I know I used to have a brain. . .

Because of this post by Jamie, I realized that apparently I read nothing last year other than twaddle, fluff and drivel. Or if I did read anything of importance, I forgot it.

Once upon a time, I did read good stuff. For fun. Like Tale of Two Cities, Wuthering Heights, Sense and Sensibility, Hamlet and Jane Eyre (2 times for school and also again on my own). I even read Vanity Fair -- the longest book ever except for the Bible, at 1008 pages. And that was before the movie was made.

Most of them I read because I assumed that if I heard of them and they were old . . . they had to be good. Most of them were. The only book that I absolutely hated, loathed and despised was Lord of the Flies.

So then at Jamie's blog I read about the 9/9/9 challenge, which sounds great until you realize that it is 81 books. But I am going to try anyway.

It's got to be better than last year, where I don't remember anything I read.

Even if I only read 1/2 of them.

So anyway, the idea is to read 9 books in 9 different categories during 2009.

I don't have my list completely ironed out yet (because who knows what whims will strike between now and then) but here is what I am thinking:

General fiction


• to be honest, I am not going to try to guess anything that will go here. This one will be the easiest to fill though

Non-fiction


• Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv


• Bringing up Boys, Richard Dobson


• again, I don't know what all will go here

Classics I want to reread:


• Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte -- I haven't read it in at least 15 years


• Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen


• Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen


• Persuasion, Jane Austen


• Little Women, Louisa May Alcott


• A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens


• Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stevenson


• The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne - one of the few American Lit that I liked


• The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas

Classics I may have missed: I don't remember these, but I may have read them. I tend to read all the books of a particular author I like.


• Villette, Charlotte Bronte


• Shirley, Charlotte Bronte


• Mansfield Park, Jane Austen


• Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen


• Emma, Jane Austen


• The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas


• The Man in the Iron Mask, Alexandre Dumas


• Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson


• The Wizard of Oz, Frank L Baum

Classics I know I missed:


• Swiss Family Robinson, Johann Wyss


• The Last of the Mohicans, James Fenimore Cooper


• King Soloman's Mines, H. Rider Haggard


• The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Victor Hugo


• The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe


• The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane


• Ivanhoe, Walter, Sir Scott


• Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens


• David Copperfield, Charles Dickens --I started either this or Oliver T and never finished. Might as well add it to the list.

Books to read aloud to the kids:


• Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll


• Junglebook, Rudyard Kipling


• Kim, Rudyard Kipling


• some of the Marguerite Henry books like Sea Star, & Misty of Chincoteague


• Sarah, Plain and Tall, Patricia MacLachlan


• A Door in the Wall, Marguerite De Angeli


• Robin Hood, Howard Pyle


• The Moffats, Eleanor Estes


• The Burgess Animal Book for Children, Thornton Burgess

Biography


• The Hiding Place, Corrie Ten Boom --I will be rereading it, but it's been over 15 years


• To the Last Salute: Memories of an Austrian U-Boat Commander, Georg von Trapp


• Maria, by Maria von Trapp (and maybe some of the others by her)


• Any suggestions?

Christian / Theology


• The Shack, Will Young


• Fox's Book of Martyrs, John Foxe


• Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis


• The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis


• Rumors of Another World, Philip Yancy

Books I own but haven't read yet:


• Poisonwood Bible


• Blessing, Deborah Bedford


• others in random places around, that I have been meaning to read

Anyone else up for the challange?