My (rather extensive) reading list...

 First off, I'd like to say that I really hope this whole 'rapture' thing isn't happening...I mean...I'm a pretty decent human but by no means do I pray or devote time to any deity in any way. So wish me luck with the whole not going to hell thing, I guess. Could one of you vouch for me? That would be great. Thanks!

And now...back to my regularly scheduled awesomeness. 

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I'm one of those people whose mind goes absolutely blank the moment I enter the grocery store a library or a video store.

(For those of you under 20 years old, a video store is somewhere that used to house VHS cassettes, and more recently DVDs. You would have to leave the house, go all the way to the store, actually pay money to borrow the movies for a few days, and then have to leave your house again, go all the way back and return it on time or be charged ridiculously expensive late fees. It was rather inconvenient and I'm glad those days are nearly over.)

Anyway, what I'm trying to get at is that I forget what I want when I go into stores. I get all the way there and then draw a blank every gosh darn time. And since I have recently decided that the library totally rules, it's become a bit frustrating: staring at the stacks and totally forgetting what those eight thousand books people have recommended are called. Or who wrote them. Or whether or not they even exist. So I'd spend an hour just walking up and down the aisles, looking at book covers and trying to tell whether or not I've heard of that one or not.

Those days are far in the past now though, now that I've come up with my new invention: a list.

That's right, it's ... a list. Of books I want to read. I carry it on me at all times, just in case someone mentions a must-read, or there's a surprise library (or book store) visit in my future.

At first, my list was just a piece of paper. But then that wasn't sturdy enough to withstand my bus-nomad, large-purse-or-backpack lifestyle. So I started carrying around an ugly little coil notebook, and wrote 'the list' down any old which way in that book.

But it was even more inconvenient. I would be standing in the A's section of the library frantically flipping the pages trying to find the title of that Atwood book I was pretty sure I wrote down weeks ago. I felt rather conspicuous. Nobody flips notebook pages in the library stacks. It's weird. I was a library weirdo!

But then, one day: epiphany! I had just ordered three REALLY pretty notebooks from the Black Apple Etsy store. (You must check it out if you haven't already.) And I thought "Wouldn't it be nice if my list was attractive...and alphabetical?"

And thus was born...the narwhal book. I've been using it for a year or so now, so it's kind of beaten up, but I think it just adds character.

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I am in love with this book.

A notebook is meant for scribbling thoughts, for making notes, for jotting jots. So don't be stingy with the pages, or you'll have an empty notebook for ages.

Love it.

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My list continues to grow. Don't judge. I'm one of those people who hasn't read very many classics because they're paced so slow and I don't care about 1800s romance. That also goes for Love in the Time of Cholera. Ugh. Seriously. But you know what book was surprisingly awesome? The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle! It was really cool and hardly racist at all, haha.

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These are all the books I will read soon, presented to you now in fancy pants alphabetical order:

(click the images to see larger size)

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Have you read any of these before? What did you think?

Do you have any other recommendations? I would love to hear them!