Today's Post

Is at Romance Worth Killing For.

(And Anonymous? Of course I know who you are, AC!)

Oh. My. God!

I had a post all planned out for tonight . . . definitely saving it for tomorrow now!

A few minutes ago, I got up to set up the coffeemaker for the DH (in exchange, he doesn't wake me up when he leaves for work).

I kept hearing something munching in the kitchen, and I figured it was the cat, although it was very noisy munching.

I walk in my kitchen . . .

And there's a POSSUM eating Kitty Baby's food!

A POSSUM!

In my KITCHEN!

I was not a happy camper.

Heck, I'm still not a happy camper.

I chased him out, didn't wake the DH (hey, he has to work tomorrow).

But I left him a big note on the fridge about how we really need to further secure the bathroom with the torn out floor, so POSSUMS don't come through there, climb over the partially removed wall in the laundry room and eat the kitty's food.

I bet Amie had something to do with this! She's sending me possums!

(And oh, my Lord, my mama warned me about "something" getting in through that floor. Now I have to tell her she was right. Hmmm. Maybe I just won't tell her!)

Following The Rules

If you're following all the rules, you're missing all the fun. -- seen embroidered on a towel at a gift shop today.

I love that, and it got me thinking. I'm pretty good at deciding which "rules" of writing I want to flout. As a teacher, I like rules . . . although I use them more as "guidelines for behavior." My students call me a comfortist, and I'm sure they're right. I don't like conflict, and following the rules can help one avoid that.

After browsing the gift shop with my best friend, we went to the new local coffee shop, run by the parents of a former student of mine. It's in a historic building, and the proprietors did most of the renovation work themselves. Renovating took months, but the shop is absolutely gorgeous. It gives me hope for my own house. (BTW, I've been taking photos of the in-progress renovations this week, and I'll be posting those soon.)

The funny thing was, the combination of that "rules vs. fun" towel and seeing Joe and Patty at the coffee shop helped made a recent nebulous realization concrete. For months, no visitors except my mom and dad have been allowed into our home. I freaked out last week because I cut the corner of the kitchen to find my DH's best friend in the living room, borrowing a tool. He'd actually allowed Mike into our house, the way it looked!

Later on in that same week, Monster #1's best friend invited him over to play. He went, with me assuring friend's mom that we'd reciprocate with an around-town activity and apologizing at the same time for the ever-growing evidence of renovating at our house. Renee laughed -- she and Mark just spent three years doing what we're doing now. She understands how I feel, but she also said that even though they're not completely finished (they're down to finish trim and some electrical stuff), she'd told her son that Monster #1 could come over for a sleepover soon, with the realization that kids didn't care what the inside of their friends' homes looked like.

And you know, she's right. Both of my Monsters have newly renovated, decorated rooms. Their bathroom is also newly madeover. Their end of the house is clean and attractive. The living room is full of boxes and furniture from rooms we're working on, and we pulled the carpet up months ago and are walking on plywood, but who cares? Would their friends look at the plywood, the plastic-and-duct-taped hole in the ceiling where we ripped out the fireplace, and judge us?

Lots of people would, but my kids' friends? Surely not.

Then I thought about my best friend, who loves me dearly. About my sisters, with their lovely homes, who've been banned from my home because I was ashamed to let anyone see the chaos.

Did Mike think less of the DH because there were tools and pieces of paneling scattered across the living area the day he came to borrow a hammer? Probably not.

So what am I so worried about?

A rule, that's what. An old ingrained, Southern rule that anything less than a perfect house isn't fit for company (a high school friend's mom used to say it wasn't convenient for anyone to die when the house was a mess . . .). And believe me, my house was and continues to be a mess . . . probably will be for at least six more months.

If you're following all the rules, you're missing all the fun.

So for the next six months, until the house is finished, here's the deal: the house is relatively clean, despite the chaos. It isn't the prettiest thing ever (in fact, right now, it's pretty darn ugly still.), but I love my sisters and my friends more than having a perfect house. I want my children to have their friends over. I want the DH to be able to have his friends come in without my having a duck fit afterwards.

I'm thinking I may break that "a less-than-perfect house" rule. I'm tired of missing out on the fun. And if anyone wants to think less of me for walking on plywood right now, well, who needs him/her, right?

What rule are you ready to flout? C'mon, you know you have one. Share.

The Story of My Life (This, That and the Other)

My best friend and her DH have this ongoing power struggle . . . if one of them spends money, the other has to spend an equal amount, or more. My DH and I tend not to have this struggle, because most of the time, all of our extra funds go into the Monsters' tummies.

We've been baaaaad the last week or so, though.

Over the weekend, the DH bought THAT:




Buying That involves a 500-mile round trip to pick it up. That's when IT decided not to cooperate. So I spent a lot of $$$ on parts. Didn't help.

Although I love IT, i don't think IT loves me.

So since we needed a second vehicle again anyway, we went shopping today.

I came home with THIS:

This is my first-ever-in-all-my-life brand-new-off-the-showroom-floor car. I've never had one before. Somehow, I think I got the better end of this deal. What do you think?

Well!

Now how am I supposed to stalk Karin's blog when her bandwidth is exceeded?! Obviously, other stalkers had the same idea I did.

Splitting Hairs

I like words. Obviously, right? I like the connotations of words, the shades of meaning within similar words.

I've been tinkering today with a new template for my business cards. When my laptop crashed last week, I lost the old ones. (PSA -- Back up all your stuff, now!) I loved the old ones, which my friend and CP made for me. They had this cool reddish double line, my name, and beneath that the title novelist.

Webster defines novelist this way:

"one who writes a fictional prose narrative of considerable length, typically having a plot unfolded by the actions, speech and thoughts of the characters." (By the way, "novel" comes from Latin, novellus, which means "new.")

Yep, that was me. I wrote all that. Still do. So I'm a novelist.

I pondered that while playing with the new design of my business cards.

There are others who would call me a writer. I tend to call myself that more than novelist, although novelist sounded pretty darn good on the business card.

Webster defines writer thusly:

"1) one who has written (something specified): the writer of the note. 2) an author."

But wait. I can't be an author! Only people who've published something are authors, if you are to believe the scuttle abounding on blogs and lists everywhere. Or even more specifically, only if you've sold to a large print house. Maybe a small print publisher. (<-- that's me being facetious, which my students could tell you is defined as "mildly sarcastic" or "flippant.")

I had to check out this whole author thing.

Flipped through Webster's. Found this definition:

"1) The writer of a literary work; a writer. 2) The beginner, originator, or creator of anything."

Hmmm. Yes, completely splitting hairs on the connotations there, but to me, sounds like I'm a novelist, a writer, and yes, even an author.

So what do you think I should put on the new business cards? ;-)

First the Dog, Now the Cat . . .

Have I mentioned I have a psychologically damaged dog? Her name is Sallie. I didn't want this dog. Our beloved lab Hunter had died, and I was adamant we were not having another dog. Nope. No more dogs.

(Unless, maybe, a cute little Schnauzer . . .)

So this stray dog had puppies in our yard. I found homes for all but one, and then mama dog got hit by a car. Hence, this sad little lonely orphaned puppy, which my son named Sallie.

I was still swearing that we were not keeping this dog. No way, no sir, no how.

Guess what? We ended up keeping the dog, she fell in love with me, I fell in love with her, we all live happily ever after, right?

She has separation anxiety issues.

She chews things. Not small things. Big things. Drags them right in front of my porch and chews them up, makes a nest. We're home, no chewing. Leave her alone, chews everything.

I solved that by making sure she had a comfortable, secure kennel so I can pen her while I'm gone and she won't destroy everything (Did I mention she shredded the mosquito netting on my new garden gazebo? And the seat off DH's bike? What's next?!).

Obviously, it's not enough that I adopted one mentally damaged animal. Nooooo. Now the cat is in on the act. Her name is Kitty Baby. Our neighbors gave her to us. We love her.

I think she has agoraphobia.

She's always been an in-out kitty. She comes in at night, goes out in the morning, stays in the yard, she's a happy kitty.

Except some feral cat had kittens over at the empty house next door and keeps trying to run in our house to steal her food. She doesn't want to go outside, so she hides in the bedroom and sleeps all day.

And now she's borrowing tricks from Sallie's book . . . when I went to put my pj's on earlier, after hearing major thumping from the bedroom, I found said Kitty Baby in the middle of the floor . . . eating my navy Old Navy flip flops!

I now have cat saliva and teeth marks on my navy flip flops. Do you know how hard it is to find navy flip flops at Old Navy this time of year?!

Did she attack DH's ratty tennis shoes? Noooo. My shoes.

Darn cat.

Does anyone want to recommend a good pet therapist? Maybe one who gives group rates?

Today's Post . . .

Is at Romance Worth Killing For.

Back Up!

First, consider this your friendly reminder to always back up your work. My laptop crashed and burned over the weekend, and fixing it required reinstalling everything . . . which means I lost everything not backed up.

The weird thing is, I didn't lose much of my writing. But teacher-wise? Oh, my heavens. I keep a paper copy of everything, but I realized this afternoon that all my performance standards files are gone, as well as my rubrics file, and all of my teacher web resource links.

If you've emailed me in the last few days and I haven't replied, I'm not ignoring you -- there are over 300 emails in my inbox and I'm trying to make sure I don't delete something important without reading it first.

Anyway, the good news, before said computer crashed, is that I had written the first four pages of my new WIP -- and even though those pages didn't get backed up and are now gone forever -- I have a handwritten copy so I can (pretty much) recreate them.

So go back up your work. And anyone have suggestions for me on more convenient ways to keep my work backed up, just in case?

My Reading Buffet

My new favorite place to read, since I've been displaced from the bedroom by construction, is in the gazebo by the pool. I do a lot of reading for school and also quite a bit for writing/research purposes.

The weird thing is that I don't read a lot in my genre -- romantic suspense. Now, I know authors who only read in the genre they write. I can't do it. I get bored easily (I also tend to read more than one book at a time, as well as a daily newspaper and several magazines a month), and I want variety in what I read.

So just for fun, here are the last ten books I've read (two I'm finishing now, so I'm putting them here) along with the author and genre. (I also didn't include any school or research-related reading -- this is just-for-me reading).

1) The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood -- literary fiction
2) Going to Ground: Simple Life on a Georgia Pond, Amy Blackmarr -- nonfiction
3) Seducing Simon, Maya Banks -- contemporary romance
4) Sweet Mercy, Jean Brashear -- contemporary (category) romance
5) A Family of Her Own, Brenda Novak -- contemporary (category) romance
6) Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden -- literary fiction (?)
7) The Untelling, Tayari Jones -- literary fiction
8) Cell, Stephen King -- horror/suspense
9) Derailed, James Siegel -- suspense
10) Pompeii, Robert Harris -- historical fiction/suspense

What's next on my reading plate?

1) A Break With Charity, Ann Rinaldi -- historical fiction
2) The House of Gentle Men, Kathy Hepinstall -- literary fiction
3) The Mermaid's Chair, Sue Monk Kidd -- literary fiction (actually, I read part last year, put it down, and now I'm going back to it)

I have some reading to do for school as well, but right now, I'm reading for me.

What's been on your reading buffet lately? Anything I should add to mine?

Building from the Ground Up

For the last year or so (oh, heck -- thirteen months to be exact), I've been involved in the complete renovation of our home. Every room we tackle ends up giving us unexpected and pretty much unwelcome surprises -- more work to be done, hidden problems beneath the walls and floors. There have been times when we've been tempted to just give in and give up, go for the huge mortgage and build from the ground up.

The last day or so, I've been looking at my planned revisions on HOTM with the same eye. It's the book of my heart, and the characters have been with me forever, it seems. I believe it has potential, and I've spent the last month or so identifying the structural problems with it.

The problem is that every time I sit down with a hard copy and try framing it (my preferred method of revision with a completed manuscript), I can't do it. It's too much; I get frustrated and put it aside. Instead, I started outlining revision notes within my much beloved Carribbean-blue notebook, where I also keep my budget notes, promotion notes, and renovation ideas. That's helped me stay focused by streamlining what needs to be done.

And it pointed out one very scary reality: I'm going to have to build HOTM from the ground up. Again.

That means instead of working within the original manuscript, I'm writing a new book. Starting with a blank document, old ideas blended with new ones. It's the only way to make this monster work. For the most part, I have to pretend the 411 pages that I've already written about Tick and Cait don't exist, and you know, they really don't -- with the new backstory line I'm looking at, Tick and Cait have both changed. They're different people. Hopefully stronger people. Their story will be different.

Only the ending, that shimmering promise of an HEA, will remain the same.

I guess I need to go lay a foundation.

Today's Post . . .

Is at Romance Worth Killing For!

Just One of Those Days . . .

I was busy today (heck, when am I not busy?!). Laundry, cleaned out the fridge, cleared yesterday's demolition debris from the yard (Monster #2 was quite impressed -- "Mama, you're strong."), vacuumed the pool, etc.

So while I was busy today, Monster #2 gets ahold of a can of shaving gel. Okay, you'd think at some point we'd move beyond shaving gel disasters, right?

Oh, nooooo!

I walk into my bedroom, where there's no furniture anymore, and shaving gel is oozing out of the wall where DH has disconnected the outlet boxes. Huge, oozing amounts of green foam.

I sigh. Call Monster #2, because I know who did it, into the bedroom. Ask him, because I really want to know at this point, what he was thinking.

He covers his eyes, sighs bigger than I did, and says, "I wasn't."

Smart kid + High impulsivity = some of the stupidest actions I've ever seen.

What was he thinking?

Missing Girl

The daughter of author Marjorie Jones is missing. Please visit the link below for more information and contact details.

http://www.marjoriejones.com/staci/missingx.html

Marjorie, my thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.

Almost Afraid to Say It Aloud

But I wrote this tonight. A whopping 116 words, the beginnings of my revisions to HOTM.

Where it goes, I have no idea.

***
It wasn't a matter of him kissing her or her kissing him. One second, she was staring into the dark depths of his eyes; the next, his mouth was on hers, and she was lost, melting into his lean form, soaking up the warmth and contact she'd hungered for since he'd walked out of the nondescript hotel room sixteen months before.

He pulled back, sudden anger blazing in his gaze. "No."

An immediate chill filtered through her. Move. Now. She couldn't, though. Her legs refused to work.

"Not this time, Cait." He stepped away with a deliberate motion and ran a thumb over the corner of his mouth. "I'm not letting you suck me in again."
***

116 words. Wow. Can't wait to see where tomorrow takes me . . . 120? 130? Whoa . . . what if I manage 200?!

I don't think I could stand the excitement.

My Other Newest Hobby

Now that the remaining lines are up at Karin's blog, I'm still stalking . . . marveling at how awesome some of those second lines are and seeing who I know!

D'Ann is there.

So is Kristi -- loving the bubble bath hook!

Saw Jan Kenny, from Writeminded, there, too.

Can't wait to see who else shows up!

But first, I have to go clean out the laundry room. Sigh . . .

My Newest Hobby

Stalking Karin Tabke's blog, seeing if the 45 finalists in her first line contest are up.

I lead a sad, sad life . . .

Writing Dangerously

An issue I've struggled with the last few months has been a deep-seated sense that something was wrong with my writing. Not the technicalities of it -- I've got a grasp on the mechanics of grammar, thanks to my day job, and I've never had difficulty stringing words together to fit my voice. However, every single time I began toying with something new, I'd end up stopping dead. I couldn't go back and rework old manuscripts, I couldn't move forward, and it seemed I was forever destined to stay in this one place.

A place I didn't want to be.

I couldn't write.

In the end, there were many factors at play, some having nothing to do with writing, keeping me in that place. I'm just beginning to move out of that holding pattern. But I've come to the realization that one big problem was I was trying to write safe.

Last night I read Lydia Joyce's blog on "dangerous" writing, and it resonated with me. From the beginning, I've wanted to write with gritty realism, to create characters who were real people, to formulate situations that weren't always wrapped up cleanly.

No problem, right?

Well, at first I was targeting SIM, which is an excellent line and reads I've always enjoyed. However, that meant toning down the grit and reality, and when I was lucky enough to have a very talented, multi-published SIM author read one of my manuscripts, the one I thought was my it book, she was very quick to point out that the hero's defining moment, his choice, would probably have to be changed before SIM would look at it -- the choice placed him in the position of being unheroic.

Aren't we all sometimes?

That encapsulated my choices for me -- write safe for the line I'd researched endlessly. Follow the rules. Be safe.

Or be me. Stretch for the dangerous. Write real people with real problems. As Jennifer Crusie says, write my good book.

Let the rest take care of itself.

I feel better about writing now than I have in a long time. I'm feeling eager again.

And that is a great place to be.

Today's Post . . .

Is at Romance Worth Killing For.

All the Comforts of Home

We've retreated to a local motel for the night. Why?

Renovations from Hell!

For the last month of so, I've had no A/C. No biggee -- it's been temperate and I can use window fans.

Last week, we lost the hot water. Well, it's hot, so a cold shower isn't much of a trial.

Today? Lost the electricity. Won't be fixed until tomorrow.

So I'm ensconced in a rather nice room, with air conditioning, lights and yes, hot water!

I'm a very happy non-camper.

Writing Process: Thinking

The mountain of laundry has been reduced to one sheet, a pair of khaki shorts, and one brown T-shirt. Those will have to wait until they have matching loads to be washed.

I've been busy, busy, busy the last couple days -- laundry, packing things up for Goodwill, discarding other items, getting ready to paint furniture.

And believe it or not, the whole time I've been immersing myself in the writing process at the same time. A large part of my process is thinking about the book. Or, in this case, thinking about the revisions.

I started with thinking about how the changes in backstory and external plot would change things. It changes a lot, with the most significant change being in the hero's characterization and reactions to the heroine's presence. The plot changes will hopefully tighten up the external structure of the book (hey, I'm telling you -- that whole distance and perception thing works for me).

Today, I've been thinking about scenes -- or rather, visualizing scenes. Listening to the dialogue. Getting into the characters' heads. I finally, finally feel like I'm getting somewhere.

Maybe soon I'll be putting words on paper!

What Inciting Event?

I finally settle on a summer progect -- revising an existing manuscript. Completely changing the backstory. I think it will make for stronger conflict. Working on strengthening the external plot as well, making it more unique.

I might as well right a new book.

Want to know where I'm hanging up?

The inciting event.

The problem is that if you write romantic suspense, you have two plots -- the suspense/mystery and the romance. Hence, two inciting events.

Now I don't know if scene one needs to be inciting event for the suspense/mystery plot or the inciting event for the romance plot.

Suggestions, anyone?

Whoo-hoo!

Sharon has great news! Go congratulate her!

Distance and Perception

Ever notice how events and passages in our lives seem like horrible trials at the time, but as we gain distance and a different perception, they often turn out to be the gifts and blessings? I've already blogged here about how I believe not selling to a large house last year turned out to be the best thing for me, as I know I would have messed up the opportunity with everything going in my life then.

For various reasons, I spent the last ten months cursed with a crippling inability to write. I tried all the tricks to jump-start my process, and nothing worked. I. Could. Not. Write. I was devastated.

And now I'm beginning to see, I was blessed.

While I struggled with not being able to create, rejections on HOTM trickled in. I got one on TAC, too. The nasty little plot word kept cropping up in those letters, forcing me to look at my entire concept of plotting. I mean, I thought I knew how to plot. But what did it matter anyway? I couldn't get words on paper, so obviously plotting was the least of my worries, right?

Well.

Not being able to write kept me from falling into the trap of continuing to write and continuing to make the same mistakes.

Not being able to write compelled me to go back and look at my existing work and really analyze pacing and plotting.

Not being able to write urged me to read, in different genres, and compare the various ways authors plotted.

Not being able to write didn't solve my issues, but it's given me a new perception, along with some uncomfortable, enforced distance from my own work.

I'd call that a gift. Wouldn't you?

101 Must-Read Books

Filched from Lydia -- the ones I've read are in BOLD.

1. Bastard out of Carolina, by Dorothy Allison
2. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
3. The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
4. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
5. Waiting For Godot, by Samuel Beckett
6. Farenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
7. Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte
8. Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte
9. The Baron in the Trees, by Italo Calvino
10. The Stranger, by Albert Camus
11. Breakfast at Tiffany’s, by Truman Capote
12. Cool Salsa, ed Lori M. Carlson
13. Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
14. The Cherry Orchard, by Anton Chekov
15. The Awakening, by Kate Chopin
16. The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros
17. Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad
18. The Inferno, by Dante
19. A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens
20. Poems, by Emily Dickinson
21. Ragtime, by E.L. Doctorow
22. Crime and Punishment, by Fydor Doestoevsky
23. Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
24. The Beet Queen, by Louise Erdrich
25. As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner
26. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
27. Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank
28. Grendel, by John Gardner
29. Unsettling America, ed Maria Mazziotti Gillian and Jennifer Gillian
30. Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
31. Mythology, by Edith Hamilton
32. A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry
33. Tess of the D’Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy
34. The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
35. Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
36. A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway
37. The Holy Bible
38. The Odyssey, by Homer
39. Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
40. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
41. A Doll’s House, by Henrik Ibsen
42. Rhinoceros, by Eugene Ionesco
43. The World According to Garp, by John Irving
44. Daisy Miller, by Henry James
45. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce
46. The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka
47. The Liars’ Club, by Mary Karr
48. Schindler’s List, by Thomas Keneally
49. On the Road, by Jack Kerouac
50. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey
51. Annie John, by Jamaica Kincaid
52. The Painted Bird, by Jerzy Kosinski
53. Angels in America, by Tony Kushner
54. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
55. Angela’s Ashes, by Frank McCourt
56. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers
57. One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Garbriel Garcia Marquez
58. In Country, by Bobbi Ann Mason
59. Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller6
0. In Search of Color Everywhere, ed E. Ethelbert Miller
61. Beloved, by Toni Morrison
62. Harper’s Anthology of 20th Century Native American Poetry, ed Duane Niatum
63. The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien
64. The Complete Stories, by Flannery O’Connor
65. Long Day’s Journey Into Night, by Eugene O’Neill
66. 1984, by George Orwell
67. Metamorphoses, by Ovid
68. The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath
69. Tales, by Edgar Allan Poe
70. Hunger of Memory, by Richard Rodriguez
71. Earth Shattering Poems, ed. Liz Rosenberg
72. The Ghost Writer, by Philip Roth
73. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
74. No Exit, by Jean-Paul Sartre
75. Hamlet, by William Shakespeare
76. Macbeth, by William Shakespeare
77. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare
78. Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare
79. Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw
80. 100 Best-Loved Poems, ed Phillip Smith
81. Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, by Art Spiegelman
82. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
83. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson
84. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, by Tom Stoppard
85. The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan
86. Walden, by Henry David Thoreau
87. Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy
88. Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
89. Candide, by Voltaire
90. Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
91. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
92. The Double Helix, by James D. Watson
93. Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton
94. Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman
95. The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde
96. Our Town, by Thornton Wilder
97. The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams
98. This Boy’s Life: A Memoir, by Tobias Wolff
99. Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf
100. Native Son, by Richard Wright
101. The Autobiograpy of Malcolm X, by Malcolm X with Alex Haley

Today's Post . . .

Is at Romance Worth Killing For!