YAY!

[antpower]

OMG starfishdance IS THE GREATEST PERSON EVER!! I just got my birthday present from her and it includes such AWESOMENESS as official JE Matsujun pics and the GOKUSEN DVD and a FASHION CITATION PAD so that I can give people PINK NOTICES for being badly dressed, and A SPARKLY SEQUINED BRACELET and CUPCAKE LIPGLOSS and a LONDON PIN!! AND ON THE BACK IT SAYS "FROM NINO" and the location is "OHNO'S PANTS"!!! XDDDD I AM SO HAPPY!! <3333

Like, really, really happy!

Extremely happy!


I am waiting for my sister to come home because it is CARNIVAL NIGHT TONIGHT! We are going to dress up in feathers and sequins and watch the Time concert DVD and the Arashi Around Asia DVD and practice for when we go to see them in Korea. (Because it's totally going to happen. I read the back cover of The Secret, so I know how to work these things. XP)

Anyhow, that should be awesome.

And totally not lame at all.


Here is that book meme thing that everyone's been doing.



1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicise those you intend to read
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ.

Apparently the average adult has read only six from the following list.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen - I used to love this book, but now I'm sick of the hype, quite frankly. And I think Jane Austen was a bit harsh to Lydia. Lydia was totally the fun Bennett sister.
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien - Sometimes, I randomly miss Frodo. <3
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte - Charlotte Bronte pisses me off. She's like the Jan Brady of the Brontes.
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling - Is there seriously anyone in the world who hasn't read HP?
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee - One of the top 3 books ever written, no?
6. The Bible - I actually tried to read it cover to cover once, but the lack of continuity bugged me.
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte - So much the superior Bronte. There is nothing not awesome about this book.
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell - I can't remember if this is the George Orwell book I read or not.
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman - possibly my favourite fantasy trilogy ever.
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens - Dickens pwns everyone else on this list.
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott - Okay, so Little Women was okay but OMG GOOD WIVES PISSED ME THE HELL OFF!! LIKE WTF, JO! LAURIE? SLUTTY SISTER AMY!! WTF, SERIOUSLY! I threw that book across the room when I finished it, it made me so angry!
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy - Also annoying!!! OMG TESS, STOP YOUR FRICKING WHINING ALREADY!! Oh, woe is me, it's such a curse to be so beautiful blah blah, just go milk some cows and stfu already.
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien - Dude, Thorin Oakenshield was totally hot. For a dwarf.
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger - Another annoying book. I don't care about the problems of whiny, acne-faced little middle-class kiddies. Cry me a river, Holden Caulfield, I need to go fishing.
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot - I know I've read this, but I can't actually remember what it's about.
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell - I used to want to be Scarlett when I grew up.
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald - Greatest novella ever. It gives me the freaking shivers, it is so good. I also used to want to be Jordan Baker when I grew up.
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams - Roflcopter.
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll - I kind of wish my brain worked like his.
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame - Toads kind of freak me out now.
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy - My freaking sister spoiled the end for me, because apparently EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW HOW IT ENDS!
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens - Again, Dickens pwns.
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis - Awesome. Well except for The Last Battle.
34. Emma - Jane Austen - so much the best Jane Austen book.
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis - Why is this seperate to The Chronicles of Narnia?
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - Meh.
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving - This is the greatest book ever. (Well, except for that whole part where he's in Canada, but it's okay to just skip over that.) Seriously, go and read it now.
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery - This book pretty much made me the person I am today!! XP
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy - Thomas Hardy, just GTFO. Seriously.
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding - Poor Piggy!!! D:
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan - The ending bugged me. The movie bugged me even more.
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert - The movie with Sting and Kyle McLaughlan is the greatest thing ever. The book is a bit tl;dr. Baron Harkonen > Jabba the Hutt.
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons - I think I might've read this, but I'm not sure.
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck - D:
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold - this bugged me a bit, but I read it anyway.
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy - I wanted to punch Jude in the face. Like MAYBE THE REASON YOU'RE OBSCURE IS BECAUSE YOU'RE AN ANNOYING, WHINGY TWAT!!
68. Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens - Dickens. Still pwns.
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White - D:
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton - OMG, Enid Blyton, what a freaking genius. I used to always climb trees to see if strange and unusual people lived in them and there were awesome lands at the top, but I never found any. I did form a Secret Seven once though, but we didn't have anything much to investigate.
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams - rabbits, whatevs.
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl - This book made me believe that if I wanted something more than anyone else did, I'd get it. Needless to say, this mode of thought has screwed me over for real life. Still, chocolate factory - awesome!!
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

WTF, I've read 49 of these and I don't even read that much. Who are these average adults in question and what are they doing with their time??? I'd read more than six of these by the time I was ten years old, seriously wtf???

Comments

[missmomoko.livejournal.com]

I read the back cover of The Secret, so I know how to work these things. XP)

LMAO! did you figure out how to buy tickets in Korea? I haven't seen anything concrete yet. I wonder what they'll do for their tenth year as Arashi. I keep hoping they will come to Europe but I highly suspect they will want to stay in Japan then!

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

XP

No, I haven't figured it out yet, but I guess once everything is all confirmed I'll be able to come up with a plan! I'm sure whatever they do will be super-awesome! I mean, they could just sit there doing nothing and I'd probably think it was the best thing ever!!

[shessuchabrat.livejournal.com]

I can't really tell the difference between your bold/not bold text...
I am stunned at how many people who have done this meme haven't read Catch-22 and On The Road. Two of my favouritest books EVAR. You must read them! Go now to your nearest bookshop and buy them to treasure forever! On The Road is now available in the shiny new Penguin Modern Classics cover which almost makes me want to buy it again.
Also, Emma is not the best Jane Austen book, because clearly Northanger Abbey is, and ALL OF THE BRONTES ARE SATAN.
And also also do not judge J D Salinger by The Catcher in the Rye, because it is nowhere near as good as Franny and Zooey.
And I totally don't get the fuss about The Great Gatsby. I read it once, and thought meh. But then I read it again thinking I'd missed something, but I didn't. Please somebody explain the greatness?
I should probably have saved most of those thoughts for when I actually get around to doing this meme myself, but really it is unlikely I will ever bother to do it, and so I am posting this annoyingly long comment instead.

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

LOL, that's because I fail at html. It's fixed now though.

I actually have both Catch-22 and On the Road, I just haven't got around to reading them yet! I'm sure I will at some point.

Northanger Abbey bugged me. I can't really remember why, because it was years ago when I read it, but I remember thinking it was a bit whatever.

I kind of really like Emily Bronte, she was kind of a bit crackers, you know? I like that about her. But the crazy drunkard brother was so much the coolest one.

Yeah, I've heard other JD Salinger stuff is good, but I'm not really inspired to read it. It's probably another one of those "I'll get around to it at some point" things.

I think if the thing about The Great Gatsby doesn't hit you at once, it's not something you could explain. It's the whole thing about really longing for something greater, only you're not sure what, so you have so affix some otherwise meaningless meaning to it to give yourself a purpose, like Daisy or the green light or whatever. And just Fitzgerald's use of language really gets me, as well.

LOL, your comment wasn't annoyingly long at all!

[notmonica.livejournal.com]

I love you so much! I shoulda put comments on mine too.

So here's my comments on YOUR comments:
-Totally agree w/you about the Bronte's. How could one sister create Jane Eyre (whiny doormat)and the other Wuthering Heights (quite possibly one of the best novels ever). The worst part? I was required to read Jane Eyre during 9th grade and I loathed it, then that summer I had to read Wuthering Heights and I almost just said f**k it because I hated JE so much. Which would have been a huge mistake.

-I love T. Hardy novels even though I completely agree w/ your assessment of them! LOL

-When I was a kid I wanted to be Scarlett O'Hara when I grew up.

-Best Austen novel? Sense and Sensibility

-A Prayer for Owen Meany is the greatest novel by my favorite living author. Seriously. I used to imagine marrying John Irving when I was younger.

Lastly, BOOKS YOU HAVEN'T READ YET BUT SHOULD AND WHY by me:
-Rebecca. The "second Mrs. DeWinter" is cut from the same cloth as Jane Eyre but everyone else is so freaking awesome and it keeps you guessing until the v. end that the whole book ROCKS.

-Brideshead Revisited. The first book that ever had me shipping slash (it was 1981, I was 18). Sebastian is so delicious you can't imagine why everyone ISN'T sleeping with him! Sebastian so gay, Charles so conflicted. And the love triangle between Sebastian, Charles and Sebastian's sister Julia is...well the whole novel is made of WIN! Go out and read it (or watch it) NOW!! (If you decide to watch I recommend the 80's BBC miniseries w/ a young and lovely Jeremy Irons)

-The Count of Monte Cristo. Love this book. The count is like a combination of Darcy, Heathcliff and Aragorn. How could you not love it. All that and action too!

-On The Road. Actually, you know what I love MORE than On The Road is Carolyn Cassady's memoirs of Jack Kerouac, but since On The Road is so thinly autobiographical how could you not love Jack/Sal, Neal Cassady/Dean, Carolyn Cassady/Camille. Especially when you know that Allen Ginsberg and William S Burroughs are in there too. Everyone is angsty and conflicted and brilliant and having sex with each other. It rocks my socks. I might have to go read it again now.

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's exactly how I feel about Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights!! I just expected Jane Eyre to suddenly grow some balls, you know, but she never did. Catherine totally pwns her!!

Oh, you love Owen Meany too!! ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ I really love John Irving too, though sometimes I think his writing is a bit hit and miss, like one book will be the greatest thing ever, but then you get ones like "Water Method Man" which aren't so much! XP

I actually have "Rebecca" and "On the Road" on my bookshelf, but I haven't been reading very much lately, so I haven't got to them yet. I will make sure I do though!! My mother actually just watched the 80s BBC version of "Brideshead Revisited" and it had her shipping slash too, so this seems like something I'll have to look into as well!!

<3

[starfishdance.livejournal.com]

YAY I AM SO HAPPY YOU GOT THE PRESENT!! ♥ And so fast too, that's kind of amazing! BUT HAHAHA THE FASHION CITATION THING IS AWESOME, ISN'T IT! When I saw it I was like OMG LOL THIS IS SO PERFECT IT'S HILARIOUS. XDDDD

♥♥!

LOL, I shan't do this meme because I probably have read really few of these books! I failz at reading good literature, but lol I love your comments on some of them. especially Catcher in the Rye, wtf. Catch-22 and The Great Gatsby are quite possibly some of the best books ever, though! And ahaha I agree so much with your eloquent summary of The Da Vinci Code. XD

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

I know, it was super-fast!! YES, THE CITATION THING IS THE GREATEST THING EVER!! I bet if I look on the back somewhere it says "Trademark Matsujun/Itachi"!!! XP The Matsujun pics are so pretty too, I want to put them up on my wall but I can't decide on the perfect place for them. I mean, do I want to see them when I first wake up, or first get home, or put them where I'll see them most of the time????

I didn't expect to have read as many of them as I had. I think it's because when I was younger THE INTERNETS HADN'T BEEN INVENTED YET!! I totally never read at all anymore!

Ah... I thought I had a really fitting "Matsujun reading" icon, but I must've deleted it. I'll have to use my "Matsujun has pretty hair" icon instead!

[fujiko1601.livejournal.com]

Looks like you win us all with the book meme. :)

I used to love Jane Eyre when I was about twelve, now I'm not that interested in it.

So how did you carnival thing go?

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

It's basically because I used to read alot when I was younger. Because the internet wasn't invented then!!! XP

Jane Eyre bugged me because I really wanted her to stand up for herself more. Which, I mean I know women didn't really do that in that time, but... I don't know, I guess I just don't feel like getting the guy necessarily makes for a happy ending, you know??

We haven't actually had our Carnival Night yet, I've been way too tired!!! XD

[fujiko1601.livejournal.com]

*thinks about your age and the birth of internet* Depends how you define younger and internet. For me internet started when I finished high school and got my own computer. I used to read a lot more before that, but not necessarily the books from the list.

Haha and isn't she usually admired for not giving in too easily and only accepting Rochester on her own terms. Getting the guy doesn't have to mean happy ending, but I can think of any books right now where it wasn't so.

h, that's why you've been silent for a while.

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

Well, my sister had an internet connection when I first left home (I was about 18/19), but there were no web pages or anything, it was just chatrooms and so forth. I didn't actually get an internet connection until I moved in with my boyfriend when I was about 22!!! *feels very old* I used to be so much more productive back then!

LOL, yes maybe I just have high standards for my fictional heroines!! XP

Yeah, I've been really wiped out from work. I still am, which is why I've had two days off this week. D:

[fujiko1601.livejournal.com]

I think I had my first chance to use internet when I was 15/16 and had some classes at school. Wasn't it the same year you moved in with your boyfriend?

Actually I've seen rants that Jane Eyre is not a pushover and the fanwriters shouldn't write her like this. Because apparently she should have not been so stubborn and married him right away! XD

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

I guess it would've been around 2000 or so??

LOL, well that's doing great things for feminism, isn't it!! XP

[fujiko1601.livejournal.com]

That's correct.

What? You mentioned the ideas of real feminism and an average fangirl in the same sentence?

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

LOL, yes! What was I thinking????

[darlingfox.livejournal.com]

I tried to read the Bible cover to cover, too, but the family trees bored and confused me too much. "Person X lived this long, had ten sons and guess how long they lived and how many sons they had!"

And I agree on Catcher in the Rye, too. Man, I hated Holden with the passion of a thousand burning suns. I wanted to reach inside the book and strangle him to death because nothing else could stop his whining. I still wonder how it ended up being a everyone-must-read-it classic.

[ant-power.livejournal.com]

Yes!! I mean, is it important for us to know who was descended from who in such great detail??? I think somebody should set out writing the Bible in an easy-to-read novel format!!

LOL, I love you for hating Holden Caulfield with the same passion that I do!!! <33333