100 Books We Should Own, But Don't (yet) UPDATED

We have been building our library for a few years now, but recently noticed some key pieces are missing. 100 pieces that we came up with for this year. We plan on crossing off, and adding each year. Hopefully compiling a well stocked library for us to enjoy for years to come. Our goal is to accumulate all 100 by the end of 2010. (yellow ones will appear as we acquire them)

This list is only the books we do not own, and should not be mistaken as those we have not read, actually quite the contrary is true. We have read and enjoyed most of the novels, epic poems and plays on this list, then promptly returned them to our local library, given them back to friends or family or just somehow lost them along the way. Some of the titles we are missing are shocking, more often than not, we actually had to check our bookcases to make sure they weren't there, all the while exclaiming, "how can we not have this!?"

We decided to share this list with friends and family, should anyone ever need gift ideas and also to keep the list close by for all of our Half Price Books and Book Fair adventures.



1. Crime & Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
2. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
3. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
4. Ulysses by James Joyce
5. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
6. East of Eden by John Steinbeck
7. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
8. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
9. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
10. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
11. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
12. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
13. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
14. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
15. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
16. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
17. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
18. Watership Down by Richard Adams
19. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
20. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
21. Dracula by Bram Stoker
22. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
23. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
24. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
25. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
26. The Trial by Franz Kafka
27. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
28. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
29. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
30. Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
31. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
32. The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West
33. Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
34. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
35. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
36. Nostromo by Joseph Conrad
37. Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
38. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
39. The Illiad by Homer
40. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
41. A Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
42. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
43. The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
44. The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells
45. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
46. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemmingway
47. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
48. The Shining by Stephen King
49. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
50. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
51. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
52. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
53. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
54. Paradise Lost by John Milton
55. Remembrance of Things Past, Marcel Proust
56. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
57. The Republic by Plato
58. Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss
59. Walden by Henry David Thoreau
60. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
61. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
62. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
63. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
64. The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
65. The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
66. Robinson Cursoe by Daniel Defoe
67. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
68. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
69. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
70. The Art of War by Sun Tzu
71. The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot
72. Dr Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
73. On the Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud
74. The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
75. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
76. The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks
77. Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
78. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams
79. A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen
80. The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
81. A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
82. Tartuffe by Moliere
83. The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
84. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
85. The Plague by Albert Camus
86. Native Son by Richard Wright
87. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
88. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
89. The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol
90. Beowulf
91. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
92. Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman
93. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
94. Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau
95. Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger
96. Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
97. Rabbit, Run by John Updike
98. The Odyssey by Homer
99. This Book Will Change Your Life by Benrik
100. The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum

Look How Far You've Come...

In the past year, you have:

1.Graduated at the top of your class in a field you enjoy
2.Secured a job in that field ( with awesome benefits)
3. Continued a secure, loving relationship with someone ( and a great dane)
4. Learned new things about yourself, your life and your beliefs

In the past 2 years you have:
1. Learned to focus on completing goals of your choice
2. Moved into a nice, clean, well maintained home
3. Helped raise a great dane puppy

In the past 3 years you have:
1. Moved to a new city, and succeeded
2. Maneuvered your way in tight ( parking) situations
3. Overcome homesickness, to find your own place
4. Made major decisions for yourself, and goals and stuck to them

In the past 4 years you have:
1. Moved to Cleveland for love
2. Fallen in love with someone who loves you unconditionally
3. Survived baby cat attacks
4. Quit smoking

In the past 5 years you have:
1. Moved around, found yourself and your comfort zone
2. Pushed the boundaries of that zone
3. Found out who your best friends are who you will have forever


That is amazing, you have done so much in just a few short years. I can't wait to see what you accomplish in the next few years! Happy Birthday Sweetie. I love you.

Saturday

This weekend, we finally had some time to ourselves to recover from a long enjoyable summer of fun with multiple visits from friends and family. We are both overjoyed that so many people in our lives came to visit us these past few months. We had a great time with all of you! But, now that it is Fall the visits have settled down (sort of) and our weekends belong to us again ( kinda). We are looking forward to more visits, family moving into town and travel for girl's nights, and holidays. Halloween is just around the corner and we can't wait... we have already started getting our costumes ready... now if only we could convince someone to have a party we can attend.




This weekend, we had some time to enjoy our neighborhood and its rich culture, great people and art scene. Dave and I took a short walk to the Glenwood Arts District part of our neighborhood and wandered into the No Exit Cafe to partake in a showing of Taming of the Shrew. Now, this particular Shakespearean comedy has always been one of my favorites if for no other reason than it is truly hilarious. The Theo Ubique Theater Company took this classic and turned it into a cabaret, complete with music and "fight choreography" . It was fantastic. We both enjoyed the entire experience, and we weren't the only ones.... the small theater/cafe was so packed they ran out of chairs.

The Taming of the Shrew is a story of love and disguise. (Obviously, it's a Shakespeare comedy). The basic plot line is that everyone is in love with the fair and beautiful young Bianca, but her father has decided that she shall not be wed until a suitable mate is found for her older sister... Katherina the Shrew. Katherina is loud, sarcastic, angry and full of spite, and fantastic crass comments. Eventually, as you can imagine someone shows up, tames Kate and frees Bianca to be married to her true love.

The cast was spectacular, both of us enjoyed the performance of the young man who played Bianca (the lovely younger daughter) His gestures and mannerisms were perfect for the role and added to the overall humor. The cabaret version we attended was excellent and they did a great job involving the audience and use of the entire space, including the outdoor (seen through the large open window behind the stage)

Overall, it was highly enjoyable. Glad we went!