The Rory Gilmore Book List

When I came across this list by The Book Club Forum I had to post it! Rory Gilmore is one of America's favorite book worms, and I had to see how I measured up against her.

This is a list of all the books Rory read/mentioned/was seen reading throughout the Gilmore Girls series. Of 337 I've read 77- a small percentage, but still a humbling number to me!

Its a pretty diverse list, so feel free to check it out and compare for yourself as well. The one's I've read are in bold.

Rory's List (alphabetical by title)

1984 by George Orwell
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Archidamian War by Donald Kagan
The Art of Fiction by Henry James
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Babe by Dick King-Smith
Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Beowulf
The Bhagava Gita
The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy
Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel
A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Brick Lane by Monica Ali
Bridgadoon by Alan Jay Lerner
Candide by Voltaire
The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
Charlotte's Web by E. B. White
The Children's Hour by Lillian Hellman
Christine by Stephen King
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse
The Collected Short Stories by Eudora Welty
A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare
Complete Novels by Dawn Powell
The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton
Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Cousin Bette by Honor'e de Balzac
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
Cujo by Stephen King
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
David and Lisa by Dr Theodore Issac Rubin M.D
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
The Da Vinci -Code by Dan Brown
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Deenie by Judy Blume
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx
The Divine Comedy by Dante
The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
Don Quijote by Cervantes
Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn
Eloise by Kay Thompson
Emily the Strange by Roger Reger
Emma by Jane Austen
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Ethics by Spinoza
Europe through the Back Door, 2003 by Rick Steves
Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
Extravagance by Gary Krist
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore
The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan
Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
The Fellowship of the Ring: Book 1 of The Lord of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein
The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce
Fletch by Gregory McDonald
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger
Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers
Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg
Gidget by Fredrick Kohner
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
The Godfather: Book 1 by Mario Puzo
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford
The Gospel According to Judy Bloom
The Graduate by Charles Webb
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Group by Mary McCarthy
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry
Henry IV, part I by William Shakespeare
Henry IV, part II by William Shakespeare
Henry V by William Shakespeare
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris
The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
How the Light Gets in by M. J. Hyland
Howl by Allen Gingsburg
The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
The Iliad by Homer
I'm with the Band by Pamela des Barres
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Inferno by Dante
Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
Iron Weed by William J. Kennedy
It Takes a Village by Hillary Clinton
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
The Jumping Frog by Mark Twain
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito
The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Lady Chatterleys' Lover by D. H. Lawrence
The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield
Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway
The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
The Love Story by Erich Segal
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The Manticore by Robertson Davies
Marathon Man by William Goldman
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir
Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer
Mencken's Chrestomathy by H. R. Mencken
The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Miracle Worker by William Gibson
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion by Jim Irvin
Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor
A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman
Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret
A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and It's Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh
My Life as Author and Editor by H. R. Mencken
My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim Guest
Myra Waldo's Travel and Motoring Guide to Europe, 1978 by Myra Waldo
My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin
Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen
New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson
The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
Night by Elie Wiesel
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Old School by Tobias Wolff
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan
Oracle Night by Paul Auster
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Othello by Shakespeare
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan
Out of Africa by Isac Dineson
The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington
Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
The Portable Nietzche by Fredrich Nietzche
The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill by Ron Suskind
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Property by Valerie Martin
Pushkin: A Biography by T. J. Binyon
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
Quattrocento by James Mckean
A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall
Rapunzel by Grimm Brothers
The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman
The Return of the King: The Lord of the Rings Book 3 by J. R. R. Tolkien
R Is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton
Rita Hayworth by Stephen King
Robert's Rules of Order by Henry Robert
Roman Holiday by Edith Wharton
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin
The Rough Guide to Europe, 2003 Edition
Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi
Sanctuary by William Faulkner
Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford
Say Goodbye to Daisy Miller by Henry James
The Scarecrow of Oz by Frank L. Baum
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman
Selected Hotels of Europe
Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Several Biographies of Winston Churchill
Sexus by Henry Miller
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Shane by Jack Shaefer
The Shining by Stephen King
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
S Is for Silence by Sue Grafton
Slaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Small Island by Andrea Levy
Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway
Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers
Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore
The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht
Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos
The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker
Songbook by Nick Hornby
The Sonnets by William Shakespeare
Sonnets from the Portuegese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Sophie's Choice by William Styron
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
Stuart Little by E. B. White
Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Swann's Way by Marcel Proust
Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals by Anne Collett
Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Term of Endearment by Larry McMurtry
Time and Again by Jack Finney
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The Trial by Franz Kafka
The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson
Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
Ulysses by James Joyce
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 by Sylvia Plath
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Unless by Carol Shields
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
Velvet Underground's The Velvet Underground and Nico (Thirty Three and a Third series) by Joe Harvard
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Walt Disney's Bambi by Felix Salten
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
We Owe You Nothing – Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews edited by Daniel Sinker
What Colour is Your Parachute? 2005 by Richard Nelson Bolles
What Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell
When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
Who Moved My Cheese? Spencer Johnson
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

(updated 5/20/2019)

Next Stop: Master Chef

(#10) Master 25 New Recipes

1. Stuffed Peppers
2. Risotto

For those of you who aren't obsessed with cooking shows like I am, risotto is one of those things that make even the most experienced chefs quake in their boots. It is something that every chef has their own way of doing and that they all spend years mastering. It is also something that is so delicious and craveable that it was worth taking a stab at. So I went for it.

I wouldn't say I have it "mastered," by any stretch. But the rice was cooked and the consistency turned out creamy but firm, as it is supposed to. So I'm pretty happy with the results.

As is my usual modus operandi, I read a few recipes to get an idea of what to do, and then improvised using ingredients I knew Ronnie and I would enjoy. So here's what I did:

Mushroom Risotto

Ingredients:

1/2 cup shallots, finely diced 

(These are onions but you will usually find them by the garlic in the grocery store. They are much more mild and sweeter than regular onions, so I highly recommend trying them!)

1 1/2 cups of arborio rice 

(You cannot use regular rice! Arborio is recommended and I think there are a few others you can use.)

6 cups chicken stock (or vegetable stock to make it vegetarian)

3/4 cup white wine

1 container mushrooms, roughly chopped

5 tablespoons butter

Parmesan cheese to taste

Put the chicken stock in a pot and turn the heat on medium. Bring to a boil and then turn heat down to low. Do the next step while this is working.

Briefly cook the mushrooms in a small pan. They will cook a little more with the rice. Turn the heat off and reserve.

Add 3 tablespoons butter to a large skillet/pan and melt on low-medium heat. Add the shallots and "sweat" (not carmelizing) for about 5 minutes until they are soft but not brown. Add the rice and cook, stirring continuously, until the rice is translucent but not brown. Deglaze with the white wine and cook, stirring continuously, until the liquid is absorbed. You have to stir or the rice will stick to the pan.

Add one cup of heated chicken stock to the pan and continue to stir until liquid is absorbed, about five minutes. Once the liquid is absorbed (or nearly absorbed- you will see more "liquid" forming as the rice releases its starches), add another cup of chicken stock and repeat the process.

It should take about 25 minutes for the rice to be completely cooked. For me I think it took a little longer. Just keep checking as you go. It should retain a slight bite in the center, like a nice al dente pasta. The consistency should be fairly fluid, so that it would spread out on a plate, but not liquid. (I think mine actually turned out a little too firm, so don't judge by my picture!)

If you use up all of your chicken stock, start using warm water until the rice is cooked. I also added a little more wine towards the end. If you don't need all of your chicken stock, no big deal either. Just stop cooking when the rice is done and most of the liquid is absorbed.

When you feel it is done, add your mushrooms, the other 2 tablespoons of butter, and parm cheese to taste. Stir until butter is melted and mushrooms are heated.

Serve immediately. Enjoy!

Wahoooooo

(#13) Taste 25 Foods I've Never Tasted Before

1. Pattypan squash
2. Beets
3. Eel
4. Wahoo

Today I tried wahoo. It's a kind of fish.

This one was kind of happenstance. Ronnie had a meeting at 6 and decided to pick up Baja Fresh on the way home. We had a coupon for Baja Fresh and wahoo tacos were the new thing they were advertising. So all the stars aligned to add a new food to my repertoire today.

As you can probably tell from the picture, it was a meaty white fish. Most similar to mahi mahi I'd say, in texture and taste.

I'd heard of wahoo before, as have most Virginia residents, due to its status as the unofficial mascot of UVA. So I was excited to try it, thinking that this association had to mean that the wahoo was a relatively local fish. So I was disappointed when Wikipedia informed me that its a tropical fish, most common in the Carribean and Hawaii.

I was also disappointed to discover that it looks like this:

So hideous. Apparently it is a member of the scrombrid family. Appetizing. The tacos were good though.

I plan on cooking something delicious this weekend. Stay tuned!

Stuffed Peppers

(#10) Master 25 new recipes.

1. Stuffed peppers

Today I made stuffed peppers. 

First of all, let me say it was way more involved than I imagined. I would definitely recommend making the rice ahead of time. And not running to the store at 6:00 pm and thinking you will have everything ready by dinner time. It took about an hour for the peppers to cook through, and that was after about 30 minutes of prep (again, less if you cook the rice the night before...maybe even the beef the night before would be okay). 

It was pretty good though. My pepper didn't turn out as soft as I wanted it, but Ronnie liked it a lot. He even ate the extra filling on its own. And it was not terribly unhealthy. I used brown rice and you could even use ground turkey instead of beef.

Anyway, here's how I made it.

Ingredients:

4 green peppers

1/2 pound ground beef

1 cups rice (I used brown)

1 onion, diced

1 large can diced tomatoes

1 cup tomato sauce (make it as saucey as you want it)

Worcestershire sauce

Garlic powder

Onion powder

Italian seasoning

Cheddar cheese

Cook the rice as required (I have a rice cooker but you can make it in a pan or instant if you want). When the rice is nearly done start cooking the beef in one HOT pan and cook the onions in the another, larger pan. Making sure the pans are hot for onions and for meat is the secret to deliciousness. Season the meat with a ton of onion powder, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper. Then add a dash of the Worcestershire.

Meanwhile preheat the oven to 350.

When the beef is about done (it will cook more later) drain the fat and transfer the meat to the onion pan to finish cooking. Then add the whole can of tomatoes, juice and all. Cook until it starts to look like a sauce instead of a soup, about 5-10 minutes.

If you have room in the pan, add the rice. If not just mix as you add to the peppers.

Cut the top off the peppers and pull out the seeds and white membranes. Fill with the filling, leaving a little room at the top for as much sauce as you want. Cook for 45 minutes to one hour on a rimmed baking sheet (the peppers tend to get juicy), watching and adding more sauce as needed.

When it was nearly done (check the softness of the peppers) I added cheddar cheese to the top. I think that was a non-traditional move on my part but I liked the cheese addition.

And you're done! Recipe number one down, 24 to go.

A D-eel-icious Dinner

(#13) Taste 25 Foods I've Never Tasted Before

1. Pattypan Squash
2. Beets
3. Eel

Today I tried eel! We went out for dinner to a local Asian restaurant that makes a whole variety of fresh sushi, and so many people rave about eel that I had to try it. We tried an eel "futomaki" roll with egg and some other Asian-type vegetables.

Unfortunately I was so nervous about trying it that I forgot to take a picture. You'll have to take my word on it that I tried it. 

After all the hype it pretty much tasted like any other sushi roll. Ronnie was brave enough to try a piece of eel on its own and he said it was pretty tender with a very mild flavor. It wasn't fishy or chewy like we imagined (for whatever reason that we had that idea in our heads). It was in thin slices, almost like onion. 

All in all I'm glad I tried it just to prove to myself that things are not as intimidating as I make them out to be.

Speaking of intimidating...if there is literally anyone out there in the world who has not yet tried sushi (Mom!), just do it. Its delicious and its not at all what you are imagining it to be.

Just stick to the rolls, and watch out for the word "sashimi"!

To the High School Grad: a 25 Year Old's Perspective

So my brother is graduating high school tomorrow, and since I am in the mood for self-reflection I thought I could share some of that introspective knowledge with him and the rest of the class of 2012. I'm sure many people who have already graduated high school and beyond will feel the same way I feel- if I had known then what I know now, I might have done a few things differently. So here's what I know. 

The grad and I, about 18 years ago

It may seem like your life is "finally starting." It's not. Your life is made up of all of the moments that you thought weren't important, and moments that are truly important usually blow right on by without you even noticing. Yes it will be a big change. But if you keep waiting for your life to "start" it never will. So just enjoy what you have, while you have it. 

However, it is true that the decisions you make now will shape the rest of your life going forward. Here's what I would do, if I could do it over: picture yourself at my age, 25. What do you want 25 to look like for you? What do you want to be doing for a living? Where do you want to be doing it? Who do you want to be doing it with (no pun intended)? 

Now, here's the secret: work backwards. What do you need to do now to make everything that you want happen? What do you need to major in? What kind of internships do you need to get? What kind of extracurriculars do you need to do? Once you figure that out, all you have to do is work your butt off and get it done.


I don't really believe in regrets, so I won't say I wish I could go back. I'm happy with where I am now, and I've come so far from where I was when I was 18. Life's about the journey. But I see people who are younger than me farther along in their careers than I am and I know why. Because they knew what they wanted when they started college, and they went for it. For me, it just took a little longer. I'm hoping you can get the benefits of my hindsight.  


I don't know everything, of course, but I know what the job market is like right now. I graduated college when it was near its worst, and finding a new job this spring was no picnic either. So you have to make yourself stand out. And the only way to do that is to have the focus and the passion to do whatever it takes to achieve your dreams. Because you can achieve them. It just may not be easy as you always thought.


Oh, and I guess, have some fun along the way too. 


If you're older than 25, you may think I'm still naive and that I need advice of my own. You're right. So speak up, I'm listening!

Once You Enter "Room," It Never Really Leaves You

(#2) Read 25 Books

1. Room by Emma Donoghue

http://roomthebook.com/

Several people recommended this book to me on separate occasions, and now I'm recommending it to you. It was a great read- easy to get through, but thought provoking at the same time. The kind of book that makes for excellent book club reading. Exciting, and really unlike anything I've ever read before.

Room is the story of Jack, a young boy who is born into a unique world. His mother ("Ma") was kidnapped and is being held captive in an 11 by 11 converted shed by a man we only know as "Old Nick" (to Jack, he seems like the Santa Claus he sees on TV). Jack, the child of the captor, was born into Room and in his five years of life has never seen the outside world. To protect Jack, Ma hasn't told him much about the world outside that he may never get to experience To Jack, Room is the world. And somehow, Jack is happy.

Told from Jack's perspective, Room is a fascinating story of discovery. Jack's simplistic ideas force the reader towards introspection, to question his or her own understanding of what the world is and what is truly important.

Room does seem to have a critical agenda. Donoghue clearly has an opinion on wide topics from sensationalism in the media to America's habit of wastefulness. But reading the story through Jack's perspective gives the reader the chance to make inferences and conclusions on their own rather than being hit over the head. 

I'm no psychology expert, so I can't say whether there is any truth to Jack or Ma's characters and how they react to such an extraordinary situation. All I can say is that the book made me think, more than any I've read in a while. And my thoughts were often taken in a direction I never expected. 

Read it, enjoy it, and then call me so we can talk about it.