Living vicariously through myself

Well, the Jeopardy exam was today at Navy Pier in Chicago. The test was a lot tougher than I thought it was going to be. So hard, in fact, that only seven people passed by getting 35 of the 50 questions right. And, thanks in no small part to everyone who cheered me on, I was one of the seven who moved on and qualified to be called to California to play sometime in the next year. Now I have to go to sleep so I can go into work tomorrow and be worth something. Thanks again to everyone for the good wishes and advice.

Today was a day that had a little of everything.

First, we were all overwhelmed like all who came before us about all there is to know in Washington. Everyone before us has figured it out, we were assured, but that didn't make the city and those who inhabit it any less daunting.

We took the Metro to the Capitol where we got the lay of the land in the senate tv room. They took us to see how you take in a feed, and then we went back down to the room, where we stood waiting for John Edwards for 20 minutes. When senators began entering the room, Edwards wasn't there (he arrived a minute or two later). But Ted Kennedy and John McCain were. That was a little bit of a mind-blower.

We went to go get our ID badges at one of the senate office buildings and when we were done, it was raining fairly hard. So those of us without umbrellas made the three block run to Union Station to catch our train.

Eventually, back to Vienna, where I played basketball for about two hours and somehow managed not to lose a game, no matter whose team I was on. I think I'm now 12-0 in 3 days of basketball in Virginia.

My stuff is scheduled to arrive tomorrow, according to UPS. It'll be nice to have the other stuff, as well as things I pick up this weekend (umbrella included). This weekend, Dan and I and whoever else wants to go will make our yearly pilgrimage to the Taste of Chicago to gorge ourselves on ethic and Chicago-style food. Not a bad way to get a full stomach.

I don't understand the fascination some people have with going overseas -- especially for periods of time long enough to say that they're "living there". Why in God's name would you live anywhere but the US if you were born with the fantastic luck to have automatic citizenship here? It's really stupid, as far as I can tell. I was reading on Jay Krall's live journal about how a man came to his place in Japan (where he teaches children English) and essentially demanded a tribute for the country's public television station. If you have a TV, you're required by law to pay something like $27 to this station, in addition to your normal cable bill, he explained. A man actually came to his door in a black suit and demanded the money. Don't take this as a knock on Jay -- I still have all the respect in the world for him and he's twice the journalist I am. This is jut an example of something that could never happen here. If something like that were to be tried here, we'd probably spit on the guy or demand to see a search warrant. Just because I have a TV I'm supposed to pay YOU extra, mister public television fascist? Fuck you and your stupid foreign idiocy. I live in America and we don't allow bullshit like that here.

Visiting I get -- to me it makes sense to go see the Mona Lisa once or take a trip to see the Pyramids. But LIVE there? Why? In the USA, we legislate on what makes sense. Granted, that kind of voting on public opinion has been wrong before -- witness segregation as an example -- but by in large, if it's logical, it gets codified and if it's not, then it gets voted down or vetoed.

Why is this? Because we only have TWO political parties with any real power. No Social Democrats, Labor parties or a strong Green party. Just Republicans and Democrats -- most of whom try to be so close to the middle that the majority of dumbasses who vote have a hard time screwing this up.

This is the one problem with America -- the proliferation of absolute dolts who grow up here and teach their progeny the same stupid shit they learned. Idiots breeding idiots. People value jury duty and voting for the same reason -- they think they are the right people to decide what is right. This is an offshoot of our biggest failing -- that the average person is qualified somehow to vote and decide if someone is guilty of a crime.

Voting should not be a right -- just witness this year's baseball All-Star voting for the American League's starting shortstop. Nomar Garciaparra of the Red Sox had not played a single game until about 2 weeks ago, yet he was leading the tally at last check.

Jury duty is stupid. I'm a reasonably intelligent guy, but what the hell do I know about the law? You know who should decide all cases? JUDGES! It's what they've done THEIR WHOLE ADULT LIFE. They are much more qualified than I will ever be to decide if someone belongs in the hoosegow or out on the street.

I'm gonna stay in this country. I encourage everyone who likes jury duty to go abroad. And stay there.

I made it to Virginia ok. The flight was ahead of schedule and the Metro stops right across the street from the apartment, just as advertised. Two tupperware containers of stuff are headed my way from Chicagoland -- heaven only knows when they'll get here. I realize that I'll probably have to buy a tv and some sort of tv stand or desk for my room. I won't be able to function without one, and I really should own one myself. Worst case scenario is that I try to sell them when my time here is over.

My roommate Jeff seems pretty cool. He's apparently a Bowdoin College (in Maine) grad and now wants to get into public policy.

My room is nice. It's a good size for me and has a nice big window that looks out onto the courtyard. Each building is kind of like its own little pod, with about 20-25 apartments looking onto the courtyard in the middle. There's a grill out there and a table with four chairs (and a chess board on the table, like you see in parks). There's a wrought iron gate that lets into the courtyard and there's plenty of greenery. It's overcast now, but I'll bet it looks nice when it's sunny.

Later today, I'll probably go to the grocery store and/or Walmart, as well as explore to find the gym, pool, game room and golf simulator.

I keep telling myself this is an adventure and I should be excited about it. Everything seems nice so far -- I'm just too cynical to believe that the proverbial other shoe won't drop at some point. Stay tuned.

So I have a Jeopardy audition on June 28. Anyone who knows about them have any tips?

A Clockwork Orange Burgess, Anthony
A Doll's House Ibsen, Henrik
A Farewell to Arms Hemingway, Ernest
A Man in Full Wolfe, Tom
A Passage to India Forster, E.M.
A Prayer For Owen Meany Irving, John
A Room With a View Forster, E.M.
A Seperate Peace Knowles, John
A Tale of Two Cities Dickens, Charles
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Smith, Betty
Absalom, Absalom Faulkner, William
Agamemnon Aeschylus
Agres Grey Bronte, Anne
Alice in Wonderland Carroll, Lewis
All My Sons O'Neill, Eugene
All Quiet on the Western Front Remarque, Erich Maria
All The King's Men Warren, Robert Penn
All's Well That Ends Well Shakespeare, William
American Tragedy Dreiser, Theodore
Animal Farm Orwell, George
Anna Karenina Tolstoy, Leo
Anthem Rand, Ayn
Antony And Cleopatra Shakespeare, William
Arrowsmith Lewis, Sinclair
As I Lay Dying Faulkner, William
As You Like It Shakespeare, William
Atlas Shrugged Rand, Ayn
Babbitt Lewis, Sinclair
Ballad of the Sad Café McCullers, Carson
Beloved Morrison, Toni
Beowulf Heaney, Seamus (translation)
Black Boy Wright, Richard
Bleak House Dickens, Charles
Bonfire of the Vanities Wolfe, Tom
Brave New World Huxley, Aldous
Brothers Karamazov Doestoevsky, Fyodor
Bully Budd, Foretopman Melville, Herman
Call of the Wild London, Jack
Candide Voltaire, Francois
Canterbury Tales Chaucer, Geoffrey
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Williams, Tennessee
Catch-22 Heller, Joseph
Catcher in the Rye Salinger, J.D.
Cat's Cradle Vonnegut, Kurt
Chrome Yellow Huxley, Aldous
Chronicle of a Death Foretold Marquez, Gabriel Garcia
Comedy of Errors Shakespeare, William
Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court Twain, Mark (Samuel Clemens)
Crime and Punishment Doestoevsky, Fyodor
Cry the Beloved Country Paton, Alan
Cyrano de Bergerac Rostand, Edmond
Daisy Miller James, Henry
David Copperfield Dickens, Charles
Dead Souls Gogol, Nikolai
Death Comes for the Archbishop Cather, Willa
Death of A Salesman Miller, Arthur
Doctor Faustus Marlowe, Christopher
Don Quixote Cervantes, Miguel
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Stevenson, Robert Louis
Dracula Stoker, Bram
Dune Herbert, Frank
Electra Sophocles
Emma Austen, Jane
Ethan Frome Wharton, Edith
Ethics Aristotle
Exodus Uris, Leon
Fahrenheit 451 Bradbury, Ray
Far From the Madding Crowd Hardy, Thomas
Fathers and Sons Turgenev, Ivan
Faust Goethe, Johan
Finnegan's Wake Joyce, James
For Whom the Bell Tolls Hemingway, Ernest
Frankenstein Shelley, Mary
Franny and Zoey Salinger, J.D.
Giants in The Earth Rolvaag, Ole
Go Tell it on the Mountain Baldwin, James
Gone With the Wind Mitchell, Margaret
Gorky Park Cruz Smith, Martin
Grapes of Wrath Steinbeck, John
Great Expectations Dickens, Charles
Great Gatsby Fitzgerald, F. Scott
Gulliver's Travels Swift, Johnathan
Hamlet Shakespeare, William
Hard Times Dickens, Charles
Heart is a Lonely Hunter McCullers, Carson
Heart of Darkness Conrad, Joseph
Hedda Gabler Ibsen, Henrik
Henderson the Rain King Bellow, Saul
Herzog Bellow, Saul
House of Seven Gables Hawthorne, Nathaniel
Howard's End Forster, E.M.
Huckleberry Finn Twain, Mark (Samuel Clemens)
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings Angelou, Maya
Invisible Man Ellison, Ralph Waldo
Ivanhoe Scott, Sir Walter
Jane Eyre Bronte, Charlotte
Joy Luck Club Tan, Amy
Jude the Obscure Hardy, Thomas
Julius Caesar Shakespeare, William
Kim Kipling, Rudyard
King Lear Shakespeare, William
Last of the Mohicans Cooper, James Fenimore
Leaves of Grass Whitman, Walt
Les Miserables Hugo, Victor
Light in August Faulkner, William
Like Water for Chocolate Esquivel, Laura
Long Day's Journey Into Night O'Neill, Eugene
Looking Backward Edward Bellamy
Lord Jim Conrad, Joseph
Lord of the Flies Golding, William
Lord of the Rings Tolkein, J.R.R.
Lost Horizon Hilton, James
Love in the Time of Cholera Marquez, Gabriel Garcia
Love's Labors Lost Shakespeare, William
Macbeth Shakespeare, William
Madame Bovary Flaubert, Gustave
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets Crane, Stephen
Main Street Lewis, Sinclair
Major Barbara Shaw, George Bernard
Man And Superman Shaw, George Bernard
Mansfield Park Austen, Jane
Mayor of Casterbridge Hardy, Thomas
Medea Sophocles
Merchant of Venice Shakespeare, William
Merry Wives of Windsor Shakespeare, William
Middlemarch Eliot, George (Mary Ann Evans)
Midsummer Night's Dream Shakespeare, William
Mill on the Floss Eliot, George
Moby Dick Melville, Herman
Moll Flanders Dafoe, Daniel
Mourning Becomes Electra O'Neill, Eugene
Mrs. Dalloway Woolf, Virginia
Much Ado About Nothing Shakespeare, William
My Antonia Cather, Willa
My Name is Asher Lev Bellow, Saul
Mythology Hamilton, Edith
Naked Lunch Burroughs, William S.
Native Son Wright, Richard
Night Wiesel, Elie
Nineteen Eighty Four Orwell, George
No Exit Sartre, Jean Paul
No Longer At Ease Achebe, Chinua
Northanger Abbey Austen, Jane
O Pioneers! Cather, Willa
Of Human Bondage Maugham, W. Somerset
Of Mice and Men Steinbeck, John
Oliver Twist Dickens, Charles
On The Beach Shute, Neville
On The Road Kerouac, Jack
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Solzhenitzyn, Alexander
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Kesey, Ken
One Hundred Years of Solitude Marquez, Gabriel Garcia
Othello Shakespeare, William
Our Town Wilder, Thornton
Paradise Lost Milton, John
Pickwick Papers Dickens, Charles
Pilgrim's Progress Bunyan, John
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Joyce, James
Pride and Prejudice Austen, Jane
Pygmalion Shaw, George Bernard
Quo Vadis Seinkiewicz, Henry
Rabbit, Run Updike, John
Ragtime Doctorow, E.L.
Rebecca Du Maurier, Daphne
Red Badge of Courage Crane, Stephen
Red Pony Steinbeck, John
Return of the Native Cooper, James Fenimore
Robinson Crusoe Dafoe, Daniel
Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare, William
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead Stoppard, Tom
Scarlet Letter Hawthorne, Nathaniel
Sense and Sensability Austen, Jane
Siddhartha Hesse, Herman
Silas Marner Eliot, George
Sister Carrie Dreiser, Theodore
Slaughterhouse Five Vonnegut, Kurt
Something Wicked This Way Comes Bradbury, Ray
Sons and Lovers Lawrence, D.H.
Sophie's Choice Styron, William
Steppenwolf Hesse, Herman
Stranger in a Strange Land Heinlein, Robert
Streetcar Named Desire Williams, Tennessee
Sula Morrison, Toni
Taming of the Shrew Shakespeare, William
Tartuffe Moliere
Tender is the Night Fitzgerald, F. Scott
Tess of the D'Urbervilles Hardy, Thomas
The Accidental Tourist Rice, Anne
The Adventures of Augie March Bellow, Saul
The Aeneid Virgil
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman Gaines, Ernest
The Awakening Chopin, Kate
The Bees Sophocles
The Bell Jar Plath, Sylvia
The Birds Sophocles
The Birthmark Gogol, Nikolai
The Bostonians James, Henry
The Charter House of Parma Stendhal
The Cherry Orchard Chekov, Anton
The Chosen Potok, Chaim
The Cider House Rules Irving, John
The Clouds Sophocles
The Color Purple Walker, Alice
The Confessions of Nat Turner Styron, William
The Count of Monte Cristo Dumas, Alexandre
The Crucible Miller, Arthur
The Day of the Jackal Forsyth, Frederick
The Death of Artemio Cruz Fuentes, Carlos
The Divine Comedy Alighieri, Dante
The Doors of Perception Huxley, Aldous
The Faerie Queen Spenser, Edmund
The Fixer Malamud, Bernard
The Fountainhead Rand, Ayn
The Frogs Sophocles
The Glass Menagerie Williams, Tennessee
The Good Earth Buck, Pearl
The Great Train Robbery Crichton, Michael
The Gulag Archipelago Solzhenitzyn, Alexander
The Handmaid's Tale Atwood, Margaret
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Adams, Douglas
The Hobbit Tolkein, J.R.R.
The House on Mango Street Cisneros, Sandra
The Hunchback of Notre Dame Hugo, Victor
The Iceman Cometh O'Neill, Eugene
The Idiot Doestoevsky, Fyodor
The Iliad Homer
The Jew of Malta Marlowe, Christopher
The Jungle Sinclair, Upton
The Jungle Book Kipling, Rudyard
The Kitchen God's Wife Tan, Amy
The Last Tycoon Fitzgerald, F. Scott
The Libation Bearers Aeschylus
The Magic Mountain Mann, Thomas
The Maltese Falcon Hammett, Dashiell
The Man in the Iron Mask Dumas, Alexandre
The Martian Chronicles Bradbury, Ray
The Metamorphosis Kafka, Franz
The Misanthrope Moliere
The Moonstone Collins, Wilkie
The Natural Malamud, Bernard
The Nose Gogol, Nikolai
The Odyssey Homer
The Old Man and the Sea Hemingway, Ernest
The Open Boat Crane, Stephen
The Plague Camus, Albert
The Prince Machiavelli, Nicolo
The Prince and the Pauper Twain, Mark (Samuel Clemens)
The Prince of Tides Conroy, Pat
The Red and the Black Stendhal
The Republic Plato
The Right Stuff Wolfe, Tom
The Sea Wolf London, Jack
The Seagull Chekov, Anton
The Secret Sharer Conrad, Joseph
The Shipping News E. Annie Proulx
The Sound and the Fury Faulkner, William
The Stranger Camus, Albert
The Sun Also Rises Hemingway, Ernest
The Tempest Shakespeare, William
The Three Musketeers Dumas, Alexandre
The Wasps Sophocles
The Winter of Our Discontent Steinbeck, John
The Winter's Tale Shakespeare, William
The World According to Garp Irving, John
Their Eyes Were Watching God Hurston, Zora Neale
Things Fall Apart Achebe, Chinua
Three Sisters Chekov, Anton
To Kill A Mockingbird Lee, Harper
To The Lighthouse Woolf, Virginia
Tom Jones Fielding, Henry
Tom Sawyer Twain, Mark (Samuel Clemens)
Tortilla Flat Steinbeck, John
Travels With Charlie Steinbeck, John
Treasure Island Stevenson, Robert Louis
Tristram Shandy Stern, Laurence
Troilus and Cressida Shakespeare, William
Tropic of Cancer Miller, Henry
Turn of the Screw James, Henry
Twelfth Night Shakespeare, William
Two Gentlemen of Verona Shakespeare, William
Ulysses Joyce, James
Uncle Tom's Cabin Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Uncle Vanya Chekov, Anton
Utopia More, Thomas
Vanity Fair Thackeray, William Makepeace
Waiting for Godot Beckett, Samuel
Walden Thoreau, Henry David
Walden Two Skinner, B.F.
War and Peace Tolstoy, Leo
Washington Square James, Henry
Watership Down Adams, Richard
White Fang London, Jack
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Albee, Edward
Winesburg, Ohio Anderson, Sherwood
Winnie the Pooh Milne, A.A.
Wise Blood O'Connor, Flannery
Woman in White Collins, Wilkie
Women in Love Lawrence, D.H.
Wuthering Heights Bronte, Emily
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Pirsig, Robert

All these are quotes from my sports and society professor, Lester Munson, who is a writer for Sports Illustrated.

On the word monopsony (which I learned from quiz bowl):
"If you've heard the word, you've gone wrong somewhere in life..."

On NU and its sports...uhhh...tradition...:
"Northwestern University, which persists in its delusion that it's a Division I school."

On becoming a Chicago Bull through the draft:
"If you have the misfortune to be drafted by the Chicago Bulls, you're here for three years -- unless you are fortunate enough to be traded away."

On who to pick to be your commissioner if you're a sports league:
"Three of the leagues have commissioners who were anti-trust lawyers. Baseball has Bud Selig...who was a car salesman."

On why pitchers are union representatives in baseball:
"They only work every fifth day -- they have TIME!"

On why Marvin Miller didn't seem logical as a players union head:
"If you look at Marvin Miller, you wouldn't think 'labor leader'. You'd think he was an accountant."

On what to cover as a sports journalist:
"We have people at SI who do nothing but report on golf. I can't explain it."

On high schoolers wanting to be like Barry Bonds and get steroids:
"Lemme at 'em! Where can I get 'em? How far is Tijuana?"

On Mark Chmura being charged with sexual assualt after a night in a hot tub, also in response to Mike Ditka's quote that "4 am is ALWAYS the wrong time" to be somewhere:
"A hot tub is the wrong place -- never get in a hot tub!"

On the International Olympic Committee and the people in charge there:
"There's a certain amount of neo-fascists who run this organization."

On what Martha Stewart did wrong:"What's the moral of the story? Don't check your messages while on vacation!"

On Michael Jordan and his entourage:"These NBA guys have to have a minimum of three guys as they go through life. Michael Jordan had three -- all named Fred. I had their phone numbers at one time. I was pretty happy with myself."

On how to keep kids out of trouble and why to have them play sports:
"We had two sons. We wanted them to be busy and exhausted."

On Title IX, which gurantees equal numbers of sports for men and women:"Title IX was written by Richard Nixon, of all people -- the noted social architect..."

On how he deals with students younger than he:
"Just look at me -- I'm old and I'm slow."

On religion at the University of Chicago:
"There's FIVE seminaries at the University of Chicago. I don't know if any of them believe in God, but..."

There is an amazing amount of shitty "literature" on this list -- witness the 7 consecutive Robert Jordan books. Fucking fantasy idiots.


+bold those you've read
+italicize started-but-never-finished or are reading currently
+underline those you own but haven't gotten to yet

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. 1984, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Susskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
103. The Beach, Alex Garland
104. Dracula, Bram Stoker
105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz
106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens
107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz
108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy
112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13 1/2, Sue Townsend
113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
119. Shogun, James Clavell
120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson
122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
124. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
127. Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison
128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
129. Possession, A. S. Byatt
130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl
133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck
134. George's Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson
141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson
143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
144. It, Stephen King
145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
146. The Green Mile, Stephen King
147. Papillon, Henri Charriere
148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett
149. Master And Commander, Patrick O'Brian
150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz
151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett
153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement, Ian McEwan
155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier
157. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
158. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon
161. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
162. River God, Wilbur Smith
163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
165. The World According To Garp, John Irving
166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore
167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson
168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye
169. The Witches, Roald Dahl
170. Charlotte's Web, E. B. White
171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway
174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco
175. Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder
176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr. Fox, Roald Dahl
178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner, George Eliot
185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Gross-mith
187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine
189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons
193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells
195. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans
196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White
199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews
201. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
202. The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan
203. The Great Hunt, Robert Jordan
204. The Dragon Reborn, Robert Jordan
205. Fires of Heaven, Robert Jordan
206. Lord of Chaos, Robert Jordan
207. Winter's Heart, Robert Jordan
208. A Crown of Swords, Robert Jordan
209. Crossroads of Twilight, Robert Jordan
210. A Path of Daggers, Robert Jordan
211. As Nature Made Him, John Colapinto
212. Microserfs, Douglas Coupland
213. The Married Man, Edmund White
214. Winter's Tale, Mark Helprin
215. The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault
216. Cry to Heaven, Anne Rice
217. Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe, John Boswell
218. Equus, Peter Shaffer
219. The Man Who Ate Everything, Jeffrey Steingarten
220. Letters To A Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke
221. Ella Minnow Pea, Mark Dunn
222. The Vampire Lestat, Anne Rice
223. Anthem, Ayn Rand
224. The Bridge To Terabithia, Katherine Paterson
225. Tartuffe, Moliere
226. The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
227. The Crucible, Arthur Miller
228. The Trial, Franz Kafka
229. Oedipus Rex, Sophocles
230. Oedipus at Colonus, Sophocles
231. Death Be Not Proud, John Gunther
232. A Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen
233. Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen
234. Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
235. A Raisin In The Sun, Lorraine Hansberry
236. ALIVE!, Piers Paul Read
237. Grapefruit, Yoko Ono
238. Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde
240. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
241. Chronicles of Thomas Convenant, Unbeliever, Stephen Donaldson
242. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
242. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon
243. Summerland, Michael Chabon
244. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
245. Candide, Voltaire
246. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More, Roald Dahl
247. Ringworld, Larry Niven
248. The King Must Die, Mary Renault
249. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein
250. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L'Engle
251. The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
252. The House Of The Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne
253. The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
254. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
255. The Great Gilly Hopkins, Katherine Paterson
256. Chocolate Fever, Robert Kimmel Smith
257. Xanth: The Quest for Magic, Piers Anthony
258. The Lost Princess of Oz, L. Frank Baum
259. Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon
260. Lost In A Good Book, Jasper Fforde
261. Well Of Lost Plots, Jasper Fforde
261. Life Of Pi, Yann Martel
263. The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver
264. A Yellow Raft In Blue Water, Michael Dorris
265. Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder
267. Where The Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls
268. Griffin & Sabine, Nick Bantock
269. Witch of Black Bird Pond, Joyce Friedland
270. Mrs. Frisby And The Rats Of NIMH, Robert C. O'Brien
271. Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt
272. The Cay, Theodore Taylor
273. From The Mixed-Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg
274. The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Jester
275. The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
276. The Kitchen God's Wife, Amy Tan
277. The Bone Setter's Daughter, Amy Tan
278. Relic, Duglas Preston & Lincolon Child
279. Wicked, Gregory Maguire
280. American Gods, Neil Gaiman
281. Misty of Chincoteague, Marguerite Henry
282. The Girl Next Door, Jack Ketchum
283. Haunted, Judith St. George
284. Singularity, William Sleator
285. A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
286. Different Seasons, Stephen King
287. Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk
288. About a Boy, Nick Hornby
289. The Bookman's Wake, John Dunning
290. The Church of Dead Girls, Stephen Dobyns
291. Illusions, Richard Bach
292. Magic's Pawn, Mercedes Lackey
293. Magic's Promise, Mercedes Lackey
294. Magic's Price, Mercedes Lackey
295. The Dancing Wu Li Masters, Gary Zukav
296. Spirits of Flux and Anchor, Jack L. Chalker
297. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
298. The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices, Brenda Love
299. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
300. The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison.
301. The Cider House Rules, John Irving
302. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
303. Girlfriend in a Coma, Douglas Coupland
304. The Lion's Game, Nelson Demille
305. The Sun, The Moon, and the Stars, Stephen Brust
306. Cyteen, C. J. Cherryh
307. Foucault's Pendulum, Umberto Eco
308. Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
309. Invisible Monsters, Chuck Palahniuk
310. Camber of Culdi, Kathryn Kurtz
311. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
312. War and Rememberance, Herman Wouk
313. The Art of War, Sun Tzu
314. The Giver, Lois Lowry
315. The Telling, Ursula Le Guin
316. Xenogenesis (or Lilith's Brood), Octavia Butler
317. A Civil Campaign, Lois McMaster Bujold
318. The Curse of Chalion, Lois McMaster Bujold
319. The Aeneid, Publius Vergilius Maro
320. Hanta Yo, Ruth Beebe Hill
321. The Princess Bride, S. Morganstern (or William Goldman)
322. Beowulf, Anonymous
323. The Sparrow, Maria Doria Russell
324. Deerskin, Robin McKinley
325. Dragonsong, Anne McCaffrey
326. Passage, Connie Willis
327. Otherland, Tad Williams
328. Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay
329. Number the Stars, Lois Lowry
330. Beloved, Toni Morrison
331. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, Christopher Moore
332. The mysterious disappearance of Leon, I mean Noel, Ellen Raskin
333. Summer Sisters, Judy Blume
334. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo
335. The Island on Bird Street, Uri Orlev
336. Midnight in the Dollhouse, Marjorie Filley Stover
337. The Miracle Worker, William Gibson
338. The Genesis Code, John Case
339. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevensen
340. Paradise Lost, John Milton
341. Phantom, Susan Kay
342. The Mummy or Ramses the Damned, Anne Rice
343. Anno Dracula, Kim Newman
344: The Dresden Files: Grave Peril, Jim Butcher
345: Tokyo Suckerpunch, Issac Adamson
346: The Winter of Magic's Return, Pamela Service
347: The Oddkins, Dean R. Koontz
348. My Name is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok
349. The Last Goodbye, Raymond Chandler
350. At Swim, Two Boys, Jaime O'Neill
351. Othello, by William Shakespeare
352. The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas
353. The Collected Poems of William Butler Yeats
354. Sati, Christopher Pike
355. The Inferno, Dante
356. The Apology, Plato
357. The Small Rain, Madeline L'Engle
358. The Man Who Tasted Shapes, Richard E Cytowick
359. 5 Novels, Daniel Pinkwater
360. The Sevenwaters Trilogy, Juliet Marillier
361. Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier
362. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
363. Our Town, Thorton Wilder
364. Green Grass Running Water, Thomas King
335. The Interpreter, Suzanne Glass
336. The Moor's Last Sigh, Salman Rushdie
337. The Mother Tongue, Bill Bryson
338. A Passage to India, E.M. Forster
339. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky
340. The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux
341. Pages for You, Sylvia Brownrigg
342. The Changeover, Margaret Mahy
343. Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones
344. Angels and Demons, Dan Brown
345. Johnny Got His Gun, Dalton Trumbo
346. Shosha, Isaac Bashevis Singer
347. Travels With Charley, John Steinbeck
348. The Diving-bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
349. The Lunatic at Large by J. Storer Clouston
350. Time for bed by David Baddiel
351. Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold
352. Quite Ugly One Morning by Christopher Brookmyre
353. The Bloody Sun by Marion Zimmer Bradley
354. Sewer, Gas, and Eletric by Matt Ruff
355. Jhereg by Steven Brust
356. So You Want To Be A Wizard by Diane Duane
357. Perdido Street Station, China Mieville
358. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte
359. Road-side Dog, Czeslaw Milosz
360. The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje
361. Neuromancer, William Gibson
362. The Epistemology of the Closet, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
363. A Canticle for Liebowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr
364. The Mask of Apollo, Mary Renault
365. The Gunslinger, Stephen King
366. Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare
367. Absalom, Absalom, William Faulkner
368. The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
369. Dreamhouse, Alison Habens
370. Hyperion, by Dan Simmons
371. Prospero's Children, Jan Siegel
372. Gaudy Night, Dorothy Sayers
373. Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond
374. Enchantment, Orson Scott Card
375. Cetaganda, Lois McMaster Bujold
376. Beauty, Sheri S. Tepper
377. The Hour of the Star, Clarice Lispector
378. The Patron Saint of Liars, Ann Patchett
379. Sexing the Cherry, Jeanette Winterson.
380. A wizard of Earthsea, Ursula Le'Guin.
381. Assassin's Apprentice, Robin Hobb.
382. The Axis Trilogy, Sara Douglass
383. Peter Pan, J. M. Barrie
384. Sabriel, Garth Nix
385. Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman
386. The Silence of the Lambs, Robert Harris
387. The Hot Zone, Richard Preston
388. Talking to High Monks in the Snow, by Lydia Minatoya
389. The Women of Brewster Place, by Gloria Naylor
390. Their Eyes were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
391. The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Bird
392. The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown
393. Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut
394. Bridget Jones - The Edge Of Reason, Helen Fielding
395. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, JK Rowling
396. I Never Promised You A Rosegarden, Hannah Green
397. Fool's Fate, Robin Hobb
398. A kiss of shadows, Laurell K. Hamilton
399. Sacajawea, Anne Lee Waldo
400. The Red Room, Nicci French
401. The Stepford Wives, Ira Levin
402. Dragon Wing, Weis&Hickman
403. The Iliad, Homer
404. Hamlet, William Shakespeare
405. The Collected Poems, Sylvia Plath
406. Before Night Falls, Reinaldo Arenas
407. The Awakening, Kate Chopin
408. The Antichrist, Friedrich Nietzsche
409. The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, Sei Shonagon
410. The Darkangel Trilogy, Meredith Ann Pierce
411. Dangerous Angels (The Weetzie Bat Books), Francesca Lia Block
412. Survivor, Chuck Palahniuk
413. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
414. Dogwalker, Arthur Bradford
415. The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
416. A Walk To Remember, Nicholas Sparks
417. Blood and Chocolate, Annette Curtis Klause
418. The Twenty Years Crisis, E. H. Carr
419. The Persian Boy, Mary Renault
420. Heike Monogatari, Anonymous
421. And the Band Played On, Randy Shilts
422. Tender Is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald
423. Under the Volcano, Malcolm Lowry
424. The Rules of Attraction, Brett Easton Ellis
425. Super-Cannes, J.G. Ballard
426. Choke, Chuck Palahniuk
427. The Rapture of Canaan, Sheri Reynolds
428. Mongrel, Justin Chin
429. Sophie's Choice, William Styron
430. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. LeGuin
431. Walden, Henry David Thoreau
432. The Hero With A Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell
433. Immortality, Milan Kundera
434. Memnoch the Devil, Anne Rice
435. Imajica, Clive Barker
436. Dandelion Wine, Ray Bradbury
437. Till We Have Faces, C.S. Lewis
438. Monkey, trans. Arthur Waley (also known as A Journey To the West)
439. Closing Time, Joseph Heller
440. Shopgirl, Steve Martin
441. Hard Times, Charles Dickens