Dare me to?

 

Above picture was sent to me tonight by Book Buddy and all-around good friend Stephanie. She knew I'd love it. And I do.I will put my tree on the sun room. Very excited! Being vaguely pagan, heathen, or at least a-religious I'm not much of a Christmas person, but I do worship books so what could be more perfect?

Something that makes sense.

 

"Oslo — The Norwegian military said Tuesday it plans to put its troops on a vegetarian diet once a week in a bid to fight a new kind of enemy -- climate change." Full story here.


I say hooray for the depressed Norwegians. They really, really get it about what individual people can do to have even a prayer of halting this runaway train we call global warming/climate change. I fully believe that human actions -- not evil intent, just normal human progress -- is the major cause of [probably] harmful climate change. I'm part of the problem -- you don't see me giving up my car, or moving out of my too-big house, or even (yet) giving up beef. So when I see a large group of people who DO make meaningful changes I'm impressed. The Norwegians have hit upon a really simple way to make a difference. And improve their health at the same time. 

Here's a good article about the connection between beef and climate change. I'm not giving up a nice juicy steak now and then, but, inspired by the Norsemen, I hope to cut back a lot. Fair warning husband and son!

More about my book list.

 

I would like to make my book list even more perfect by having each author listed only once. Right now, nine of the 93 books I've listed are by just two authors:  Willa Cather (top, five novels) and Edith Wharton (four novels). George Orwell accounts for three titles, and the following authors each have two novels on the list:

John Updike

John Galsworthy

James Baldwin

James Joyce

James Salter

Jack Kerouac

Carson McCullers

Aldous Huxley

F. Scott Fitzgerald

 

If my math is right, and it often isn't, I think that means I have to remember 18 other books I've read in order to make every name appear just once on the list. Oh joy! I can now spend more hours checking lists of books and the dates published to make updates to my list.

 

20th Century books I've read.

A Century of Books

1900:  Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
1901: 
1902:  The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
1903:
1904:
1905:  The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
1906:  The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
1907:
1908:
1909:  Strait is the Gate by Andre Gide
1910: 
1911:  Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
1912:  Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
1913:  O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
1914:  Dubliners by James Joyce
1915:  The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford 
1916:  A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
1917:  Summer by Edith Wharton
1918:  My Antonia by Willa Cather
1919:  My Man Jeeves by P.D. Wodehouse
1920:  Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
1921:  To Let by John Galsworthy
1922:  Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
1923:  The Fox by D. H. Lawrence
1924:  Billy Budd by Herman Melville
1925:  The Professor’s House by Willa Cather
1926:  The Silver Spoon by John Galsworthy
1927:  Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
1928:  Point Counterpoint by Aldous Huxley
1929:  A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
1930:  The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
1931:  Babylon Revisited and Other Stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald
1932:  Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
1933:  Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
1934:  And Quiet Flows the Don by Mikhail Sholokhov
1935:  A Clergyman’s Wife by George Orwell
1936:  Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell
1937:  The Citadel by A. J. Cronin
1938:  Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
1939:  The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West
1940:  The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
1941:   What Makes Sammy Run by Budd Schulberg
1942:  The Stranger by Albert Camus
1943:   The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
1944:  The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
1945:  The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald
1946:  All the King's Men by William Penn Warren
1947:  Aurora Dawn by Herman Wouk
1948:  The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh
1949:  1984 by George Orwell
1950:  The Town and the City by Jack Kerouac
1951:  The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
1952:  East of Eden by John Steinbeck
1953:  Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
1954:  Lord of the Flies by William Golding
1955:  After Dark, My Sweet by Jim Thompson
1956:  Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz
1957:  On the Road by Jack Kerouac
1958:  Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
1959:  A Separate Peace by John Knowles
1960:  Rabbit, Run by John Updike
1961:  Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
1962:  We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
1963:  The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
1964:  Herzog by Saul Bellow
1965:  The British Museum is Falling Down by David Lodge
1966:  Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
1967:  Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin
1968:  A Fan's Notes by Frederick Exley
1969:  I Know Why the Caged Bird Sing by Maya Angelou
1970:  A Fairly Honourable Defeat by Iris Murdoch
1971:  Black Sun by Edward Abbey
1972:  Surfacing by Margaret Atwood
1973:  Nickel Mountain by John Gardner
1974:  Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert N. Pirsig
1975:  Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
1976:  Ordinary People by Judith Guest
1977:  Death of an Expert Witness by P.D. James
1978:  The Sweet Dove Died by Barbara Pym
1979:  Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
1980:  The Second Coming by Walker Percy
1981:  Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith
1982:  Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler
1983:  Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
1984:  White Noise by Don DeLillo
1985:  Continental Drift by Russell Banks
1986:  The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
1987:  Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
1988:  Dalva by Jim Harrison
1989:  The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
1990:  Immortality by Milan Kundera
1991:  The Kitchen God’s Wife by Amy Tan
1992:  The Secret History by Donna Tartt
1993:  Montana, 1948 by Larry Watson
1994:  Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
1995:  The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle
1996:  We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates
1997:  Midwives by Chris Bohjalian
1998:  Charming Billy by Alice McDermott
1999:  Plainsong by Kent Haruf


To be read, so I can fill in the blanks.
1901:  MY BRILLIANT CAREER by MILES FRANKLIN
1903: THE CALL OF THE WILD by JACK LONDON
1904: THE GOLDEN BOWL by HENRY JAMES
1907:  THROUGH THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE by WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
1908:  THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY by G.K. CHESTERTON
1910:  HOWARDS END by E.M. FORSTER
1919:  MY MAN JEEVES by P.D. WODEHOUSE Read 2014

It took me a long time, and I mean a long time, to complete this list. I get obsessed at times.