Turns out it is much quicker (and arguably more enjoyable, or, in the least, enjoyable in a different way) to read the Harry Potter series than Tolstoy's War and Peace.  Hmm... who would've thought?

Enjoy.

Lost in Austen

Whenever I read an Austen novel, I get lost in her world.  She creates beautiful landscapes with vivid, sensory details.  I'd probably die in that world; I don't have impeccable manners and frequently suffer from foot-in-mouth.  But I adore the wit and humor.  Austen communicates that women can have it all-beauty, intelligence, domesticity, romance, eloquence, and happiness-and if I'm honest, I suffer from wanting it all... almost all of the time.

Even though the plot lines in her novels are predictable, I enjoy every Austen book I pick up.  Sometimes the characters are annoying as hell and flighty (no wonder why some people doubted women!), but come one, when you have that much estrogen in one small town in the countryside, drama's bound to come calling.  Aside from creating major catastrophes over nothing, my only complaint in Austen stories is the total idealization.  I struggle with setting high expectations, but her leading men and women experience "perfect" romances, and let's be real... the world of love is not quite that neat and pretty.  Come on, didn't these women ever suffer from a bad break-out or eat their feelings?!  Hello!  Oh wait... that's the real purpose of a corset?  Wanting it all can be real problematic.

The Victorian era of literature intrigues me with it's earliest beginnings of the feminism we know today.  If not for great minds like Jane Austen, George Eliot, and Christina Rossetti, we might not be where we are today.  So go soak up some drama and put on a tight dress, and get lost in Austen.

-Ash

Sense and Sensibility

Being an avid fan of Ms. Austen, I thus far in the book give it a thumbs up.  Oh the drama!  I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm pretty sure JA uses the same characters in every book but switches around names and events.  I mean, come on - Willoughby and Wickham are pretty much the same person... And Marianne is only slightly more mature than Lydia (although not as manipulative).  Despite the similarities in characters, I cannot help but love the protagonist in every book I have read from JA (except Mansfield Park - just don't read it, totally not worth it).  Austen clearly values independence, wit, some degree of plainness in appearance, and common sense in her heroines (not heroine, she didn't do drugs).  At any rate, my Kindle says I am only 57% of the way through, so I figured I will leave you with some quotes that stuck out to me.  Hope you enjoy them.

• "oh what I would give for a man who was intelligent and virtuous" - Marianne (let's be honest here...)
• "I could not be happy with a man whose taste did not in every point coincide with my own. He must enter into all my feelings; the same books, the same music must charm us both" - Marianne (This is what frustrates me about relationships.  Why do people insist on making a list of qualifications that their partner has to meet? Especially in context with this particular book, I find it to be very superficial... but I haven't finished so I can't be too critical.)
• "But remember that the pain of parting from friends will be felt by every body at times, whatever be their education or state.  Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience - or give it a more fascinating name, call it hope."

Well, I guess that's it for now.  If you haven't read it, read it because it's great!
-Morgan

Meet the Readers

We met in the fall of 2006 in a Spanish class at Colorado Christian University. Initially we were enemies and did not associate with one-another outside of Spanish, but a year later, in a small, snowed-in cabin in the winter forests of Wyoming, the two became dearest friends. We have worked together, lived together, and done silly ridiculous things together. Now we'll conquer these books together.

 

(They let us graduate.  What were they thinking?)

Meet Morgan

My name is Morgan and I am an addict. I have a severe addiction to traveling, India, and pickles. Recently I completed my degree in Elementary Education and am now looking for a job as a teacher. In between substitute teaching and barista-ing, I try to engage myself in cultural pastimes like reading. Have you ever watched a movie or heard people talking and you thought, Gosh, if I had ever read Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, I would sound much more intelligent in this conversation? I think about that all the time! Except the Heart of Darkness part – that, I’ve read. Aside from feeling the need to be more culturally aware, I just appreciate gaining new perspectives. As you can see, I’m not an African-American woman, so by reading something by Toni Morrison, I’m able to get outside myself and understand, even if only a small portion, something that has not happened to me. Perhaps by gaining that insight I will become a better person. Or just a hermit.

I don’t just read in my spare time. I love hearing about people; where their hearts are, how they manage their stress, what color are they going to paint the bathroom? I try to sew, I love to cook/bake, and scrapbooking is how I de-stress after a long day (maybe with a glass of white wine). Above all, I really just strive to live my life in a way that honors what I believe. One of my foremost driving passions is stopping the trafficking of young children in India. It bothers me when people talk about injustice in the world and then take no steps to solve those problems. Also, (although I know this is irrational and far more superficial) I am bothered by extreme and unnecessary jaw movement.

• Favorite Writers: Oswald Chambers, Jane Austen, Leo Tolstoy, J. K. Rowling (don’t you dare judge me)
• Books that Have Impacted My Life: Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn; The Bible by God; My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers

Meet Ash

Hi, I'm Ash.  Because of of too many Ashlees in my elementary classes and the obnoxious clique on the late 90s cartoon, Recess, I go by Ash.  In May I finished my English degree, so reading is part of who I am.  It feels as familiar and comfortable as sweatpants after 5 PM.  Maybe it's because I read books on Saturday mornings instead of watching cartoons or played newspaper editor and librarian frequently, but I can't get enough words.  It isn't uncommon for a paragraph or stanza to make me laugh, cry, cuss, or pause and re-read... simultaneously.  Ask Morgan; she's heard me.

When not reading I enjoy visiting coffee shops, jogging slowly (while pretending to run a marathon), doing artsy-fartsy projects to make my little apartment prettier, listening to music, drinking red wine and black coffee (not together), and hiking in the mountains.  I've been blessed to travel to lots of places, but I'd love to go to each continent and learn a second language completely.  Someday I want to be a social worker and help kids and women in America and Africa go to college, so they can change their communities and get out of poverty, prostitution, etc.  That's my big dream.  I believe in a simple life... sharing it with the people I love and finding meaning in the mundane.  Oh, and I love plaid.  It makes me a little weak at the knees.  But I strongly dislike writing with blue pens; it makes my skin itch.

• Favorite Writers:  Donald Miller, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tennyson, Virginia Woolf, Leo Tolstoy, Billy Collins, and Jonathan Safran Foer
• Several Books that Have Undoubtedly Changed My Life:  Silence by Shusaku Endo, Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller, The Confessions by St. Augustine, Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson, and The Giving Tree by Shell Silverstein

The Official Reading List

We've mixed it up and have a bit of everything to read.  Give us your feedback!

1. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
2. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
3. Emma - Jane Austen
4. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
5. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
6. Ana Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
7. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
8. Middlemarch - George Elliot
9. The Woman In White - Wilkie Collins
10. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
11. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
12. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
13. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
14. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
15. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
16. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
17. Rebecca - Daphe Du Maurier
18. Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
19. Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
20. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists - Robert Tressell
21. Ulysses - James Joyce
22. A Potrait of the Artist as a Yong Man - James Joyce
23. Mrs. Dalloway - Virgina Woolf
24. Absalom!  Absalom!  - William Faulkner
25. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokav
26. A Prayer For Owen Meany - John Irving
27.  Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
28. Animal Farm - George Orwell
29. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
30. Catcher In the Rye - JD Salinger
31. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
32. On the Road - Jack Kerouac
33. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
34. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
35. Love In the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
36. Dune - Frank Herbert
37. Watership Down - Richard Adams
38. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
39. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkein
40. The Fellowship of the Ring - JRR Tolkien
41. The Two Towers - JRR Tolkien
42. The Return of the King - JRR Tolkien
43. Northern Lights - Phillip Pullman
44. The Subtle Knife - Phillip Pullman
45. The Amber Spyglass - Phillip Pullman
46. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
47. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexander Dumas
48. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
49. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
50. Katherine - Anya Seton
51. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
52. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
53. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
54. The Shawl - Cynthia Owzack
55. Possession - AS Byatt
56. Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston
57. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
58. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime - Mark Haddon
59. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
60. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
61. Wise Blood - Flannery O'Connor
62. The Wasp Factory - Ian Bankti
63. Water For Elephants - Sara Gruen
64. The Road - Cormac McCarthy
65. Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut
66. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
67. Birdsong - Sebastain Faulk
68. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
69. Atonement - Ian McEwan
70. Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
71. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
72. In the Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Luiz Zafon
73. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - Steig Larson
74. The Girl Who Played With Fire - Steig Larson
75. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest - Steig Larson
76. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
77. A Fine Balance - Rohington Mistry
78. The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
79. Holes - Louis Sachar
80. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
81. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland - Lewis Carrol
82. The Little Prince - Atoine De Saint-Exupery
83. The Enchanted Wood - Enid Blyton
84. The Magic Faraway Tree - Enid Blyton
85. The Folk of the Faraway Tree - Enid Blyton
86. Up the Faraway Tree - Enid Blyton
87. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
88. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - JK Rowling
89. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - JK Rowling
90. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - JK Rowling
91. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - JK Rowling
92. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - JK Rowling
93. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - JK Rowling
94. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows - JK Rowling
95. Angel's Ashes - Frank McCourt
96. Into the Wild - Jack Krackauer
97. The Cost of Discipleship - Dietrich Bonhoeoffer
98. Besides the Bible:  50 Books that Have, Should, or Will Create Christian Culture - Dan Gibson (so we can add more books to our to-read lists)
99. Radical:  Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream - Dan Gibson
100. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind:  Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope - William Kamkwamba

100 Books In a Year

Several years ago BBC launched a meme on Facebook that suggested (supposedly) that the average person read only six books out of 100 listed during his or her life.  A professor of ours calculated that, if she read at her average pace every day for the remainder of her existence, she would never finish all the books on her "must read before I die list."  These conclusions made us consider that list of 100 books and our own ever-growing "to read" list:  would we ever finish our lists?  Have we read those important books that every avid reader should? 

George Livingston said, "I like intellectual reading.  It's to my mind what fiber is to my body."  Livingston was smart, and we extend an invitation of friendship.  This year we're increasing our intellectual fiber and reading 100 books.  Yes, 100 books.  Our reading lists includes some of BBC's Big Read favorites, suggestions from America's National Endowment for the Arts', and a few titles that intrigue us.  Who knows what will happen along the way or at the end of the year; maybe we will be a little smarter and articulate.  Maybe a little like hermits.  We invite you to join us, read a book or two (or 100), and enter into our literary conversation.

Happy Reading!