Tony's Talents

Bungee Jumping -- Tony loves taking the end of the window blinds' strings in his mouth and climbing onto the tall headboard of Kalyn's bed. He rarely intends to jump from that height, but he's not good at walking on a narrow ledge, especially once the string tightens. So he falls and just hangs in the air, refusing to let go of the string.

Playing the Piano -- Tony is fascinated by the piano. He stands like a prairie dog in the chair in the front of the piano, and he plays the keys with his two front paws. He likes hitting only one note at a time. It bothers him when he hits a bad chords. He especially likes playing piano in the middle of the night.

Telling Us the Weather -- When rain is coming, Tony goes crazy. His tail puffs up and he runs frantically throughout the house attacking anything that moves and jumping into stuff. And you know either that the rain is coming or that it is currently raining. The only problem with this is that Tony has a random habit of doing this at times when he's just in the mood to do this, which means he's not entirely reliable.

Singing -- Tony is the most talkative cat I've ever seen. If you open a window, he'll sit there and talk to the outside world all afternoon. If you're doing something that needs quiet, you have to shut the door so that you don't hear him. He won't shut up.

Taking Baths -- This is usually not anything special for cats. They clean constantly. But Tony's a little different. He loves water. We noticed this pretty early. Other cats we've had could be trained, for instance to stay off of the table, by spraying them with water. Spraying Tony, however, never bothered him. So now, when we're doing the dishes, he tries to get up on the counter and get in the water. When you flush the comode, he attacks the disappearing water. He sleeps in the bathroom sink at night. Thankfully, he's still scared of the sound of water hitting the shower curtain, but as soon as you leave the bathroom after a shower, he goes and jumps into the shower to play in the draining water.

Playing Fetch -- Tony actually plays fetch. He has a little jingly ball that we throw. He runs and uses his paw to maneuver the little grooves in it around until he can get his teeth around them. Then, he carries the ball back to us to throw again. Tony is a cat that plays fetch.

Running in Place -- Tony love all smooth surfaces, especially mirrors, windows, and the sides of the washing machine. He will stand in front of one of these objects for hours and just act like he's trying to quickly climb up it, though of course, he's just standing in place.

Beating Up Dogs -- Kalyn's fiance has a large labrador who is way too nice. The poor thing is scared to death of Tony whenever they're around one another. The reason for this is that Tony incessently attacks the dog whenever that's something like ten times his size. The sweet dog is so shocked, she doesn't know what to do.

Typing -- Tony likes the clicking of keyboards, and so if you walk away from the computer, you may come back to find that Tony has been typing for you. This was especially fun back when I was grading to try to fix his mistakes. He's not a very good speller. All of the stupid posts on my blog were actually done by Tony when I was away from the apartment.

Contemplating Metaphysics -- Tony gazes incessently at the ceiling. If you hold him up high enough that he can reach it, he attacks it. I'm not sure exactly why he hated the ceiling so much, but I have some ideas. I made the mistake of leaving my copy of Thus Spake Zarathustra on the bottom shelf of bookshelf. I'm pretty sure that Tony read it, and it has shaped his philosophical mindset. He now envisions himself as an "Overkitten" who is attempting to extert his will and destroy all of those things that are keeping him from attaining utter existential freedom. The things he wants to destroy, in particular, are me, my sister, and this apartment. I'm sure the ceiling represents God to him, and hence, he wants to annihilate it. Thankfully, we have the vaccuum cleaner to keep Tony in check.

Ok, it's about time...

for the world to end.

At least, that might be a nice favor to me, considering this article I saw this morning.

Unfortunately, we've still got at least five and a half years to go.

Arch Enemy #5 – The People Who Made the Bic “Twin Select Silky Touch Disposable Razors for Women”

The other day, I couldn’t find my razor. I’d gone home for Easter, and I’d packed in a plastic bag, and when I got back here, I couldn’t find the plastic bag anywhere (though I found it today) because it blended in with all of the other plastic bags laying around the house (which I cleaned up today).

Anyway, it was a problem that I couldn’t find my razor because I was getting ready to go to a wedding, and I needed to shave, and I was running late, and I didn’t have time to look for my razor. So, I looked through my sister’s stuff (she was in Menard), and I found a package of disposable plastic razors for women. So I used that.

I didn’t have to shave much. I recently had a haircut, so the back of my neck wasn’t very bad. And now that I have a full beard, I only have to shave the lower part of my neck in the front, and it had only been a day or two since I had shaved that.

I didn’t matter though. That stupid little pink plastic razor just wouldn’t do it! It basically took one stroke per whisker. If I wanted to shave one square inch of my neck, it would take, quite literally, twenty five strokes or so to clear the space off.

The thing I particularly couldn’t understand is that most of this razor wasn’t razor. If you looked at the head of the razor, more space was taken up by a lotioned (or something) cushion than by the tiny, tiny weak blade. If you didn’t hold the razor at just the right angle, you were just rubbing this soft pad on your neck.

I went through two of these razors to shave half of my neck.

They just don’t make women’s disposable razors like they used to.

"We're quick to claim that our [U.S.] comfort and prosperity are clear indications of God's blessing on us. We must, however, at least consider the possibility that, rather than being God's blessing, our affluence is actually one of Satan's greatest deceptions."

--a speaker (who's name I can't remember) this morning at the Highland service on the topics of world poverty and discipleship

It’s sort of an odd thing to see your childhood best friend get married. I did that today. It’s just odd, I guess, since most of your memories of that person are of them at a time when you couldn’t imagine that friend ever being mature enough to get married.

At least that’s how it was for me today since I haven’t been around old Michael too much since we graduated from high school. We’ve kept in touch, but the major events that have caused changes, and maturation, in our lives have not occurred with each of us present to the other.

I was the first person from the groom’s guests today to show up, and he was having to stay in a room hidden until the bride arrived and went to the designated room. That gave us a pretty good bit of time to talk, and we had a good talk. Mostly, we just marveled at how we’d changed since we were last around each other a lot.

He was a slightly overweight non-athletic punk nerd with long hair and a denim jacket covered with patches from his favorite bands and comic books. He read science fiction and played his base. He was the class clown and the guy who could have been really high in the class (GPA-wise) had he not been a slacker. He was a slacker, then, because he didn’t much care about much (and if he did, he hadn’t realized it yet). He was restless.

The guy who got married today wasn’t the same fellow I knew back in high school (not that that was a bad fellow—just not grown up yet). The guy today has a new look (being a Marine will do that to you). He has some meaning to his life now. He cared for the family and friends sitting around him. He cared for the vows he was saying, and he cared for the woman he was marrying. He’s found little peace, and I was sort of proud of him.

I should probably mention that, from all appearances, he picked an awfully good girl, too.

Anyway, now I’m just wondering what I’ll be thinking in about three months when Kalyn and BJ are getting married.

Arch Enemy #4 - Rafael Furcal

This bastard above--Rafael Furcal--is currently the second baseman for the Los Angeles Dodgers. And do you know what he did? He ran into Derrek Lee while Lee was covering first base. And who is Derrek Lee? He is my hero. He's the Chicaco Cubs's best player. He was the hope this year. I say "was" because when Furcal ran into Lee at first, it broke two bones in his hand. Lee is out for two months. The Cubs are basically out for the season.

Sure, it wasn't intentional. Furcal didn't mean to break Lee's hand, and he had to get to the base, and he didn't push Lee or anything. And look at his picture. He's obviously a very holy man. Sort of. He committed the unforgivable sin (if I were God at least, this would be one of them--it's likely a pretty good thing that I'm not God though). He ruined the Cubs' season, the ninety-eighth time in a row that that has happened. After that long, I'm allowed to be bitter.

Of course, this also messed up one of my fantasy teams (fittingly named Boethius).

So, Furcal is #4 on the list of arch enemies.

[This is where I need some sort of catchy threat line that won't get me arrested and sent to Gitmo. Unfortunately, as this entire blog will attest, I'm pretty dull and lazy and am lacking creative bones (much less a creative neurological something or other). So if you have any suggestions, let me know.]

Read this.

Read this book. I'm serious. This is the best book I've read this year.

Granted, I've done a lot of really light reading so far this year that would definitely not be to most people's tastes. But this was a heck of a book.

Just read it. Don't worry that it's children's literature. Don't worry that its title is Princess Academy. It's great despite the title.

And go ahead and visit the Shannon Hale's web site, too. It was sort of interesting.

Another Good Article

A nice read, especially considering that Easter just passed.

Peace Be With You

Things To Do Before I Die #4

They announced the new winner of the Pulitzer Prize yesterday, and so I thought that this would be a good time to post my Pulitzer Prize book list. This should be my last reading list to post (thank goodness). It’s another one that I’m sort of stuck with since I made my little vow to read all of these back in junior high (or early high school—I’m too old to remember now). Still, several of these have become my favorite novels, so it’s not that bad a vow.

I’m not doing so good on this list. I’ve currently read 26 out of the 90 books on the list.

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

2006 – March: A Novel – Geraldine Brooks

2005 – Gilead – Marilynne Robinson

2004 – The Known World – Edward P. Jones

2003 – Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides

2002 – Empire Falls – Richard Russo

2001 – The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay – Michael Chabon

2000 – Interpreter of Maladies – Jhumpa Lahiri

1999 – The Hours – Michael Cunningham

1998 – American Pastoral – Philip Roth

1997 – Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer - Stephen Millhauser

1996 – Independence Day – Richard Ford

1995 – Stone Diaries – Carol Shields

1994 – The Shipping News – E. Annie Proulx

1993 – A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain – Robert Olen Butler

1992 – A Thousand Acres – Jane Smiley

1991 – Rabbit at Rest – John Updike

1990 – The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love – Oscar Hijuelos

1989 – Breathing Lessons – Anne Tyler

1988 – Beloved – Toni Morrison

1987 – A Summons to Memphis – Peter Taylor

1986 – Lonesome Dove – Larry McMurtry

1985 – Foreign Affairs – Alison Lurie

1984 – Ironweed – William Kennedy

1983 – The Color Purple – Alice Walker

1982 – Rabbit is Rich – John Updike

1981 – A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole

1980 – The Executioner’s Song – Norman Mailer

1979 – The Stories of John Cheever – John Cheever

1978 – Elbow Room – James Alan MacPherson

1976 – Humboldt’s Gift – Saul Bellow

1975 – The Killer Angels – Michael Shaara

1973 – The Optimist’s Daughter – Eudora Welty

1972 – Angle of Repose – Wallace Stegner

1970 – Collected Stories – Jean Stafford

1969 – House Made of Dawn – N. Scott Momaday

1968 – The Confessions of Nat Turner – William Styron

1967 – The Fixer – Bernard Malamud

1966 – Collected Stories – Katherine Anne Porter

1965 – The Keepers of the House – Shirley Ann Grau

1963 – The Reivers – William Faulkner

1962 – The Edge of Sadness – Edwin O’Connor

1961 – To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

1960 – Advise and Consent – Allen Drury

1959 – The Travels of Jamie McPheeters – Robert Lewis Taylor

1958 – A Death in the Family – James Agee

1956 – Andersonville – MacKinlay Kantor

1955 – A Fable – William Faulkner

1953 – The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway

1952 – Caine Mutiny – Herman Wouk

1951 – The Town – Conrad Richter

1950 – The Way West – William B. Guthrie

1949 – Guard of Honor – James Gould Cozzens

1948 – Tales of the South Pacific – James Michener

1947 – All the King’s Men – Robert Penn Warren

1945 – A Bell for Adano – James Hersey

1944 – Journey in the Dark – Martin Flavin

1943 – Dragon’s Teeth – Upton Sinclair

1942 – In this Our Life – Ellen Glasgow

1940 – The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

1939 – The Yearling – Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

1938 – The Late George Apley – John P. Marquand

1937 – Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell

1936 – Honey in the Horn – Harold L. Davis

1935 – Now in November – Josephine Johnson

1934 – Lamb in His Bosom – Caroline Miller

1933 – The Store – Thomas Stribling

1932 – The Good Earth – Pearl S. Buck

1931 – Years of Grace – Margaret Barnes

1930 – Laughing Boy – Oliver La Farge

1929 – Scarlet Sister Mary – Julia Peterkin

1928 – The Bridge of San Luis Rey – Thornton Wilder

1927 – Early Autumn – Louis Bromfield

1926 – Arrowsmith – Sinclair Lewis

1925 – So Big – Edna Ferber

1924 – The Able McLaughlins – Margaret Wilson

1923 – One of Ours – Willa Cather

1922 – Alice Adams – Booth Tarkington

1921 – The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton

1919 – The Magnificent Ambersons – Booth Tarkington

1918 – His Family – Ernest Poole

So, I went to the post office last Friday, and I asked for a book of stamps from the man that was working there.

He handed me a book of stamps with flags on it.

This was sort of unfortunate. You see, I was needing those stamps to send off scholarship stuff and job applications to several universities. Professors in my departments are, not always, but often, a little unpatriotic. So, I didn't want to have a patriotic stamp on the envelope. It was a pretty minor thing, but it could only hurt my chances for the job or scholarship.

So, I asked very nicely if I could possibly have a different book of stamps.

And he told me, gruffly, "Who's ever heard of somebody not wanting flag stamps? What are you, a communist? You oughta' move to Iran. I hear they're looking for people like you."

I said, "I'll take the stamps with the dove on it."

People care about this sort of thing...

The headline I saw at Yahoo.

Geologists find 500M-year-old worm feces


The truly important thing--they got a publication out of it.

I will tell you something about stories ...
They aren't just entertainment.
Don't be fooled.

They are all we have, you see. All we have to fight off illness and death ...
Their evil is mighty, but it can't stand up to our stories.

So they try to destroy the stories, let the stories be confused or forgotten.

They would like that ... because we would be defenseless then.
--Leslie Silko, Ceremony

Things To Do Before I Die #3

Well, I’ll continue my book-list vows now and get them out of the way on the blog.

So, I’ve also vowed to read all of the Newbery Winning books. This is sad; I know. I decided this back in junior high, and I’m stuck with it. I should have done a little more about it back then, too, I guess.

Anyway, this one should be much quicker than my other booklist assignments. Plus, a lot of the Newbery Winners I’ve read have been excellent, and I still enjoy them. I probably actually look forward to this little reading task more than to my other reading lists.

So, here is the list. I’ve currently read 59 books on the list (out of 84 total). The books in bold I've read.

Newbery Winners

2006 - Criss Cross – Lynne Rae Perkins

2005 – Kira-Kira – Cynthia Kadohata

2004 – Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread – Kate DiCamillo

2003 – Crispin: The Cross of Lead – Avi

2002 – A Single Shard – Linda Sue Park

2001 – A Year Down Yonder – Richard Peck

2000 – Bud, Not Buddy – Christopher Paul Curtis

1999 – Holes – Louis Sachar

1998 – Out of the Dust – Karen Hesse

1997 – The View From Saturday – E.L. Konigsburg

1996 – The Midwife’s Apprentice – Karen Cushman

1995 – Walk Two Moons – Sharon Creech

1994 – The Giver – Lois Lowry

1993 – Missing May – Cynthia Rylant

1992 – Shiloh – Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

1991 – Maniac Magee – Jerry Spinelli

1990 – Number the Stars – Lois Lowry

1989 – Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices – Paul Fleishman

1988 – Lincoln: A Photobiography – Russell Freedman

1987 – The Whipping Boy – Sid Fleishman

1986 – Sarah, Plain and Tall – Patricia MacLachlan

1985 – The Hero and the Crown – Robin McKinley

1984 – Dear Mr. Henshaw – Beverly Cleary

1983 – Dicey’s Song – Cynthia Voigt

1982 – A Visit to William Blake’s Inn: Poems for Innocent and Experienced Travelers – Nancy Willard

1981 – Jacob Have I Loved – Katherine Paterson

1980 – A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl’s Journal 1830-1832 – Joan Blos

1979 – The Westing Game – Ellen Raskin

1978 – Bridge to Terabithia – Katherine Paterson

1977 – Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry – Mildred Taylor

1976 – The Grey King – Susan Cooper

1975 – M.C. Higgins, the Great – Virginia Hamilton

1974 – The Slave Dancer – Paula Fox

1973 – Julie of the Wolves – Jean Craighead George

1972 – Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH – Robert C. O’Brien

1971 – Summer of the Swans – Betsy Byars

1970 – Sounder – William H. Armstrong

1969 – The High King – Lloyd Alexander

1968 – From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler – E.L. Konigsburg

1967 – Up a Road Slowly – Irene Hunt

1966 – I, Juan de Pareja – Elizabeth Borton de Trevino

1965 – Shadow of a Bull – Maia Wojciechowska

1964 – It’s Like This, Cat – Emily Cheney Neville

1963 – A Wrinkle in Time – Madeleine L’Engle

1962 – The Bronze Bow – Elizabeth George Speare

1961 – Island of the Blue Dolphins – Scott O’Dell

1960 – Onion John – Joseph Krumgold

1959 – The Witch of Blackbird Pond – Elizabeth George Speare

1958 – Rifles for Watie – Robert Keith

1957 – Miracle on Maple Hill – Virginia Sorensen

1956 – Carry On, Mr. Bowditch – Jean Lee Latham

1955 – The Wheel on the School – Meindert DeJong

1954 – And Now Miguel… - Joseph Krumgold

1953 – Secret of the Andes – Ann Nolan Clark

1952 – Ginger Pye – Eleanor Estes

1951 – Amos Fortune, Free Man – Elizabeth Yates

1950 – The Door in the Wall – Margurine De Angeli

1949 – King of the Wind – Margurite Henry

1948 – The Twenty-One Balloons – William Pene Du Bois

1947 – Miss Hickory – Carolyn Sherwin Bailey

1946 – Strawberry Girl – Lois Lensky

1945 – Rabbit Hill – Robert Lawson

1944 – Johnny Tremain – Esther Forbes

1943 – Adam of the Road – Elizabeth Janet Grey

1942 – The Matchlock Gun – Walter D. Edmonds

1941 – Call it Courage – Armstrong Sperry

1940 – Daniel Boone – James Daugherty

1939 – Thimble Summer – Elizabeth Enright

1938 – The White Stage – Kate Seredy

1937 – Roller Skates – Ruth Sawyer

1936 – Caddie Woodlawn – Carol Ryrie Brink

1935 – Dobry – Monica Shannon

1934 – Invincible Louisa: The Story of the Author of Little Women – Cornelia Meigs

1933 – Young Fu of the Upper Yang-Tze – Elizabeth Foreman Lewis

1932 – Waterless Mountain – Laura Adams Armer

1931 – The Cat Who Went to Heaven – Elizabeth Coatsworth

1930 – Hitty, Her First Hundred Years – Rachel Field

1929 – The Trumpeter of Krakow – Eric P. Kelly

1928 – Gay-Neck: The Story of a Pigeon – Dhan Gopal Mukerji

1927 – Smoky the Cowhorse – Will James

1926 – Shen of the Sea – Arthur Bowie Chrisman

1925 – Tales from the Silver Lands – Charles Finger

1924 – The Dark Frigate – Charles Boardman Hawes

1923 – The Voyages of Dr. Doolittle – Hugh Lofting

1922 – The Story of Mankind – Hendrik Willem Van Loon

Arch Enemy #3 - Tom Delay

This one's sort of a no-brainer. This dude's even more evil than Tony (see Arch Enemy #2). Still, Molly Ivins does an awfully nice job of explaining why he's on the list.

A Tough Guy Just Bearing His Cross?

The Best Way to Get Back at an Evil Cat...

is to turn on the vacuum cleaner. The cat, no matter how insane and killer he is acting, becomes a scared little kitten the moment that vacuum begins to roar. Immediately, he knows that he is the inferior creature, totally at the mercy of me, the human whom he had just been attacking.

It's especially fun with little Tony because as soon as the vacuum cord is unwound, he attacks it and is right beside the vacuum when I turn it on. Then, he goes running under my bed.

Just today, he was driving me crazy because I was sweeping, and he was attacking the broom. So, I locked him in the bathroom. He hates being locked up in a room by himself, and so he started crying at the top of his lungs. And I thought, "I'll shut him up." So then, I started vacuuming. And it worked.

Though, of course, I couldn't have heard him anyway, since the vacuum was on.

I rather liked this little piece by Garrison Keillor about Bush that's over at Salon.com, particularly the last couple of lines of it. Just in case you're interested.

Love Will Outlast Bush

You may have to watch a short advertisement to read it, but otherwise, it's free.

Things To Do Before I Die #2

This one is pathetic, but I decided it back before I knew what I was thinking. So I’m stuck with it. So it goes.

I’m going to read all of the novels on Modern Library’s top hundred novels of the twentieth century list.

There are only a couple of exceptions on the list. Because of a previous vow I had taken, I will not read the ridiculously hard and meaningless books by James Joyce. I will read his novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, but I will not read either Finnegan’s Wake or Ulysses. Also, I don’t feel bound to read all of the U.S.A Trilogy or the Studs Lonigan Trilogy or the Alexandria Quartet. I can sample them. I may claim that same right for A Dance to the Music of Time as well, but I doubt that I will. I’m pretty sure that I’ll love that entire series and will read it all. Also, if I never quite develop the stomach to read all of Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, that will be ok, too.

Here’s the list. Those in bold, I have read. It’s funny, but I’ve read a lot of the more obscure books before I’ve read some of the more famous.

I've currently read 33 books on the list.

Modern Library’s Best 100 Books of the Twentieth Century

1. Ulysses – James Joyce

2. The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

3. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce

4. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov

5. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

6. The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner

7. Catch-22 – Joseph Heller

8. Darkness at Noon – Arthur Koestler

9. Sons and Lovers – D.H. Lawrence

10. The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

11. Under the Volcano – Malcolm Lowry

12. The Way of All Flesh – Samuel Butler

13. 1984 – George Orwell

14. I, Claudius – Robert Graves

15. To the Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf

16. An American Tragedy – Theodore Dreiser

17. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter – Carson McCullers

18. Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut

19. Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison

20. Native Son – Richard Wright

21. Henderson the Rain King – Saul Bellow

22. Appointment in Samarra – John O’Hara

23. U.S.A. – John Dos Passos

24. Winesburg, Ohio – Sherwood Anderson

25. A Passage to India – E.M. Forster

26. The Wings of a Dove – Henry James

27. The Ambassadors – Henry James

28. Tender is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald

29. The Studs Lonigan Trilogy – James T. Farrell

30. The Good Soldier – Ford Maddox Ford

31. Animal Farm – George Orwell

32. The Golden Bowl – Henry James

33. Sister Carrie – Theodore Dreiser

34. A Handful of Dust – Evelyn Waugh

35. As I Lay Dying – William Faulkner

36. All the King’s Men – Robert Penn Warren

37. The Bridge of San Luis Rey – Thornton Wilder

38. Howards End – E.M. Forster

39. Go Tell It on the Mountain – James Baldwin

40. The Heart of the Matter – Graham Greene

41. Lord of the Flies – William Goldman

42. Deliverance – James Dickey

43. A Dance to the Music of Time – Anthony Powell

44. Point Counter Point – Aldous Huxley

45. The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway

46. The Secret Agent – Joseph Conrad

47. Nostromo – Joseph Conrad

48. The Rainbow – D.H. Lawrence

49. Women in Love – D.H. Lawrence

50. Tropic of Cancer – Henry Miller

51. The Naked and the Dead – Norman Mailer

52. Portnoy’s Complaint – Philip Roth

53. Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov

54. Light in August – William Faulkner

55. On the Road – Jack Kerouac

56. The Maltese Falcon – Dashiell Hammett

57. Parade’s End – Ford Maddox Ford

58. The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton

59. Zuleika Dobson – Max Beerbohm

60. The Moviegoer – Walker Percy

61. Death Comes for the Archbishop – Willa Cather

62. From Here to Eternity – James Jones

63. The Wapshot Chronicles – John Cheever

64. The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger

65. A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess

66. Of Human Bondage – W. Somerset Maugham

67. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

68. Main Street – Sinclair Lewis

69. The House of Mirth – Edith Wharton

70. The Alexandria Quartet – Lawrence Durrell

71. A High Wind in Jamaica – Richard Hughes

72. A House for Mr. Biswas – V.S. Naipaul

73. The Day of the Locust – Nathanael West

74. A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway

75. Scoop – Evelyn Waugh

76. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark

77. Finnegans Wake – James Joyce

78. Kim – Rudyard Kipling

79. A Room With a View – E.M. Forster

80. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh

81. The Adventures of Augie March – Saul Bellow

82. Angle of Repose – Wallace Stegner

83. A Bend in the River – V.S. Naipaul

84. The Death of the Heart – Elizabeth Bowen

85. Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad

86. Ragtime – E.L. Doctorow

87. The Old Wives’ Tale – Arnold Bennett

88. The Call of the Wild – Jack London

89. Loving – Henry Green

90. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie

91. Tobacco Road – Erskine Caldwell

92. Ironweed – William Kennedy

93. The Magus – John Fowles

94. Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys

95. Under the Net – Iris Murdock

96. Sophie’s Choice – William Styron

97. The Sheltering Sky – Paul Powles

98. The Postman Always Rings Twice – James M. Cain

99. The Ginger Man – J.P. Donleavy

100. The Magnificent Ambersons – Booth Tarkington

Arch Enemy #2 - Tony

For further explanation, see yesterday's post--Reminder #22.

Reminder #22

Whenever you have a cat in your house who will attack anything that he sees moving in any way (such as hands playing the piano or feet rubbing together when you're trying to go to sleep or hands turning the pages of a book or your stomach going up an down because you're breathing while trying to sleep), and whenever that cat is unafraid of absolutely anything, no matter how large or long it is, and whenever you are a male, you should not walk anywhere in the house naked.