Mailbox Mondays

I thought I'd do a Mailbox Monday even though it's Tuesday. For more Mailbox Mondays, check out The Printed Page's Tour Schedule.

Normally Harper Collins gives me all the love but this week I've received two books by Random House:

The King's Mistress by Emma Campion - Comes out in July, about the Mistress of King Edward III

and

Dracula in Love by Karen Essex - Comes out in August, about Dracula's muse Mina.  I've been dying to read this since one of my favorite books is Dracula by Bram Stoker and I love Karen Essex (read my review of her previous novel Leonardo's Swans).  By the way, I'd love to own Mina's dress on the cover.  How gorgeous is it?

Friday Firsts Book Meme

Friday Firsts is a new book blog meme creaded by Well Read Reviews. I love her blog and her tweets.

The first line can make or break a reader’s interest. Just how well did the author pull you in to the story with their first sentence? To participate in this weekly book meme is extremely easy. Head on over to Well Read Reviews to join in the fun!

My Friday Firsts: Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child

"Suicide bombers are easy to spot."

I read the first few pages on Random House's website through their newsletter and I was hooked. The guy is sitting on the 6 subway train, early morning New York city and thinks he spots a suicide bomber. Maybe not the first sentence but the first chapter definitely drew me into the story.

BBC Book Meme

I've seen this meme floating around the Web. Does anyone know the original source?

Anyway, apparently BBC says the average person has read only six of these titles. Hmmm..

****Correction. Apparently the meme came from an article in The Guardian about "What Book You Can't Live Without"

Amanda's Read: 49/100 = 49%

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (ok, only three but still)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible (currently reading)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (the first one)
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (wow...seriously?)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (currently reading)
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (yes, I've read them all)
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (doesn't that fall under #33?)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (yep, all of them)
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Random List Meme

I've seen this meme floating around the blog-world so I thought I'd give it a try.

The things I have done are in BOLD!

1. Started my own blog

2. Slept under the stars

3. Played in a band (elementary school)

4. Visited Hawaii

5. Watched a meteor shower

6. Given more than I can afford to charity

7. Been to Disneyland/world

8. Climbed a mountain (a few of Colorado's Fourteener's)

9. Held a praying mantis (my brother loves bugs)

10. Sung a solo

11. Bungee jumped

12. Visited Paris

13. Watched lightening at sea (from the beach, does that count?)

14. Taught myself an art from scratch

15. Adopted a child

16. Had food poisoning

17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty

18. Grown my own vegetables (I don't think sunflowers count)

19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France

20. Slept on an overnight train (from Cairo to Aswan)

21. Had a pillow fight

22. Hitchhiked

23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill (who hasn't?)

24. Built a snow fort

25. Held a lamb

26. Gone skinny dipping

27. Run a Marathon

28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice

29. Seen a total eclipse

30. Watched a sunrise or sunset

31. Hit a home run

32. Been on a cruise (not on a cruise boat, but on the Nile)

33. Seen Niagara Falls in person

34. Visited the birthplace of my ancestors

35. Seen an Amish community

36. Taught myself a new language

37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied

38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person

39. Gone rock climbing

40. Seen Michelangelo’s David (didn't have time but saw the fake one in the Palazzo Vecchio)

41. Sung karaoke (thanks hubby!)

42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt

43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant

44. Visited Africa

45. Walked on a beach by moonlight

46. Been transported in an ambulance

47. Had my portrait painted

48. Gone deep sea fishing

49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person

50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris

51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling

52. Kissed in the rain

53. Played in the mud

54. Gone to a drive-in theater

55. Been in a movie

56. Visited the Great Wall of China

57. Started a business

58. Taken a martial arts class

59. Visited Russia

60. Served at a soup kitchen

61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies

62. Gone whale watching

63. Got flowers for no reason

64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma

65. Gone sky diving

66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp

67. Bounced a check

68. Flown in a helicopter

69. Saved a favorite childhood toy

70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial

71. Eaten Caviar

72. Pieced a quilt

73. Stood in Times Square

74. Toured the Everglades

75. Been fired from a job

76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London

77. Broken a bone

78. Been on a speeding motorcycle

79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person

80. Published a book

81. Visited the Vatican

82. Bought a brand new car

83. Walked in Jerusalem

84. Had my picture in the newspaper

85. Read the entire Bible

86. Visited the White House

87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating

88. Had chickenpox

89. Saved someone’s life

90. Sat on a jury

91. Met someone famous

92. Joined a book club

93. Lost a loved one

94. Had a baby

95. Seen the Alamo in person

96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake

97. Been involved in a law suit

98. Owned a cell phone

99. Been stung by a bee

100. Rode an elephant

TOTAL: 51

Feel free to steal this one!

Tagged Again

I was recently tagged by Amanda at Click the Good News. I love reading her blog about her hometown of Houston, her adorable Vizsla Zoe, and her adventures through life. So here it goes:

Ten years ago I was:

Living in Fairbanks, Alaska and spending the summer before my senior year in high school.


What are (non-work) things on my to-do list for today?

1. Change the sheets on my bed
2. Plan for our honeymoon trip
3. Get groceries
4. Make chicken enchiladas for dinner
5. Go to bed early

Five snacks I enjoy:

1. Dried papaya and dried pineapple
2. Craisens
3. Trail mix
4. Pretzels
5. Dark Chocolate
6. Veggie chips with hummus

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

1. Travel everywhere & anywhere (I agreed with Amanda on this one)
2. Take classes for fun
3. Spend time volunteering
4. Get a house
5. Do some wonderful things for my friends and family who deserve it (Again I agreed with Amanda)

Places I’ve lived:

1. Colorado (Leadville, Arvada, Greeley, Ft Collins)
2. Nevada (Winnemucca and Las Vegas)
3. Alaska (Fairbanks and Anchorage)
4. New York City
5. Tennessee
6. Utah

Jobs I’ve had:

1. Barista
2. Receptionist
3. Administrative Assistant
4. Customer Service Rep

I will be tagging:

1. Heather at Age 30 - A Year of Books
2. Katie Sue at Confessions of a Real Librarian
3. Kate at What Kate's Reading
4. Nymeth at Things Mean a Lot

Tagged

The weird thing about blogs is you never know who is reading your posts. On that note, I've been tagged by Amber at Letters to the World

Rules:
1. Link the person(s) who tagged you
2. Mention the rules on your blog
3. Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours
4. Tag 6 fellow bloggers by linking them
5. Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged

Unspectacular quirks, endstop.

1) Making up songs. I love making up ridiculous songs and singing them around the house. Did I mention that I don't sing well and am horrible at rhyming.

2)Playing with food. If I can eat my food in an odd or methodical way I will do it. Which is why I love chopsticks and sushi...it's fun with food. And I can't eat a hand full of trail mix. Each piece is eaten individually and separated.

3)Wherever I go in the house I always have a little entourage that follows: chap stick, hair tie, and random countless other miscellaneous stuff. My sister thinks it's hilarious.

4)Notes and lists. I always have tons of notes and lists floating around everywhere. I makes lists for everything.

5)Tree photos. It's an obsession.

6)Shoe and pant issues. I hate when my pants ride up behind the back of my shoes when I'm walking. Drives me nuts.

I'm tagging:

Katherine at A Girl Walks into a Bookstore
Becky at Becky's Book Reviews
Nicole at Book Escape
Stephanie at The Written Word
Trish at Trish's Reading Nook
Stephanie at Confessions of a Book-a-holic