Wednesday, January 11, 2017
Today at Preschool...
One of my kids pranced across the room and at the top of his lungs sang "Fuck, Fuck, Fuckity Fuck". Summed up my sentiments perfectly.
Thursday, January 05, 2017
November Rain
So if you read my post about choosing a word, you know that last year's word was Path. And that there were some bumps - one significant bump in particular - on that path. It's been a challenge to work through and I thought putting it all into words might help (and be cheaper than therapy!) People have said that miscarriages don't get discussed, that women suffer in silence. And now that I am one of those women, I get it. And I want to hug and cry with every single woman who has ever had to weather one.
The last week of October and the first week of November brought me terrible insomnia. Up at 4am wide awake good luck going back to sleep insomnia. I was already recovering from another bout of Shingles and I was feeling ragged and just generally crappy. I shouldn't have been surprised when I realized that I was late. So on Sunday, November 6, I asked Brooks to go to the store for a test. (I'm noting dates here because I feel like the time compression of this shit storm plays into my difficulty in working through things. Brooks went to CVS. Brooks couldn't find the pregnancy tests and didn't want to ask for help (small town). Brooks came home an hour later with two 3-feet tall nutcrackers and no tests. We picked the boys up from SOR and went to a local brunch spot. Not long after we sat down, I had a sense of pelvic pressure that seemed to come on out of nowhere. I ate a little but couldn't settle myself so I told Brooks I was going to walk home and swing through CVS. And so I did. And I bought a box of tests. And the first three came up positive immediately.
I wasn't thrilled. It breaks my heart to admit that, but I was so caught off guard. I am happy teaching. I am looking forward to working through another tax season. I am comfortable in my social circle of mom's with elementary age kids (and where babies would definitely be a hindrance). I like sleeping through the night. And I already feel SO old. God bless my husband who literally lifted me off of the floor and told me how great it was going to be. By the time we crawled into bed that night, I believed him.
The boys had a dentist appointment Monday and we planned to meet my mom for lunch afterwards. Before we left, I called a recommended OB practice and begged my way into an appointment Tuesday. I had a weekend trip to Santa Barbara planned for the annual family photo session of my bestie, and more importantly I had no idea when or exactly how this had happened. I felt more bloated than just that one missed period warranted. We asked my mom to watch the boys Tuesday morning (it was Veterans Day so they were off of school) because Brooks wanted to go with me. At the time I thought he was being so silly, but I love how involved he always wants to be. And now I'm so very grateful for that. I told Brooks that I would wait to tell anyone yet, but I couldn't do it. I think I waited all of 15 minutes into lunch before I told my mom. She got teary, told me it was the best news ever and I cried. I told her everything I was scared of losing and as I ticked through my list she responded to each item: "so what?" Initially I thought she had been a little dismissive, but as I laid in bed that night I realized how right she was. In the scheme of life, none of those things mattered when pitted against adding one more little person to our family.
I was on pins and needles Tuesday as we dropped the boys off with my mom and headed to the Midwife's office. My pregnancy test came back positive immediately and they suggested doing a dating ultrasound. Yes! That was where our joy hit the wall. The midwife couldn't see anything. Maybe it was too early. We were hopeful as we were sent to the Dr.'s where a better ultrasound machine should show more. Two hours later we left defeated. We were callously told "there's nothing here to suggest a normal pregnancy." I would later wonder why she was so cold, and why I didn't ask more questions, but in shock we were sent for blood tests. I called my mom from the lab and tried to calmly tell her that things weren't good. To further complicate things, my HcG levels were very high and I was told that I would need to get another reading on Thursday. In Santa Barbara. And that I could possibly miscarry while there.
I don't remember Wednesday. I guess I packed while the kids were at school. I'm not really sure how since already everything was too tight. I do remember that we put Dash and Kell to bed and I told Fin. He was going to CA with me and I was terrified that I would find myself in some kind of horror movie murder scene that would scar him for life, so I felt it best to tell him what was happening. He already knew something was up, he's a perceptive kid. I tried to tell him with as little emotion as possible, but his disappointment broke my heart. I don't think I slept at all that night.
Fin and I flew to Santa Barbara on Thursday. As we landed, over In N Out, I told my best friend that I needed to get some blood tests run and why. She listened and offered support and most importantly honored and respected my wishes to avoid getting emotional about things. We breezed through the lab and began to go about our usual weekend visit routine (In N Out, shop, In N Out, beach, In N Out, shop...)
Her children had off of school on Friday so they all stayed home with her husband while we went shopping for their photo outfits. We were in a dressing room at Nordstrom Rack in Thousand Oaks when the office called. My numbers had doubled. Could be a fluke right before they drop precipitously, but they were high enough that viewing nothing on ultrasound almost certainly meant that the pregnancy was not viable. Comforted by the advice that I would be able to enjoy the weekend and get home before the tough part started (and feeling like maybe, maybe there was still hope), we resumed the fashion show. Fifteen minutes later the midwife called me personally. After looking at all of the scans and my numbers she was certain that I was experiencing an ectopic pregnancy. She told me to go to the ER immediately. I asked if I couldn't wait until I got home and she stressed that this was a true medical emergency and she didn't want me to wait even another hour. We checked out and spent two hours fighting traffic back to Santa Barbara because I didn't want to be stuck in a hospital that far from her house. Everyone in the ER couldn't have been nicer and I was examined and an IV started immediately. I was told that if they could access the tissue laparoscopically or vaginally, I would be outpatient and be able and fly home on Sunday as scheduled. If not, I would not be able to fly for at least a week. I think the ultrasounds took over an hour. Maybe it just felt that way. The ER Dr. had to call in an OB consult. When he finally came in to talk to me, he seemed almost excited by the diagnosis. I'm hoping it was just excitement that I didn't need immediate surgical intervention. They now believed I was experiencing a molar pregnancy - which would explain the pelvic pressure, bloating and the high HcG levels. He illustrated it on my bedsheet:
So there was nothing that could be done until I got home. While it was hard process all of this away from home, I was so lucky to be with such amazing friends. Great friends make you feel that you can talk to them about anything, which I did, a little. Truly amazing friends are the ones where you know you don't have to say anything. They just get it. Humor is a great crutch and getting the job of photos done gave me something to focus on and keep me distracted. The scenery didn't hurt either. Skies like this just make you feel like you're going to be ok no matter what.
On Sunday afternoon, we said our sad goodbyes, packed up and headed home. The Dr.'s squeezed me in early on Monday morning, repeated the ultrasounds which showed more cystic growths and encouraged the likelihood of a molar pregnancy. My numbers continued to skyrocket and it was clear that there was no medical possibility that a viable fetus wouldn't be visible with those numbers. There are medications that are used to induce a miscarriage in these cases, but molar pregnancies are notoriously unresponsive to them. My Dr. felt that a D & C was the only real course of action and it was important to get a full pathological picture of what was going on because of the future dangers that a molar pregnancy can signal. I would have to be put completely under as they'd have to be "thorough". They could get me in the next day so I'd be recovered by Thanksgiving.
On Tuesday, November 11, I had a D & C. I came home to recover and I worried. I worried about the potential repercussions of a molar pregnancy. Would the tissue return? Would it become cancerous? Would I need a hysterectomy? I came home and grieved. And then I grieved for not feeling like my grief was justified. A molar pregnancy is not a true pregnancy. I essentially had cysts or tumors. Could I really mourn the loss if it wasn't even a fetus? Not even really a fertilized egg? And what right did I have to any grief after meeting that positive test with such a selfish sense of loss?
You read things about miscarriages going undiscussed. That you don't often know that close friends have been through one without first disclosing your own. I remember reading an article that described just that a few years ago. I shrugged and tried to imagine going through anything I didn't want to discuss to death. I'm a chronic over-sharer. I have no problem posting any and everything on social media. With my boys I told everyone I was pregnant the second that stick turned and never worried about having to reverse the call if things went south. If I wanted to share the pregnancy, I assumed I would want to share the loss just as readily. I was right in one way, that it's much easier to move through the topic of loss if you've already publicly declared the pregnancy. But when it came to the ease of sharing, I was so very wrong. I've never felt so alone in my life. I was adrift on a raft of grief by myself and the distance to shore was impossible to close. I needed help but felt powerless to reach out for it. Still full of hormones, everything made me cry. And I really hate to cry. I.was.stuck.
And then the pathology came back. It was not a molar pregnancy. It was just a pregnancy that didn't develop normally. But it was a pregnancy. A potential baby. Not a tumor. And I felt relief. I felt justified in my grief. And I could breathe through the reassurance that I would move forward with no lasting physical effects.
And then I took a deep breath, and reached out and started talking. And I started to heal.
The last week of October and the first week of November brought me terrible insomnia. Up at 4am wide awake good luck going back to sleep insomnia. I was already recovering from another bout of Shingles and I was feeling ragged and just generally crappy. I shouldn't have been surprised when I realized that I was late. So on Sunday, November 6, I asked Brooks to go to the store for a test. (I'm noting dates here because I feel like the time compression of this shit storm plays into my difficulty in working through things. Brooks went to CVS. Brooks couldn't find the pregnancy tests and didn't want to ask for help (small town). Brooks came home an hour later with two 3-feet tall nutcrackers and no tests. We picked the boys up from SOR and went to a local brunch spot. Not long after we sat down, I had a sense of pelvic pressure that seemed to come on out of nowhere. I ate a little but couldn't settle myself so I told Brooks I was going to walk home and swing through CVS. And so I did. And I bought a box of tests. And the first three came up positive immediately.
I wasn't thrilled. It breaks my heart to admit that, but I was so caught off guard. I am happy teaching. I am looking forward to working through another tax season. I am comfortable in my social circle of mom's with elementary age kids (and where babies would definitely be a hindrance). I like sleeping through the night. And I already feel SO old. God bless my husband who literally lifted me off of the floor and told me how great it was going to be. By the time we crawled into bed that night, I believed him.
The boys had a dentist appointment Monday and we planned to meet my mom for lunch afterwards. Before we left, I called a recommended OB practice and begged my way into an appointment Tuesday. I had a weekend trip to Santa Barbara planned for the annual family photo session of my bestie, and more importantly I had no idea when or exactly how this had happened. I felt more bloated than just that one missed period warranted. We asked my mom to watch the boys Tuesday morning (it was Veterans Day so they were off of school) because Brooks wanted to go with me. At the time I thought he was being so silly, but I love how involved he always wants to be. And now I'm so very grateful for that. I told Brooks that I would wait to tell anyone yet, but I couldn't do it. I think I waited all of 15 minutes into lunch before I told my mom. She got teary, told me it was the best news ever and I cried. I told her everything I was scared of losing and as I ticked through my list she responded to each item: "so what?" Initially I thought she had been a little dismissive, but as I laid in bed that night I realized how right she was. In the scheme of life, none of those things mattered when pitted against adding one more little person to our family.
I was on pins and needles Tuesday as we dropped the boys off with my mom and headed to the Midwife's office. My pregnancy test came back positive immediately and they suggested doing a dating ultrasound. Yes! That was where our joy hit the wall. The midwife couldn't see anything. Maybe it was too early. We were hopeful as we were sent to the Dr.'s where a better ultrasound machine should show more. Two hours later we left defeated. We were callously told "there's nothing here to suggest a normal pregnancy." I would later wonder why she was so cold, and why I didn't ask more questions, but in shock we were sent for blood tests. I called my mom from the lab and tried to calmly tell her that things weren't good. To further complicate things, my HcG levels were very high and I was told that I would need to get another reading on Thursday. In Santa Barbara. And that I could possibly miscarry while there.
I don't remember Wednesday. I guess I packed while the kids were at school. I'm not really sure how since already everything was too tight. I do remember that we put Dash and Kell to bed and I told Fin. He was going to CA with me and I was terrified that I would find myself in some kind of horror movie murder scene that would scar him for life, so I felt it best to tell him what was happening. He already knew something was up, he's a perceptive kid. I tried to tell him with as little emotion as possible, but his disappointment broke my heart. I don't think I slept at all that night.
Fin and I flew to Santa Barbara on Thursday. As we landed, over In N Out, I told my best friend that I needed to get some blood tests run and why. She listened and offered support and most importantly honored and respected my wishes to avoid getting emotional about things. We breezed through the lab and began to go about our usual weekend visit routine (In N Out, shop, In N Out, beach, In N Out, shop...)
Her children had off of school on Friday so they all stayed home with her husband while we went shopping for their photo outfits. We were in a dressing room at Nordstrom Rack in Thousand Oaks when the office called. My numbers had doubled. Could be a fluke right before they drop precipitously, but they were high enough that viewing nothing on ultrasound almost certainly meant that the pregnancy was not viable. Comforted by the advice that I would be able to enjoy the weekend and get home before the tough part started (and feeling like maybe, maybe there was still hope), we resumed the fashion show. Fifteen minutes later the midwife called me personally. After looking at all of the scans and my numbers she was certain that I was experiencing an ectopic pregnancy. She told me to go to the ER immediately. I asked if I couldn't wait until I got home and she stressed that this was a true medical emergency and she didn't want me to wait even another hour. We checked out and spent two hours fighting traffic back to Santa Barbara because I didn't want to be stuck in a hospital that far from her house. Everyone in the ER couldn't have been nicer and I was examined and an IV started immediately. I was told that if they could access the tissue laparoscopically or vaginally, I would be outpatient and be able and fly home on Sunday as scheduled. If not, I would not be able to fly for at least a week. I think the ultrasounds took over an hour. Maybe it just felt that way. The ER Dr. had to call in an OB consult. When he finally came in to talk to me, he seemed almost excited by the diagnosis. I'm hoping it was just excitement that I didn't need immediate surgical intervention. They now believed I was experiencing a molar pregnancy - which would explain the pelvic pressure, bloating and the high HcG levels. He illustrated it on my bedsheet:
Top: What should be, Bottom: Me
So there was nothing that could be done until I got home. While it was hard process all of this away from home, I was so lucky to be with such amazing friends. Great friends make you feel that you can talk to them about anything, which I did, a little. Truly amazing friends are the ones where you know you don't have to say anything. They just get it. Humor is a great crutch and getting the job of photos done gave me something to focus on and keep me distracted. The scenery didn't hurt either. Skies like this just make you feel like you're going to be ok no matter what.
On Sunday afternoon, we said our sad goodbyes, packed up and headed home. The Dr.'s squeezed me in early on Monday morning, repeated the ultrasounds which showed more cystic growths and encouraged the likelihood of a molar pregnancy. My numbers continued to skyrocket and it was clear that there was no medical possibility that a viable fetus wouldn't be visible with those numbers. There are medications that are used to induce a miscarriage in these cases, but molar pregnancies are notoriously unresponsive to them. My Dr. felt that a D & C was the only real course of action and it was important to get a full pathological picture of what was going on because of the future dangers that a molar pregnancy can signal. I would have to be put completely under as they'd have to be "thorough". They could get me in the next day so I'd be recovered by Thanksgiving.
On Tuesday, November 11, I had a D & C. I came home to recover and I worried. I worried about the potential repercussions of a molar pregnancy. Would the tissue return? Would it become cancerous? Would I need a hysterectomy? I came home and grieved. And then I grieved for not feeling like my grief was justified. A molar pregnancy is not a true pregnancy. I essentially had cysts or tumors. Could I really mourn the loss if it wasn't even a fetus? Not even really a fertilized egg? And what right did I have to any grief after meeting that positive test with such a selfish sense of loss?
You read things about miscarriages going undiscussed. That you don't often know that close friends have been through one without first disclosing your own. I remember reading an article that described just that a few years ago. I shrugged and tried to imagine going through anything I didn't want to discuss to death. I'm a chronic over-sharer. I have no problem posting any and everything on social media. With my boys I told everyone I was pregnant the second that stick turned and never worried about having to reverse the call if things went south. If I wanted to share the pregnancy, I assumed I would want to share the loss just as readily. I was right in one way, that it's much easier to move through the topic of loss if you've already publicly declared the pregnancy. But when it came to the ease of sharing, I was so very wrong. I've never felt so alone in my life. I was adrift on a raft of grief by myself and the distance to shore was impossible to close. I needed help but felt powerless to reach out for it. Still full of hormones, everything made me cry. And I really hate to cry. I.was.stuck.
And then the pathology came back. It was not a molar pregnancy. It was just a pregnancy that didn't develop normally. But it was a pregnancy. A potential baby. Not a tumor. And I felt relief. I felt justified in my grief. And I could breathe through the reassurance that I would move forward with no lasting physical effects.
And then I took a deep breath, and reached out and started talking. And I started to heal.
Tuesday, January 03, 2017
A Dream Realized!
When we first moved to this tiny magic town, someone told us there was a Christmas decorating contest each year. Brooks immediately told me he was going to win it. Big words from someone who had NEVER decorated a house before. Spending every Christmas away from home visiting family meant that it didn't make sense to go all out, but I knew it was always something that Brooks wanted to do. So he started small in 2014 with some lights and then upped his game in 2015 with small trees and garlands. This year he added a decked out mailbox (thanks to his mom for the assist!) and a few more lights. Last week they announced the winners - and we won Best Traditional Decorations for 2016! What a great way to kick off the year - not to mention it made his week :)!
Sunday, January 01, 2017
2016- Balance
Happy New Year!!
I know, it's been a while. I've missed the outlet of blogging so I thought ringing in the new year was a great time to try and get back into it.
I really hate the idea of New Year's resolutions. Like an arbitrary date is really a signal that it's the best time to make a change. But a few years ago, I had a friend who told me that each January she picks a word that will be her focus for the year. A touchstone to come back to as you walk through the months. I loved the idea, so I started in 2013 with Joy.
When I chose joy, I didn't know what a challenging year lay ahead, but I told myself I would work hard to find to joy in every situation. Early in the year Brooks' company started struggling. Our paychecks were late, then sporadic. The company failed to pay health insurance repeatedly which led to me banning trampoline fun and considering covering the boys in bubble wrap. In October, on Dash's birthday, we got the call that the plug had been pulled. The company folded. I had no idea how we were going to get through it, what we were going to do next or how I was going to lift up my broken husband. So I looked for joy. I found joy in our love for each other. I found joy in the extra time with my husband home, even as the circumstances stunk. I found joy in the support from our parents and friends. I found joy in our amazing preschool who not only employed me, but gave Kell free tuition. And I found endless joy in my boys who likely never realized how much I needed their snuggles and kisses.
The next year started with our family still in jobless limbo, so I chose Faith as my word for 2014. Brooks started looking at jobs in other cities and it looked like there was a possible move to Denver in our future. It felt so important to believe that we would land exactly where we were meant to be. The beginning of the year seemed to crawl by as Brooks took a job in LA while waiting to hear from the other offers. Then in March everything changed quickly - he got an offer in Maryland, close to my hometown, and had two weeks to get himself there to start. We agreed I would stay in California to sell the house and let the kids finish out the year. Faith couldn't have been a more relevant word to get me through the next few months! The house sold in days, we packed up most of our stuff to ship it east and stayed in a hotel to make it through a school play and a first communion. Meanwhile Brooks and I settled on a city I'd never been to and he bought a home I'd see for the first time when moving in (FAITH!) I had a bittersweet farewell dinner with friends as dear as family, checked out of the hotel the next morning and the boys and I jumped on a one-way flight to our future. Arriving late, we stayed with my parents the first night and the next morning drove to see our new home. It also happened to be Mother's Day (good thing he picked a great house :)). I was terrified that our children would have trouble adjusting and that Brooks would hate his job and by the time I looked around and realized that they were all fine - no GREAT - I would realize that I was the only one having trouble adjusting. I'd be lying if I said it was easy, it wasn't. But we now live in an amazing community and having my children get to see their grandparents more than once a year is such a gift.
After choosing such a rewarding word for 2014, I wanted to do more in 2015 so my word was Yes. I promised myself I would put myself out there, I would try more, do more, get involved. I missed so much about California that it had really held me back from loving more about Maryland. I needed to fully embrace our new life here. In 2015 I would go all-in. And because I was so grateful for our good fortune, I felt compelled to do good as often as I could. If I was asked to donate - time, talent, money - I'd remind myself that "if not me, then who." If I could have done it, I did. I considered choosing No for 2016. But I didn't.
The word I chose for 2016 was Path. 2015 had given me so many new experiences but I wanted to narrow my focus. I wanted to figure out what I really wanted to be when I grow up. I wanted to open myself to the life I was meant to be living. I wanted to feel as settled as everyone else seemed to be. As the year progressed, I felt myself focusing on what was really important and thinking about what I could let go of. But mirroring 2014, the word seemed profoundly prescient as I was forced to think about something I was putting off - the size of our family. Brooks and I had talked about being "done", but we hadn't taken any real measures to ensure it. In late Oct/early Nov, I spent a few days feeling like I was coming down with something, then I realized I was late. We were pregnant. Our joy was short-lived and I had a miscarriage. But it forced us to face what we really wanted and demanded an honest dialogue about that path. It also gave us another opportunity to grow and strengthen our relationship as we celebrated 15 years of marriage. We finished out the year on an amazing vacation, a high note, and again I felt grateful as I reflected on how the word had informed my year.
For 2017, my word is balance. Life/work, self-care/mothering, food/activity, needs/wants, you name it. Balance. I'll let you know how it goes! Consider choosing a word for yourself this year and let me know what it is!
I know, it's been a while. I've missed the outlet of blogging so I thought ringing in the new year was a great time to try and get back into it.
I really hate the idea of New Year's resolutions. Like an arbitrary date is really a signal that it's the best time to make a change. But a few years ago, I had a friend who told me that each January she picks a word that will be her focus for the year. A touchstone to come back to as you walk through the months. I loved the idea, so I started in 2013 with Joy.
When I chose joy, I didn't know what a challenging year lay ahead, but I told myself I would work hard to find to joy in every situation. Early in the year Brooks' company started struggling. Our paychecks were late, then sporadic. The company failed to pay health insurance repeatedly which led to me banning trampoline fun and considering covering the boys in bubble wrap. In October, on Dash's birthday, we got the call that the plug had been pulled. The company folded. I had no idea how we were going to get through it, what we were going to do next or how I was going to lift up my broken husband. So I looked for joy. I found joy in our love for each other. I found joy in the extra time with my husband home, even as the circumstances stunk. I found joy in the support from our parents and friends. I found joy in our amazing preschool who not only employed me, but gave Kell free tuition. And I found endless joy in my boys who likely never realized how much I needed their snuggles and kisses.
The next year started with our family still in jobless limbo, so I chose Faith as my word for 2014. Brooks started looking at jobs in other cities and it looked like there was a possible move to Denver in our future. It felt so important to believe that we would land exactly where we were meant to be. The beginning of the year seemed to crawl by as Brooks took a job in LA while waiting to hear from the other offers. Then in March everything changed quickly - he got an offer in Maryland, close to my hometown, and had two weeks to get himself there to start. We agreed I would stay in California to sell the house and let the kids finish out the year. Faith couldn't have been a more relevant word to get me through the next few months! The house sold in days, we packed up most of our stuff to ship it east and stayed in a hotel to make it through a school play and a first communion. Meanwhile Brooks and I settled on a city I'd never been to and he bought a home I'd see for the first time when moving in (FAITH!) I had a bittersweet farewell dinner with friends as dear as family, checked out of the hotel the next morning and the boys and I jumped on a one-way flight to our future. Arriving late, we stayed with my parents the first night and the next morning drove to see our new home. It also happened to be Mother's Day (good thing he picked a great house :)). I was terrified that our children would have trouble adjusting and that Brooks would hate his job and by the time I looked around and realized that they were all fine - no GREAT - I would realize that I was the only one having trouble adjusting. I'd be lying if I said it was easy, it wasn't. But we now live in an amazing community and having my children get to see their grandparents more than once a year is such a gift.
After choosing such a rewarding word for 2014, I wanted to do more in 2015 so my word was Yes. I promised myself I would put myself out there, I would try more, do more, get involved. I missed so much about California that it had really held me back from loving more about Maryland. I needed to fully embrace our new life here. In 2015 I would go all-in. And because I was so grateful for our good fortune, I felt compelled to do good as often as I could. If I was asked to donate - time, talent, money - I'd remind myself that "if not me, then who." If I could have done it, I did. I considered choosing No for 2016. But I didn't.
The word I chose for 2016 was Path. 2015 had given me so many new experiences but I wanted to narrow my focus. I wanted to figure out what I really wanted to be when I grow up. I wanted to open myself to the life I was meant to be living. I wanted to feel as settled as everyone else seemed to be. As the year progressed, I felt myself focusing on what was really important and thinking about what I could let go of. But mirroring 2014, the word seemed profoundly prescient as I was forced to think about something I was putting off - the size of our family. Brooks and I had talked about being "done", but we hadn't taken any real measures to ensure it. In late Oct/early Nov, I spent a few days feeling like I was coming down with something, then I realized I was late. We were pregnant. Our joy was short-lived and I had a miscarriage. But it forced us to face what we really wanted and demanded an honest dialogue about that path. It also gave us another opportunity to grow and strengthen our relationship as we celebrated 15 years of marriage. We finished out the year on an amazing vacation, a high note, and again I felt grateful as I reflected on how the word had informed my year.
For 2017, my word is balance. Life/work, self-care/mothering, food/activity, needs/wants, you name it. Balance. I'll let you know how it goes! Consider choosing a word for yourself this year and let me know what it is!
Monday, April 08, 2013
1001 Books to Read in Your Lifetime
I came across this list on pintrest, originally compiled in the book: 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die: A Comprehensive Reference Source, Chronicling the History of the Novel
(Preface by Peter Ackroyd, General Editor Peter Boxall ISBN 1-84403-417-8) And it seemed like a GREAT challenge! There are so so many on this list that I haven't read (an embarassing number really, considering a liberal arts degree) and so many I think it misses, but it's certainly a wonderful starting point considering the world of Twlight and Fifty Shades we're living in! I'm going to try and hold myself accountable by "bolding" what I've read! :)
2000s
(Preface by Peter Ackroyd, General Editor Peter Boxall ISBN 1-84403-417-8) And it seemed like a GREAT challenge! There are so so many on this list that I haven't read (an embarassing number really, considering a liberal arts degree) and so many I think it misses, but it's certainly a wonderful starting point considering the world of Twlight and Fifty Shades we're living in! I'm going to try and hold myself accountable by "bolding" what I've read! :)
2000s
- Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
- Saturday – Ian McEwan
- On Beauty – Zadie Smith
- Slow Man – J.M. Coetzee
- Adjunct: An Undigest – Peter Manson
- The Sea – John Banville
- The Red Queen – Margaret Drabble
- The Plot Against America – Philip Roth
- The Master – Colm Tóibín
- Vanishing Point – David Markson
- The Lambs of London – Peter Ackroyd
- Dining on Stones – Iain Sinclair
- Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
- Drop City – T. Coraghessan Boyle
- The Colour – Rose Tremain
- Thursbitch – Alan Garner
- The Light of Day – Graham Swift
- What I Loved – Siri Hustvedt
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon
- Islands – Dan Sleigh
- Elizabeth Costello – J.M. Coetzee
- London Orbital – Iain Sinclair
- Family Matters – Rohinton Mistry
- Fingersmith – Sarah Waters
- The Double – José Saramago
- Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer
- Unless – Carol Shields
- Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami
- The Story of Lucy Gault – William Trevor
- That They May Face the Rising Sun – John McGahern
- In the Forest – Edna O’Brien
- Shroud – John Banville
- Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
- Youth – J.M. Coetzee
- Dead Air – Iain Banks
- Nowhere Man – Aleksandar Hemon
- The Book of Illusions – Paul Auster
- Gabriel’s Gift – Hanif Kureishi
- Austerlitz – W.G. Sebald
- Platform – Michael Houellebecq
- Schooling – Heather McGowan
- Atonement – Ian McEwan
- The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen
- Don’t Move – Margaret Mazzantini
- The Body Artist – Don DeLillo
- Fury – Salman Rushdie
- At Swim, Two Boys – Jamie O’Neill
- Choke – Chuck Palahniuk
- Life of Pi – Yann Martel
- The Feast of the Goat – Mario Vargos Llosa
- An Obedient Father – Akhil Sharma
- The Devil and Miss Prym – Paulo Coelho
- Spring Flowers, Spring Frost – Ismail Kadare
- White Teeth – Zadie Smith
- The Heart of Redness – Zakes Mda
- Under the Skin – Michel Faber
- Ignorance – Milan Kundera
- Nineteen Seventy Seven – David Peace
- Celestial Harmonies – Péter Esterházy
- City of God – E.L. Doctorow
- How the Dead Live – Will Self
- The Human Stain – Philip Roth
- The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood
- After the Quake – Haruki Murakami
- Small Remedies – Shashi Deshpande
- Super-Cannes – J.G. Ballard
- House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski
- Blonde – Joyce Carol Oates
- Pastoralia – George Saunders
- Timbuktu – Paul Auster
- The Romantics – Pankaj Mishra
- Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephenson
- As If I Am Not There – Slavenka Drakuli?
- Everything You Need – A.L. Kennedy
- Fear and Trembling – Amélie Nothomb
- The Ground Beneath Her Feet – Salman Rushdie
- Disgrace – J.M. Coetzee
- Sputnik Sweetheart – Haruki Murakami
- Elementary Particles – Michel Houellebecq
- Intimacy – Hanif Kureishi
- Amsterdam – Ian McEwan
- Cloudsplitter – Russell Banks
- All Souls Day – Cees Nooteboom
- The Talk of the Town – Ardal O’Hanlon
- Tipping the Velvet – Sarah Waters
- The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver
- Glamorama – Bret Easton Ellis
- Another World – Pat Barker
- The Hours – Michael Cunningham
- Veronika Decides to Die – Paulo Coelho
- Mason & Dixon – Thomas Pynchon
- The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy
- Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
- Great Apes – Will Self
- Enduring Love – Ian McEwan
- Underworld – Don DeLillo
- Jack Maggs – Peter Carey
- The Life of Insects – Victor Pelevin
- American Pastoral – Philip Roth
- The Untouchable – John Banville
- Silk – Alessandro Baricco
- Cocaine Nights – J.G. Ballard
- Hallucinating Foucault – Patricia Duncker
- Fugitive Pieces – Anne Michaels
- The Ghost Road – Pat Barker
- Forever a Stranger – Hella Haasse
- Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace
- The Clay Machine-Gun – Victor Pelevin
- Alias Grace – Margaret Atwood
- The Unconsoled – Kazuo Ishiguro
- Morvern Callar – Alan Warner
- The Information – Martin Amis
- The Moor’s Last Sigh – Salman Rushdie
- Sabbath’s Theater – Philip Roth
- The Rings of Saturn – W.G. Sebald
- The Reader – Bernhard Schlink
- A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
- Love’s Work – Gillian Rose
- The End of the Story – Lydia Davis
- Mr. Vertigo – Paul Auster
- The Folding Star – Alan Hollinghurst
- Whatever – Michel Houellebecq
- Land – Park Kyong-ni
- The Master of Petersburg – J.M. Coetzee
- The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami
- Pereira Declares: A Testimony – Antonio Tabucchi
- City Sister Silver – Jàchym Topol
- How Late It Was, How Late – James Kelman
- Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis de Bernieres
- Felicia’s Journey – William Trevor
- Disappearance – David Dabydeen
- The Invention of Curried Sausage – Uwe Timm
- The Shipping News – E. Annie Proulx
- Trainspotting – Irvine Welsh
- Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
- Looking for the Possible Dance – A.L. Kennedy
- Operation Shylock – Philip Roth
- Complicity – Iain Banks
- On Love – Alain de Botton
- What a Carve Up! – Jonathan Coe
- A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
- The Stone Diaries – Carol Shields
- The Virgin Suicides – Jeffrey Eugenides
- The House of Doctor Dee – Peter Ackroyd
- The Robber Bride – Margaret Atwood
- The Emigrants – W.G. Sebald
- The Secret History – Donna Tartt
- Life is a Caravanserai – Emine Özdamar
- The Discovery of Heaven – Harry Mulisch
- A Heart So White – Javier Marias
- Possessing the Secret of Joy – Alice Walker
- Indigo – Marina Warner
- The Crow Road – Iain Banks
- Written on the Body – Jeanette Winterson
- Jazz – Toni Morrison
- The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje
- Smilla’s Sense of Snow – Peter Høeg
- The Butcher Boy – Patrick McCabe
- Black Water – Joyce Carol Oates
- The Heather Blazing – Colm Tóibín
- Asphodel – H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)
- Black Dogs – Ian McEwan
- Hideous Kinky – Esther Freud
- Arcadia – Jim Crace
- Wild Swans – Jung Chang
- American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis
- Time’s Arrow – Martin Amis
- Mao II – Don DeLillo
- Typical – Padgett Powell
- Regeneration – Pat Barker
- Downriver – Iain Sinclair
- Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord – Louis de Bernieres
- Wise Children – Angela Carter
- Get Shorty – Elmore Leonard
- Amongst Women – John McGahern
- Vineland – Thomas Pynchon
- Vertigo – W.G. Sebald
- Stone Junction – Jim Dodge
- The Music of Chance – Paul Auster
- The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien
- A Home at the End of the World – Michael Cunningham
- Like Life – Lorrie Moore
- Possession – A.S. Byatt
- The Buddha of Suburbia – Hanif Kureishi
- The Midnight Examiner – William Kotzwinkle
- A Disaffection – James Kelman
- Sexing the Cherry – Jeanette Winterson
- Moon Palace – Paul Auster
- Billy Bathgate – E.L. Doctorow
- Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
- The Melancholy of Resistance – László Krasznahorkai
- The Temple of My Familiar – Alice Walker
- The Trick is to Keep Breathing – Janice Galloway
- The History of the Siege of Lisbon – José Saramago
- Like Water for Chocolate – Laura Esquivel
- A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving
- London Fields – Martin Amis
- The Book of Evidence – John Banville
- Cat’s Eye – Margaret Atwood
- Foucault’s Pendulum – Umberto Eco
- The Beautiful Room is Empty – Edmund White
- Wittgenstein’s Mistress – David Markson
- The Satanic Verses – Salman Rushdie
- The Swimming-Pool Library – Alan Hollinghurst
- Oscar and Lucinda – Peter Carey
- Libra – Don DeLillo
- The Player of Games – Iain M. Banks
- Nervous Conditions – Tsitsi Dangarembga
- The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul – Douglas Adams
- Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency – Douglas Adams
- The Radiant Way – Margaret Drabble
- The Afternoon of a Writer – Peter Handke
- The Black Dahlia – James Ellroy
- The Passion – Jeanette Winterson
- The Pigeon – Patrick Süskind
- The Child in Time – Ian McEwan
- Cigarettes – Harry Mathews
- The Bonfire of the Vanities – Tom Wolfe
- The New York Trilogy – Paul Auster
- World’s End – T. Coraghessan Boyle
- Enigma of Arrival – V.S. Naipaul
- The Taebek Mountains – Jo Jung-rae
- Beloved – Toni Morrison
- Anagrams – Lorrie Moore
- Matigari – Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
- Marya – Joyce Carol Oates
- Watchmen – Alan Moore & David Gibbons
- The Old Devils – Kingsley Amis
- Lost Language of Cranes – David Leavitt
- An Artist of the Floating World – Kazuo Ishiguro
- Extinction – Thomas Bernhard
- Foe – J.M. Coetzee
- The Drowned and the Saved – Primo Levi
- Reasons to Live – Amy Hempel
- The Parable of the Blind – Gert Hofmann
- Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel García Márquez
- Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit – Jeanette Winterson
- The Cider House Rules – John Irving
- A Maggot – John Fowles
- Less Than Zero – Bret Easton Ellis
- Contact – Carl Sagan
- The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
- Perfume – Patrick Süskind
- Old Masters – Thomas Bernhard
- White Noise – Don DeLillo
- Queer – William Burroughs
- Hawksmoor – Peter Ackroyd
- Legend – David Gemmell
- Dictionary of the Khazars – Milorad Pavi?
- The Bus Conductor Hines – James Kelman
- The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis – José Saramago
- The Lover – Marguerite Duras
- Empire of the Sun – J.G. Ballard
- The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
- Nights at the Circus – Angela Carter
- The Unbearable Lightness of Being – Milan Kundera
- Blood and Guts in High School – Kathy Acker
- Neuromancer – William Gibson
- Flaubert’s Parrot – Julian Barnes
- Money: A Suicide Note – Martin Amis
- Shame – Salman Rushdie
- Worstward Ho – Samuel Beckett
- Fools of Fortune – William Trevor
- La Brava – Elmore Leonard
- Waterland – Graham Swift
- The Life and Times of Michael K – J.M. Coetzee
- The Diary of Jane Somers – Doris Lessing
- The Piano Teacher – Elfriede Jelinek
- The Sorrow of Belgium – Hugo Claus
- If Not Now, When? – Primo Levi
- A Boy’s Own Story – Edmund White
- The Color Purple – Alice Walker
- Wittgenstein’s Nephew – Thomas Bernhard
- A Pale View of Hills – Kazuo Ishiguro
- Schindler’s Ark – Thomas Keneally
- The House of the Spirits – Isabel Allende - want to reread!
- The Newton Letter – John Banville
- On the Black Hill – Bruce Chatwin
- Concrete – Thomas Bernhard
- The Names – Don DeLillo
- Rabbit is Rich – John Updike
- Lanark: A Life in Four Books – Alasdair Gray
- The Comfort of Strangers – Ian McEwan
- July’s People – Nadine Gordimer
- Summer in Baden-Baden – Leonid Tsypkin
- Broken April – Ismail Kadare
- Waiting for the Barbarians – J.M. Coetzee
- Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
- Rites of Passage – William Golding
- Rituals – Cees Nooteboom
- Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
- City Primeval – Elmore Leonard
- The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco
- The Book of Laughter and Forgetting – Milan Kundera
- Smiley’s People – John Le Carré
- Shikasta – Doris Lessing
- A Bend in the River – V.S. Naipaul
- Burger’s Daughter - Nadine Gordimer
- The Safety Net – Heinrich Böll
- If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler – Italo Calvino
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
- The Cement Garden – Ian McEwan
- The World According to Garp – John Irving
- Life: A User’s Manual – Georges Perec
- The Sea, The Sea – Iris Murdoch
- The Singapore Grip – J.G. Farrell
- Yes – Thomas Bernhard
- The Virgin in the Garden – A.S. Byatt
- In the Heart of the Country – J.M. Coetzee
- The Passion of New Eve – Angela Carter
- Delta of Venus – Anaïs Nin
- The Shining – Stephen King
- Dispatches – Michael Herr
- Petals of Blood – Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
- Song of Solomon – Toni Morrison
- The Hour of the Star – Clarice Lispector
- The Left-Handed Woman – Peter Handke
- Ratner’s Star – Don DeLillo
- The Public Burning – Robert Coover
- Interview With the Vampire – Anne Rice
- Cutter and Bone – Newton Thornburg
- Amateurs – Donald Barthelme
- Patterns of Childhood – Christa Wolf
- Autumn of the Patriarch – Gabriel García Márquez
- W, or the Memory of Childhood – Georges Perec
- A Dance to the Music of Time – Anthony Powell
- Grimus – Salman Rushdie
- The Dead Father – Donald Barthelme
- Fateless – Imre Kertész
- Willard and His Bowling Trophies – Richard Brautigan
- High Rise – J.G. Ballard
- Humboldt’s Gift – Saul Bellow
- Dead Babies – Martin Amis
- Correction – Thomas Bernhard
- Ragtime – E.L. Doctorow
- The Fan Man – William Kotzwinkle
- Dusklands – J.M. Coetzee
- The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum – Heinrich Böll
- Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – John Le Carré
- Breakfast of Champions – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
- Fear of Flying – Erica Jong
- A Question of Power – Bessie Head
- The Siege of Krishnapur – J.G. Farrell
- The Castle of Crossed Destinies – Italo Calvino
- Crash – J.G. Ballard
- The Honorary Consul – Graham Greene
- Gravity’s Rainbow – Thomas Pynchon
- The Black Prince – Iris Murdoch
- Sula – Toni Morrison
- Invisible Cities – Italo Calvino
- The Breast – Philip Roth
- The Summer Book – Tove Jansson
- G – John Berger
- Surfacing – Margaret Atwood
- House Mother Normal – B.S. Johnson
- In A Free State – V.S. Naipaul
- The Book of Daniel – E.L. Doctorow
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – Hunter S. Thompson
- Group Portrait With Lady – Heinrich Böll
- The Wild Boys – William Burroughs
- Rabbit Redux – John Updike
- The Sea of Fertility – Yukio Mishima
- The Driver’s Seat – Muriel Spark
- The Ogre – Michael Tournier
- The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison
- Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick – Peter Handke
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
- Mercier et Camier – Samuel Beckett
- Troubles – J.G. Farrell
- Jahrestage – Uwe Johnson
- The Atrocity Exhibition – J.G. Ballard
- Tent of Miracles – Jorge Amado
- Pricksongs and Descants – Robert Coover
- Blind Man With a Pistol – Chester Hines
- Slaughterhouse-five – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
- The French Lieutenant’s Woman – John Fowles
- The Green Man – Kingsley Amis
- Portnoy’s Complaint – Philip Roth
- The Godfather – Mario Puzo
- Ada – Vladimir Nabokov
- Them – Joyce Carol Oates
- A Void/Avoid – Georges Perec
- Eva Trout – Elizabeth Bowen
- Myra Breckinridge – Gore Vidal
- The Nice and the Good – Iris Murdoch
- Belle du Seigneur – Albert Cohen
- Cancer Ward – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
- The First Circle – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
- 2001: A Space Odyssey – Arthur C. Clarke
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick
- Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid – Malcolm Lowry
- The German Lesson – Siegfried Lenz
- In Watermelon Sugar – Richard Brautigan
- A Kestrel for a Knave – Barry Hines
- The Quest for Christa T. – Christa Wolf
- Chocky – John Wyndham
- The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test – Tom Wolfe
- The Cubs and Other Stories – Mario Vargas Llosa
- One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
- The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov
- Pilgrimage – Dorothy Richardson
- The Joke – Milan Kundera
- No Laughing Matter – Angus Wilson
- The Third Policeman – Flann O’Brien
- A Man Asleep – Georges Perec
- The Birds Fall Down – Rebecca West
- Trawl – B.S. Johnson
- In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
- The Magus – John Fowles
- The Vice-Consul – Marguerite Duras
- Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys
- Giles Goat-Boy – John Barth
- The Crying of Lot 49 – Thomas Pynchon
- Things – Georges Perec
- The River Between – Ngugi wa Thiong’o
- August is a Wicked Month – Edna O’Brien
- God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater – Kurt Vonnegut
- Everything That Rises Must Converge – Flannery O’Connor
- The Passion According to G.H. – Clarice Lispector
- Sometimes a Great Notion – Ken Kesey
- Come Back, Dr. Caligari – Donald Bartholme
- Albert Angelo – B.S. Johnson
- Arrow of God – Chinua Achebe
- The Ravishing of Lol V. Stein – Marguerite Duras
- Herzog – Saul Bellow
- V. – Thomas Pynchon
- Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut
- The Graduate – Charles Webb
- Manon des Sources – Marcel Pagnol
- The Spy Who Came in from the Cold – John Le Carré
- The Girls of Slender Means – Muriel Spark
- Inside Mr. Enderby – Anthony Burgess
- The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath - another I want to reread
- One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
- The Collector – John Fowles
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey
- A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
- Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov
- The Drowned World – J.G. Ballard
- The Golden Notebook – Doris Lessing
- Labyrinths – Jorg Luis Borges
- Girl With Green Eyes – Edna O’Brien
- The Garden of the Finzi-Continis – Giorgio Bassani
- Stranger in a Strange Land – Robert Heinlein
- Franny and Zooey – J.D. Salinger
- A Severed Head – Iris Murdoch
- Faces in the Water – Janet Frame
- Solaris – Stanislaw Lem
- Cat and Mouse – Günter Grass
- The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark
- Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
- The Violent Bear it Away – Flannery O’Connor
- How It Is – Samuel Beckett
- Our Ancestors – Italo Calvino
- The Country Girls – Edna O’Brien
- To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
- Rabbit, Run – John Updike
- Promise at Dawn – Romain Gary
- Cider With Rosie – Laurie Lee
- Billy Liar – Keith Waterhouse
- Naked Lunch – William Burroughs
- The Tin Drum – Günter Grass
- Absolute Beginners – Colin MacInnes
- Henderson the Rain King – Saul Bellow
- Memento Mori – Muriel Spark
- Billiards at Half-Past Nine – Heinrich Böll
- Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Truman Capote
- The Leopard – Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
- Pluck the Bud and Destroy the Offspring – Kenzaburo Oe
- A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
- The Bitter Glass – Eilís Dillon
- Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
- Saturday Night and Sunday Morning – Alan Sillitoe
- Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris – Paul Gallico
- Borstal Boy – Brendan Behan
- The End of the Road – John Barth
- The Once and Future King – T.H. White
- The Bell – Iris Murdoch
- Jealousy – Alain Robbe-Grillet
- Voss – Patrick White
- The Midwich Cuckoos – John Wyndham
- Blue Noon – Georges Bataille
- Homo Faber – Max Frisch
- On the Road – Jack Kerouac
- Pnin – Vladimir Nabokov
- Doctor Zhivago – Boris Pasternak
- The Wonderful “O” – James Thurber
- Justine – Lawrence Durrell
- Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin
- The Lonely Londoners – Sam Selvon
- The Roots of Heaven – Romain Gary
- Seize the Day – Saul Bellow
- The Floating Opera – John Barth
- The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien
- The Talented Mr. Ripley – Patricia Highsmith
- Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
- A World of Love – Elizabeth Bowen
- The Trusting and the Maimed – James Plunkett
- The Quiet American – Graham Greene
- The Last Temptation of Christ – Nikos Kazantzákis
- The Recognitions – William Gaddis
- The Ragazzi – Pier Paulo Pasolini
- Bonjour Tristesse – Françoise Sagan
- I’m Not Stiller – Max Frisch
- Self Condemned – Wyndham Lewis
- The Story of O – Pauline Réage
- A Ghost at Noon – Alberto Moravia
- Lord of the Flies – William Golding
- Under the Net – Iris Murdoch
- The Go-Between – L.P. Hartley
- The Long Goodbye – Raymond Chandler
- The Unnamable – Samuel Beckett
- Watt – Samuel Beckett
- Lucky Jim – Kingsley Amis
- Junkie – William Burroughs
- The Adventures of Augie March – Saul Bellow
- Go Tell It on the Mountain – James Baldwin
- Casino Royale – Ian Fleming
- The Judge and His Hangman – Friedrich Dürrenmatt
- Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
- The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
- Wise Blood – Flannery O’Connor
- The Killer Inside Me – Jim Thompson
- Memoirs of Hadrian – Marguerite Yourcenar
- Malone Dies – Samuel Beckett
- Day of the Triffids – John Wyndham
- Foundation – Isaac Asimov
- The Opposing Shore – Julien Gracq
- The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
- The Rebel – Albert Camus
- Molloy – Samuel Beckett
- The End of the Affair – Graham Greene
- The Abbot C – Georges Bataille
- The Labyrinth of Solitude – Octavio Paz
- The Third Man – Graham Greene
- The 13 Clocks – James Thurber
- Gormenghast – Mervyn Peake
- The Grass is Singing – Doris Lessing
- I, Robot – Isaac Asimov
- The Moon and the Bonfires – Cesare Pavese
- The Garden Where the Brass Band Played – Simon Vestdijk
- Love in a Cold Climate – Nancy Mitford
- The Case of Comrade Tulayev – Victor Serge
- The Heat of the Day – Elizabeth Bowen
- Kingdom of This World – Alejo Carpentier
- The Man With the Golden Arm – Nelson Algren
- Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
- All About H. Hatterr – G.V. Desani
- Disobedience – Alberto Moravia
- Death Sentence – Maurice Blanchot
- The Heart of the Matter – Graham Greene
- Cry, the Beloved Country – Alan Paton
- Doctor Faustus – Thomas Mann
- The Victim – Saul Bellow
- Exercises in Style – Raymond Queneau
- If This Is a Man – Primo Levi
- Under the Volcano – Malcolm Lowry
- The Path to the Nest of Spiders – Italo Calvino
- The Plague – Albert Camus
- Back – Henry Green
- Titus Groan – Mervyn Peake
- The Bridge on the Drina – Ivo Andri?
- Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
- Animal Farm – George Orwell
- Cannery Row – John Steinbeck
- The Pursuit of Love – Nancy Mitford
- Loving – Henry Green
- Arcanum 17 – André Breton
- Christ Stopped at Eboli – Carlo Levi
- The Razor’s Edge – William Somerset Maugham
- Transit – Anna Seghers
- Ficciones – Jorge Luis Borges
- Dangling Man – Saul Bellow
- The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- Caught – Henry Green
- The Glass Bead Game – Herman Hesse
- Embers – Sandor Marai
- Go Down, Moses – William Faulkner
- The Outsider – Albert Camus
- In Sicily – Elio Vittorini
- The Poor Mouth – Flann O’Brien
- The Living and the Dead – Patrick White
- Hangover Square – Patrick Hamilton
- Between the Acts – Virginia Woolf
- The Hamlet – William Faulkner
- Farewell My Lovely – Raymond Chandler
- For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway
- Native Son – Richard Wright
- The Power and the Glory – Graham Greene
- The Tartar Steppe – Dino Buzzati
- Party Going – Henry Green
- The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
- Finnegans Wake – James Joyce
- At Swim-Two-Birds – Flann O’Brien
- Coming Up for Air – George Orwell
- Goodbye to Berlin – Christopher Isherwood
- Tropic of Capricorn – Henry Miller
- Good Morning, Midnight – Jean Rhys
- The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler
- After the Death of Don Juan – Sylvie Townsend Warner
- Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day – Winifred Watson
- Nausea – Jean-Paul Sartre
- Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier
- Cause for Alarm – Eric Ambler
- Brighton Rock – Graham Greene
- U.S.A. – John Dos Passos
- Murphy – Samuel Beckett
- Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
- Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston
- The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
- The Years – Virginia Woolf
- In Parenthesis – David Jones
- The Revenge for Love – Wyndham Lewis
- Out of Africa – Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen)
- To Have and Have Not – Ernest Hemingway
- Summer Will Show – Sylvia Townsend Warner
- Eyeless in Gaza – Aldous Huxley
- The Thinking Reed – Rebecca West
- Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
- Keep the Aspidistra Flying – George Orwell
- Wild Harbour – Ian MacPherson
- Absalom, Absalom! – William Faulkner
- At the Mountains of Madness – H.P. Lovecraft
- Nightwood – Djuna Barnes
- Independent People – Halldór Laxness
- Auto-da-Fé – Elias Canetti
- The Last of Mr. Norris – Christopher Isherwood
- They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? – Horace McCoy
- The House in Paris – Elizabeth Bowen
- England Made Me – Graham Greene
- Burmese Days – George Orwell
- The Nine Tailors – Dorothy L. Sayers
- Threepenny Novel – Bertolt Brecht
- Novel With Cocaine – M. Ageyev
- The Postman Always Rings Twice – James M. Cain
- Tropic of Cancer – Henry Miller
- A Handful of Dust – Evelyn Waugh
- Tender is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Thank You, Jeeves – P.G. Wodehouse
- Call it Sleep – Henry Roth
- Miss Lonelyhearts – Nathanael West
- Murder Must Advertise – Dorothy L. Sayers
- The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas – Gertrude Stein
- Testament of Youth – Vera Brittain
- A Day Off – Storm Jameson
- The Man Without Qualities – Robert Musil
- A Scots Quair (Sunset Song) – Lewis Grassic Gibbon
- Journey to the End of the Night – Louis-Ferdinand Céline
- Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
- Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
- To the North – Elizabeth Bowen
- The Thin Man – Dashiell Hammett
- The Radetzky March – Joseph Roth
- The Waves – Virginia Woolf
- The Glass Key – Dashiell Hammett
- Cakes and Ale – W. Somerset Maugham
- The Apes of God – Wyndham Lewis
- Her Privates We – Frederic Manning
- Vile Bodies – Evelyn Waugh
- The Maltese Falcon – Dashiell Hammett
- Hebdomeros – Giorgio de Chirico
- Passing – Nella Larsen
- A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway
- Red Harvest – Dashiell Hammett
- Living – Henry Green
- The Time of Indifference – Alberto Moravia
- All Quiet on the Western Front – Erich Maria Remarque
- Berlin Alexanderplatz – Alfred Döblin
- The Last September – Elizabeth Bowen
- Harriet Hume – Rebecca West
- The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner
- Les Enfants Terribles – Jean Cocteau
- Look Homeward, Angel – Thomas Wolfe
- Story of the Eye – Georges Bataille
- Orlando – Virginia Woolf
- Lady Chatterley’s Lover – D.H. Lawrence
- The Well of Loneliness – Radclyffe Hall
- The Childermass – Wyndham Lewis
- Quartet – Jean Rhys
- Decline and Fall – Evelyn Waugh
- Quicksand – Nella Larsen
- Parade’s End – Ford Madox Ford
- Nadja – André Breton
- Steppenwolf – Herman Hesse
- Remembrance of Things Past – Marcel Proust
- To The Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
- Tarka the Otter – Henry Williamson
- Amerika – Franz Kafka
- The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
- Blindness – Henry Green
- The Castle – Franz Kafka
- The Good Soldier Švejk – Jaroslav Hašek
- The Plumed Serpent – D.H. Lawrence
- One, None and a Hundred Thousand – Luigi Pirandello
- The Murder of Roger Ackroyd – Agatha Christie
- The Making of Americans – Gertrude Stein
- Manhattan Transfer – John Dos Passos
- Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf
- The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
- The Counterfeiters – André Gide
- The Trial – Franz Kafka
- The Artamonov Business – Maxim Gorky
- The Professor’s House – Willa Cather
- Billy Budd, Foretopman – Herman Melville
- The Green Hat – Michael Arlen
- The Magic Mountain – Thomas Mann
- We – Yevgeny Zamyatin
- A Passage to India – E.M. Forster
- The Devil in the Flesh – Raymond Radiguet
- Zeno’s Conscience – Italo Svevo
- Cane – Jean Toomer
- Antic Hay – Aldous Huxley
- Amok – Stefan Zweig
- The Garden Party – Katherine Mansfield
- The Enormous Room – E.E. Cummings
- Jacob’s Room – Virginia Woolf
- Siddhartha – Herman Hesse
- The Glimpses of the Moon – Edith Wharton
- Life and Death of Harriett Frean – May Sinclair
- The Last Days of Humanity – Karl Kraus
- Aaron’s Rod – D.H. Lawrence
- Babbitt – Sinclair Lewis
- Ulysses – James Joyce
- The Fox – D.H. Lawrence
- Crome Yellow – Aldous Huxley
- The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton
- Main Street – Sinclair Lewis
- Women in Love – D.H. Lawrence
- Night and Day – Virginia Woolf
- Tarr – Wyndham Lewis
- The Return of the Soldier – Rebecca West
- The Shadow Line – Joseph Conrad
- Summer – Edith Wharton
- Growth of the Soil – Knut Hamsen
- Bunner Sisters – Edith Wharton
- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce
- Under Fire – Henri Barbusse
- Rashomon – Akutagawa Ryunosuke
- The Good Soldier – Ford Madox Ford
- The Voyage Out – Virginia Woolf
- Of Human Bondage – William Somerset Maugham
- The Rainbow – D.H. Lawrence
- The Thirty-Nine Steps – John Buchan
- Kokoro – Natsume Soseki
- Locus Solus – Raymond Roussel
- Rosshalde – Herman Hesse
- Tarzan of the Apes – Edgar Rice Burroughs
- The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists – Robert Tressell
- Sons and Lovers – D.H. Lawrence
- Death in Venice – Thomas Mann
- The Charwoman’s Daughter – James Stephens
- Ethan Frome – Edith Wharton
- Fantômas – Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre
- Howards End – E.M. Forster
- Impressions of Africa – Raymond Roussel
- Three Lives – Gertrude Stein
- Martin Eden – Jack London
- Strait is the Gate – André Gide
- Tono-Bungay – H.G. Wells
- The Inferno – Henri Barbusse
- A Room With a View – E.M. Forster
- The Iron Heel – Jack London
- The Old Wives’ Tale – Arnold Bennett
- The House on the Borderland – William Hope Hodgson
- Mother – Maxim Gorky
- The Secret Agent – Joseph Conrad
- The Jungle – Upton Sinclair
- Young Törless – Robert Musil
- The Forsyte Sage – John Galsworthy
- The House of Mirth – Edith Wharton
- Professor Unrat – Heinrich Mann
- Where Angels Fear to Tread – E.M. Forster
- Nostromo – Joseph Conrad
- Hadrian the Seventh – Frederick Rolfe
- The Golden Bowl – Henry James
- The Ambassadors – Henry James
- The Riddle of the Sands – Erskine Childers
- The Immoralist – André Gide
- The Wings of the Dove – Henry James
- Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
- The Hound of the Baskervilles – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- Buddenbrooks – Thomas Mann
- Kim – Rudyard Kipling
- Sister Carrie – Theodore Dreiser
- Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad
- Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. – Somerville and Ross
- The Stechlin – Theodore Fontane
- The Awakening – Kate Chopin - But I want to reread
- The Turn of the Screw – Henry James
- The War of the Worlds – H.G. Wells
- The Invisible Man – H.G. Wells
- What Maisie Knew – Henry James
- Fruits of the Earth – André Gide
- Dracula – Bram Stoker
- Quo Vadis – Henryk Sienkiewicz
- The Island of Dr. Moreau – H.G. Wells
- The Time Machine – H.G. Wells
- Effi Briest – Theodore Fontane
- Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
- The Real Charlotte – Somerville and Ross
- The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman
- Born in Exile – George Gissing
- Diary of a Nobody – George & Weedon Grossmith
- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- News from Nowhere – William Morris
- New Grub Street – George Gissing
- Gösta Berling’s Saga – Selma Lagerlöf
- Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
- The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
- The Kreutzer Sonata – Leo Tolstoy
- La Bête Humaine – Émile Zola
- By the Open Sea – August Strindberg
- Hunger – Knut Hamsun
- The Master of Ballantrae – Robert Louis Stevenson
- Pierre and Jean – Guy de Maupassant
- Fortunata and Jacinta – Benito Pérez Galdés
- The People of Hemsö – August Strindberg
- The Woodlanders – Thomas Hardy
- She – H. Rider Haggard
- The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson
- The Mayor of Casterbridge – Thomas Hardy
- Kidnapped – Robert Louis Stevenson
- King Solomon’s Mines – H. Rider Haggard
- Germinal – Émile Zola
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
- Bel-Ami – Guy de Maupassant
- Marius the Epicurean – Walter Pater
- Against the Grain – Joris-Karl Huysmans
- The Death of Ivan Ilyich – Leo Tolstoy
- A Woman’s Life – Guy de Maupassant
- Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson
- The House by the Medlar Tree – Giovanni Verga
- The Portrait of a Lady – Henry James
- Bouvard and Pécuchet – Gustave Flaubert
- Ben-Hur – Lew Wallace
- Nana – Émile Zola
- The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky
- The Red Room – August Strindberg
- Return of the Native – Thomas Hardy
- Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
- Drunkard – Émile Zola
- Virgin Soil – Ivan Turgenev
- Daniel Deronda – George Eliot
- The Hand of Ethelberta – Thomas Hardy
- The Temptation of Saint Anthony – Gustave Flaubert
- Far from the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
- The Enchanted Wanderer – Nicolai Leskov
- Around the World in Eighty Days – Jules Verne
- In a Glass Darkly – Sheridan Le Fanu
- The Devils – Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Erewhon – Samuel Butler
- Spring Torrents – Ivan Turgenev
- Middlemarch – George Eliot
- Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There – Lewis Carroll
- King Lear of the Steppes – Ivan Turgenev
- He Knew He Was Right – Anthony Trollope
- War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
- Sentimental Education – Gustave Flaubert
- Phineas Finn – Anthony Trollope
- Maldoror – Comte de Lautréaumont
- The Idiot – Fyodor Dostoevsky
- The Moonstone – Wilkie Collins
- Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
- Thérèse Raquin – Émile Zola
- The Last Chronicle of Barset – Anthony Trollope
- Journey to the Centre of the Earth – Jules Verne
- Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
- Our Mutual Friend – Charles Dickens
- Uncle Silas – Sheridan Le Fanu
- Notes from the Underground – Fyodor Dostoevsky
- The Water-Babies – Charles Kingsley
- Les Misérables – Victor Hugo
- Fathers and Sons – Ivan Turgenev
- Silas Marner – George Eliot
- Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
- On the Eve – Ivan Turgenev
- Castle Richmond – Anthony Trollope
- The Mill on the Floss – George Eliot
- The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
- The Marble Faun – Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Max Havelaar – Multatuli
- A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
- Oblomovka – Ivan Goncharov
- Adam Bede – George Eliot
- Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
- North and South – Elizabeth Gaskell
- Hard Times – Charles Dickens
- Walden – Henry David Thoreau
- Bleak House – Charles Dickens
- Villette – Charlotte Brontë
- Cranford – Elizabeth Gaskell
- Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lonely – Harriet Beecher Stowe
- The Blithedale Romance – Nathaniel Hawthorne
- The House of the Seven Gables – Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Moby-Dick – Herman Melville
- The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
- David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
- Shirley – Charlotte Brontë
- Mary Barton – Elizabeth Gaskell
- The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – Anne Brontë
- Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
- Agnes Grey – Anne Brontë
- Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
- Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
- The Count of Monte-Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
- La Reine Margot – Alexandre Dumas
- The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
- The Purloined Letter – Edgar Allan Poe
- Martin Chuzzlewit – Charles Dickens
- The Pit and the Pendulum – Edgar Allan Poe
- Lost Illusions – Honoré de Balzac
- A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
- Dead Souls – Nikolay Gogol
- The Charterhouse of Parma – Stendhal
- The Fall of the House of Usher – Edgar Allan Poe
- The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby – Charles Dickens
- Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
- The Nose – Nikolay Gogol
- Le Père Goriot – Honoré de Balzac
- Eugénie Grandet – Honoré de Balzac
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame – Victor Hugo
- The Red and the Black – Stendhal
- The Betrothed – Alessandro Manzoni
- Last of the Mohicans – James Fenimore Cooper
- The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner – James Hogg
- The Albigenses – Charles Robert Maturin
- Melmoth the Wanderer – Charles Robert Maturin
- The Monastery – Sir Walter Scott
- Ivanhoe – Sir Walter Scott
- Frankenstein – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
- Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen
- Persuasion – Jane Austen
- Ormond – Maria Edgeworth
- Rob Roy – Sir Walter Scott
- Emma – Jane Austen
- Mansfield Park – Jane Austen
- Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
- The Absentee – Maria Edgeworth
- Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
- Elective Affinities – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Castle Rackrent – Maria Edgeworth
- Hyperion – Friedrich Hölderlin
- The Nun – Denis Diderot
- Camilla – Fanny Burney
- The Monk – M.G. Lewis
- Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- The Mysteries of Udolpho – Ann Radcliffe
- The Interesting Narrative – Olaudah Equiano
- The Adventures of Caleb Williams – William Godwin
- Justine – Marquis de Sade
- Vathek – William Beckford
- The 120 Days of Sodom – Marquis de Sade
- Cecilia – Fanny Burney
- Confessions – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Dangerous Liaisons – Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
- Reveries of a Solitary Walker – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Evelina – Fanny Burney
- The Sorrows of Young Werther – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Humphrey Clinker – Tobias George Smollett
- The Man of Feeling – Henry Mackenzie
- A Sentimental Journey – Laurence Sterne
- Tristram Shandy – Laurence Sterne
- The Vicar of Wakefield – Oliver Goldsmith
- The Castle of Otranto – Horace Walpole
- Émile; or, On Education – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Rameau’s Nephew – Denis Diderot
- Julie; or, the New Eloise – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Rasselas – Samuel Johnson
- Candide – Voltaire
- The Female Quixote – Charlotte Lennox
- Amelia – Henry Fielding
- Peregrine Pickle – Tobias George Smollett
- Fanny Hill – John Cleland
- Tom Jones – Henry Fielding
- Roderick Random – Tobias George Smollett
- Clarissa – Samuel Richardson
- Pamela – Samuel Richardson
- Jacques the Fatalist – Denis Diderot
- Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus – J. Arbuthnot, J. Gay, T. Parnell, A. Pope, J. Swift
- Joseph Andrews – Henry Fielding
- A Modest Proposal – Jonathan Swift
- Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift
- Roxana – Daniel Defoe
- Moll Flanders – Daniel Defoe
- Love in Excess – Eliza Haywood
- Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe
- A Tale of a Tub – Jonathan Swift
- Oroonoko – Aphra Behn
- The Princess of Clèves – Marie-Madelaine Pioche de Lavergne, Comtesse de La Fayette
- The Pilgrim’s Progress – John Bunyan
- Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
- The Unfortunate Traveller – Thomas Nashe
- Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit – John Lyly
- Gargantua and Pantagruel – Françoise Rabelais
- The Thousand and One Nights – Anonymous
- The Golden Ass – Lucius Apuleius
- Aithiopika – Heliodorus
- Chaireas and Kallirhoe – Chariton
- Metamorphoses – Ovid
- Aesop’s Fables – Aesopus
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