While My Sister Sleeps by Barbara Delinsky (14)

A young woman named Robin who is an elite runner and marathoner is found barely alive by the road where she had been running. She is hospitalized but is found to be comatose from a heart attack without much expectation of recovery. Her family quickly comes into the picture. Her younger sister Molly is full of guilt that she wasn't with Robin when the event occurred. Her mother Kathryn is distraught seeing her daughter in such poor condition. Other family members and friends gather in their concern.Family secrets are revealed, shaking everyone to the bone. This is a very good book that I enjoyed reading; I would have to say that Barbara Delinsky is one of my favorite authors. I wasn't quite as engrossed in this book as I was in many of her previous works, but I did enjoy it.

Three Weeks to Say Goodbye by C.J. Box (13)

Such a great book! I could hardly put it down. Jack and Melissa have adopted a beautiful baby girl. After 9 months suddenly the baby is reclaimed by the baby's birth father and grandfather. Aside from the devastating news that they may lose their beloved baby, it soon becomes clear to Jack and Melissa that a mystery surrounds this situation. Thus begins a suspenseful and dangerous chain of events as they face the prospect that they might have to say goodbye to their baby in three weeks.

The BBC say the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books on their list. How many have you read?
Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an ‘x’ before those you have read.
2) Tally your total at the bottom.


XPride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
X Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
X Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
X To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
X The Bible - (parts of it, never read all)
X Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
X Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
X Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
X Complete Works of Shakespeare (parts)
X Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
XCatcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
XThe Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
Middlemarch - George Eliot
X Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
XThe Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
Bleak House - Charles Dickens
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
XGrapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
X Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
XDavid Copperfield - Charles Dickens
Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
XEmma - Jane Austen
Persuasion - Jane Austen
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
X The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
X Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
X Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
Animal Farm - George Orwell
X The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
XAnne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
XThe Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Atonement - Ian McEwan
XLife of Pi - Yann Martel
Dune - Frank Herbert
Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
XSense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
XA Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
X Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
XThe Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
XOf Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
X The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
On The Road - Jack Kerouac
Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
XBridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
Dracula - Bram Stoker
The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
Ulysses - James Joyce
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
Germinal - Emile Zola
Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
Possession - AS Byatt
X A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
XThe Color Purple - Alice Walker
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
X Charlotte’s Web - EB White
XThe Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
Watership Down - Richard Adams
A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas (read it in French,lol, sure couldn't do that Now!)
Hamlet - William Shakespeare
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
My total: 36

Nice to Come Home To by Rebecca Flowers (12)

This mildly entertaining book is about a young woman named Pru who lives in Washington DC and whose life unravels, losing her job, her boyfriend, and her future all at once. As the book progresses, Pru goes through various experiences with the people in her neighborhood and in her family which results in a much greater future and more authentic happiness. I enjoyed this book.

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch (11)

Several months ago I watched the video of Randy Pausch giving his "Last Lecture" and was so impressed with his humor and insights about life and how to deal with the toughest issue of all, our own mortality. Finally I got around to reading his book and enjoyed it very much, finding it a thought provoking and memorable read, written with the knowledge that his life was coming to an end and he would soon be leaving his wonderful young family without him. His courage in the face of death is awesome.