#E.L. Wallace

[devouredwrites]

The Raven’s Shadow was not a particularly prominent vessel, and the crew left much to be desired on top of that. And even so, there was one specific little fucking shit they had picked up as a gunner. Entitled. Fucking. Prick. (Ignoring the fact that this man was older than Erskine himself. He was a dick.)

Erskine had hardly been aboard a day when some of the other members of the crew warned him about the gunner. It wasn’t much longer before he personally met Jack, and wondered how in the world he had managed to get the captain to agree to let him on. Had the captain really been that desperate?

Not only generally unpleasant to be around, trying to avail himself of others’ possessions, but also lazy. He thought this would be easy money. Thought he’d someday end up captain. Managing to tolerate him through the journey was trying. The dislike seemed to be mutual, luckily enough.

Erskine still decided to leave the crew as soon as he could.

They were supposed to reach port by morning, even with the storm that had whipped up in the middle of the night. This was not the reason Erskine had startled awake. Erskine had startled awake after a warning laid out in dreams- a dark shape looming over the horizon, blood flowing off the land and threatening to overtake the sea, buildings being completely unwound- their strings pulled toward the shape on the horizon. Erskine had woken coughing up seawater. He didn’t know how long had passed before he could get himself to search through the books he had brought with him, try to figure out what in the world this was about. Certainly, it had to mean something. There was no way it didn’t, with the nature of Eldershore. Not only the nature of the town, but the duty his family held. The answer was inconvenient. His uncle had missed a ritual. He would have to remedy it. Many of the ingredients would have to be substituted. There was already a list of suggested substitutions within the pages of his family grimoire. With the apparent chaos of other crew members rushing about the ship, performing the ritual shouldn’t be an issue. Picking a sacrifice definitely wasn’t an issue.

The storm and general din provided ample cover for dragging Jack to a space prepared for the ritual, bound and gagged. It didn’t make it any less nerve wracking. Hopefully no one else noticed he was missing until they had already docked. He’d have to find another ship either way.

It wouldn’t seem as if they did. Finding another crew should be easy, with his medical skillset.

[devouredreaper]

So. Instead of drawing my current D&D characters with Pokemon, I'm just gonna write about it. I don't know if any of them would particularly care to lead a gym, but y'know

Salira absolutely has ghost & ice Pokemon. Their whole aesthetic is death and ice, it makes sense. The team consists of Alolan Ninetails, Mimikyu, Froslass, Runerigus, Trevenant, and Glaceon.

E.L. has ghost and water types. Dhelmise, Tentacruel, Dewgong, Vaporeon, Frillish, and Cursola probably

6 has steel & electric. No question. Klingklang, Magnezone, Heliolisk, Metagross, Mawile, and Steelix

Teague is ghost, psychic, and a li'l water. Slowking, Shuppet, Espeon, Starmie, Gengar, and Gardevoir

[otulnlwnafh]

It should have been comforting. Perhaps it was just because he had little experience personally with these contacts that he wasn't entirely convinced. It also didn't help he was fighting the instinct screaming that the building itself was a projection of some creature, luring unsuspecting people in to eat them. This wasn't E.L.'s mission, though. This had nothing to do with what he was trying to accomplish himself. He just happened to be available to help.

E.L. did not move his hand. Most groups that disbanded rarely ever truly did- they just went underground. They would return when they felt the time was right. He let out a hum, padded after the other. He did not carry much that would make noise- past the occasional creak of leather. This had to be a trap. Even if the room Kurapika had just opened was empty. There was something wrong here. "I don't think it's a good idea to split up." It was much easier to overtake a single target. With the right techniques, such a thing could even be done silently. "Still can't shake the feeling we're not alone here." As he glanced down the hall, shifted to look back the way they came. Given the age of the house, it was plausible he had just heard something settle elsewhere on the floor. He wasn't going to look after just stating they shouldn't split up. "Should close the door behind us. It'd at least give us warning if someone tries to attack."

"Yes, my contacts have never failed me" He mentioned almost in a whisper, almost as if he were afraid to break the silence that existed in that place. There was a soft jingling of chains that accompanied every step Kurapika took, due to the chains that dangled from his right wrist to the rings on his fingers. That place did not bring him good vibes and he would be ready to fight if necessary. Still that wasn't all, scattered in different parts of his suit were all the bladed weapons he usually carried with him except for his bokken, those would be very obvious under his black suit and he preferred to reserve them when he wore his clan's garb. The revolver hung on his pants belt.

"This building belonged to a mafia family, an apparently disbanded family, which I don't believe at all. The mafia doesn't usually act like that. There were no traces left, so I'm sure they are preparing their big comeback or something like that. It's because I think they stole one of the pairs of scarlet eyes. Everyone in the underworld knows how important and expensive they are" Kurapika walked slowly, paying attention to any sound beyond what the two of them could make to stay one step ahead in in case someone tried to ambush them. "We need to find where they had their safe or where they kept their most precious possessions, and hopefully we will find mine"

A door creaked as Kurapika opened it. A creak of old wood that echoed off every wall in the room. It was a bedroom. "Well, I'll have a while searching here, do you want to help me clean this room or would you prefer to search somewhere else?"

[whitepolaris]

The Santa Cruz Sea Serpent

One of the strangest creatures ever coughed up by the Pacific Ocean beached itself on a rocky shore two miles northwest of this coastal town back in 1925. At the time, conflicting reports were given on the size of the dead, foul-smelling beast. It was said to be anywhere from thirty to fifty feel long. Luckily, a photographer was on the site and took clear pictures for posterity. The photos show a creature with a duck-billed head, a long, slender neck, and a body trunk that tapers off into a finlike appendage. Close-ups reveal what looks like an elephant’s leg on the animal’s neck. One witness said that it had been several pairs of these legs on its body, complete with ivory toenails! To the observer, the beast resembles nothing so much as a plesiosaur: a finned aquatic dinosaur that supposed died out 65 million years ago.

And that’s just what naturalist E.L. Wallace, who inspected the carcass, pronounced it to be. Wallace said the animal was toothless, weak-boned, and probably a vegetarian swamp dweller. He theorized that it had been preserved in glacial ice that drifted south and gradually melted. The carcass was cast adrift, and it eventually washed up on the outskirts of Santa Cruz. Finally, an “official” scientific examination was made. The verdict was that the monster was wasn’t a dinosaur, but a rare species of North Pacific beaked whale, Berardius bairdi, which was unknown outside British Columbia waters. 

This didn’t quite close the book on the case. Numerous witnesses still maintained the beast wasn’t a whale or even a known sea creature. To this day, the Santa Cruz Sea Monster remains a contentious issue among people fascinated by sea serpents and the possibility of surviving dinosaurs. 

[cheshirelibrary]

30 Books You Need to Read to Earn 'Well-Read' Status 

[via inc.com]

For anyone who wants to attain the vaunted title of "being well-read," it's more about breadth than depth. To "feel" well-read in literature, it's all about the categories, not the books themselves. Read a few books in a few different genres, time periods, points of views. I've thrown in a few controversial books, just so you know what all of the fuss is about. Here's how you can feel like a regular literati:

Western Classics : to give you a good foundation for the who's who of Western literature:

A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)

Pride & Prejudice (Jane Austen)

Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)

Non-Western Classics : the stuff that you should read to feel worldly and well-read. (More applicable if you're from the U.S. or Western Europe.) :

One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

To Live (Yu Hua)

Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe)

Dystopia : the stuff of our worst fears and nightmares:

1984 (George Orwell)

Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)

The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)

Science Fiction & Fantasy : we can't overlook the geeky cousin of the classics, can we?

The Lord of the Rings series (J.R.R. Tolkien)

The Foundation series (Issac Asimov)

Neuromancer (William Gibson)

Great American Novels : these zeitgeist works practically defined a time period of U.S. history:

The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)

Bonfire of Vanities (Tom Wolfe)

The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)

Literary Heavy Hitters : books that make people go "Whoa, dude!" when you say that you've read them:

Ulysses (James Joyce)

Infinite Jest (David Foster Wallace)

Gravity's Rainbow (Thomas Pynchon)

Popular Fiction : those guilty indulgences that everyone has read (but won't necessarily admit to it). Warning: this is U.S.-centric, feel free to indulge in your country's guilty pleasures:

A Song of Ice and Fire series (George R. R. Martin)

The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins)

Fifty Shades of Grey (E.L. James)

Satire : throw in a little giggle into your reading list.

Cat's Cradle (Kurt Vonnegut)

Catch-22 (Joseph Heller).

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)

  ...

Click through to see more titles

[aussie-roadkill]

In loving memory of E.L. Wallace...

fuck you

[otulnlwnafh]

E.L. meanwhile didn't seem to care his partially hunched posture was informal. It was slightly straighter than he just had been sitting, in a bid to seem less asocial. So much for claiming to be a professional. "Makes sense." He shrugged, readjusted in his spot. His left arm didn't move from where he had rested it after settling the papers. It wouldn't be the first bar fight he had been involved in, if things came to that- and judging by the shouting he could pick out from his own crew, that might not be too far fetched. If Aurora couldn't rein things in, at least. She was trying, by the sound of it.

He... Could use a break, he supposed. It wasn't like he had been getting anywhere. There was always time between ports- he could find it between keeping the ship running and the crew in one piece.

While he was generally a private person- not exactly aided by the general haunted vibe he had- he had no problems giving his name. Or a shortened version, at least. "E.L. Wallace." He scanned over the papers and books once again before raising his attention to Rhaya. "Just passing through town?" That was how people held conversation, right?

It was difficult to smother the hopeful smile that pulled at one side of her mouth as the young druid watched the other begin clearing some space on the table. Not that it was necessary – she would have been willing to hover-hand her drink and refrain from setting anything down if he had requested, but she would be lying if she said the gesture wasn’t unappreciated. “Fantastic, much appreciated!” she chirped while practically throwing herself into one of the chairs across from him so as to give as much space as possible. A celebratory and rather generous pull from her drink was had before Rhaya glanced up to get a proper look at the other, remembering as an afterthought to straighten her shoulders into a more formal posture. “Oh, uh, no – Thank you, but I don’t know if that will be necessary. I doubt they have that much attention span, and if they do, I'll probably have bigger things to worry about.” The slightest twinge of doubt entered her expression but she maintained the pleasant smile. She had a plan to cover the ‘business’ farce anyways, and it wouldn’t require purchasing medications that would admittedly just be passed along to their own ship’s doctor. “Name’s Rhaya, by the way. You don’t have to introduce yourself if you don’t want to, I know some people around here are… weird about giving names. Fake name always works too, those are fun.”

[seattlemysterybooks]

philsp.com

December 1932 issue

cover by Delos Palmer

Beldon Duff, “The Bride’s House Horror", Doubleday Crime Club, 1930, as Ask No Questions  

Edgar Wallace, “The Poetical Policeman” (J. G. Reeder), The Grand Magazine, November, 1924, as “The Strange Case of the Night Watchman”

Leslie T. White, “Thirteen Hours"

E. L. Seims: The Footlight Murder (puzzle)

Captain C. H. Wall, “The Clueless Crime"

Seattle Mystery Bookshop

[your-dietician]

Diagnosing Depression in People with Autism: A Guest Blog Post from SPARK - Part 1

New Post has been published on https://depression-md.com/diagnosing-depression-in-people-with-autism-a-guest-blog-post-from-spark-part-1/

Diagnosing Depression in People with Autism: A Guest Blog Post from SPARK - Part 1

SPARK is the largest autism study ever in the US – over 100k families – with a goal of speeding up research and advancing our understanding of autism to help improve the lives of all affected.  Celebrating its 5th Anniversary, SPARK is committed to finding the causes and treatments of ASD. https://sparkforautism.org/5years/

This article discusses topics that may be upsetting to some people. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline provides free, confidential support 24/7 at 1-800-273-8255 and by online chat.

As a young child with autism, Ben had trouble putting his feelings into words, except when he was angry. During one outburst, he told his mother he didn’t want to live. Although she took him to mental health providers, they focused on treating him for anxiety, rather than depression.  

Ben is now 20. The pandemic turned his world upside down to the point where he attempted suicide. It was only at this point that Ben finally received a formal diagnosis of and treatment for major depression. 

He is not alone. People who have autism are four times more likely to experience depression during their lifetime than the general population, according to a 2019 analysis of many studies. In fact, about 40 percent of autistic adults, and 8 percent of youth, have had depression.1

Adults on the autism spectrum were five times more likely to attempt suicide than the general population, according to research from Kaiser Permanente Northern California. And, where the numbers are truly telling, almost half of those people who tried to take their lives had not been diagnosed with depression before their attempt.2

Depression is one of the more serious conditions often found in people who have autism. Unfortunately, it is also often misunderstood or even missed by families, caregivers, or doctors.

Is it Depression or Autism?

The symptoms of depression may be harder to recognize in people on the spectrum. Sometimes that’s because “high-profile problems,” such as aggression and self-injury, draw doctors’ attention away from depression and anxiety, according to some researchers.3

Other times, the signs of depression may be mistaken for autism itself. Although depression and autism are very different, some symptoms may be found in both conditions, explains Rowan University autism and depression research psychologist Katherine Gotham, Ph.D.  

These overlapping traits include lack of interest in socializing, sleep problems, trouble concentrating, and having an emotionless facial expression and monotone voice.4-6   And sometimes, symptoms of depression may differ from textbook examples. Rather than looking tired and sad, a depressed person who has autism may be irritable or agitated, or have emotional outbursts, according to research.3,5,7

Unfortunately, there are no lab tests or scans for depression. Doctors typically rely on a patient’s ability to describe his feelings. That’s a heavy burden for people whose autism impairs their ability to communicate through words, facial expressions, and body language.

Children and teens may not be able to label their feelings as guilt or worthlessness, some of the words doctors are looking for when considering depression.7 Even adults who speak fluently may struggle to identify their moods or emotions, a condition called alexithymia.8  

The Lens of Depression

If we look at Ben through the lens of depression, a nuanced story will emerge.  When he said that he did not want to live – a warning sign ­– a psychologist did not think he was seriously depressed. The reason? Ben also reported that he needed to meet some fellow students to finish a project. Because of this additional information, “they said he does not fit the profile of someone who’s depressed.”

But what if his desire to follow rules, a common trait of autism, or his perfectionism could also explain his concern about the project?  Unfortunately, because Ben earned good grades, health care providers seemed to overlook his depressed feelings. The good news is that researchers are exploring ways to improve doctors’ ability to diagnose depression in those with autism. 

When Should You Suspect Depression in Someone with Autism?

Doctors and researchers agree that it is important to look for changes in someone’s sleep and eating habits, in their interests, and their irritability or agitation levels. This is crucial, particularly if the person cannot describe their feelings. Doctors may rely on information from relatives or others about such changes when evaluating someone with autism.

“I think initially we were hypothesizing that depression might really look different in people with autism,” Gotham says. “What we have found so far is that depression looks different in some people with autism. But it looks a lot like the depression that we know, in a lot of people on the spectrum.

Depression Risks from Childhood through Adulthood

Who is more likely to experience depression? According to research, risks include:

A family history of depression or bipolar disorder, which may have existed before a parent had a child with a disability 5,10

Experiencing trauma, including bullying 11,12

Being verbal and having at least average intelligence 10,13-16

In children and teens, having anxiety or another psychiatric condition10

Being older.

One’s risk for depression rises as they move from childhood to adulthood, whether they have autism or not, Gotham says. “At each stage of life – childhood, adolescence, and adulthood – people on the autism spectrum appear to be at a greater risk for depression compared to the general population,” she says.

One stage, the transition to adulthood, poses a particular challenge for people who have autism, with stresses that may increase the risk of depression, says Dr. Robert Wisner-Carlson, Robert Wisner-Carlson, chief of the Autism and Neurodevelopmental Outpatient Program at Sheppard Pratt, a mental and behavioral health system in Maryland. 

Students with autism often receive an array of services through their public schools. But when they graduate, usually between ages 18 and 21, they lose school services, such as speech therapy, social skills instruction, and psychological help. They may not qualify for help under the adult disability system.  Even if they do qualify, they may have to wait a long time to receive services. The sudden loss of services “can be a huge jolt,” says Wisner-Carlson, like “falling off a cliff.”

Other factors can influence risk. Families of people who have autism seem more likely to have a history of depression and bipolar disorder, Wisner-Carlson says. “The genetic studies of psychiatric illness and autism show a lot of genetic markers that overlap.” And other factors play a part, too. Research shows that children who have autism are bullied at a higher rate than other children.17 Bullying is linked to depression in typically-developing teenagers, and one study found psychiatric effects from bullying into adulthood.18,19

Some aspects of autism itself may add to depression. For example, rumination – repeatedly thinking about things that upset you – is a risk factor for depression in the general population. People with autism have repetitive motions and obsessive interests, which may be related to rumination.20,21 Another study found a link between depression and the planning and organizational problems often experienced by people who have autism.22

The risk for depression is not spread evenly across the spectrum however. People who are verbal and don’t have an intellectual disability are more likely to be diagnosed with depression.

Some wonder if depression appears to be more common in verbal people because it’s easier to diagnose and research them. “How do you identify trauma or depression in someone who’s nonspeaking or has very low communication skills?” asks social worker Dena Gassner, an autistic member of the SPARK Community Advisory Council. But, she warns, “The illusion is thinking those are the only people we’re struggling to identify.” Even verbal people may escape diagnosis, she says.

Clearly there is still a lot that needs to be learned about properly diagnosing depression in those with autism.

Resources

References

Hudson C.C. et al. J. Abnorm. Child Psychol. 47, 165-175 (2019) PubMed

Croen L.A. et al. Autism 19, 814-823 (2015) PubMed

Charlot L. et al. J. Ment. Health Res. Intellect. Disabil. 1, 238-253 (2008) PubMed

Gotham K. et al. Autism 19, 491-504 (2015) PubMed

Magnuson K.M. and J.N. Constantino J. Dev. Behav. Pediatr. 32, 332-340 (2011) PubMed

Stewart M.E. et al. Autism 10, 103-116 (2006) PubMed

Leyfer O.T. et al. J. Autism Dev. Disord. 36, 849-861 (2006) PubMed

Berthoz S. and E.L. Hill Eur. Psychiatry 20, 291-298 (2005) PubMed

Williams Z.J. et al. Assessment Epub ahead of print (2020) PubMed

Pezzimenti F. et al. Child Adolesc. Psychiatr. Clin. N. Am. 28, 397-409 (2019) PubMed

Chandrasekhar T. and L. Sikich Dialogues Clin. Neurosci. 17, 219-227 (2015) PubMed

Ghaziuddin M. et al. J. Autism Dev. Disord. 32, 299-306 (2002) PubMed

Matson J.L. and M.S. Nebel-Schwalm Res. Dev. Disabil. 28, 341-352 (2007) PubMed

Mayes S.D. et al. Res. Autism Spectr. Disord. 5, 474-485 (2011) Abstract

Greenlee J.L. et al. Pediatrics 137, S105-S114 (2016) PubMed

Hollocks M.J. et al. Psychol. Med. 49, 559-572 (2019) PubMed

Zablotsky B. et al. Autism 18, 419-427 (2014) PubMed

Copeland W.E. et al. JAMA Psychiatry 70, 419-426 (2013) PubMed

Wang J. et al. J. Adolesc. Health 48, 415-417 (2011) PubMed

Gotham K. et al. Autism Res. 7, 381-391 (2014) PubMed

Patel S. et al. Autism 21, 181-189 (2017)PubMed

Wallace G.L. et al. J. Autism Dev. Disord. 46, 1071-1083 (2016) PubMed  

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[missparker]

okay so @little-brisk said: “if it doesn’t feel too much like working for free will you tell us about the best of middle grade according to tumblr user missparker?”

like, i will always talk about books! 

i chose ten of my favorite middle grade books

1. The View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg - Four students, with their own individual stories, develop a special bond and attract the attention of their teacher, a paraplegic, who choses them to represent their sixth-grade class in the Academic Bowl competition.

I mean, you can’t go wrong with any of her books. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler is still a classic that holds up well, and I have a soft spot for A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver, but if I had to chose my favorite, it would be The View from Saturday. 

2. Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh -  Eleven-year-old Harriet keeps notes on her classmates and neighbors in a secret notebook, but when some of the students read the notebook, they seek revenge.

This is my favorite book of all time. 

3. A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L’Engle - With Meg Murry’s help, the dragons her six-year-old brother saw in the vegetable garden play an important part in his struggle between life and death.

This is the book that comes after A Wrinkle in Time, which is also good, but this one is my favorite. I liked Many Waters a lot too, but could never get into A Swiftly Tilting Planet. Something about grown up Charles Wallace was too jarring. I love Madeleine L’Engle a lot but I much prefer her work for children over her work for adults. 

4. Holes by Louis Sachar - As further evidence of his family’s bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnats is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself.

This is like, the only book where I think the movie is just as good. Do yourself a favor and both read it and watch the movie. 

5. Ruby on the Outside by Nora Raleigh - Eleven-year-old Ruby Danes has a real best friend for the first time ever, but agonizes over whether or not to tell her a secret she has never shared with anyone–that her mother has been in prison since Ruby was five–and over whether to express her anger to her mother.

This is the newest book on the list but I think it’s so important to address these kinds of scenarios and this one does it so gently and sweetly and I just really liked it a lot. And there is no magical ending. Her mom is in prison and that’s where she stays. Real life, y’all. 

6. Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson - Growing up on a tiny Chesapeake Bay island in the early 1940s, angry Louise reveals how Caroline, her twin sister, robbed her of everything: her hopes for schooling, her friends, her mother, even her name. But learning the ways of the watermen and the secrets of the island give Louise the courage to fight back.

Again, anything by her is great but I particularly identified with this one because I grew up in a situation where my sibling was a golden child and I always felt like I had to work twice as hard to get half of much and this was one of those books that taught me, hey. You can leave. You don’t have to stay. You can go make your own life. That’s an important lesson. 

7. Missing May by Cynthia Rylant - After the death of the beloved aunt who has raised her, twelve-year-old Summer and her uncle Ob leave their West Virginia trailer in search of the strength to go on living.

It’s so sweet and sad and like, I could cry right now. Cynthia Rylant writes a lot of picture books too, she’s hella prolific but this is my favorite.

8. When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead - As her mother prepares to be a contestant on the 1980s television game show, “The $20,000 Pyramid,” a twelve-year-old New York City girl tries to make sense of a series of mysterious notes received from an anonymous source that seems to defy the laws of time and space.

This one is such a surprise and a favorite of anyone who loved A Wrinkle in Time. Her other books are pretty good, but nothing has quite captured the magic of this one for me. I would read Goodbye Stranger and skip Liar & Spy if I had to choose.

9. Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech - After her mother leaves home suddenly, thirteen-year-old Sal and her grandparents take a car trip retracing her mother’s route. Along the way, Sal recounts the story of her friend Phoebe, whose mother also left.

I’ve read this book ten times maybe. I just… really love it! I love Sal. What a good egg Sal is. 

10. The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly -  In central Texas in 1899, eleven-year-old Callie Vee Tate is instructed to be a lady by her mother, learns about love from the older three of her six brothers, and studies the natural world with her grandfather, the latter of which leads to an important discovery.

This book is all about the relationship between Calpurnia and her grandfather for me. I am not always super into historical fiction, but I liked this. Cried on an airplane while reading it. No shame. 

[devouredreaper]

I have determined that if all the Wallaces don't have drink three pots of coffee and get into a knife fight with god energy, there's something wrong

[otulnlwnafh]

From here | @warlordarcher

Talking to people really wasn't his strong suit. Even more so when there was no good way to say yeah my god is saying you need something but she's being really fucking vague and cryptic about it. Without sounding like an absolute lunatic, at least. (Also there was like three different ways to interpret one of the words she used, which didn't help. And he was certain she was fully aware of that.)

So instead, E.L. shrugged. "Not really the style of dress around here." How he had already opened likely was the best way to start, thinking about it. And it was what caught his attention in the first place. With the next question, the other clearly wasn't from anywhere local. Or had just gotten into town and simply missed the wanted posters- more so displayed here like one would put up a small child's drawings they were proud of. "E.L. Wallace," even though he didn't bother to extend a hand to shake.

[allbestnet]

The Big Meta Book List

9.5 | Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) by George Orwell 9 | Lolita (1955) by Vladimir Nabokov 9 | Ulysses (1922) by James Joyce 9 | The Great Gatsby (1925) by F. Scott Fitzgerald 9 | Midnight’s Children (1981) by Salman Rushdie 8.9 | Brave New World (1932) by Aldous Huxley 8.9 | The Sound and the Fury (1929) by William Faulkner 8.8 | The Lord of the Rings (1954) by J.R.R. Tolkien 8.8 | The Grapes of Wrath (1939) by John Steinbeck 8.8 | Pride and Prejudice (1813) by Jane Austen 8.6 | Anna Karenina (1877) by Leo Tolstoy 8.6 | Invisible Man (1952) by Ralph Ellison 8.6 | The Catcher in the Rye (1951) by J.D. Salinger 8.6 | Catch-22 (1961) by Joseph Heller 8.6 | One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez 8.6 | Gone with the Wind (1936) by Margaret Mitchell 8.5 | Clockwork Orange (1962) by Anthony Burgess 8.5 | To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) by Harper Lee 8.5 | The Hobbit (1937) by J.R.R. Tolkien 8.5 | Crime and Punishment (1866) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 8.5 | The Little Prince (1943) by Antoine de Saint-Exupery 8.5 | Les Miserables (1862) by Victor Hugo 8.4 | To the Lighthouse (1927) by Virginia Woolf 8.4 | On the Road (1957) by Jack Kerouac 8.4 | War and Peace (1869) by Leo Tolstoy 8.4 | Beloved (1987) by Toni Morrison

8.3 | The Trial (1925) by Franz Kafka 8.3 | Animal Farm (1945) by George Orwell 8.3 | The Brothers Karamazov (1880) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 8.3 | Wuthering Heights (1847) by Emily Bronte 8.3 | Lord of the Flies (1954) by William Golding 8.2 | Slaughterhouse Five (1969) by Kurt Vonnegut 8.2 | Great Expectations (1861) by Charles Dickens 8.2 | The Master and Margarita (1973) by Mikhail Bulgakov 8.2 | The Stranger (1942) by Albert Camus 8.2 | Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) by Lewis Carroll 8.2 | Heart of Darkness (1899) by Joseph Conrad 8.2 | Love in the Time of Cholera (1985) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez 8.2 | The Count of Monte Cristo (1845) by Alexandre Dumas 8.2 | Hamlet by William Shakespeare 8.2 | Don Quixote (1605) by Miguel de Cervantes 8.2 | Jane Eyre (1847) by Charlotte Bronte 8.2 | East of Eden (1952) by John Steinbeck 8.2 | One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962) by Ken Kesey 8.1 | The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) by Oscar Wilde 8.1 | The Name of the Rose (1980) by Umberto Eco 8.1 | The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) by Margaret Atwood 8.1 | Middlemarch (1874) by George Eliot 8.1 | The Idiot (1869) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 8.1 | The Magic Mountain (1924) by Thomas Mann 8.1 | The Old Man and the Sea (1952) by Ernest Hemingway 8.1 | The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979) by Douglas Adams 8.1 | The Color Purple (1982) by Alice Walker 8.1 | Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker 8.1 | Fahrenheit 451 (1953) by Ray Bradbury 8 | Fairy Tales (1812) by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm 8 | Native Son (1940) by Richard Wright 8 | Infinite Jest (1996) by David Foster Wallace 8 | American Psycho (1991) by Bret Easton Ellis 8 | For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) by Ernest Hemingway 8 | The Fault in Our Stars (2012) by John Green 8 | And Then There Were None (1939) by Agatha Christie 8 | Persuasion (1818) by Jane Austen 8 | Rebecca (1938) by Daphne du Maurier 8 | The War of the Worlds (1898) by H.G. Wells 8 | The Kite Runner (2003) by Khaled Hosseini 8 | House of Mirth (1905) by Edith Wharton 8 | Journey to the End of the Night (1932) by Louis-Ferdinand Celine 8 | Of Mice and Men (1937) by John Steinbeck 8 | Lonesome Dove (1985) by Larry McMurtry 8 | Three Musketeers (1844) by Alexandre Dumas 8 | Pale Fire (1989) by Vladimir Nabokov 8 | Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1915) by James Joyce 8 | The Hunger Games (2008) by Suzanne Collins 8 | Emma (1815) by Jane Austen 8 | The Godfather (1969) by Mario Puzo 7.9 | Call of the Wild (1903) by Jack London 7.9 | Sons and Lovers (1913) by D.H. Lawrence 7.9 | A Prayer for Owen Meany (1989) by John Irving 7.9 | The Stand (1978) by Stephen King 7.9 | Little Women (1868) by Louisa May Alcott 7.9 | Brideshead Revisited (1945) by Evelyn Waugh 7.9 | Cloud Atlas (2004) by David Mitchell 7.9 | Sense and Sensibility (1811) by Jane Austen 7.9 | Mrs Dalloway (1925) by Virginia Woolf 7.9 | Diary of a Young Girl (1947) by Anne Frank 7.9 | Othello by William Shakespeare 7.9 | Maus by Art Spiegelman 7.9 | Absalom, Absalom! (1936) by William Faulkner 7.9 | King Lear by William Shakespeare 7.9 | Of Human Bondage (1915) by W. Somerset Maugham 7.9 | Madame Bovary (1857) by Gustave Flaubert 7.9 | Leaves of Grass (1855) by Walt Whitman 7.9 | A Tale of Two Cities (1859) by Charles Dickens 7.9 | As I Lay Dying (1930) by William Faulkner 7.9 | Odyssey by Homer 7.9 | Gulliver’s Travels (1726) by Jonathan Swift 7.9 | Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley 7.9 | Things Fall Apart (1958) by Chinua Achebe 7.9 | Age of Innocence (1920) by Edith Wharton

7.9 | Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940) by Carson McCullers 7.9 | Harry Potter (1997) by J.K. Rowling 7.9 | Tropic of Cancer (1934) by Henry Miller 7.8 | Iliad by Homer 7.8 | Watership Down by Richard Adams 7.8 | Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) by Zora Neale Hurston 7.8 | Where the Wild Things Are (1963) by Maurice Sendak 7.8 | Room With a View (1908) by E.M. Forster 7.8 | Charlotte’s Web (1952) by E.B. White 7.8 | Green Eggs and Ham (1988) by Dr. Seuss 7.8 | Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry 7.8 | A Song of Ice and Fire (1996) by George R.R. Martin 7.8 | Oliver Twist (1837) by Charles Dickens 7.8 | Blindness (1995) by Jose Saramago 7.8 | In Search of Lost Time (1927) by Marcel Proust 7.8 | Passage to India (1924) by E.M. Forster 7.8 | The Perks of Being a Wallflower (1999) by Stephen Chbosky 7.8 | The Secret Garden (1911) by Frances Hodgson Burnett 7.8 | The Lorax (1971) by Dr. Seuss 7.8 | The Pillars of the Earth (1989) by Ken Follett 7.8 | The Wind in the Willows (1908) by Kenneth Grahame 7.8 | The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984) by Milan Kundera 7.8 | The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis 7.8 | The Help (2009) by Kathryn Stockett 7.8 | Matilda (1988) by Roald Dahl 7.8 | Black Beauty (1877) by Anna Sewell 7.8 | House of Leaves (2000) by Mark Z. Danielewski 7.8 | Bell Jar (1963) by Sylvia Plath 7.8 | Watchmen (1987) by Alan Moore 7.8 | Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) by Thomas Pynchon 7.8 | Treasure Island (1883) by Robert Louis Stevenson 7.8 | Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964) by Roald Dahl 7.8 | The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) by Arthur Conan Doyle 7.8 | American Gods (2001) by Neil Gaiman 7.8 | Sophie’s Choice (1979) by William Styron 7.8 | The Magus (1977) by John Fowles 7.8 | Flowers for Algernon (1959) by Daniel Keyes 7.8 | Schindler’s List (1982) by Thomas Keneally 7.8 | Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie 7.8 | It (1986) by Stephen King 7.8 | Tender Is the Night (1934) by F. Scott Fitzgerald 7.8 | World War Z (2006) by Max Brooks 7.8 | Life of Pi (2001) by Yann Martel 7.8 | Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) by Robert A. Heinlein 7.8 | Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol 7.8 | Book of Mormon by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 7.8 | American Tragedy (1925) by Theodore Dreiser 7.8 | Moby-Dick (1851) by Herman Melville 7.8 | Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa 7.8 | A Christmas Carol (1843) by Charles Dickens 7.8 | The Kingkiller Chronicle (2007) by Patrick Rothfuss 7.8 | All Quiet on the Western Front (1929) by Erich Maria Remarque 7.7 | A Fine Balance (1995) by Rohinton Mistry 7.7 | Scarlet Pimpernel (1905) by Baroness Orczy 7.7 | The Very Hungry Caterpillar (1969) by Eric Carle 7.7 | Bleak House (1853) by Charles Dickens 7.7 | The Giving Tree (1964) by Shel Silverstein 7.7 | Howards End (1910) by E.M. Forster 7.7 | Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) by A.A. Milne 7.7 | Anne of Green Gables (1908) by Lucy Maud Montgomery 7.7 | The Heroes of Olympus (2010) by Rick Riordan 7.7 | His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman 7.7 | Fight Club (1996) by Chuck Palahniuk 7.7 | The Road (2006) by Cormac McCarthy 7.7 | Metamorphoses by Ovid 7.7 | Giver (1993) by Lois Lowry 7.7 | Looking for Alaska (2005) by John Green 7.7 | The Day of the Jackal (1971) by Frederick Forsyth 7.7 | Roots (1976) by Alex Haley 7.7 | Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891) by Thomas Hardy 7.7 | The Sheltering Sky (1949) by Paul Bowles 7.7 | Dune (1965) by Frank Herbert 7.7 | Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett 7.7 | Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 7.7 | The Thorn Birds (1977) by Colleen McCullough 7.7 | Good Omens (1990) by Terry Pratchett 7.7 | Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson 7.7 | Fifty Shades of Grey (2011) by E.L. James 7.7 | The Red and the Black (1830) by Stendhal 7.7 | The Book Thief (2006) by Markus Zusak 7.7 | The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri 7.7 | Finnegans Wake (1939) by James Joyce 7.7 | Ficciones (1956) by Jorge Luis Borges 7.7 | Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare 7.7 | Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) by Harriet Beecher Stowe 7.7 | The God of Small Things (1997) by Arundhati Roy 7.7 | I, Claudius (1934) by Robert Graves 7.7 | Atlas Shrugged (1957) by Ayn Rand 7.7 | Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) by Philip K. Dick 7.7 | The Green Mile (1996) by Stephen King 7.7 | The Shining (1977) by Stephen King 7.7 | Aeneid by Virgil 7.7 | The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994) by Haruki Murakami 7.7 | Mansfield Park (1814) by Jane Austen 7.7 | Women in Love (1920) by D.H. Lawrence 7.7 | Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974) by Robert M. Pirsig 7.7 | A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007) by Khaled Hosseini 7.7 | Cat in the Hat (1985) by Dr. Seuss 7.7 | Outsiders (1967) by S.E. Hinton 7.6 | Zorba the Greek (1946) by Nikos Kazantzakis

7.6 | Trainspotting (1993) by Irvine Welsh 7.6 | Time Machine (1895) by H.G. Wells 7.6 | We Need to Talk About Kevin (2003) by Lionel Shriver 7.6 | Macbeth by William Shakespeare 7.6 | The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien 7.6 | The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (2003) by Mark Haddon 7.6 | The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (2000) by Michael Chabon 7.6 | Night (1956) by Elie Wiesel 7.6 | The Woman in White (1860) by Wilkie Collins 7.6 | Much Ado about Nothing by William Shakespeare 7.6 | The Time Traveler’s Wife (2003) by Audrey Niffenegger 7.6 | Man’s Search for Meaning (1946) by Viktor Emil Frankl 7.6 | Atonement (2001) by Ian McEwan 7.6 | In Cold Blood (1966) by Truman Capote 7.6 | Breakfast of Champions (1973) by Kurt Vonnegut 7.6 | Fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen 7.6 | Perfume (1985) by Patrick Suskind 7.6 | V for Vendetta (1989) by 7.6 | Around the World in Eighty Days (1873) by Jules Verne 7.6 | Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain 7.6 | The Tin Drum (1959) by Gunter Grass 7.6 | The BFG (1982) by Roald Dahl 7.6 | How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1985) by Dr. Seuss 7.6 | Candide (1759) by Voltaire 7.6 | Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928) by D.H. Lawrence 7.6 | Fountainhead (1943) by Ayn Rand 7.6 | Nostromo (1904) by Joseph Conrad 7.6 | Little Princess (1905) by Frances Hodgson Burnett 7.6 | Holes (1998) by Louis Sachar 7.6 | Mere Christianity (1952) by C.S. Lewis 7.6 | Phantom Tollbooth (1961) by Norton Juster 7.6 | David Copperfield (1850) by Charles Dickens 7.6 | Goodnight Moon (1947) by Margaret Wise Brown 7.6 | The Man in the High Castle (1962) by Philip K. Dick 7.6 | Time to Kill (1989) by John Grisham 7.6 | Steppenwolf (1927) by Hermann Hesse 7.6 | Cryptonomicon (1999) by Neil Stephenson 7.6 | The Remains of the Day (1989) by Kazuo Ishiguro 7.6 | Norwegian Wood (1987) by Haruki Murakami 7.6 | The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer 7.6 | James and the Giant Peach (1961) by Roald Dahl 7.6 | Dubliners (1914) by James Joyce 7.6 | Doctor Zhivago (1957) by Boris Pasternak 7.6 | Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943) by Betty Smith 7.6 | Memoirs of a Geisha (1997) by Arthur Golden 7.6 | Essential Rumi by Rumi 7.6 | Buddenbrooks (1901) by Thomas Mann 7.6 | Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) by Thomas Hardy 7.6 | Hiding Place (1971) by Corrie Ten Boom 7.6 | The Princess Bride (1973) by William Goldman 7.6 | All the King’s Men (1946) by Robert Penn Warren 7.6 | The Maltese Falcon (1930) by Dashiell Hammett 7.6 | The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) by Mark Twain 7.6 | Ouran High School Host Club by Bisco Hatori 7.6 | Plague (1947) by Albert Camus 7.6 | Jurassic Park (1990) by Michael Crichton 7.6 | The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson 7.6 | Shogun (1975) by James Clavell 7.6 | A Town Like Alice (1950) by Nevil Shute 7.6 | Ambassadors (1903) by Henry James 7.6 | Blood Meridian (1985) by Cormac McCarthy 7.6 | No Country for Old Men (2005) by Cormac McCarthy 7.6 | The Castle (1926) by Franz Kafka 7.6 | Phantom of the Opera (1910) by Gaston Leroux 7.6 | Middlesex (2002) by Jeffrey Eugenides 7.6 | The Book of the New Sun (1994) by Gene Wolfe 7.6 | Vanity Fair (1848) by William Makepeace Thackeray 7.6 | Heidi by Johanna Spyri 7.6 | Bluest Eye (1970) by Toni Morrison 7.6 | Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand 7.6 | Pippi Longstocking (1945) by Astrid Lindgren 7.6 | The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969) by John Fowles 7.6 | North and South (1855) by Elizabeth Gaskell 7.6 | Percy Jackson & the Olympians (2005) by Rick Riordan 7.6 | Gilgamesh by 7.6 | The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare 7.6 | Millennium series by Stieg Larsson 7.6 | Cat’s Cradle (1963) by Kurt Vonnegut 7.6 | Northanger Abbey (1817) by Jane Austen 7.6 | The Secret History (1992) by Donna Tartt 7.5 | Screwtape Letters (1942) by C.S. Lewis 7.5 | Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare 7.5 | The World According to Garp (1978) by John Irving 7.5 | A Confederacy of Dunces (1980) by John Kennedy Toole 7.5 | Birdsong (1993) by Sebastian Faulks 7.5 | Dandelion Wine (1957) by Ray Bradbury 7.5 | Light in August (1932) by William Faulkner 7.5 | The Glass Castle (2005) by Jeannette Walls 7.5 | People’s History of the United States (2010) by Howard Zinn 7.5 | Lamb by Christopher Moore 7.5 | Water for Elephants (2006) by Sara Gruen 7.5 | Moneyball (2003) by Michael Lewis 7.5 | Three Men in a Boat (1889) by Jerome K. Jerome 7.5 | Jungle (1906) by Upton Sinclair 7.5 | The Forever War (1974) by Joe Haldeman 7.5 | Le Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac 7.5 | Number the Stars (1989) by Lois Lowry 7.5 | Siddhartha (1951) by Hermann Hesse 7.5 | Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams 7.5 | Misery (1987) by Stephen King

[mellicose]

5 Things Tag

I confess: I wasn’t tagged, but I’m bored, and want my very few but absolutely awesome readers to know me better. 

5 Things you’ll find in My Bag

• Phone, my giant wad of keys, my overstuffed wallet

• A buttload of Post-its with story seeds on them

• Like, everything - medication, makeup, a mini sewing kit...

• I mean it

• It could be an alternative doorway into Narnia

5 Things in My Bedroom

• My nail art caddy, because blinged out tips are the shyt

• BOOKS! Everywhere. In several languages.

• My growing pile of laundry, since I refuse to use my hamper because it’s ugly and lame.

• My desk, which is covered in beauty things - creams and unguents and stuff. My makeup collection spilleth over.  I write in bed, which is horrible and I should stop doing it. 

• My fan, which I use to block out ambient noise. It’s almost always going unless it’s cold as balls.

5 Things You’ve Always Wanted to Do in Life

• Be published under my real name

• Get married, have children

• Ride the Orient Express to the end of the line 

• Sing with full orchestra [see below. not happening.]

• Go on an adventure with mah budz, Goonies-style, although I’m an adult and we’d be slower and larger.

5 Things I’m Currently Into

• Writing 

• Reading classic fiction. I’ve ignored the NYT bestsellers list for a while now. David Foster Wallace and E.L. James ruined it for me...but I’ll get over it. Eventually.

• Listening to conspiracy theory videos on YT while I work. It’s a guilty pleasure.

• Art history [I know I’m starting to sound insufferable but I assure you the love is fierce and long-burning]

• Trying to finish the Tennant oeuvre. It’s slow going, but intensely pleasurable.

5 Things on my To-Do List

• Laundry (really topical, but whatever. I hate doing laundry.)

• Sex. Always. I know adding it makes me look thirsty, but it’s important as I’m currently unattached.

• Kickboxing and Kendo

• Submit manuscripts to anyone who will read them

• Self care. My job is both stultifying and stressful, and sometimes I get so numb it’s hard to keep up with the things I love.

5 Things People May Not Know About Me

• I can sing. Fairly well. But I didn’t pursue anything with it because showbiz is teh_debbil! (see #2)

• I was raised superdeeduper religious. Although I’m not on that path now, I don’t resent my parents/grandmother. And I didn’t peacefully rebel until I was 18, out of love and respect for their upbringing.

• I come off as shy in the beginning, but I’m an absolute extrovert. I just don’t always want to engage with people I perceive as assholes. True story.

• I will habitually dance or sing along to shitty rock or pop tunes in supermarkets/malls, especially when I’m accompanied. I have zero chill.

• I’m a really picky eater. If I don’t love it, I don’t swallow. [heh.]

Ooh, that was fun. If anyone wants to join in, please feel free. Just tag me.

[a-kind-of-library]

Finally hung up this awesome book poster gifted to me by @childlike-wildlike this Christmas! It’s a scratch-off poster listing 100 essential novels from Pop Chart Labs. As you scratch the gold foil off each novel, more cover design is revealed-- I’ve only read (and therefore scratched off) 20/100, but plan to eventually get through them all! My goal is to read 12 more from this list in 2017-- one ‘Essential’ book/month.

Full book list below (*books I’ve read, +books I plan to read in 2017):

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe A Death in the Family by James Agee Money by Martin Amis The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood * Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow 2666 by Roberto Bolano Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen * Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury * Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte * Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs * If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italiano Calvino Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather + Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler Falconer by John Cheever * Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane + Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe White Noise by Don Delillo + Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz Deliverance by James Dickey + Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Play it as it Lays by Joan Didion An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow Crime & Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov Middlemarch by George Eliot Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison + Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides + The Sound & the Fury by William Faulkner * The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford The Sportswriter by Richard Ford The Passage to India by E.M. Forster The Recognitions by William Gaddis Neuromancer by William Gibson * Lord of the Flies by William Golding I, Claudius by Robert Graves The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene + The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett * Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne Catch-22 by Joseph Heller * The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson + Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce + Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka On the Road by Jack Kerouac * One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski * To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing * The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry Wittgenstein’s Mistress by David Markson * 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy + The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers Moby Dick by Herman Melville Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell Beloved by Toni Morrison Under the Net by Iris Murdoch Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O’Brien Appointment in Samarra by John O’Hara Animal Farm by George Orwell * 1984 by George Orwell Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys Gilead by Marilynne Robinson American Pastoral by Philip Roth The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie * Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger * Frankenstein by Mary Shelley White Teeth by Zadie Smith + Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone * Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien + Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy * Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain Rabbit, Run by John Updike * Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf Native Son by Richard Wright