Traveling Round the World...With a Book

What do the two things have to do with one another? One, I love to travel!!!!! Even though I haven't been to a whole lot of places...I have been fortunate to travel to a few countries outside of the USA (Spain, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and islands in the Caribbean! Traveling is a must have in my life...the more trips the happier I am! To cure my wanderlust and thirst for other cultures I have found a site called Blog Around the World (or BATW for short). BATW is awesome...she has linked hundreds of bloggers from all over the world and features them on our endless trip around the globe...who knows maybe someday she'll do a little layover here in Moses Lake, WA....there are exciting things to do here (maybe!??!!)



Today's journey took us to Cairo, Egypt (doesn't that sound like a fantastic place to visit?) The blogger over at Wandering the World gave a great tour of her current home in Cairo...it was quite a nice tour...go visit...now...then come back!



So this brings us to the issue of books! I am almost never without a book in my possession. I have a book downstairs that I reading at night while watching TV. I have a book in my chair in my bedroom that I read once I make my way upstairs for the night. Then there are the boxes of books that are sitting next to my chair waiting to be read. And then there are the books that I know are enroute to me via paperbackswap.com where you can trade books for just the cost of shipping! I LOVE BOOKS!



(Yes, I did borrow this picture from the world wide web.) I did a post a few weeks ago about books that have been challenged and banned from some libraries (although I don't agree with banning books, I do believe that school libraries should be careful as to what is available to certain age groups). Today over at Wandering the World she had a list of the 2008 Angus & Robertson top 100 booklist...I am going to copy her idea and post the list here for you to take a look at. How many of these books have you read? Are you well-versed in literature? As much as I read I wasn't sure I was going to have read any of these books, as I don't always read mainstream literature. However I was pleasantly surprised...the books that are bolded are the books that I have actually read front to back!



1. Harry Potter series - J.K. Rowling
2. Twilight - Stephenie Meyer
3. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (It kills me to admit I haven't read this when it is my BFF's favorite book...or one of them! Sorry Susana!)
4. The Obernewtyn Chronicles - Isobelle Carmody
5.My Sister's Keeper - Jodi Picoult
6. To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
7. The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
8. Breath - Tim Winton
9. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
10. Break No Bones - Kathy Reichs
11. The Power Of One - Bryce Courtenay
12. Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk
13. Magician - Raymond E. Feist
14. The Bronze Horseman - Paullina Simons
15. Mao's Last Dancer - Li Cunxin
16. Memoirs Of A Geisha - Arthur Golden
17. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
18. Cross - James Patterson
19. Persuasion - Jane Austen
20. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
21. The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
22. The Secret - Rhonda Byrne
23. Marley and Me - John Grogan
24. Antony and Cleopatra - Colleen McCullough
25. April Fools Day - Bryce Courtney
26. North and South- Elizabeth Gaskell
27. In My Skin - Kate Holden
28. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
29. A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini
30. The Other Boleyn Girl - Phillipa Gregory
31. Nineteen Minutes - Jodi Picoult
32. Atonement - Ian McEwan
33. Shantaram Gregory - David Roberts
34. Pillars Of The Earth - Ken Follett
35. The Pact - Jodi Picoult
36. Ice Station - Matthew Reilly
37. Cloudstreet - Tim Winton
38. Jessica - Bryce Courtenay
39. A New Earth - Eckhart Tolle
40. The Princess Bride - William Goldman
41. Running With Scissors - Augusten Burroughs
42. Anybody Out There? - Marian Keyes
43. Life Of Pi - Yann Martel
44. Seven Ancient Wonders - Matthew Reilly
45. People Of The Book - Geraldine Brooks
46. Six Sacred Stones - Matthew Reilly
47. Memory Keeper's Daughter - Kim Edwards
48. Brother Odd - Dean Koontz
49. Tully - Paullina Simons
50. Tuesdays with Morrie - Mitch Albom
51. The Catcher in the Rye - J.D Salinger
52. Eragon - Christopher Paolini
53. Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
54. It's Not About The Bike - Lance Armstrong
55. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
56. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
57. The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
58. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
59. A Fortunate Life - A.B. Facey
60. The Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley
61. The Notebook -Nicholas Sparks
62. Water For Elephants - Sara Gruen
63. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
64. The Host - Stephenie Meyer
65. Dirt Music - Tim Winton
66. Eldest - Christopher Paolini
67. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
68. It - Stephen King
69. World Without End - Ken Follett
70. Emma - Jane Austen
71. Temple - Matthew Reilly
72. Little Women - Alcott Louisa May
73. Lean Mean Thirteen - Janet Evanovich
74. Scarecrow - Matthew Reilly
75. American Gods - Neil Gaiman
76. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
77. P.S, I Love You - Cecelia Ahern
78. All That Remains - Patricia Cornwell
79. The Last Lecture - Randy Pausch
80. Past Secrets - Cathy Kelly
81. The Persimmon Tree - Bryce Courtenay
82. Husband - Dean Koontz
83. Plain Truth - Jodi Picoult
84. Wicked - Gregory Maguire (FABULOUS!!!)
85. Spot Of Bother - Mark Haddon
86. Always And Forever - Cathy Kelly
87. The Road - Cormac McCarthy
88. Cents & Sensibility - Maggie Alderson
89. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris
90. The Shifting Fog - Kate Morton
91. We Need To Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver
92. Everyone Worth Knowing - Lauren Weisberger
93. Hour Game - David Baldacci
94. Darkly Dreaming Dexter - Jeff Lindsay
95. The Woods - Harlan Coben
96. Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
97. Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
98. Scar Tissue - Anthony Kiedis
99. Infidel - Ayaan Hirsi Ali
100. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks



So, only 12 out of 100...not Great! I guess I need to brush up on some reading....although there are quite a few on the list that I have "skimmed" throughout the years...does skimming count?

So go pick up a book and read!