New reading list

Now that the 50 books are complete, I think it's time to migrate the ongoing list to a post.

54. The Beach House

55. Mister Pip

56. A Confederacy of Dunces

57. Gilead

58. A Year in Provence

59. Hunting and Gathering

60. Chanel: Her Life, Her World, The Woman Behind the Legend (wip)

61. Secret Scriptures

62. Dancing Backwards

63. Dead Europe

64. Catch 22

65. East of the Sun

66. Prep

67. A Perfectly Good Family

68. Olive Kitteridge

69. The Elegence of the Hedgehog

70. The True Story of Butterfish

71. The Slap

72. The Lacuna

73. The Idiot (wip) (again)

74. Lessons for Italian Boys

75. New York, the novel

76. Wild Swans

77. The Age of Innocence

78. Catcher in the Rye

79. Fever Pitch

80. Glass Castle

81. For the Term of His Natural Life

82. [mcgahan]

83. Tender is the Night (wip)

84. A Patchwork Planet

Finishing up Birthday celebrations

Status: so shiny...

I had a wonderful Birthday - thanks to all my well-wishers. Dinner and drinks with the girls, champagne, breakfast in bed (a combined effort from Hombre on the other side of the world and dream-flatmate), beach, shops, books, flowers and a 5 foot 5 stuffed polar bear. Not in quite that order.

Aside: I've struggled a little to find optimal names for the people who pop up in my stories. In particular, my boy. In this current Spanish-learning state, I think I'll go with Hombre. It also has the benefit of being incredibly masculine, so is very useful for teasing him with when he wants to borrow my GHD to straighten his hair.

Back to the story: I'm now back Stateside, a week post-Birthday and awfully jet-lagged, but very spoiled, with a belated Birthday dinner at Toque in Montreal and... a shiny, shiny iPhone from Hombre. Eeeeeeeeee! It's really very shiny.

It's encouraging me to properly sort out all my contacts on my mac and sync them up nicely. I've found lots of fun apps: Skype, facebook, compass, sudoku, remote and maps will likely change my life. I'm still looking for the perfect blogger app, flickr uploader and maybe access to MyMaps?

I'm hoping it will speed up my completion of my freerice goal and my Project365. The freerice progress has been suffering of late...

xo

The Simple Things

I've been inspired to make a list of the best simple things in life by Christina, via MPC. It's not strictly related to my 101 in 1001 mission, but I love lists, and think it's a particularly apt topic after a day of brain strain trying to buy bathroom fittings for Task #58 (who would have thought there were a dozen styles of floor wastes), with my 26th birthday tomorrow and living in the middle of this penny-pinching recession...

These are a few of my favourite things:

- Jumping in puddles in gumboots - amazing. The autumn leaves just make it extra pretty.

- Real mail - I have 4 birthday cards waiting for me to open in the morning - yay

- Clean sheets

- Being asked for directions in a foreign city - I love being taken for a local - it always makes me grin

- The first page of a new book. And the last

- The first glimpse of the sea - yep, that little dot of blue below - it doesn't matter if it's been a day, a week or months, it's always a thrill

- Winning: scrabble, the lucky door prize, the race - we never really grow up...

- A good hair day

- And... The weekend papers in a sunny bedroom (even better in mounds of clean sheets)

*Big contented sigh* I'll be sure to keep this post handy when I get too stressed about the advantages of wall-mounted taps over basin-mounted or when the builders decide that actually building anything would be far too difficult. Everyone should just go and jump in a puddle.

xx

El mes de mayo

Status: In Progress

Behold, the month of May. I had a really dull week photo-wise about halfway through, but there are a couple in there I like. Starting to think I'll keep this going longer than 365 days - maybe for the rest of the 1001. It's become one of my favourites out of the 101.

#45. Knitted cushions

Status: Complete

What a productive week: 2 completed tasks. And both from the core of the original list. I'm a big fan of knitting. Like sewing, it's a crafty, creative outlet that actually produces a useful end product. (I'm not a fan of creating endless cross-stitch or pottery that might require dusting). Unlike sewing, it's extremely portable and can be done while watching Gossip Girl and drinking red wine. It also has the amazing ability to keep even the coldest hands warm in the middle of winter.

#21. 50 Glorious Books

Status: Complete

What a task - 50 delicious books, finished off in style this week with Brick Lane.

And don't forget the well-maintained List of Books. I actually think the List was probably the best part of the task - I've never kept a track of what I read and often got lost in vague reveries when asked what I'd been reading lately. 

Now, with the List to hand, it's much easier to remember favourites and duds. Which, to be clear were as follows:

Favourites: The Book Thief, The Kite Runner, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Fair and Tender Ladies, The Hour I First Believed, The Believers, American Wife and Dreams From My Father

Duds: The Good Mayor, The Lay of the Land, Bank, Double Fault and Oscar Wao

I think the list shall stay. Keeping reading goes without saying - that was never the challenging part of the goal (though to be fair, I really had no idea how quickly/much I read until I started counting).

I'm determined to get back to The Idiot - the one work in progress left outstanding. 

And I'm halfway through the next book - People of the Book - which I'm devouring.