Thanks for the Meme-ories

Well, I'm still a greenhorn here in Blogson City, so forgive me if I make a few newbie mistakes and take some time to figure out how to make the photos go where I want them to.

Anyway, so I just found out that the List of Lists and first Amazon order I talked about in my recent posts were memes. I could explain what memes are for the five other people in the world beside me who apparently are the only ones left who don't know, but I'd just be stealing from The Daily Meme, so I'll let them do it. Anyway, it seems that playing? passing on? participating in? memes is a Good Thing for a blogger to do, so I guess I break even on the whole deal.

While I'm on the subject, I've got a few updates for my List of Lists.

Parenting Books that Are Full of Shit
Since I don't have kids, I was going to take a pass on this one, but here's a contribution from my sister-in-law: "Babywearing by Mary Blois. Anyone who tries to 'wear' [my darling niece] is in for some cognitive restructuring. Pronto."

Overused Plot Points That Drive Me Nuts
The evil overlord who has his lair/is trying to escape from his prison in the inaccessible mountains in the north
The character who learns a Valuable Life Lesson from an innocent child, a wise elder, or a puppy

Books in Which I Liked the Secondary Characters Better than the Main Character, or Books in Which I Wanted to Beat the Main Character Senseless with a Tire Iron
The Thomas Covenant books by Stephen R. Donaldson
Portrait of a Lady, Henry James
Gentlemen's Agreement, Laura Z. Hobson (not the hero but the love interest)
Middlemarch, George Eliot

Worst Book Ever, or Five Hours of My Life I'll Never Get Back
The Years of Rice and Salt, Kim Stanley Robinson
Zulu Heart, Steven Barnes
The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
Wicked, Gregory Maguire

Books I Refused to Read for a Long Time Because Too Many (or the Wrong) People Recommended Them
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig

Best Book Titles of All Time
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou
Rats, Lice, and History, Hans Zinsser
The Nutmeg of Consolation, Patrick O'Brian
A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather
The Postman Always Rings Twice, James M. Cain
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick

Book-to-Movie Adaptations Where, Frankly, the Movie Was Better
Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton

Books That I Expected to Be Dirtier
Sons and Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
Ulysses, James Joyce

Best Books Not to Read from Start to Finish, or Best Bathroom Books
The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody, Will Cuppy
Anything else by Will Cuppy

Books My Teacher Made Me Read That I Really, Really Liked
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad

Books My Teacher Made Me Read That Made Me Question the Value of My Education
The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky

Books That Made Me Want to Have Sex with at Least One Character
The Stephanie Plum books by Janet Evanovich

Series You Used to Love but Have Now Given Up On
The SPQR books by John Maddox Roberts
The Goldy Schulz books by Diane Mott Davidson

And some new ones:

Books I Read About in Other Books
Lady Audley's Secret, M. E. Braddon

Books I Want to Read Because I Saw the Movie
Now, Voyager, Olive Higgins Prouty
The Magnificent Ambersons, Booth Tarkington
Alice Adams, Booth Tarkington
Gigi, Colette

Series You Wish the Author Would Just Finish Already
The Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan
A Song of Ice and Fire, George R. R. Martin
Alvin Maker, Orson Scott Card

Sequels You Wish Had Never Been Written
Tehanu, Ursula K. LeGuin
The Wanderer, Cherry Wilder and Katya Reiman
Metallic Love, Tanith Lee
Robots of Dawn, Isaac Asimov

Classics No One Forced Me to Read
David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
Bleak House, Charles Dickens
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
All of Jane Austen

Books I Loved Even Though I Didn't Completely Understand Them
Little, Big, John Crowley
A Winter's Tale, Mark Helprin
Anything by Patricia A. McKillip