dryable?

Lacy Socks

Here's my latest.
This was a lot of fun to do. The lace pattern was very simple to work and remember and since it's not highly repetitive, also keeps the engaged. I'm gonna have to do this one again and again and again. Guess what my sisters are getting for Christmas. Hee, Hee. Ho, Ho.


Yarn: ArtYarns Supermerino color 129
Pattern: generic toe up; lace pattern inspired by Padded Footlets from Favorite Socks

I've recently learned that one of my sisters is having a baby. Hmmm. Knit baby stuff. I haven't knit baby stuff before. So I did a big swan dive into the internet looking for patterns. My, my. Sure are alot. Tons in fact. So many choices. Can't write anymore. Gotta go read...