2012 Reading Challenge

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100 books?

Failure is always an option.

Spotify works like a charm. It’s much better than it was on the iPod Touch (It’s still better on the Droid). Hulu works incredibly well — better than it does on my Droid. The larger viewing screen helps, too.

I haven’t really done much else with it yet, other than read books. Because that’s really what I wanted it for, anyhow.

If you follow the links you’ll see the regular Kindle is the most expensive, with the 3G and Keyboard. I don’t really want a touch screen. I like the “tap a button to turn the page” thing. Saves the screen and makes it a lot easier to read while I’m doing other things (like eating or knitting, or watching TV). It’s such a close call in price that I keep thinking “why not just spend the extra few bucks and get the Fire? But … touchscreen.

See, I get the whole tablet thing. I actually do want a table. But the thing is, the Kindle Fire isn’t really a tablet. Not completely. Not yet. It’s really just an eReader on steroids. And I live in the 21st century. If I want to listen to music while I read I have an iPod and a Droid phone. I have CDs, mp3s, Spotify, and LastFM. I am totally soniced up!

But if I get the regular Kindle, by this time next year will I find myself with two obsolete Kindles? Because I have a First Gen that I adore and works perfectly but is no longer supported and a lot of the new Kindle features aren’t available for it. My greatest fear is that one day the battery will die and I won’t be able to get a replacement for it (I actually have a spare stashed away for just such an emergency). So really I don’t even need a new Kindle. Bertie has occasional hiccups (usually caused by me not charging him completely) but is perfectly good and loyal and still works. Except it is largely unsupported now.

I thought about getting a Kindle Fire for Kitti — he watches videos and reads magazines and would probably get more use out of a high color thing — but he says he doesn’t really want one. He’s not into the whole ebook/ezine thing. Which also means that there would be no justification in getting a Fire for me and letting Kitti have the current Kindle (Bertie).

I don’t know. I feel like I should do the sensible, practical, money-saving thing and not get any new Kindle of any description. But I don’t want to be left behind when the technology changes.

Also, the Fire is pretty.

“The language was a little too British for me so I took off a star because not everyone knows that kind of British slang… but oh well.”

and

“Have now finished reading this book. Interesting cases. Only thing I don’t care about is the British vocabulary. As we in U S say on Elm Street, for example, this book says in Elm Street. Causes me to lose some concentration.”

Really? Really?! I do understand that some local slang is hard to follow. I’m a devout Anglophile and pretty much live on BBCAmerica and even I get confused by some terms (especially ones that are specific to a region or an age group) but then again I have the same problem with some American English slang. And generally, it’s not that hard to pick up from context. It also doesn’t take that long to look it up (later or at that moment (yes, that does take you further out of the reading, but only for a few moments and that must be better than sitting there frustrated, right?)), so when you encounter it again you don’t lose any time.

One does wonder how they manage with the cop lingo that occasionally turns up in the books. I’m also willing to bet the people who left these reviews (and the others like them) don’t read much science fiction and fantasy.

I bought one of the books that had such a review. It’ll be interesting to see how “hard” it is to understand.

(I just looked these books up and saw this: written entirely in text-message format. That, right there is reason enough to ban a book.)

2. “And Tango Makes Three” by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
Reasons: Homosexuality

(because penguins are serious business)

3. “The Perks of Being A Wallflower,” by Stephen Chbosky
Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Anti-Family, Offensive Language, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group, Drugs, Suicide

(I read this. I hated it. It was dull and common and uninspired. Best thing about it was frequent mention of The Smiths songs.)

4. “To Kill A Mockingbird,” by Harper Lee
Reasons: Racism, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

5. Twilight (series) by Stephenie Meyer
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group

(Sexually explicit? WHERE!? Because that I might’ve enjoyed.)

6. “Catcher in the Rye,” by J.D. Salinger
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

7. “My Sister’s Keeper,” by Jodi Picoult
Reasons: Sexism, Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group, Drugs, Suicide, Violence

8. “The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things,” by Carolyn Mackler
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

9. “The Color Purple,” Alice Walker
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

10. “The Chocolate War,” by Robert Cormier
Reasons: Nudity, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

There ya go. Parents, don’t let your kids read books because they contain offensive language, are unsuited to the ages reading them, and might be sexually explicit. Give them good, wholesome, family entertainment… like a Jersey Shore marathon.

Specifically, spend several days reading The Alienist, followed immediately by The Angel of Darkness, and then go right into The Cabinet of Curiosities.

All three are set in New York City. The Alienist is in 1896, Angel of Darkness is 1897, and Cabinet of Curiosities involves a case that started in the 1870s or so.

Combine it with the fact that it wasn’t that long ago I read The Beautiful Cigar Girl and a slight fixation with Steampunk and it leads to a lot of sitting around going “wait, what year is this again?”

I’d also like to say that I’ve been disappointed by the Internets. Searching for “Teddy Roosevelt fighting a robot” gave me nothing.

However, “Theodore Roosevelt fighting a robot” gave me this…

Which only proves that you can count on Cracked for just about everything.

I have mixed feelings about this. One is “yay, people want to read my stuff.” The other is “I could really use that dollar.”

I feel hypocritical complaining about it though because if someone said to me “Can I take your ebook and give it to other people?” I would more than likely say yes. Well, I think I’d be more than happy to say yes except that right now Torquere Press has the electronic rights to those stories.

In other news, I saw a Red-bellied Woodpecker in my back yard this morning. He was checking out the fig tree.

If you’re serious about creating an American version of Being Human, do yourselves a favour.

HIRE ME as a writer.

I am not joking.

With me on your staff you’d actually have a pretty decent chance of putting something good out there. I’m talking good enough to rival the original. Trust me, I’ve got what it takes to make this work — make it funny and dark and gut-twisting and absolutely incredible.

I’m not asking to be the only writer. That would be insane. I can, however, be A writer. I can be a team player and write as part of a committee if it comes to that!

Seriously, SyFy? Seriously. Hire me.

Very sincerely,
Morgan Ferdinand

According to the Office for Intellectual Freedom, at least 42 of the Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century have been the target of ban attempts.

For more information on why these books were challenged, visit challenged classics and the Banned Books Week Web site.

1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
(read it)

2. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
(read it)

3. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
(read it)

4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
(read it many times)

5. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

6. Ulysses by James Joyce

7. Beloved by Toni Morrison

8. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
(read it)

9. 1984 by George Orwell
(read it)

10. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

11. Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov
(Kitti is reading it right now, but I’ll read it when he’s done)

12. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
(read it)

13. Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
(read it many times)

14. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

15. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

16. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
(reading it)

17. Animal Farm by George Orwell
(read it)

18. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

19. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

20. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

21. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

22. Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne
(read ALL of them many times)

23. Their Eyes are Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

24. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

25. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

26. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

27. Native Son by Richard Wright

28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey

29. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

30. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

31. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
(read it)

32. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

33. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
(read it)

34. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

35. Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

36. Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin

37. The World According to Garp by John Irving

38. All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren

39. A Room with a View by E. M. Forster

40. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
(Tried to read it. Couldn’t stand it.)

41. Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally

42. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

43. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

44. Finnegans Wake by James Joyce

45. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

46. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

47. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

48. Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence

49. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
(read it)

50. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
(read it)

51. My Antonia by Willa Cather

52. Howards End by E. M. Forster

53. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
(read it)

54. Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
(read it)

55. The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
(I own it and keep meaning to read it)

56. Jazz by Toni Morrison

57. Sophie’s Choice by William Styron

58. Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner

59. A Passage to India by E. M. Forster

60. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

61. A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor

62. Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

63. Orlando by Virginia Woolf

64. Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence

65. Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe

66. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

67. A Separate Peace by John Knowles

68. Light in August by William Faulkner

69. The Wings of the Dove by Henry James

70. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

71. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

72. A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
(read it. Saw the movie, the tv-show, played the Infocom game, can still quote it)

73. Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
(read it a few times)

74. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

75. Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence

76. Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe

77. In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway

78. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein

79. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
(I’m pretty sure I own this)

80. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer

81. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

82. White Noise by Don DeLillo

83. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather

84. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

85. The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
(read it)

86. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

87. The Bostonians by Henry James

88. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

89. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather

90. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
(read it)

91. This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald

92. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

93. The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles

94. Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis

95. Kim by Rudyard Kipling

96. The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald

97. Rabbit, Run by John Updike

98. Where Angels Fear to Tread by E. M. Forster

99. Main Street by Sinclair Lewis

100. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
(own it — will read it)