An Update... and a Post about Books

After four mighty horrific days and two just so-so days, Evan is finally doing much better-- eating again, and pretty much back to her old self.



And (knocking on all of the wood in this house), none of us have come down with this truly awful virus.

Which brings me to the "book" portion of this post-- you see, because Evan's been so sick, reading has been about the only thing we've been able to do together.

So it's been loads of Seuss, Kevin Henkes (we love Chester's Way) and oh-so-many of their peers; countless stories about Nate the Great, Little Critter, Max and Ruby. . .

All terrific stuff, but quite frankly, I'm craving something a bit meatier.

And then I noticed this Book Meme circulating about the OC (thanks to Andrea, Julia, Shannon, and Nicole) -- a wonderful reminder of past favorites and some much-anticipated future reads:

Instructions:

- Bold the ones you've read.
- Italicize the ones you've been wanting/might like to read.
- ??Place question marks by any titles/authors you've never heard of??

(And since the choice of books by each author is a mite idiosyncratic)

- *Put an asterisk if you've read something else by the same author.*

Allcott, Louisa May - Little Women
Allende, Isabel - The House of Spirits
Angelou, Maya - I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Atwood, Margaret Cat's Eye
*Austen, Jane - Emma* (and almost everything else)
??Bambara, Toni Cade - Salt Eaters??
??Barnes, Djuna - Nightwoodde??
Beauvoir, Simone - The Second Sex
Blume, Judy - Are You There God? It's Me Margaret
Burnett, Frances - The Secret Garden
Bronte, Charlotte - Jane Eyre
Bronte, Emily Wuthering Heights
Buck, Pearl S. - The Good Earth
Byatt, A.S. - Possession (a wonderful literary mystery)
Cather, Willa - My Antonia*
Chopin, Kate - The Awakening
Christie, Agatha - Murder on the Orient Express
Cisneros, Sandra - The House on Mango Street
Clinton, Hillary Rodham - Living History
??Cooper, Anna Julia - A Voice From the South??
??Danticat, Edwidge - Breath, Eyes, Memory??
Davis, Angela - Women, Culture, and Politics
??Desai, Anita - Clear Light of Day??
Dickinson, Emily - Collected Poems
Duncan, Lois - I Know What You Did Last Summer
DuMaurier, Daphne - Rebecca
Eliot, George - Middlemarch
*Emecheta, Buchi - Second Class Citizen* (my favorite is the very powerful The Joys of Motherhood)
*Erdrich, Louise - Tracks*
Esquivel, Laura - Like Water for Chocolate
Flagg, Fannie - Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
Friedan, Betty - The Feminine Mystique
Frank, Anne - Diary of a Young Girl
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins - The Yellow Wallpaper
Gordimer, Nadine - July's People
Grafton, Sue - S is for Silence
Hamilton, Edith Mythology
Highsmith, Patricia - The Talented Mr. Ripley
*hooks, bell - Bone Black*
Hurston, Zora Neale - Tracks on the Road
??Jacobs, Harriet - Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl??
Jackson, Helen - Hunt Ramona
*Jackson, Shirley - The Haunting of Hill House*
Jong, Erica - Fear of Flying
Keene, Carolyn - The Nancy Drew Mysteries (shockingly, not a one)
Kidd, Sue Monk - The Secret Life of Bees
??Kincaid, Jamaica - Lucy??
Kingsolver, Barbara - The Poisonwood Bible
Kingston, Maxine Hong - The Woman Warrior
??Larsen, Nella - Passing??
L'Engle, Madeleine - A Wrinkle in Time
*Le Guin, Ursula K. - The Left Hand of Darkness*
Lee, Harper - To Kill a Mockingbird (many times)
*Lessing, Doris - The Golden Notebook*
??Lively, Penelope - Moon Tiger??
Lorde, Audre - The Cancer Journals
Martin, Ann M. - The Babysitters Club Series
McCullers, Carson - The Member of the Wedding
McMillan, Terry - Disappearing Acts
??Markandaya, Kamala - Nectar in a Sieve??
??Marshall, Paule - Brown Girl, Brownstones??
Mitchell, Margaret - Gone with the Wind
Montgomery, Lucy Maudâ - Anne of Green Gables
??Morgan, Joan - When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost??
*Morrison, Toni - Song of Solomon*
??Murasaki, Lady Shikibu - The Tale of Genji??
Munro, Alice - Lives of Girls and Women
??Murdoch, Iris - Severed Head??
Naylor, Gloria - Mama Day
Niffenegger, Audrey - The Time Traveller's Wife
*Oates, Joyce Carol We Were the Mulvaneys*
O'Connor, Flannery - A Good Man is Hard to Find (if you've never read this collection, please do-- amazing stuff)
??Piercy, Marge - Woman on the Edge of Time??
Picoult, Jodi - My Sister's Keeper
*Plath, Sylvia - The Bell Jar*
*Porter, Katharine - Anne Ship of Fools*
Proulx, E. Annie - The Shipping News
*Rand, Ayn The Fountainhead* (Atlas Shrugged was plenty)
Ray, Rachel - 365: No Repeats
Rhys, Jean - Wide Sargasso Sea
??Robinson, Marilynne - Housekeeping??
Rocha, Sharon - For Laci
Sebold, Alice - The Lovely Bones
Shelley, Mary - Frankenstein
Smith, Betty - A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Smith, Zadie - White Teeth
Spark, Muriel - The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
??Spyri, Johanna Heidi??
Strout, Elizabeth - Amy and Isabelle
Steel, Danielle - The House
Tan, Amy - The Joy Luck Club
Tannen, Deborah - You're Wearing That?
Ulrich, Laurel - A Midwife's Tale
??Urquhart, Jane Away??
*Walker, Alice The Temple of My Familiar*
*Welty, Eudora - One Writer's Beginnings*
Wharton, Edith - Age of Innocence
Wilder, Laura Ingalls - Little House in the Big Woods
Wollstonecraft, Mary - A Vindication of the Rights of Women
Woolf, Virginia - A Room of One's Own