Jenny's Lisey's Story

I've been a huge Stephen King fan since my pre-teen years, devouring every one of his books (minus IT), as soon as I can get my little claws on them. With that said, I can usually read one of his books in less than a week and then I get bummed cause I blew through it too quickly & then I am left with nothin'! Until he writes his next one, that is :)

I started reading Lisey's Story on the plane to Creek & finished this 500+ page book over the weekend.

Two things about it -

1. It gave me a nightmare one night. It's the first book since The Shining to have done so.
2. I have incorporated some of the phrases from the two main characters into my every day speech. And it's creeping me the F out. You know how you & your spouse have words & phrases that you use together, that is intimate just between the two of you? Well this book has a good mess of those & I have totally found myself saying them - first it wasn't out loud but in my head & I would stop myself cause that's crazy talk, right? Then I couldn't help myself & have just started using them daily.

You know that this is a sign of fantastic writing when you adopt phrases into your vocabulary but since it's Stephen King we are talking about here, I'm a little weirded out by it. With the whole "horror story" & "love story" mix this novel has going on, I really don't appreciate those words sneaking their way into my brain and putting down roots. Especially since one of the characters is dead (not giving any plot away, that's on the back cover) & talking to his not dead wife (and here's the creepy part) - SHE RESPONDS TO HIM OUT LOUD.

So not only have I adopted this intimate language but it's intimate language between a ghost & his wife in a horror novel.

I just cannot believe that he got into my head that way & has stuck there. Trips me out!

Will officially go insane soon.

If I don't find the book I'm reading.

I've been reading We are the Mulvaney for my Mommies Group Book Club & I am LOVING it. I read it every night before turning in & put it back on the floor beside the bed every single night.

Most of the time I take a book up to CT with me if I happen to be reading one at the moment. I remember mentally putting it on my list of Things to Pack but do not recall ever actually packing it. I didn't ever go to read it while we were in CT so I never saw it there. I unpacked the next day & all the bags have been emptied. I went to bed on Monday & wanted to read a little & it was not in its regular beside the bed on the floor spot where it belongs. And I cannot find it anywhere in the house.

It's not under the bed, it's not on any of my dressers or surfaces in the master suite, it's not in any bathrooms, or counter tops throughout the house, it's not in any bags we took with us at all.

It's gone. Just up & vanished. And I really want to read it. And it's driving me even more insane because I just have zero clue as to where it could be. I'm about to email my BIL to see if it's been spotted around the house, even though I'm 99.99% sure I didn't even end up packing it. It's just driving me bonkers. And if you think I could obsess about FIRST birthday cake plates, you should see me when I cannot find something.

Like my checks. My checks that I couldn't find earlier in the night on Monday BEFORE I couldn't find my book. My checks that I remembered the next day Matias was actually the last person to have on his person. And yes, they were in his bag but not my book. damnit. It drives me even more bonkers that I found another "lost" item but now not my book YET.

Cause, people, the only thing I have lost is my sanity.

and Kym, I just might have to borrow your copy just so that I can finish it!

Another MEME to get the Jen Juices flowing

(title not intended to sound as dirty as it came out)

Look at the list of books below. Bold the ones you’ve read, italicize the ones you want to read, cross out the ones you won’t touch with a 10 foot pole , put a cross (+) in front of the ones on your book shelf, and asterisk (*) the ones you’ve never heard of.

1. +The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. +Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. +To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. +Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. *A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. +Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. +Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. *Fall on Your Knees(Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. +The Stand (Stephen King) - read both the edited & unedited
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban(Rowling)
20. +Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. +The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. +Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. +Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. +East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morries (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. +1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. *The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. +I Know This Much is True(Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. +The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt) - read half, got bored
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. +She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. +The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. *The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. +The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. +Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. +Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. +One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. +Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. +Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. +The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. +Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. +Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. *The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. *A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. +Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. *Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82.+ Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. +Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. *Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. +Watership Down(Richard Adams) This was the first book I made Matias read when I discovered his lacking library
87. +Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. *The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. *Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. *Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. *In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. +Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth(Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. +The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)