Tagged: jane austen

January 18th, 2010

Required Reading: 28 Books in 2010

I love reading, right? You’d think for all the books I have scattered about my house. And I do love reading, but there are far too many books on my shelves that I have not read. Or that I’ve started and haven’t finished. Taking my cue from Linden, here’s my list of books to read this year:

  1. What Difference Do It Make? by Ron Hall, Denver Moore, and Lynn Vincent
  2. Secrets: Transforming Your Life and Marriage by Kerry Clarensau (started but haven’t finished)
  3. The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence
  4. Guerrilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson (started but haven’t finished)
  5. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
  6. Vintage Jesus by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears (started but haven’t finished)
  7. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
  8. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens (started but haven’t finished)
  9. Persuasion by Jane Austen
  10. Lady Susan by Jane Austen
  11. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
  12. Story Collections by Oscar Wilde
  13. Plays by Oscar Wilde
  14. Poems by Oscar Wilde
  15. Poems in Prose by Oscar Wilde
  16. Essays by Oscar Wilde
  17. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
  18. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
  19. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
  20. The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells
  21. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
  22. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
  23. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
  24. The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
  25. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
  26. The First Men in the Moon by H.G. Wells
  27. The Food of the Gods by H.G. Wells
  28. In the Days of the Comet by H.G. Wells

Two themes present themselves in this list:

  1. I start a lot of books but don’t finish them. Not sure why. Maybe they’re not interesting enough to finish. Maybe I just got busy. Regardless, I’ve got to get them off my to-read list.
  2. I have a lot of books by the same authors. Chris bought me several “Library of Essential Writers” collections for Christmas a few years ago, and I’ve hardly touched them. Authors include Mark Twain (read it), Ernest Hemingway (read it), Jane Austen (reading), Charles Dickens (struggling through Oliver Twist), Oscar Wilde, and H.G. Wells. Reading a collection of books by one author is actually my preferred method of reading books one after the other. I think I inherited this from my Toni Morrison/William Faulkner and Edith Wharton literature classes in college.

Twenty-eight books in 365 days? I think I can do it. That’s just over two books a month, and some of those I’m already in the middle of. I just have to be careful and not let my stack of unread magazines pile up around me, too!

Thoughts? Am I brilliantly creative or a gigantic idiot for tackling all these books this year?

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September 4th, 2009

Ooh, Look! I Can See All My Shoes at Once! Purses, too!


I organized our closet this week. It’s nowhere near as pretty as I’d like it to be, but at least our shoes are not piled into his-and-hers wicker laundry baskets any more. And my cute/funky purses are no longer in plastic containers; now they’re out where I can see them, and theoretically, use them more often. I even got rid of three pairs of running shoes/sneakers. I still need to clean out the summer clothes I didn’t wear this season. (Tip: At the beginning of every season, flip your hangers around so they hang backwards off the clothing rod. When you wear something off of one, flip the hanger around. By the end of the season, it will be clear what you wore and what you didn’t.)

And in a non-closet-organizing note, I’m looking into the Getting Things Done workflow. Mainly, I need a better system at work. Not because I’m disorganized, but because I answer to 15 or so people, and I need a workflow that I can give to them and say, “Hey, this is how I work best. If you need me to do something for you, this is how to get the best results.” So I’m working on inboxes. A physical one at work, three email inboxes (yes, I must have three: personal, work, Austin Creative), and eventually an inbox at home. I also need to work on a workspace at home (GTD says it’s a bad idea for spouses to share workspaces. I concur.) And I need to turn my laptop bag into a portable workspace. (Not a far stretch. During grad school, I carried an office supply store around in my bag. Mini stapler, hole punch, Post-Its, binder clips, paper clips, Visine, Uniballs of every color, dry erase markers, mechanical pencils, mechanical erasers, pencil lead, highlighters, white-out, Page Points, and at least two writing style guides. I was equipped to grade a paper at a moment’s notice. I miss those days…)

Six miles tomorrow + a wedding. BBQ Sunday night. I have a bit of Austin Creative work to do, but I think I’m going to indulge and break out some Jane Austen this weekend. I need to rest my brain. Have any excellent weekend!

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