Anacapri 2007

Books

I found this meme somewhere, and decided to do it differently. I have made many lists, something that please me a LOT.

Books Read

1. The DaVinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
9. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
10. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
11. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
12. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
13. The Stand (Stephen King)
14. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
15. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
16. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
17. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
18. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
19. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
20. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
21. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
22. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
23. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
24. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
25. 1984 (Orwell)
26. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
27. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
28. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
29. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
30. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
31. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
32. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
33. Great Expectations (Dickens)
34. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
35. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
36. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
37. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
38. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
39. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
40. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
41. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
42. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
43. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
44. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
45. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
46. Les Miserables (Hugo)
47. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
48. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
49. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
50. Shogun (James Clavell)
51. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
52. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
53. The World According to Garp (John Irving)
54. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
55. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
56. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
57. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
58. Emma (Jane Austen)
59. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
60. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
61. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
62. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
63. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
64. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
65. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
66. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
67. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
68. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
69. Ulysses (James Joyce)

Books I have not read but maybe will read someday - The ones marked in colour are the ones I did not know about until I saw this list:

1. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
2. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
3. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
4. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
5. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
6. Dune (Frank Herbert)
7. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
8. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
9. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
10. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
11. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
12. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
13. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
14. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
15. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
16. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
17. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
18. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
19. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Ann Brashares)
20. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
21. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
22. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
23. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
24. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
25. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
26. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
27. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)

Books that I could not finish despite trying repeatedly:

1. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
2. The Bible

Books I have no inclination to read AT ALL:

1. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
2. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)

Bounty

This is why I had to buy another suitcase in Sorrento. The 4th bottle from the left is a 1 lt bottle of extra virgin olive oil from Sorrento. The bottles 2nd and 3rd from the left are limoncello, and are sadly over. I love limoncello and from now, this is what I want from anyone who goes to Italy, apart from parma ham. The 4 bottles on the right are all red wines, 3 chiantis, 1 Syrah.

Link of Death - Baker's Dozen

How can one make a popular blogger stop blogging? Make me link to the blog! Just count the number of dead blogs in my links!

Paint Brush

I had a weird dream yesterday afternoon. I dreamt I was buying paint brushes and trying to find brush no. 8 and just could not find it. I was frantic because I just had to have it. I found all other brush numbers, but not no. 8.

Take a Message to Mary

My social incompetence is legendary. I don't like people. I don't even like people near me. It makes my skin crawl and I want to slap the sorry slobs really, really hard just for standing close to me. I don't need to be with millions of people at work and for that, I am thankful everyday. I don't think much of most people, because if most people were so wonderful, would the world really be such a sucky place? I don't like socialising, I find it time wasting. The things I find myself saying sometimes in social situations shock even me, and I don't shock easily, because thanks to life, I meet millions of even more socially-stilted people, than myself and I love it. When I am not the one saying stupid things, life can really be good.

For example, there's P, who is guaranteed to make me feel socially superior, thanks to the truly weird stuff he says and also because he is one individual who is guaranteed to piss off 98% the people he meets. Our conversations are surreal. Sample:
Me: Hi P! Nice to see you again. (notice, inappropriate greeting, it should be formal, keeping in mind P's seniority etc. but when I open my mouth, the right things can never come out)
P: (slightly taken aback by my informality and my apparent cheer) Hi! You look good! (umm..... what was that? What am I supposed to say to that?)
Me: (Flustered) Oh No! I've put on a lot of fat! (WTF! What am I saying?! Why am I saying this???)
P: (Equally flustered and taken aback) No! So What? The important thing is to be happy and you are glowing and really look great. (Small lecture on why it is important to be happy)
(OHMYGOD! This conversation I can never live down! People are in splits when I tell them this bit, because P normally is unfriendly, rude and nasty to everyone and P telling me I don't look fat is just too much.)
Me: (wanting to sink in the earth) Ok! Ulp! Well, I wanted to get your opinion on Y and X wanted you to revert to us as well.
P: Sure. (Making a note on his handheld) I will have my guys send you the documents on Thursday. That will give you enough time. Are the notes moving well?
Me: Yes, that should be fine, thanks. Yes, they are, much better than we thought they would. (Oh No! I should never have said that!)
P: (Eyes gleaming) No? Don't worry, I will not quote you on that.
Me: (truly shot to pieces) Ok. See you around. Give T (P's wife) my best.
P: Thank you! You take care and be happy, and.... (P now notices a guy he hates in the far horizon) er....... (starts looking angry) ok (deep, sullen silence)
I run away...... Mortified.

Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again - II

I used to like the mountains for vacations when I was younger. Now, I want it always to be the ocean. Vacations, hah!

Midnight Cravings

1. Mussels
2. Bread from Le Pain Quotidien
3. Crab
4. Oysters
5. Congee
6. Chicken rice
7. Laksa
8. crepes
9. curry wurst
10. rocket, lots and lots of rocket

Sex, Sex, Sex, Sex

NOW lets see the comments pouring in.....

Heh!

What is it about single people that intrigues everyone? I attended a social gathering the other day. I was secretly petrified, but a shot of Myers rum before leaving home, greatly increased my confidence. Heh! Never let it be said that I am not resourceful. Anyway, I meander. It so happens that most people in the social do were old. The average age was 65, this after 2 teenagers and I tipped the balance, so you can imagine.Anyway...

I consider the event successful because thanks to Myers, when asked what plans I had of marriage by a nosy old biddy (so what if she calls me babyface?) without missing a beat, I replied, "not in a million years". Thankfully, most of the other people were a sweet, indulgent lot.

What irked me was that another singleton was being pestered by someone about her boyfriends, because the chappie couldn't believe that women could survive without men. When this happened, both of us "spinsters" glanced at each other and we shared a very brief moment of empathy. She seemed to be saying, "This is what it amounts to - nobody even asks you just how you manage to be successful, they just want to know who you bang." Banging is easy, climbing the ladder, not. Especially if at every bloody rung, people surmise and speculate about your sexual likes and supposed perversions.

Sorrento, Italy

The other side of the bay is Naples!

Oranges...............

and Lemons................

The long and winding road