Friday, February 27

Quote of the Day

Today's quote comes from a column by Eugene Robinson in today's Washington Post headlined Good Time for a Miracle Worker.


Let me interrupt the constant flow of unsettling news about budgets, bailouts and bankruptcies to welcome Tiger Woods back to competition and back into the spotlight. This would be a great time for the most watchable athlete in the world to resume doing what he does best, which is induce such slack-jawed amazement that the humanly impossible suddenly seems within reach.

Thursday, February 26

Quote of the day

"We were built to run. We truly were."

Patti Serrano on Runners Club podcast.

This week I've been downloading lots of podcasts. I downloaded this old one called Runners Club and it was really interesting.

I ran three times this week. I literally can't remember the last time I ran three times in one week.
And I hope to run at least once more this week. Possibly a 5 mile run on Saturday. Maybe tomorrow. We'll see.
Now, these are baby steps.

I ran one mile on Monday. And maybe I ran a little too hard because I was sore on Tuesday. Then I ran about 3 miles on Wednesday and I tried to consciously go slow. (As if I need to think about it.) Today, Thursday, I ran 1 mile again.

It's interesting starting back again right now because on my first two runs of the week, the roads were really snowy and icy. Today there were just isolated icy patches - which was actually not as good a situation as Monday and Tuesday because you don't worry as much about the footing when everything looks clear.

Anyway, exercising religiously again. It feels good.

Tuesday, February 17

BBC Big Read

Evidently in 2003, the BBC had a massive publicity stunt to find the most popular novel in Great Britain. There are numerous versions of the list around (particularly on Facebook); this is the version of the top 100 found on the BBC site:

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien X
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen X
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman X (1/3)
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling X
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee X
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell X
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis X
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë X
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller X
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë X
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger X
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame X
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens X
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott X
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy X
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell X
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling X
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling X
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling X
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien X
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot X
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck X
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez X
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl X
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson X
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen X
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen X
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery X
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald X
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas X
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell X
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens X
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 X
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck X
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy X
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell X
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky X
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden X
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens X
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 X
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
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 X
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 X
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac X
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel X
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 García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

Australia's ABC did something similar, of which I have read more. Modern Library has two lists, the editor's picks and the audience's.