Favorite Books, A to Z

I've shamelessly borrowed this from Ronnica at Tale of a Kansas Girl, who borrowed it herself from someone who borrowed it from someone, etc. You get the idea. It's like a tag-free meme, with no rules at all. Well, besides the obvious of you know, using the alphabet. And picking book titles instead of movies or games or people. I guess there are some rules, but I'm not going to list them here. I trust you to figure them out.

Anyway, I've had this as an unposted entry for a few days, and I'd head back to it to whenever I thought of a new book. It was very fun. At first, I didn't think I'd be able to come up with books for each letter, and I'm still not pleased with all my choices...if you can only think of one title that starts with Z, well, that makes it your favorite even if it wasn't that good. And I'm *sure* I've left great books off here, picking an inferior selection just because I didn't think of it. But who cares? This was fun!

Anyone want to play along?

Without further ado, my list of books, from A to Z:

A - American Gods by Neil Gaiman. I know, can you believe I didn't pick The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon? It was a toss up!

B - The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. Runners up: Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut and Brave New World by Aldus Huxley. I know, I'm not going to get anywhere with this list if I don't start limiting my choices!

C - Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

D - Dead Until Dark (Book 1 in the Southern Vampire series) by Charlaine Harris. This series is light fun. It's my favorite of the vampire/romance books.

E - Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. This is the one book on this list that I wish EVERYONE would read!

F - Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

G - A Game of You (The Sandman, Volume 5) by Neil Gaiman. A stand-in for the whole Sandman series, though this does happen to be my favorite story line.

H - The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

I - Imajica by Clive Barker

J - John Adams by David McCullough

K - Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

L - Lost in a Good Book (Book 2 of the Thursday Next series) by Jasper Fforde. This book is standing in for the whole series. The first book, The Eyre Affair, just couldn't compete with my favorite book of all-time for the "E" slot!

M - Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

N - Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

O - The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

P - Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Q - Queen of Sorcery (Book 2 in The Belgariad series) by David Eddings. Pickin's were slim for Q, though I do honestly like this series.

R - The Road to Wellville by T. C. Boyle

S - Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

T - The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

U - Uglies by Scott Westerfeld. The whole series is good, though I liked this, the first book, best.

V - Violent Cases by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean. Good, though not my favorite of their work. But special for being the first time they worked together, and it wasn't like there was a lot of competition for the letter V. What was I going to pick? Visions of Sugar Plums?

W - The Watchmen by Alan Moore. Or perhaps The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami. They're so different, it's hard to pick. I swear, I'm trying to limit myself to one choice per letter!

X - Xenocide by Orson Scott Card. Another book in the Ender series. Outstanding, and I would have picked this even if it didn't happen to be the only book I can think of that starts with the letter X.

Y - The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

Z - Zodiac by Neal Stephenson. This book was just okay, but there wasn't really any competition for book titles starting with Z! At least not that I could think of!

That was fun! Though I was thinking what an easy job of it any Sue Grafton super-fans would have!

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Current NaNo Word Count: 28,446

Current NaNo Attitude: Had a fun write-in last night, and hit my highest single day word count of the year (3,324 words yesterday...I know, that's not huge, but I've been trying not to burn out this year). I'm not going to have much writing time today, though, but I'll deal. Hopefully I'll still be able to hit my goal of 2k words today so I don't eat into the cushion I built up yesterday. But if I don't quite make it, well, I do have that cushion from yesterday :)

We did some 20 minute word sprints yesterday at the write-in. The idea is that you write full-out for 20 minutes, then see who "won". I'm in a class by myself, and it's right in the middle of the pack. Two of the women are far better typists than I...they both hit over 1,000 words in twenty minutes. I just can't type that fast. I've been doing my own 20 minute word sprints, and my very best are in the mid-seven hundreds. That's if I type full-out and never have to stop for word choice, or to think about what is going to happen next. Most of my word sprints end up in the 550-650 range. But there's no one at the write-in who writes at that pace...I'm stuck right between the people who write between 350-450, then the people who write 800-1,000. I sure wish there was someone there in my general typing skill range! And I think perhaps I better work on my speed typing skills sometime after November. Sometimes my mind is working faster than my fingers, and I wish my fingers could keep up! Though perhaps it's best that my fingers force me to slow down. I think quality might take an even bigger hit than it's already taken if I could type more quickly!