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Scott Adams, creator of “Dilbert”, published an article in the Wall Street Journal titled “The Benefits of Soul-Crushing Boredom” (http://on.wsj.com/nV24tg, 8/6/2011) in which he made the point that the ubiquity of electronic devices for entertainment has lowered the opportunity for boredom, but that ample boredom is necessary for creativity.

Just over a month later, the WSJ had another article about the new rocket proposed by NASA to replace the Space Shuttle. Accompanying the article was a graphic of manned rockets which neatly showed the decline of creativity.

1967 – Saturn V – A great name. Granted, its name is a double-sequel: the Saturn rocket family followed the Jupiter rockets, and it was the 5th design in the family.

1981 – Space Shuttle – Functional and descriptive. Just descriptive.

201x- Space Launch System – Still just descriptive, but now wordy and the use of “System” is about as gerenic and overused in tech-speak as “postmodern” in English lit. Also, whereas going from Jupiter-class to Saturn-class rockets stayed on a planet theme, going from Space Shuttle to Space Launch System keeps the surprising theme of “Space”, without any update or modification.

“The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here. Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. Bold those books you’ve read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn’t finish or read an excerpt. Tag other book nerds. Tag me as well so I can see your responses.”

Sounds simple enough, but I am not very good at following directions. First, I looked the list up, and this list was compiled by The Guardian in 2007 as Books you can’t live without, and I didn’t see anything about only a 6% read-rate for the general population. The BBC has a similar list, from 2003, but it’s called The Big Read – Top 100, billed as “the search for the nation’s [i.e., U.K.’s] best-loved novel, and we asked you to nominate your favourite books.” Since the books in both lists are popular, presumably they are actually widely-read. For an American perspective, I also found and included two lists on Random House’s Modern Library site of 100 Best Novels, one by the board and one by readers.

Consequently, 400 books are listed, but many are duplicated in two or more lists (and a couple within the same list, like Hamlet and the Complete Works of Shakespeare). This looked like a job for a database, so I created a MySQL db with tables for the lists, the rankings, whether a book was read, and the books themselves (287 unique titles, but counting separately ones listed both as a set and independently). I also created a reader table so that more than just my results could be recorded. However, to implement that part I still have to learn some more PHP-MySQL integration and put the whole thing on a website.

My read count for each list is

• Guardian (a/k/a “BBC-says-you’ve-only-read-6”) – 25
• BBC – 25
• ML/Board’s – 10
• ML/Readers’ – 20

Lists

ranking	title	author	list	Read_Ind
1	Pride and Prejudice	Jane Austen	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
2	The Lord of the Rings	JRR Tolkien	Books you can’t live without: the top 100	– Read
3	Jane Eyre	Charlotte Brontë	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
4	Harry Potter series	JK Rowling	Books you can’t live without: the top 100	– Read
5	To Kill a Mockingbird	Harper Lee	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
6	The Bible		Books you can’t live without: the top 100	– Read
7	Wuthering Heights	Emily Bronte	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
8	His Dark Materials	Philip Pullman	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
8	Night Watch	Terry Pratchett	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
10	Great Expectations	Charles Dickens	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
11	Little Women	Louisa May Alcott	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
12	Tess of the dUrbervilles	Thomas Hardy	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
13	Catch-22	Joseph Heller	Books you can’t live without: the top 100	– Read
14	Complete Works of Shakespeare	William Shakespeare	Books you can’t live without: the top 100	– Read
15	Rebecca	Daphne du Maurier	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
16	The Hobbit	JRR Tolkien	Books you can’t live without: the top 100	– Read
17	Birdsong	Sebastian Faulks	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
18	Catcher in the Rye	JD Salinger	Books you can’t live without: the top 100	– Read
19	The Time Travelers Wife	Audrey Niffenegger	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
20	Middlemarch	George Eliot	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
21	Gone with the Wind	Margaret Mitchell	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
22	The Great Gatsby	F Scott Fitzgerald	Books you can’t live without: the top 100	– Read
23	Bleak House	Charles Dickens	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
24	War and Peace	Leo Tolstoy	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
25	THE HEART OF THE MATTER	Graham Greene	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
26	Brideshead Revisited	Evelyn Waugh	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
27	Crime and Punishment	Fyodor Dostoyevsky	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
28	Grapes of Wrath	John Steinbeck	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
29	Alices Adventures in Wonderland	Lewis Carroll	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
30	The Wind in the Willows	Kenneth Grahame	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
31	Anna Karenina	Leo Tolstoy	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
32	David Copperfield	Charles Dickens	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
33	Chronicles of Narnia	CS Lewis	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
34	Emma	Jane Austen	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
35	Persuasion	Jane Austen	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
36	The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe	CS Lewis	Books you can’t live without: the top 100	– Read
37	The Kite Runner	Khaled Hosseini	Books you can’t live without: the top 100	– Read
38	Captain Corellis Mandolin	Louis de Bernieres	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
39	Memoirs of a Geisha	Arthur Golden	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
40	Winnie the Pooh	AA Milne	Books you can’t live without: the top 100	– Read
41	Animal Farm	George Orwell	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
42	The Da Vinci Code	Dan Brown	Books you can’t live without: the top 100	– Read
43	One Hundred Years of Solitude	Gabriel Garcia Marquez	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
44	A Prayer for Owen Meaney	John Irving	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
45	The Woman in White	Wilkie Collins	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
46	Anne of Green Gables	LM Montgomery	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
47	Far From The Madding Crowd	Thomas Hardy	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
48	The Handmaids Tale	Margaret Atwood	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
49	Lord of the Flies	William Golding	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
50	Atonement	Ian McEwan	Books you can’t live without: the top 100	– Read
51	Life of Pi	Yann Martel	Books you can’t live without: the top 100	– Read
52	Dune	Frank Herbert	Books you can’t live without: the top 100	– Read
53	Cold Comfort Farm	Stella Gibbons	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
54	Sense and Sensibility	Jane Austen	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
55	A Suitable Boy	Vikram Seth	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
56	The Shadow of the Wind	Carlos Ruiz Zafon	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
57	A Tale Of Two Cities	Charles Dickens	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
58	Brave New World	Aldous Huxley	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
59	The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time	Mark Haddon	Books you can’t live without: the top 100	– Read
60	Love In The Time Of Cholera	Gabriel García Márquez	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
61	Of Mice and Men	John Steinbeck	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
62	Lolita	Vladimir Nabokov	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
63	The Secret History	Donna Tartt	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
64	The Lovely Bones	Alice Sebold	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
65	The Count Of Monte Cristo	Alexandre Dumas	Books you can’t live without: the top 100	– Read
66	On The Road	Jack Kerouac	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
67	Jude the Obscure	Thomas Hardy	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
68	Bridget Joness Diary	Helen Fielding	Books you can’t live without: the top 100	– Read
69	Midnights Children	Salman Rushdie	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
70	Moby Dick	Herman Melville	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
71	Oliver Twist	Charles Dickens	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
72	Dracula	Bram Stoker	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
73	The Secret Garden	Frances Hodgson Burnett	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
74	Notes From A Small Island	Bill Bryson	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
75	Ulysses	James Joyce	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
76	The Bell Jar	Sylvia Plath	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
77	Swallows and Amazons	Arthur Ransome	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
78	Germinal	Emile Zola	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
79	Vanity Fair	William Makepeace Thackeray	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
80	Possession	AS Byatt	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
81	A Christmas Carol	Charles Dickens	Books you can’t live without: the top 100	– Read
82	Cloud Atlas	David Mitchell	Books you can’t live without: the top 100	– Read
83	The Clan Of The Cave Bear	Jean M Auel	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
84	The Remains of the Day	Kazuo Ishiguro	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
85	Madame Bovary	Gustave Flaubert	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
86	A Fine Balance	Rohinton Mistry	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
87	Charlottes Web	EB White	Books you can’t live without: the top 100	– Read
88	The Five People You Meet In Heaven	Mitch Albom	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
89	Adventures of Sherlock Holmes	Sir Arthur Conan Doyle	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
90	The Faraway Tree Collection	Enid Blyton	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
91	Heart of Darkness	Joseph Conrad	Books you can’t live without: the top 100	– Read
92	The Little Prince	Antoine de Saint-Exupery	Books you can’t live without: the top 100	– Read
93	The Wasp Factory	Iain Banks	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
94	Watership Down	Richard Adams	Books you can’t live without: the top 100	– Read
95	A Confederacy of Dunces	John Kennedy Toole	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
96	A Town Like Alice	Nevil Shute	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
97	The Three Musketeers	Alexandre Dumas	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
98	Hamlet	William Shakespeare	Books you can’t live without: the top 100	– Read
99	Charlie and the Chocolate Factory	Roald Dahl	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
100	Les Misérables	Victor Hugo	Books you can’t live without: the top 100
1	The Lord of the Rings	JRR Tolkien	The Big Read – Top 100	– Read
2	Pride and Prejudice	Jane Austen	The Big Read – Top 100
3	His Dark Materials	Philip Pullman	The Big Read – Top 100
4	The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy	Douglas Adams	The Big Read – Top 100	– Read
5	Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire	JK Rowling	The Big Read – Top 100	– Read
6	To Kill a Mockingbird	Harper Lee	The Big Read – Top 100
7	Winnie the Pooh	AA Milne	The Big Read – Top 100	– Read
8	Night Watch	Terry Pratchett	The Big Read – Top 100
9	The Kite Runner	Khaled Hosseini	The Big Read – Top 100	– Read
10	Jane Eyre	Charlotte Brontë	The Big Read – Top 100
11	Catch-22	Joseph Heller	The Big Read – Top 100	– Read
12	Wuthering Heights	Emily Bronte	The Big Read – Top 100
13	Birdsong	Sebastian Faulks	The Big Read – Top 100
14	Rebecca	Daphne du Maurier	The Big Read – Top 100
15	The Catcher in the Rye	JD Salinger	The Big Read – Top 100	– Read
16	The Wind in the Willows	Kenneth Grahame	The Big Read – Top 100
17	Great Expectations	Charles Dickens	The Big Read – Top 100
18	Little Women	Louisa May Alcott	The Big Read – Top 100
19	Captain Corellis Mandolin	Louis de Bernieres	The Big Read – Top 100
20	War and Peace	Leo Tolstoy	The Big Read – Top 100
21	Gone with the Wind	Margaret Mitchell	The Big Read – Top 100
22	Harry Potter And The Philosophers Stone	JK Rowling	The Big Read – Top 100	– Read
23	Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets	JK Rowling	The Big Read – Top 100	– Read
24	Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban	JK Rowling	The Big Read – Top 100	– Read
25	The Hobbit	JRR Tolkien	The Big Read – Top 100	– Read
26	Tess of the dUrbervilles	Thomas Hardy	The Big Read – Top 100
27	Middlemarch	George Eliot	The Big Read – Top 100
28	A Prayer for Owen Meaney	John Irving	The Big Read – Top 100
29	The Grapes of Wrath	John Steinbeck	The Big Read – Top 100
30	Alices Adventures in Wonderland	Lewis Carroll	The Big Read – Top 100
31	The Story Of Tracy Beaker	Jacqueline Wilson	The Big Read – Top 100
32	One Hundred Years of Solitude	Gabriel Garcia Marquez	The Big Read – Top 100
33	The Pillars Of The Earth	Ken Follett	The Big Read – Top 100	– Read
34	David Copperfield	Charles Dickens	The Big Read – Top 100
35	Charlie and the Chocolate Factory	Roald Dahl	The Big Read – Top 100
36	Treasure Island	Robert Louis Stevenson	The Big Read – Top 100
37	A Town Like Alice	Nevil Shute	The Big Read – Top 100
38	Persuasion	Jane Austen	The Big Read – Top 100
39	Dune	Frank Herbert	The Big Read – Top 100	– Read
40	Emma	Jane Austen	The Big Read – Top 100
41	Anne of Green Gables	LM Montgomery	The Big Read – Top 100
42	Watership Down	Richard Adams	The Big Read – Top 100	– Read
43	The Great Gatsby	F Scott Fitzgerald	The Big Read – Top 100	– Read
44	The Count Of Monte Cristo	Alexandre Dumas	The Big Read – Top 100	– Read
45	Brideshead Revisited	Evelyn Waugh	The Big Read – Top 100
46	Animal Farm	George Orwell	The Big Read – Top 100
47	A Christmas Carol	Charles Dickens	The Big Read – Top 100	– Read
48	Far From The Madding Crowd	Thomas Hardy	The Big Read – Top 100
49	Goodnight Mister Tom	Michelle Magorian	The Big Read – Top 100
50	The Shell Seekers	Rosamunde Pilcher	The Big Read – Top 100
51	The Secret Garden	Frances Hodgson Burnett	The Big Read – Top 100
52	Of Mice and Men	John Steinbeck	The Big Read – Top 100
53	The Stand	Stephen King	The Big Read – Top 100	– Read
54	Anna Karenina	Leo Tolstoy	The Big Read – Top 100
55	A Suitable Boy	Vikram Seth	The Big Read – Top 100
56	The BFG	Roald Dahl	The Big Read – Top 100	– Read
57	Swallows and Amazons	Arthur Ransome	The Big Read – Top 100
58	Black Beauty	Anna Sewell	The Big Read – Top 100
59	Artemis Fowl	Eoin Colfer	The Big Read – Top 100
60	Crime and Punishment	Fyodor Dostoyevsky	The Big Read – Top 100
61	Noughts And Crosses	Malorie Blackman	The Big Read – Top 100
62	Memoirs of a Geisha	Arthur Golden	The Big Read – Top 100
63	A Tale Of Two Cities	Charles Dickens	The Big Read – Top 100
64	The Thorn Birds	Colleen McCollough	The Big Read – Top 100
65	Mort	Terry Pratchett	The Big Read – Top 100	– Read
66	The Magic Faraway Tree	Enid Blyton	The Big Read – Top 100
67	The Magus	John Fowles	The Big Read – Top 100
68	Good Omens	Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman	The Big Read – Top 100	– Read
69	Guards! Guards!	Terry Pratchett	The Big Read – Top 100
70	Lord of the Flies	William Golding	The Big Read – Top 100
71	Perfume	Patrick Süskind	The Big Read – Top 100
72	The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists	Robert Tressell	The Big Read – Top 100
73	Night Watch	Terry Pratchett	The Big Read – Top 100
74	Matilda	Roald Dahl	The Big Read – Top 100
75	Bridget Joness Diary	Helen Fielding	The Big Read – Top 100	– Read
76	The Secret History	Donna Tartt	The Big Read – Top 100
77	The Woman in White	Wilkie Collins	The Big Read – Top 100
78	Ulysses	James Joyce	The Big Read – Top 100
79	Bleak House	Charles Dickens	The Big Read – Top 100
80	Double Act	Jacqueline Wilson	The Big Read – Top 100
81	The Twits	Roald Dahl	The Big Read – Top 100
82	I Capture The Castle	Dodie Smith	The Big Read – Top 100
83	Holes	Louis Sachar	The Big Read – Top 100	– Read
84	Gormenghast	Mervyn Peake	The Big Read – Top 100
85	The God Of Small Things	Arundhati Roy	The Big Read – Top 100
86	Vicky Angel	Jacqueline Wilson	The Big Read – Top 100
87	Brave New World	Aldous Huxley	The Big Read – Top 100
88	Cold Comfort Farm	Stella Gibbons	The Big Read – Top 100
89	Magician	Raymond E Feist	The Big Read – Top 100
90	On The Road	Jack Kerouac	The Big Read – Top 100
91	The Godfather	Mario Puzo	The Big Read – Top 100	– Read
92	The Clan Of The Cave Bear	Jean M Auel	The Big Read – Top 100
93	The Colour Of Magic	Terry Pratchett	The Big Read – Top 100	– Read
94	The Alchemist	Paulo Coelho	The Big Read – Top 100
95	Katherine	Anya Seton	The Big Read – Top 100
96	Kane And Abel	Jeffrey Archer	The Big Read – Top 100
97	Love In The Time Of Cholera	Gabriel García Márquez	The Big Read – Top 100
98	Girls In Love	Jacqueline Wilson	The Big Read – Top 100
99	The Princess Diaries	Meg Cabot	The Big Read – Top 100
100	Midnights Children	Salman Rushdie	The Big Read – Top 100
1	Ulysses	James Joyce	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
2	The Great Gatsby	F Scott Fitzgerald	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List	– Read
3	A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN	James Joyce	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
4	Lolita	Vladimir Nabokov	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
5	Brave New World	Aldous Huxley	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
6	THE SOUND AND THE FURY	William Faulkner	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
7	Catch-22	Joseph Heller	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List	– Read
8	DARKNESS AT NOON	Arthur Koestler	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
9	SONS AND LOVERS	D.H. Lawrence	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
10	The Grapes of Wrath	John Steinbeck	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
11	UNDER THE VOLCANO	Malcolm Lowry	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
12	THE WAY OF ALL FLESH	Samuel Butler	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
13	1984	George Orwell	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List	– Read
14	I Capture The Castle	Dodie Smith	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
15	TO THE LIGHTHOUSE	Virginia Woolf	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
16	AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY	Theodore Dreiser	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
17	THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER	Carson McCullers	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
18	SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE	Kurt Vonnegut	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
19	INVISIBLE MAN	Ralph Ellison	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
20	NATIVE SON	Richard Wright	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
21	HENDERSON THE RAIN KING	Saul Bellow	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
22	APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA	John OHara	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
23	U.S.A.(trilogy)	John Dos Passos	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
24	WIDE SARGASSO SEA	Jean Rhys	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
25	A PASSAGE TO INDIA	E.M. Forster	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
26	THE WINGS OF THE DOVE	Henry James	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
27	THE AMBASSADORS	Henry James	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
28	TENDER IS THE NIGHT	F. Scott Fitzgerald	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
29	THE STUDS LONIGAN TRILOGY	James T. Farrell	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
30	THE GOOD SOLDIER	Ford Madox Ford	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
31	Animal Farm	George Orwell	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
32	THE GOLDEN BOWL	Henry James	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
33	SISTER CARRIE	Theodore Dreiser	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
34	A HANDFUL OF DUST	Evelyn Waugh	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
35	AS I LAY DYING	William Faulkner	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
36	ALL THE KINGS MEN	Robert Penn Warren	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
37	THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY	Thornton Wilder	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
38	HOWARDS END	E.M. Forster	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List	– Read
39	GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN	James Baldwin	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
40	THE HEART OF THE MATTER	Graham Greene	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
41	Lord of the Flies	William Golding	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
42	DELIVERANCE	James Dickey	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
43	A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME (series)	Anthony Powell	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
44	POINT COUNTER POINT	Aldous Huxley	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
45	THE SUN ALSO RISES	Ernest Hemingway	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
46	THE SECRET AGENT	Joseph Conrad	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
47	NOSTROMO	Joseph Conrad	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
48	THE RAINBOW	D.H. Lawrence	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
49	WOMEN IN LOVE	D.H. Lawrence	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
50	TROPIC OF CANCER	Henry Miller	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
51	THE NAKED AND THE DEAD	Norman Mailer	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
52	PORTNOYS COMPLAINT	Philip Roth	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
53	PALE FIRE	Vladimir Nabokov	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
54	LIGHT IN AUGUST	William Faulkner	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
55	On The Road	Jack Kerouac	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
56	THE MALTESE FALCON	Dashiell Hammett	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
57	PARADES END	Ford Madox Ford	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
58	THE AGE OF INNOCENCE	Edith Wharton	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
59	ZULEIKA DOBSON	Max Beerbohm	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
60	THE MOVIEGOER	Walker Percy	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
61	DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP	Willa Cather	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
62	FROM HERE TO ETERNITY	James Jones	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
63	THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLES	John Cheever	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
64	The Catcher in the Rye	JD Salinger	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List	– Read
65	A CLOCKWORK ORANGE	Anthony Burgess	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List	– Read
66	OF HUMAN BONDAGE	W. Somerset Maugham	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
67	Heart of Darkness	Joseph Conrad	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List	– Read
68	MAIN STREET	Sinclair Lewis	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
69	THE HOUSE OF MIRTH	Edith Wharton	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
70	THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET	Lawrence Durell	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
71	A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA	Richard Hughes	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
72	A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS	V.S. Naipaul	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
73	THE DAY OF THE LOCUST	Nathanael West	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
74	A FAREWELL TO ARMS	Ernest Hemingway	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List	– Read
75	SCOOP	Evelyn Waugh	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List	– Read
76	THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE	Muriel Spark	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
77	FINNEGANS WAKE	James Joyce	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
78	KIM	Rudyard Kipling	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
79	A ROOM WITH A VIEW	E.M. Forster	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List	– Read
80	Brideshead Revisited	Evelyn Waugh	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
81	THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH	Saul Bellow	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
82	ANGLE OF REPOSE	Wallace Stegner	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
83	A BEND IN THE RIVER	V.S. Naipaul	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
84	THE DEATH OF THE HEART	Elizabeth Bowen	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
85	LORD JIM	Joseph Conrad	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
86	RAGTIME	E.L. Doctorow	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
87	THE OLD WIVES TALE	Arnold Bennett	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
88	THE CALL OF THE WILD	Jack London	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
89	LOVING	Henry Green	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
90	Middlemarch	George Eliot	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
91	TOBACCO ROAD	Erskine Caldwell	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
92	IRONWEED	William Kennedy	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
93	The Magus	John Fowles	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
94	WIDE SARGASSO SEA	Jean Rhys	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
95	UNDER THE NET	Iris Murdoch	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
96	SOPHIES CHOICE	William Styron	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
97	THE SHELTERING SKY	Paul Bowles	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
98	THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE	James M. Cain	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
99	THE GINGER MAN	J.P. Donleavy	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
100	THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS	Booth Tarkington	100 Best Novels – The Board’s List
1	ATLAS SHRUGGED	Ayn Rand	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List	– Read
2	THE FOUNTAINHEAD	Ayn Rand	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List	– Read
3	BATTLEFIELD EARTH	L. Ron Hubbard	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
4	The Lord of the Rings	JRR Tolkien	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List	– Read
5	To Kill a Mockingbird	Harper Lee	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
6	1984	George Orwell	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List	– Read
7	ANTHEM	Ayn Rand	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
8	WE THE LIVING	Ayn Rand	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List	– Read
9	MISSION EARTH	L. Ron Hubbard	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
10	FEAR	L. Ron Hubbard	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
11	Ulysses	James Joyce	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
12	Catch-22	Joseph Heller	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List	– Read
13	The Great Gatsby	F Scott Fitzgerald	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List	– Read
14	Dune	Frank Herbert	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List	– Read
15	THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS	Robert Heinlein	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List	– Read
16	STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND	Robert Heinlein	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List	– Read
17	A Town Like Alice	Nevil Shute	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
18	Brave New World	Aldous Huxley	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
19	The Catcher in the Rye	JD Salinger	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List	– Read
20	Animal Farm	George Orwell	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
21	GRAVITYS RAINBOW	Thomas Pynchon	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
22	The Grapes of Wrath	John Steinbeck	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
23	SISTER CARRIE	Theodore Dreiser	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
24	Gone with the Wind	Margaret Mitchell	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
25	Lord of the Flies	William Golding	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
26	SHANE	Jack Schaefer	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
27	TRUSTEE FROM THE TOOLROOM	Nevil Shute	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
28	A Prayer for Owen Meaney	John Irving	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
29	The Stand	Stephen King	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List	– Read
30	THE FRENCH LIEUTENANTS WOMAN	John Fowles	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
31	BELOVED	Toni Morrison	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
32	THE WORM OUROBOROS	E.R. Eddison	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
33	THE SOUND AND THE FURY	William Faulkner	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
34	Lolita	Vladimir Nabokov	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
35	MOONHEART	Charles de Lint	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
36	A Town Like Alice	Nevil Shute	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
37	OF HUMAN BONDAGE	W. Somerset Maugham	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
38	WISE BLOOD	Flannery OConnor	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
39	UNDER THE VOLCANO	Malcolm Lowry	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
40	FIFTH BUSINESS	Robertson Davies	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
41	SOMEPLACE TO BE FLYING	Charles de Lint	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
42	On The Road	Jack Kerouac	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
43	Heart of Darkness	Joseph Conrad	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List	– Read
44	YARROW	Charles de Lint	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
45	AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS	H.P. Lovecraft	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
46	ONE LONELY NIGHT	Mickey Spillane	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
47	MEMORY AND DREAM	Charles de Lint	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
48	TO THE LIGHTHOUSE	Virginia Woolf	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
49	THE MOVIEGOER	Walker Percy	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
50	TRADER	Charles de Lint	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
51	THE HEART OF THE MATTER	Graham Greene	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
52	THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER	Carson McCullers	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
53	The Great Gatsby	F Scott Fitzgerald	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List	– Read
54	BLOOD MERIDIAN	Cormac McCarthy	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
55	A CLOCKWORK ORANGE	Anthony Burgess	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List	– Read
56	ON THE BEACH	Nevil Shute	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
57	A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN	James Joyce	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
58	GREENMANTLE	Charles de Lint	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
59	ENDERS GAME	Orson Scott Card	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
60	THE LITTLE COUNTRY	Charles de Lint	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
61	THE RECOGNITIONS	William Gaddis	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
62	STARSHIP TROOPERS	Robert Heinlein	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
63	THE SUN ALSO RISES	Ernest Hemingway	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
64	THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP	John Irving	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
65	SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES	Ray Bradbury	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
66	THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE	Shirley Jackson	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
67	AS I LAY DYING	William Faulkner	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
68	TROPIC OF CANCER	Henry Miller	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
69	INVISIBLE MAN	Ralph Ellison	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
70	THE WOOD WIFE	Terri Windling	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
71	The Magus	John Fowles	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
72	THE DOOR INTO SUMMER	Robert Heinlein	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
73	ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE	Robert Pirsig	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
74	I Capture The Castle	Dodie Smith	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
75	THE CALL OF THE WILD	Jack London	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
76	AT SWIM-TWO-BIRDS	Flann OBrien	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
77	FARENHEIT 451	Ray Bradbury	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List	– Read
78	ARROWSMITH	Sinclair Lewis	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
79	Watership Down	Richard Adams	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List	– Read
80	NAKED LUNCH	William S. Burroughs	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
81	THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER	Tom Clancy	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List	– Read
82	GUILTY PLEASURES	Laurell K. Hamilton	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
83	THE PUPPET MASTERS	Robert Heinlein	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List	– Read
84	IT	Stephen King	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
85	V.	Thomas Pynchon	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
86	DOUBLE STAR	Robert Heinlein	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
87	CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY	Robert Heinlein	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
88	Brideshead Revisited	Evelyn Waugh	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
89	LIGHT IN AUGUST	William Faulkner	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
90	ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOOS NEST	Ken Kesey	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
91	A FAREWELL TO ARMS	Ernest Hemingway	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List	– Read
92	THE SHELTERING SKY	Paul Bowles	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
93	SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION	Ken Kesey	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
94	MY ANTONIA	Willa Cather	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
95	MULENGRO	Charles de Lint	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
96	SUTTREE	Cormac McCarthy	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
97	MYTHAGO WOOD	Robert Holdstock	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
98	ILLUSIONS	Richard Bach	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
99	THE CUNNING MAN	Robertson Davies	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List
100	THE SATANIC VERSES	Salman Rushdie	100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List

Updates since my last posts…

2009 April 24, Friday, 3:30 pm – Order tickets for my dad, my son, and I (3 generations of Joel Hands) for the Coca-Cola 600 race in Charlotte on Memorial Day weekend.

2009 April 24, Friday, 9:00 pm – On a campout with the Cub Scouts, I stumble in the dark while looking for a place to set up my telescope to show the Cubs and parents Saturn and some double stars in the Big Dipper’s handle. Walking back toward the campsite without my headlamp on, I step off a two-foot drop and hurt my knee. Still manage to do the telescope, but I’m limping pretty badly coming back. Debbie wraps it with an Ace bandage, says not to walk and keep off it, and gives me 4 ibuprofen.

2009 April 25, Saturday, 10 am – A physician on the campout looks at the knee and says stay off it, wait until either the swelling goes down or in a few days if it doesn’t go down before seeing someone back home. Debbie runs into a drug store in the nearby town for a pair of crutches and a bigger supply of ibuprofen.

2009 April 28, Tuesday – I usually work from home Mondays, but continue to work from home every day for the next few weeks. Luckily my job is mostly sitting in front of a computer, talking on a phone, and thinking.

2009 April 29, Wednesday – Orthopedist gets an x-ray and sees a “right tibial plateau fracture” and orders an MRI to confirm and to see if there is any soft tissue damage (torn ligaments, tendons, meniscus, etc.) Apparently my femur (thigh bone) came slamming down carrying most of my body weight onto the corner of my tibia (shin bone) during that misstep. Like a hammer on the corner of a piece of wood, there’s now a small indentation on the top of the tibia at the inside corner. I’m to stay on crutches and not put any weight on my right leg. He offers a prescription for pain medication, but the alternative 4 ibuprofen (800 mg) every 6 hours seems to be doing the job–although in hour 5 the knee is making its presence known.

2009 May 01, Friday – Get an MRI on the knee at UNC Hospital. It is a very weird experience. I am loaded inside the little tube, but at least my head is mercifully at the entrance instead of inside it. The technician keeps me updated with what they are doing, but as a disembodied voice over an intercom. I have to keep my leg still for 5-12 minutes at a time as they take about sets of images, for a total of about 40-45 minutes inside the MRI machine. During each set, there are strange clicking and humming noises, and I could swear my whole leg feels magnetized by the end (and I don’t have any metal plates or screws–so far, at least).

I had also started riding my bike again, doing 20-25 mile rides on nice days in March and April. I usually ramp up the frequency of rides in May and the weekend rides’ distance. No riding whatsoever in May this year, though. I also need to cancel my registration in the Blood Sweat and Gears ride–100 miles in the NC mountains near Boone–which is scheduled for the end of June, right after I get off crutches.

2009 May 04, Monday – Orthopedist gets the MRI report and confirms the fracture but there is no soft tissue damage. The treatment plan is to stay on crutches for 8 weeks, keeping the right leg non-weight-bearing, and get some physical therapy. Crutches are a bummer, but no surgery and not even a cast is required. Not great, but it could be a lot worse.

2009 May 05, Tuesday – My 41st birthday. Apparently year 40 could not just go by quietly.

2009 May 07, Thursday – Cub Scout leadership planning meeting. Lots of ribbing from other Cub Scout leaders ensues. Also, I forgot to take my ibuprofen (now 3 pills) until late that morning, and again 8 hours later just before the meeting, but I manage ok. Thus, the pain has dropped off considerably. By early next week, I’m down to 2 pills in the morning and 3 pills before going to sleep.

2009 May 14, Thursday – Go into the office for the first time since the accident on 4/24. Lots of ribbing from co-workers ensues. I drink a couple cans of Coke, but miss going to the cafeteria to get large cups of ice water a couple times a day. After a full day+ of work, I head straight to church to chair a Finance Committee meeting. No ribbing there.

2009 May 15, Friday – The worst part about this whole experience is just being on crutches. Not being able to carry things like a plate or a drink from room to room, or doing so with great difficulty, is the biggest pain. The knee doesn’t hurt much: It was uncomfortable at first if I moved or bumped the leg the wrong way, but with the PT (or despite the PT!), it’s fine now. I have not forgotten and suddenly tried to stand on it, which is good but a little surprising.