A flood of me-me

[annwfyn]

What we have here is the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish. Here's the twist: add (*) beside the ones you liked and would (or did) read again or recommend. Even if you read 'em for school in the first place.

The Aeneid
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
American Gods
Anansi Boys*
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
Angels & Demons
Anna Karenina*
Atlas Shrugged
Beloved
The Blind Assassin
Brave New World
The Brothers Karamazov
The Canterbury Tales*
The Catcher in the Rye
Catch-22
A Clockwork Orange
Cloud Atlas
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed*
A Confederacy of Dunces
The Confusion
The Corrections
The Count of Monte Cristo*
Crime and Punishment*
Cryptonomicon
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
David Copperfield
Don Quixote
Dracula*
Dubliners
Dune
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
Emma
Foucault’s Pendulum
The Fountainhead
Frankenstein
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
The God of Small Things
The Grapes of Wrath
Gravity’s Rainbow
Great Expectations
Gulliver’s Travels*
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies*
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
The Historian : a novel
The Hobbit*
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Iliad
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise)
Jane Eyre*
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
The Kite Runner
Les Misérables*
Life of Pi : a novel
Lolita
Love in the Time of Cholera
Madame Bovary
Mansfield Park
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlemarch
Middlesex
Mrs. Dalloway
The Mists of Avalon - Can I put in an anti star? I hate this book.
Moby Dick
The Name of the Rose*
Neverwhere
1984
Northanger Abbey*
The Odyssey
Oliver Twist
The Once and Future King*
One Hundred Years of Solitude
On the Road
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Oryx and Crake : a novel
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Persuasion
The Picture of Dorian Gray*
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Pride and Prejudice *
The Prince
Quicksilver
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
The Satanic Verses
The Scarlet Letter
Sense and Sensibility
A Short History of Nearly Everything
The Silmarillion - As a note, I did finish it, but I read it in several different bursts.
Slaughterhouse-five
The Sound and the Fury
A Tale of Two Cities
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
The Time Traveler’s Wife
To the Lighthouse
Treasure Island
The Three Musketeers
Ulysses
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Vanity Fair
War and Peace*
Watership Down*
White Teeth
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
Wuthering Heights*
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values

I'm better read than I thought...

The name meme

- What inspired your nick?

At the time I was in a quite bad mental place. I also had an LJ - winterthing. I'd been reading through old entries, remembering some fairly awful times in my life, and honestly just making myself even less cheerful, which is saying something.

So, I wanted a break. I wanted somewhere new, and I ended up looking for a name which sort of symbolized a space of 'otherness', or separation from all this old junk.

'Annwfyn' is a word I found somewhere as the Old Welsh for 'otherworld'.

I maintain that the spelling I use is a valid alternate to the more normal Annwn, Annwyn or Annwfn. pierot maintains that I've spelled it wrong and refuses to write it in protest. It's about the only time he admits to any knowledge of Welsh.

- Does any particular icon that you use embody it?

Not really, although all my LJ icons do have a very specific meaning and it's normally relatively significant which one I use, although that meaning might not be obvious to anyone except me.

As a note, if I use my tarot - devil icon, it means I'm playing devil's advocate/being argumentative. If I use any of my nonsense tags, I'm babbling nonsense. If I use my worst witch icon, it means I'm either being inept at college work, or I'm doing this when I really ought to be doing college work. It's my 'bad student' icon.

- If your nick had been taken, what would you have used instead?

I've got (somewhat sadly) several 'back up' LJs. The main one is gobolina which I've considered switching to several times, but have not quite yet reached the place where I need a change. That's named partly after a kids book, and partly because Jeremiah says he thinks of me as a female goblin.

And finally...

Comment and I'll...

Tell you why I friended you.

Associate you with something - a song, a colour, a photo, etc.

Tell you something I like about you.

Tell you a memory I have of you. And you'll say 'you totally made that up!' for my memory is shockingly bad on occasion, and sometimes does just seem to invent stuff.

Ask something I've always wanted to know about you.

Tell you my favorite user pic of yours.

In return, you must post this in your LJ.

You can tell I should be working, right?

Comments

[adze.livejournal.com]

I'll comment - I could do with something to take my mind of the panic!

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Tell you why I friended you.

I can't remember. I think you were new at Zeitgeist, but we were beginning to chat, and we had a load of friends in common. Not sure if you friended me first or not either.


Associate you with something - a song, a colour, a photo, etc.

Oddly for a bloke - I associate you with piles and piles of jewelery, and whenever I wander around a charity shop and see bits of tat I wonder if you'd like it.


Tell you something I like about you.

Your loyalty to your friends.


Tell you a memory I have of you. And you'll say 'you totally made that up!' for my memory is shockingly bad on occasion, and sometimes does just seem to invent stuff.

Walking around Hatfield churchyard very late at night, and you dragging me over to see the lights spilling out from Hatfield House.


Ask something I've always wanted to know about you.

I think I've mostly asked these questions. Erm. Are you a dog or a cat person?


Tell you my favorite user pic of yours.

I like the raven thing you nicked from me, purely coz it's pretty. And I think you should use it more.

[ginasketch.livejournal.com]

ditto. today is a shitty day for me.

[suave-steve.livejournal.com]

I am just killing time pre interview but don't think of that as an obligation :)

[anonymous-james.livejournal.com]

Audience participation? How splendid.

[nadriel.livejournal.com]

Bandwagon. Jump. Me!

[castorlion.livejournal.com]

I'll never say no to talking about me!

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Tell you why I friended you.

It appears I have no idea why I friend anyone! I think it was after you'd started coming to Zeitgiest and were on several people's flists. I looked at your LJ, and decided you were a very interesting person, and wanted to get to know you a bit better.

Associate you with something - a song, a colour, a photo, etc.

Brightly coloured tropical birds. And wonderful gorgeous little beasties that you've drawn, which run across your LJ.


Tell you something I like about you.

You're breathtakingly talented. I'm totally in awe of what you're doing with your life and art.


Tell you a memory I have of you. And you'll say 'you totally made that up!' for my memory is shockingly bad on occasion, and sometimes does just seem to invent stuff.

You taking the time to post a nice supportive comment on my LJ when I posted a whingy piece, and my being quite surprised and very touched by it.


Ask something I've always wanted to know about you.

Have you always known you wanted to be an artist? Or is it something that kinda came to you?


Tell you my favorite user pic of yours.

The devil playing the violin, because 'Devil Went Down To Georgia' is one of my favourite songs.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, talk about me too! A lot!

[ginasketch.livejournal.com]

*hugs* Did you find out if you can come to the exhibition?

Have you always known you wanted to be an artist? Or is it something that kinda came to you?

I've been drawing since I was 4, and I had all sorts of fantasies as a child as to what my career would be in the future (vet, naturalist,doctor etc.):P When I was 12 I saw some documentaries on animation and I knew then that was what I wanted to do.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Tell you why I friended you.

You were the ANST Mage at the time, I'd met you at a Regional, and I was sadly Cam obsessed in those days. It seemed to make sense.

Associate you with something - a song, a colour, a photo, etc.

The colour blue. No idea why, but you've always been a deep royal blue whenever you've been on my flist.


Tell you something I like about you.

Your truly demonic sense of humour when you're in a good mood. You'll come out with the most wonderfully demented things with a totally straight face - the Ventrue Vigilante Five spring to mind.


Tell you a memory I have of you. And you'll say 'you totally made that up!' for my memory is shockingly bad on occasion, and sometimes does just seem to invent stuff.

You sitting on the edge of a table, I think in a white dinner jacket or maybe just a shirt. I believe it was the Scots Regional at about midnight and I'd just arrived after a nightmare drive from down south.

That was my first meeting with you.

Ask something I've always wanted to know about you.

What do you really want out of your life?

Tell you my favorite user pic of yours.

The default pic - the one that is you. The others all look very random and not connected to you really. That one, however, actually is Steve.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Does that mean you want me to tell you about you?

[castorlion.livejournal.com]

I like the raven thing you nicked from me, purely coz it's pretty. And I think you should use it more.

But it confuses my braaaaaaaiin!

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Tell you why I friended you.

You were a Zeitgeist player, I knew you vaguely, and we had a lot of friends in common. It seemed like a good start.


Associate you with something - a song, a colour, a photo, etc.

Hellsing. I think it's because you were in costume the first time I met you, as whatisname in red from that anime show. I always think of you whenever I see it now.


Tell you something I like about you.

I think you're actually a genuinely nice person. And that's rare.


Tell you a memory I have of you. And you'll say 'you totally made that up!' for my memory is shockingly bad on occasion, and sometimes does just seem to invent stuff.

You, standing in Evil Squared's living room, dressed entirely in red with a HUGE hat on your head. I think it was a fancy dress party. At least, I hope it was...


Ask something I've always wanted to know about you.

Erm...*thinks*

That rhyme you use for Jack - where did that come from?


Tell you my favorite user pic of yours.

Your default. It's very cool and I love ginasketch's art.

[nadriel.livejournal.com]

I actually made that rhyme up- I took the old nursery rhyme as a basis, and ran with the rest.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Really? It is very very cool in that case.

[ginasketch.livejournal.com]

Oh and sorry for the deleted comment. I hit the send button prematurely:P

[windzswept.livejournal.com]

I'm biting.

[malakite.livejournal.com]

Curiosity... strikes!

[flamma-lupus.livejournal.com]

yay meme!!

[badgersandjam.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmm...so unless you're Jane Austen or Margaret Atwood, women writers aren't really very noticeable on that list, are they? Oh, sily me, it's canon. Even if it does haev Reading Lolita in Tehran on it.
[/mode=bitter feminist]

[eladriell.livejournal.com]

The Aeneid
The Catcher in the Rye
A Clockwork Oran
The Count of Monte Cristo
Don Quixote
Dracula*
Frankenstein
The Hobbit*
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Iliad
The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise)
Lolita
Moby Dick
The Name of the Rose
Neverwhere
The Odyssey
Oliver Twist
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Prince
Treasure Island
The Three Musketeers
Ulysses
Watership Down

Well I've read those, liked is another matter...


- What inspired your nick?

First tabletop RPG character I ever made, an Warhammer i think it was, it eventually became the name I used for all my Giants on most of the fantasy muds I played....mostly influenced by the Firbolg legens I must admit

- Does any particular icon that you use embody it?

Certainly not. LJ icons are no more windows to the soul or keys to meaning than my cock is a guide to Uranus.


- If your nick had been taken, what would you have used instead?

Probably Enki/Enlil or Ningizzida...(Probably due to my disgust with any civilisation after Sumer fell and before the Empire got everyone in line.) anyhoo, yeah.

Right, that should constitute a comment

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Tell you why I friended you.

Because we had friends in common and I thought you were cool. And then you didn't friend me back for AGES and I was sad...


Associate you with something - a song, a colour, a photo, etc.


I saw this today and thought of you for some reason. (http://bp1.blogger.com/_iXIo11DlPGY/RtnPWXVlBlI/AAAAAAAAA00/7wh1yWCl9i0/s1600-h/faeriewoodhead8x11web+(2).jpg)


Tell you something I like about you.

You're smarter than people think, and you sometimes have this amazing ability to say exactly the right thing.

Tell you a memory I have of you. And you'll say 'you totally made that up!' for my memory is shockingly bad on occasion, and sometimes does just seem to invent stuff.

Eating ice cream in Oxford. You are very closely associated with Oxford in my mind. I still can't quite comprehend that you live in Newbury.

Oh, and clearing your house, with your strange ugly-cute witch cat limping around looking aggrieved.


Ask something I've always wanted to know about you.

It appears I am far too nosy and tend to ask things rather than letting them hang in the air. Hmmm...

How did you first get into role playing?


Tell you my favorite user pic of yours.

I'm torn between the fionovar tapestry one, and the venus one. They are the two I mentally associate the most strongly with Sarah, for some reason.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Well, there are more women on that list than there are non-white writers.

I can list ten women writers who are considered 'great' of the top of my head* but I really struggle when it comes to thinking of 'great' or acclaimed non-White writers**

In general, 'canon' is really really restrictive in gender, race and class terms.


*Jane Austen
Charlotte Bronte
Emily Bronte
George Elliott
Virginia Woolf
Christina Rosetti
Hariett Beecher Stowe
Margaret Atwood
Emily Dickinson
Katherine Mansfield

**Maya Angelou
Salman Rushdie
Alice Walker

...I'm struggling

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

I saw this today and thought of you for some reason.

I do indeed want to be a tree when I grow up :)

your strange ugly-cute witch cat

<laughs>:

I'll tell Chloe you said hi. She will doubtless send you some grumping in return.

Oh, she recently confirmed her comfort-seeking superpowers by sitting on the little cat bed that I'd put precariously on top of a load of other stuff while I tried to figure out where it should go. This would not be so impressive except that Chloe doesn't jump well enough to have got up there...

How did you first get into role playing?

Many years ago, when I was about fourteen or fifteen, a couple moved into the house across the street. Since they had a pair of Siberian Huskies (later expanded to five), I of course made friends with them.

Upon hearing that I liked reading fantasy books, including the Dragons of... series and the Icewind Dale stuff, but had no idea what a roleplaying game was, they introduced me to AD&D.

That campaign didn't last for long; there was a lot of trouble in that house, and the wife packed up the dogs and everything she owned and ran away to her brother's house in England after the second time her husband tried to strangle her.

But it gave me the first taste of blood; enough to know what to look for when I ended up in Oxford as an innocent fresher.

The first 'real' game I played was the OURPGSoc society game: Thieves' Guild. There I acquired my taste for angst.

Throughout university I played seeral games a week. The weekly society game, in its various flavours (fantasy, steampunk, scifi..); FLRP (LARPing at night on Shotover Common; in January I used to freeze!); Cthulhu; RuneQuest; AD&D; Vampire, and various one-offs...

I spent more time roleplaying than I did on my degree, by quite a scary margin.

And I'm still an addict :)