Well, not
quite as long a break as last time. Went for a run after work in the glorious autumnal evening air, and took the Diggler along. He was very good, coming back when called and pausing only briefly to play with a jack russell. He was knackered afterwards as Al had walked him already during the day and yesterday we went up the hill for a 'short' walk that turned into two hours (lovely though) during which Dougal ran non-stop. Afterwards he fell fast asleep on the sofa and refused to play with me, even though he'd woken me up that very morning when I wanted to lie in and refused to let me get back to sleep. He is very selfish.
Ailsa is right: running does banish bad moods and even my pathetic half hour tonight helped to lessen my frustration at a bunch of councillors who don't really understand what branding is or what they want from it. After spending months defending this county from accusations of provincialism, I really felt it was small minded and unprofessional for politicians to look at the research I'd done and say 'Well maybe everyone else thinks that, but I think we should just do what I want, even though there's no evidence to back it up whatsoever.' Very provincial.
I'm getting annoyed again so I will move on.
Here's a list of books I stole from
Fi's blog. She can tell you all about it, but I've changed it so the ones I've read are in bold. Like her, I've changed the last two.
1.
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen2.
The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien3.
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte4.
Harry Potter series - JK Rowling - have read less than half of the series so that doesn't count
5.
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee6.
The Bible - only a few bits. The Book of Ruth. Stuff like that.
7.
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte8
. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell9.
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (much better than Harry Potter)
10.
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens11.
Little Women - Louisa May Alcott12.
Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy13.
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller14.
Complete work of Shakespere - again, less than half
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16.
The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18.
Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger19.
The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger (loved it, even though I put off reading it for ages because I was afraid it wouldn't live up to the hype).
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22.
The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald - hmm, must put that on my reading list
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24.
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy - but it took me two years and by the time I got to the end I'd forgotten what happened at the beginning
25.
The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28.
Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck29.
Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll30.
The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame31.
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33.
Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36.
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini - but I read the next one he wrote
37.
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres38.
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden39.
Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne40.
Animal Farm - George Orwell41.
The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown42.
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez43.
A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving44. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins - I've never heard of this. Is it famous?
45.
Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery46. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy.
47.
The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood48.
Lord of the Flies - William Golding49. Atonement - Ian McEwan
50.
Life of Pi - Yann Martel51. Dune - Frank Herbert
52. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons - saw the tv series though
53. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
54.
A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth - pretty sure I did read this ages ago
55. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
56. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
57.
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley58.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon59. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
60.
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck61. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
62. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
63.
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold64. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
65.
On The Road - Jack Kerouac66. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
67.
Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding68.
Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdi69.
Moby Dick - Herman Melville70.
Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens71. Dracula - Bram Stoker
72.
The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett73.
Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson74. Ulysses - James Joyce - started it, never finished
75. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
76.
Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome77. Germinal - Emile Zola
78. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
79. Possession - AS Byatt
80.
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens81. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
82.
The Color Purple - Alice Walker83. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
84.
Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert85. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
86.
Charlotte’s Web - EB White87.
The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom88.
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle89.
The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton - did actually borrow this from a friend at school, even though my mum banned Enid Blyton from house.
90.
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad91.
The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery92.
The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks93.
Watership Down - Richard Adams94. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
95. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
96. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
97.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
98.
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo99.
The Kraken Wakes - John Wyndham - there's a shocking derth of sci-fi on this list, unless you count Orwell and Huxley
100.
The Koran - I bought a copy of this and have read bits of it. But I got bored because it was so similar to the Bible.
I make that 51% and a few good ideas for when I finish my current bedtime reading (Grazia magazine). No more Hardy though. Or The Da Vinci Code.