• TWILIGHT
• by Stephanie Meyer
• [rated by PBS readers as #73]
• 498 pages

This book is nothing but a 498 seduction.

Sign me up.

As I write, I am over 300 pages in and though I don’t read particularly fast, I might be done tonight!

In the interest of fair disclosure, I am not now, nor have I ever been, a fan of vampire stuff. Never attracted me in the slightest. So once again, this ten year trek has offered me up something that I’m loving that I would most assuredly never have read.

There are all kinds of seductions here. Meyer is so uniquely skilled at telling this tale, that while he is seducing her – she is seducing you!

From the first pages of this book, when the lead character goes to a new high school (I am going to stay purposely vague in details with this one, because if you are attracted to reading it, you deserve it to be fresh and new), I was IN high school. Now, high school is so far in my rear view mirror that I would absolutely fail if you gave me a quiz for details. So feeling like I was truly back in high school was delightful and first rate storytelling.

When I would feel a little reading thrill, I would go back to see if I could see how she did it – a little detail here, a little one there – but I absolutely didn’t see it. More than once, I looked deeply into the hat and couldn’t spot the rabbit!

The story unfolds just as seamlessly – like a flower blooming in sped up photography.

Oh, and lest I forget, Meyer uses the vampire thing to the greatest effect I have ever experienced. It becomes the ultimate plot point in the seduction.

The main two characters are exquisitely unique, believable, heartbreaking, two literary characters I know I will never forget. Talk about rooting for them? Off the charts. Will check in when I’m finished.

FINISHED.

WOW! I just finished Twilight and I’m so happy and grateful. I just finished an utterly fantastic read. That, as an avid reader, is pretty much the best thing you can hope for out of life! And I just had that, with a book I would NEVER have read without this blog.

I realize I have a habit of speculating on whether I will pick up more of any of the series I read here. I would probably read them after I finish the list….

Let me put that to rest. I’m ordering the next Twilight from Amazon as soon as I finish writing this! And I may not read it for a while, but the point is – I’m dug in deep. I want to live with an outlet to this world and these amazing characters Meyer has written.

No convert to any other vampirism either, it is this story alone that has me bonded to it. I will admit that the last third of the story suddenly speeds up in a massively manipulative way that doesn’t do justice to the pacing and intimacy of the first two thirds, but you know? I don’t care. In for a penny, in for a pound.

What a blazing, fun read! Great, great, great.

ONE DAY LATER…

Where is my next installment of Twilight? Gimme, gimme, gimme! I ordered it last night and it isn’t coming for two

more whole days!

You see what I’m saying here. Seriously hooked. I may not read it for ten years, but it’s killing me that I don’t have it here to be able to make that choice! Hm. I find that last sentence to be vaguely vampiric… Uh oh.

• THE HANDMAID’S TALE
• by Margaret Atwood
• [rated by pbs readers as #34]
• 295 pages

I’m well aware that the most prominent theme of this whole project for me has been surprise. Surprise at every turn. So I knew I would be surprised by The Handmaid’s Tale. I just didn’t know in what way.

It took me a long time to open this one up. I don’t think I built up to it or anything. It just so happened that when I picked it this time, I didn’t feel as scared, so it seemed like as good a time as any.

Of course, reading this book is preceded by the images and dystopian world it conveys. Most likely due in large part to the amazing (according to others, I haven’t seen it yet) mini-series done only a few years ago. But to be honest, I knew what was in here before that. I think every woman knew.

We all knew because Atwood has given words and a story to all of our deepest fears. Well, not all of them necessarily but the woman slayed an awful lot of dragons with this one sword.

For that reason, nothing in the book really surprised me. So I guess my surprise was how not surprising it was. I knew what to expect, perhaps more than with any book I have ever read.

The writing is stupendous. Many times while reading it, I had the distinct sensation that I was reading poetry. I would blink and know that wasn’t true, but Atwood’s artfully and tersely worded descriptions felt deeply poetic.

Just to pick one, try this one out.

“Time has not stood still. It has washed over me, washed me away, as if I’m nothing more than a woman of sand, left by a careless child too near the water.”

Hello?!

Atwood’s ability to visualize and then have us see what she is seeing in this universe of hers is really second to none.

Would I read it again? I can’t see that happening. But it was a great read, that’s for sure. And strangely, for something as ceaselessly sad as this, I have a vague notion to see the mini-series. For two reasons. The first is to see how they visually constructed this story. Atwood left them an amazing trail of bread crumbs with the unspoken taunt that they better do it up right. From all the millions of awards it got, I guess they did.

Also, sitting in the center is Elisabeth Moss, so brilliant in Mad Men and then over to this in quick succession. That juxtaposition is a message in itself. Men have always tried to gain the upper hand in society after society. In doing so, they lose any advantage they thought they had.

Because ulimately, male dominance is not only an aberrant viewpoint – it just isn’t in the cards.

Additional Note: In the preface, Atwood mentions that nothing, no ritual, no practice in this book has failed to be present in one religious practice or another.

The Handmaid’s Tale is a living, breathing, daily cautionary tale. The gauntlet is right there. We ignore it at our own peril.

THE NOTEBOOK

• by Nicholas Sparks
• [rated by pbs viewers as #56]
• 207 pages

Written in 1999, The Notebook was one of a tripod of books remembered at that time, that typified a softer,

gentler way of wrestling with love. The three legs would have to be this one, Bridges of Madison County and the third leg was everything written that tried to be the other two!

I’m not sure if I read this. I know I saw the movie back when. The story of two lovers for life, they meet in high school, fall in love, are separated by her moving and her mother hiding all the love letters he sent her afterwards.

Then they meet again, fall in love again and then the book switches to old age where they have been together for life, she now has Alzheimer’s and he stays by her side, though she doesn’t recognize him.

Oh, I’m sorry, did I give it away? I kinda doubt it. Because anyone alive at that time remembers the story of the Notebook, however vaguely.

I went back and forth with this book. I was affected by its emotions – you’d have to be dead not to be. On the other hand, it was not deeply or craftily written by any standards. When Sparks wants to have birds dip into the water, that’s what they do.

All along this blog, I have underlined and written down the unique and great way that authors have captured something – a thought, a scene, an image. Didn’t underline once in this one.

Perhaps the most divisive for my little head is that Sparks goes for the absolutely most dramatic way of saying or posing anything. So on almost every page, I am a little moved and a lot wanting to yell “enough already!”

But I am different and the whole world is different from when this story took flight. I would have to say that I don’t think this book fly now. Very sudsy, very dramatic, put a little cloying in there and I don’t think it would fly. Or at the very least, it would fly to far fewer people than at the time it came out.

I have no doubt that Sparks felt this with all his heart and soul. This story is clearly his ideal. But if I met him, I think that, after shutting this book, I would have to slap him and say “snap out of it!”

I finished the last 100 pages of this in one sitting, partly

because I wanted to see what happened but for the last 50 of those pages, I just didn’t want to read it for one more day.

Am I glad I read this? It’s funny. There were books in here that I liked less but was still glad I read. This book I liked a bit more than some of those but I would just as soon not have read it or visited it again.

• LEFT BEHIND
• by Tim Lahaye & Jerry B. Jenkins
• [rated by PBS readers as #77]
• 391 pages

From a totally different angle, this Christian book about the Rapture afforded me the opportunity that the huge Stephen King book did. The opportunity to open a book that I would never have opened otherwise.

And I’m glad I did! Millions of people believe in the Rapture and it is easy to see how seminal this book has been in shoring up supporters.

The book starts with a pilot who is fantasizing about the sexy flight attendant he has been flirting with up until now. His marriage has been distanced by his wife’s born again Christian faith. Suddenly, Hattie, the flight attendant comes rushing in to the cockpit, saying they have lost a third of their passengers. That is where it starts, with Jesus’ true followers gone to heaven in an instant, leaving all others behind.

I deeply appreciated many things about this opus. Blessedly, though deeply diving into faith, it is a very fun read for anyone to pick up. I also appreciated that, though dealing with a worldwide catastrophe, the authors steadfastly stayed with only a few characters. That made it a fun and an easy read.

Do I quibble with the underlying premise? Of course, in small and big ways! But for me, that could take a handful of cocktails or, even better, a week with great minds to discuss.

But I’m here to read the books that have moved people. This one has moved a lot of people and I can see why. And the overarching truth is that I enjoyed the read and admired the way it was written.

I appreciated the opportunity to walk in this part of the population’s shoes for a while. I’ll remember it.

• AND THEN THERE WERE NONE
• by Agatha Christie
• [voted by pbs readers as #19]
• 233 pages

In the victory and relief of completing Dune, I knew I deserved a juicy treat. And when I picked this title out of the box, I stopped looking. And got really, really happy.

Of course, I read this as a kid and I’ve seen the play several times. But I wasn’t ready for how giddy I felt just reading something this good after something that had seemed endless.

The first couple of pages were so dreamy that I felt like a teenaged boy looking at pornography under my blanket.

And on top of how fun it was, it was also exhilarating. In these days, of both reading and listening to audible, I have had the occasion to listen to quite a few other Agatha Christie books and I must say, I have been left wanting.

Though in so many ways she started a huge ball rolling that has swept every mystery writer since into her shadow, that explains her significance. Her stories have not always been strong. Her characters are somewhat notoriously ill-defined. After a couple of lukewarm ones, I started to say to myself – this is the reason they keep making movies of the same three of these. Because three of them are the ones that are really good!

Yet this is the story that is completely set apart from that. It is the greatest plot imaginable. 10 people on an island are being killed off without being able to flee and without being able to determine who is doing it!

Ms. Christie, in the front of this edition, mentions that it was her most ambitious plot, figuring out how you keep killing people while still hiding the identity of the killer. And she is proud that she pulled it off. Proud is what she should be. This little tome is as classic a suspense tale than anything Hitchcock pulled off.

I have been reading it for two nights and am almost half way through it. I dare you to read it any slower than that!

DONE.

I read the last 70 pages all at once. Made me wonder. If there were a prize for the book that caused the most people to read the last chunk of it all at once because they were so tied to finding out the answer, I bet this would easily be in the top five of all time.

There is nothing deep to say here. It is master story telling. Keeps you guessing to the end and beyond. In my humble opinion, it is Christie’s very best. If the public had to pick one book for this list to represent her, this is by far the best pick. A plot that has been borrowed ever since and undoubtedly will be till the end of time. The set up, the premise and the details are so classic that nothing else of hers could top it.

Really, really fun. What a lovely break to read this!

• DUNE
• by Frank Herbert
• [rated by PBS readers as #35]
• 704 pages

I decided to tackle another of my extra big books, as it was at the end of the year and I was ahead of schedule.

Read about a hundred pages and then put it aside. I had to be in the hospital and recouping afterward for the majority of December, so I made myself a deal to only read stuff I liked!

It isn’t that anything about the writing of this is bad. It is clearly a production designer’s wet dream, to recreate this different Universe. I admire the details of that. It’s like the Stephen King book way back there. To create an entire fictional world is an amazing feat. I couldn’t do it.

But my problem with sci fi like this is a simple one. There are good guys and there are bad guys. And I got tired of black and white portrayals like that a long time ago. Also, the plot line of who is going to kill who.

Picking it back up, I realize that it is more than that. Picking up my wet dream theory of earlier, this is a guy’s book, through and through. Okay, okay. I’m sure you can find 100 women on the planet who love this shit to distraction. And I generally don’t like women’s books!

But really. Fights in big sand torrents, with huge worms being the enemy? Whoever heard of a girl who would wrap her arms around a plot with huge worms as the enemy? With big lines uttered like, “run, you sand dogs!”

Sigh. I’ll read it. And perhaps by the end, I’ll love it. More likely, I may grow to admire it. But sheesh. It sure wasn’t written for the likes of me.

DONE.

WOW!! Wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow.

To paraphrase Gloria Gaynor, I have survived.

I have survived the greatest threat to this little project so far. The reading of Dune.

Now, I don’t really find fault in Dune. There is just no part of its demographic that I coincide with. I’m not interested in it and I never would have been.

It is a big battle book, ending with one fight between two rivals for the galaxy. It is just so boy! The characters are good or bad. That’s it. The only suspense the good guys have is when they sense their own weakness, but not because they ever doubt their moral rectitude. They are righteous and they will win.

Yawn. Sorry Dune fans but yawn.

But I made it. It took me two months and numerous other books for distraction but I returned to try again. I gave myself 20 pages at a time.

I’m glad to finish it. I literally can’t wait to pick the next title. It may be great, it may be drekky but there is one thing it will most assuredly have going for it…

IT WON’T BE DUNE!

WUTHERING HEIGHTS

• by Emily Bronte
• [rated by PBS readers as #21]
• 416 pages

You know how I had the initial mission and excitement about this ten year project, forcing me into new lands, words, phrases and images and seeing the beauty and mastery of each of them?

Wuthering Heights does not fit.

Initially, when I was younger, I saw the film of Wuthering Heights and just didn’t get it. Like everyone, I thought this was supposed to be a ripping, passionate love story. And instead, I thought Merle Oberon wasn’t even attractive and Olivier was hideously overacting!

So I guess I figured that they had just made a mess of the book. And nothing about it made me inclined to investigate further.

When I picked this title and read one of the introductions, it absolved the reader of any romantic expectations, saying it was about far different themes. That probably relieved me. Could it surprise me with being complex and great?

Wrong again! More than halfway through this dirge, I find it almost hopeless. The group of main characters is without a single thing to recommend them. They are hideous and completely unsympathetic.

I still have 160 pages left and can’t imagine how it will get any better. Ah well. This one puts Gulliver to shame. It is just plain awful. If anyone can make an argument in

its favor, I would love to hear it. Providing that they are fit enough mentally to have a discussion with afterward.

Sheesh!

If Heathcliff is some romantic icon, then Quasimodo is a sex object. By the time you finish this, the only thing you would fantasize about would be roasting him on a spit!

Since it is written kinda sudsy, this made the read easier. If everyone who is rejected starts to die slowly, you can dispense with searching for any subtlety you might be missing! You got yourself a soap opera, fair and square – drama but fun nonexistent.

DONE.

My first all encompassing love in my life was film. I watched everything I could get my hands on. I had a blog, sort of before there was a blog, where I reviewed films.

I saw great ones. I was single then, so I could and did do things like a weekend of terrible movies (I wouldn’t suggest this. It was a brutal experience.).

And through it, I shared two dreams with truly dedicated film lovers everywhere. The first was to see every one I could and the second was to be able to evaluate them by what the director intended. If I wasn’t personally pulled to it, I was dedicated, in reviewing it, to see everything I could see with as few filters as possible.

But. There were those films – I fancied far fewer of them than your average biased viewer but still – that I couldn’t get past my aversion to. I could understand them but I could not get to appreciation or like. They just turned my stomach, for whatever reason.

Such was the case with this book, on this blog. After finishing, I was wildly thrilled to wash my hands of it. But, even then, a creature of habit or ethic, I went back and read the introduction that described the book’s genius. I had waited as it promised spoiler alerts and I must say it did read better after having read the book.

I wanted to understand its genius or at least its staying power. Reading about the authors themes and continuing modes of fences, love, power, brutality, explained why it

had elements that were advanced and groundbreaking.

And you know? I just don’t care. With films and with books, I maintain one standard above all others – will I meet and fall in like or love with at least one of the characters? I MUST CARE! I must root for someone. If every one in there would benefit the world by just leaping off of it and sparing us their miseries, then I don’t care how brilliant some writer might capture them.

When I hate every character, I cease to be passionate – or even dispassionate! I just want to get off that train.

Looking forward!

THE LION, THE WITCH & THE WARDROBE

• [book one of the Chronicles of Narnia]
• by C.S. Lewis
• [rated by pbs readers as #9!]
• 189 pages

Back at the beginning of this project, I remember being in the Barnes & Noble bookstore, perusing the titles I would be reading. I saw a stack of books facing out. The one in front was the Chronicles of Narnia.

Imagine my surprise, upon picking it up, that it wasn’t a

stack. It was one book! With a gablillion pages! I was sufficiently freaked out by the girth and heft of the book that I put it quickly down and bolted.

It was at that point that my hairdresser, Veronica, who is my only door into life younger than mine, assured me that it was a series of books and that the first one wasn’t that big.

Indeed it wasn’t. A delightful little tale.

I was shocked that it was written in 1950. Kim, my friend, grew up with it and almost swooned at the thought that I was entering this world for the first time.

Don’t know how I missed it, but I’m glad to have had a read.

No idea whether or not I will ever read the rest of them. As kid’s stories go, I’m less inclined to go for it than most of the other series this project has started for me.

But a lovely, magical kingdom, a bad witch, a wonderful heroic lion and four reasonably interesting kids? I enjoyed it.

THE GODFATHER

• by Mario Puzo
• [rated by pbs readers as #53]
• 448 pages

Oh man. That Godfather theme music will never stop in my head for the length that I read this!

Nor should it. Possibly the most elegant and soaring line in movie music history.

I’ve wanted to read this for the last six books or so, but it just hasn’t been completely the right time. Now that I’ve read my quota of ten of these books this year (and three of them the really big variety – Crime & Punishment, The Stand and A Prayer for Owen Meany), when this came up, I grabbed it.

Part of not reading this when it came out is, of course, the fact that it was made into a movie that seasoned and discerning film minds would no doubt pick as film’s greatest masterpiece, or one of them. So it is impossible to read a pulpy scene, for instance, and not see it in the elegiac way it was upgraded by Francis Ford Coppola.

But I’ll tell you this. If you don’t feel involved with this story almost immediately, you should get your pulse checked. The mythical quality of the characters is so firmly etched in your mind from the first moment that you actually see them, that you are standing next to them, watching things unfold. And thanks be to God, Coppola cast each actor perfectly, so that you aren’t distracted.

Starting with the wedding, each character walks in and stamps themselves into your brain, always quickly and without you seeing the wheels turning. The fact that every character could prosper or meet with brutality in any given second forms the insistent, mythical drumbeat under every scene.

The most exciting thing to me was that, from 40 pages in, The Godfather was already in my thoughts and waking moments. Like a little kid, I would see it when I took five minutes from my work and I would long to know what happens next! An old-fashioned great read.

Like the Godfather himself, if you proceeded, as PBS did, to discover the greatest reads, he would have to be there. He would simply not be denied.

One little note that tickles me pink! Coppola wrote the introduction for this 50^th anniversary edition. Can you believe it has been 50 years? And in it, he mentioned Puzo’s mother, who was quietly loving and autocratic. Puzo told Coppola that every one of the Don’s lines were things he had heard his mother say! When Puzo was on set and Brando was doing these lines, he only heard his mother! Isn’t that great? Talk about I am woman, hear me roar!!!

200 PAGES IN.

God, am I ever having fun reading this book! My life is full and full of complication and this book just takes me away!

You know, it’s funny. Usually, with a book and a movie, one format wins for your affections. I think it is usually the one you experienced first.

But I’ve seen The Godfather countless times and I find that it isn’t discouraging my read in the least. Wow – so unique. It is certainly a book that Copolla raised to an elegiac, Shakespearean masterpiece. There isn’t a minute of it that anyone even doubts could have been done better.

But guess what? The bones are all there in the writing. So while I admire greatly what Francis did with it, on the other hand he completed the hardest part for any filmmaker who is adapting a great book. He just didn’t fuck it up.

I felt similarly with The Last Picture Show. I went for years saying it was one of my favorite movies and I would still say that, though I haven’t seen it for years. But then, I read Larry McMurtry’s book and realized that Bogdonovich just thoroughly embraced the bones and didn’t fuck it up.

I just read where Michael kills the two thugs and gets

carted off to Italy. And it is as exciting, or more exciting!, to visualize it while reading it.

This is pure reading fun and I’m lapping it up!

DONE.

I know that I have saved, for my personal library, about half of these books and given the rest to others. So when

I do this, it is with the plan that I will read the kept ones again, at some point.

The Godfather, however, is the first one I wanted to read again immediately upon finishing it!

I didn’t rush through it. But every page was entertaining.

Again, an amazing experience to read the book of one of the greatest movies of all time and to see, on every page, how Puzo had realized the majesty of the story and simply passed it on to Coppola to work his genius visual magic on.

Nothing in this book fails to work. Nothing drags. No character is half written – in fact, often times, you can feel Puzo insisting that you get this guy in your head before he moves on. Even the clear take off of Sinatra didn’t detract. Everyone with a brain in their head knows that Johnny Fontane is Frank Sinatra, but then again, Puzo insists that you make the comparisons and then points out the differences. In the end, he is Frank and he isn’t Frank. Isn’t that a writing hat trick?

I ain’t gonna lie. After reading 700 pages of Owen Meany, this has heaven on a stick. Huge fun. If you haven’t read it, you might love it. I can’t imagine anyone just liking it.

And if you loved these movies, then take it from me. This is still a real treat of a read! Whew!

Bring on the talking heads or neurotic intellects. I’ve just had one fun ride!

• CHARLOTTE’S WEB
• by E. B. White
• drawings by Garth Williams
• [rated by pbs readers as #7 !]
• 184 pages

I have a confession to make. I was scared to read Charlotte’s Web again.

It basically slaughtered me as a kid. But since life has recently given me a reason to contemplate life and death, it seemed like the perfect time to read it.

Picking it up tonight, I read a third of it (even a third grader would have read a third of it). I was totally charmed.

The thing about writing for younger readers is that every darned word counts. How I love that! I found myself skimming, unintentionally, and then going back and picking up every word. After just reading a book that was the pinnacle of extra detail, I found myself in love with how much was said with so few words.

Because 60 pages in, you are in that barn with Wilbur and Fern and Charlotte and the geese and sheep and smells and sweetness.

Reviewers in the front fold correctly suggest that White finds a way to tell a sweet story that at its heart contains darkness and complication. And that is a hat trick. This is a story about life and death and sure enough, life and death exist on every page.

But – and this is a big but, if you’ll pardon that expression – there is beautiful innocence here. Life desperately needs more innocence. Aw hell, I need more innocence. And this is a perfect stomping ground for it. I’m in love.

What I didn’t remotely remember from childhood were the drawings by Garth Williams. I don’t know if his drawings are in every edition, but for this reader, they make up a healthy half of what you are getting here. They are achingly innocent and beautiful. I don’t know how many times I’ll return to this book, but I would love to have one of the drawings on my wall. They grab my whole heart.

DONE.

Oh my gosh. What can you say about this gentle treatise on love, death, friendship, the changing of seasons…

I loved it.

But my last word on this, if you haven’t for awhile is, read it again. This is a beautiful thought-provoking book for kids, but it lulled this adult like the world’s greatest fairy tale. And maybe it is just that.

Charlotte’s Web was picked in the top ten of this survey, along with heavyweights like To Kill A Mockingbird. And it belongs there. And thank you to E.B. White. As Wilbur says on the last page, it is hard to find a good friend and a great writer. You created a masterpiece that has held the world in its sway for decades. And because of your great writing, I feel like you are my friend. I’m sending you a hug through the seasons to wherever you have ballooned off to.