And I like it that way.

But things change.

I will be going back to work next month. I will have to leave my bubble. This is a painful realization for me, so I’m taking baby steps. First step? Updating my blog. I’m technically still inside my bubble, but I’m shifting focus (temporarily, of course) away from my baby, my BlackBerry and my TV to something else. Something that requires thought. So I’m here. Updating. And cleaning out my email inbox.

It’s a slow process. But I’m getting there.

Oh, did I mention I gave birth to my baby girl? (I’ll have a post about that soon!) She’s 12 weeks old today. Hence my bubble. I’m completely wrapped up in being a Mommy and spending all my time with this little miracle. But I know I can be a fabulous Mommy and do other things to (like maintain my blog)…I just needed to be reminded of it (I was motivated to update after reading Katie’s recent posts at Confessions of a Young Married Couple).

So. Blog updated. Bubble burst.

This prompt makes me particularly happy because the first date I went on in a boy’s car just so happened to be my first date with my now hubby. The hubs and I started dating in high school – I was 16 and he was 17. He also had a driver’s license AND a car (well, technically, it was his Dad’s car at the time, but it is now his car). *swoon*

OK, so the actual date. I had to think long and hard about this because it seems like ages ago, but the details all came flooding back to me once I starting thinking about it. Hubs didn’t have my telephone number, so he asked a mutual friend to give it to him. He calls my house and we chat for a while. Now, hubs has a very common name. So common that I knew several people with the same name in high school whom I was also friends with. And if I’m completely honest, I definitely thought he was one of those other friends at first. It took me a little while, but I realized who I was really talking to and I was completely flabbergasted. I had a crush on hubs for quite some time, but we were most definitely in the “friend” zone and he wasn’t taking any of my hints that I wanted to take the relationship to a different level (my hubby is not the most astute guy when it comes to flirting). So in my shock, I panic. I told him I had to go and I would talk to him later.

“Wait! So the real reason I was calling….ummmm…what are you doing tonight?” *silence on my end* “Ummm…what I mean…ummm…did you want to go to the movies with me?” *nervous laughter from me* “Ummm…so is that a yes?”

I must have babbled something along the lines of an affirmative response, because the hubs told me he would pick me up later that night. (Did I mention he had a CAR?! This was a HUGE step for me.) So the rest of my day went by quickly – I was in my high school’s musical, so I had practice that afternoon. The mutual friend who gave hubs my number? Yeah, he was in the musical, too. So I told him everything that happened. He warned me not to get my hopes up because…well…hubs can be kind of a jerk. So I should be prepared for him to be late and not to pay for me. Hmmm. I prepared myself.

Well, hubs was NOT late. In fact, he was early. I was still finishing getting dressed when I peaked out my window and saw “Tally” (that’s our nickname for his car). *panic* I wasn’t even CLOSE to ready. Somehow, I managed to get dressed, do my hair and makeup and fly down the stairs without making him wait too long. But I couldn’t find my damn coat (it was January). Finally, I located my jacket and said, “sorry about that! I have everything now.”

Hubs looks at me. “No, you don’t.” *internal panic* Did I forget something? Was there something wrong with my outfit? I had money in my pocket, I didn’t need my purse…what could it be????

From behind his back, he drew a single red rose. He handed it to me. “NOW you have everything.” *swoon*

(Side note – mutual friend was soooooooooo wrong about hubby)

I quickly hug him and thank him for the flower. We walk to his car and he held the door open for me. *more swooning* He gets into the driver’s seat and off we go. Now, every other date I had ever been on; someone ELSE was driving. Usually a parent. Or another friend. I didn’t have a license. Most of the guys I had dated didn’t have a license. This was the first time I was in a car, on a date with a guy who was DRIVING the car. We were completely alone. Shit. There was no buffer. No one else to talk to. We needed to talk to each other. And that makes me VERY nervous.

So what do I do? Ask him if HE’S nervous! He says he isn’t, I accuse him of lying to make himself look better and tell him he’s TOTALLY nervous (great strategy, right?). This goes on for most of the ride to the movie theater. Finally, I realize this isn’t the best course of conversation, so I ask him what movie he wanted to see. We decided to see Antitrust.

I’ll spare you the details about the movie (not terrible, not great, but at least it gave us stuff to talk about after). When the movie ended, we head out of the theater to HIS car. (It was amazing not to have to call a parent or wait for a friend to come and get us!) Then I realized I left my coat in the aforementioned car. It was January. And freezing. Hubby was a semi-jerk and made a comment about how silly it was for me to leave my coat in the car, but he saved himself by wrapping his arm around me as we hurried to the car.

Want to know the other great thing about the hubs having his own car? We could go wherever we wanted! Instead of going straight home, we decided to extend our first date by getting milkshakes at a local 50s diner. We spent the car ride there discussing the movie, then talked about anything and everything over our delicious milkshakes. Finally, he drove me home, kissed me goodnight on the stairs and I watched his car drive away from the window. This was the first of many nights where I would look out the window to see his car pulling up to take me out and watch him drive away after spending time together.

I’m big. I understand this. I’m well aware that even though I was on my way to my goal weight prior to pregnancy (diet and exercise were definitely working out for me), all hopes of losing weight went out the window the second that test came back positive. And you know what? I was totally okay with that. It’s not healthy to lose weight during pregnancy, and I wanted to stay as healthy as possible so Future Baby could be as healthy as possible.

But, like many preggers out there, I was very ill during my first tri-mester. I lost weight. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t eat much, and what I could eat,  I couldn’t keep down. Therefore, I lost weight. Granted, it wasn’t too much. Nothing scary. Nothing that would harm Future Baby. But initially, I lost weight.

Weight loss ended as soon as my morning sickness did. Finally, I could eat and not be running to the bathroom five minutes later! It was exciting! And I may have overdone it a bit. Because I started to gain weight. Not a lot at first; but all those fast-food runs and ice cream cravings do add up. And add up they did. Slowly at first, then a little bit faster and a little bit more. I actually didn’t realize how much weight I had put on; I don’t own a scale. And though I started to look more pregnant (i.e. bigger boobs and belly, along with swelling legs and ankles), I couldn’t put a number on how many pounds this pregnancy was packing on to me.

Until I went to the doctor for a checkup during my second trimester. And I had a meltdown on the scale. I had reached the number I had vowed never to reach. And though it terrified me then, I have no issue with it now, so I’m going to put it out there: I was officially *gasp* 200 pounds. Now, this isn’t much if you’re a 6-foot tall muscular man; but I’m a not-so-muscular 5’4″ woman. Two hundred pounds is a lot for my frame. And it’s a big, scary number to me.

So like I said; meltdown on the scale. Thankfully, the nurse was amazing and calmed me down quickly. She reassured me that all women gain different amounts of weight during pregnancy and that if gaining this amount of weight was an issue, the doctors would work with me to come up with a solution. Amazingly, the doctor didn’t even seem fazed at the number. This comes down to a number of factors:

1. All of my vitals were fine.
2. All of Future Baby’s vitals were fine.
3. Even though I had all the symptoms, my gestational diabetes test came back negative.
4. I have an auto-immune condition invovling my thyroid, which leads to my body putting weight on easily for no apparent reason (and makes it ridiculously hard for me to lose weight as well).
5. I had ridiculous swelling in my legs, hands and ankles since the first month of pregnancy, so it was obvious my body was already retaining a lot of fluid.

Since the doc wasn’t all that worried, and Future Baby has received a clean bill of health at every checkup, I decided not to worry about the weight. Seriously. I was going to embrace my changing body; after all, it’s changing to accomodate the child growing inside me…and that’s freaking amazing. As long as both Future Baby and I were happy and healthy, my weight was not going to matter to me.

Do you want to know who it DOES matter to? EVERYONE ELSE. Not even kidding. I had been warned that having a baby bump will somehow transform your family, friends, co-workers and complete strangers into know-it-alls who graciously impart their opinions and wisdom onto you, whether you want it or not. So I was somewhat prepared for that. What I was NOT prepared for was all those people’s judgemental comments regarding my weight.

“Wow, you’ve gotten so big so quickly!” “Wow! You’re HUGE!” “You MUST be due in a week or two; you’re so BIG!” “What are you still doing working? Aren’t you ready to deliver in a few days?” “Are you sure it’s not twins?” And more. I’ve heard them all. Then there’s the judgemental comments about my eating habits. FYI – it’s perfectly normal to have several meals and snacks throughout the day; in fact, it’s healthy to do that. Also, the only dietary restrictions my doc gave me were no raw food and no alcohol, so don’t begrudge me my glass of Coke. As long as Future Baby and I are healthy, I don’t know what it is everyone is so concerned about.

It’s funny; the second I decided to stop caring about my weight, it was all anyone could comment on (minus a select group of loving, supportive people). I’m still not sure how to react to those comments. Sometimes I get offended. Sometimes I laugh. Sometimes I’m just speechless. But I’m learning to let it go. And I’ve definitely learned weight is a personal matter and anyone else’s weight is none of my business.

Total Progress: 33 of 20.

1. 1984 by George Orwell
2. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
3. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
4. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
5. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
6. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
7. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
8. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
9. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
10. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
11. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
12. Animal Farm by George Orwell
13. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
14. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
15. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
16. Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling
17. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
18. Ulysses by James Joyce
19. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
20. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
21. East of Eden by John Steinbeck
22. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
23. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
24. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
25. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
26. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
27. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
28. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
29. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
30. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
31. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
32. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
33. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
34. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
35. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
36. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
37. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
38. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
39. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
40. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
41. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
42. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
43. The Stranger by Albert Camus
44. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
45. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
46. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
47. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
48. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
49. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
50. Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust
51. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
52. Watership Down by Richard Adams
53. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
54. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
55. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
56. His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman
57. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
58. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
59. Middlemarch by George Eliot
60. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
61. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
62. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
63. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
64. The Stand by Stephen King
65. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
66. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
67. Dracula by Bram Stoker
68. The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
69. Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
70. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
71. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
72. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
73. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
74. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
75. Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
76. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
77. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
78. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
79. Dune by Frank Herbert
80. The Trial by Franz Kafka
81. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
82. Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
83. Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
84. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
85. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
86. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
87. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
88. Persuasion by Jane Austen
89. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
90. Atonement by Ian McEwan
91. Emma by Jane Austen
92. Beloved by Toni Morrison
93. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
94. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
95. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
96. I, Claudius by Robert Graves
97. Light in August by William Faulkner
98. Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
99. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
100. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Side note – I’m not quite sure why I’m not getting 1,000 when I count out the books on the list. Any ideas? The list on the web site isn’t numbered, so I was having a hard time comparing them.

Total Progress: 55 out of 20

1. Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
2. Money by Martin Amis
3. The Information by Martin Amis
4. The Bottle Factory Outing by Beryl Bainbridge
5. According to Queeney by Beryl Bainbridge
6. Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes
7. A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes
8. Augustus Carp, Esq. by Himself: Being the Autobiography of a Really Good Man by Henry Howarth Bashford
9. Molloy by Samuel Beckett
10. Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm
11. The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
12. The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
13. Queen Lucia by EF Benson
14. The Ascent of Rum Doodle by WE Bowman
15. A Good Man in Africa by William Boyd
16. The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury
17. No Bed for Bacon by Caryl Brahms and SJ Simon
18. Illywhacker by Peter Carey
19. A Season in Sinji by JL Carr
20. The Harpole Report by JL Carr
21. The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington
22. Mister Johnson by Joyce Cary
23. The Horse’s Mouth by Joyce Cary
24. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
25. The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin
26. Just William by Richmal Crompton
27. The Provincial Lady by EM Delafield
28. Slouching Towards Kalamazoo by Peter De Vries
29. The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
30. Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens
31. Jacques the Fatalist and his Master by Denis Diderot
32. A Fairy Tale of New York by JP Donleavy
33. The Commitments by Roddy Doyle
34. Ennui by Maria Edgeworth
35. Cheese by Willem Elsschot
36. Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding
37. Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding
38. Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
39. Caprice by Ronald Firbank
40. Bouvard et Pécuchet by Gustave Flaubert
41. Towards the End of the Morning by Michael Frayn
42. The Polygots by William Gerhardie
43. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
44. Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
45. Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov
46. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
47. Brewster’s Millions by Richard Greaves (George Barr McCutcheon)
48. Squire Haggard’s Journal by Michael Green
49. Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene
50. Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene
51. Diary of a Nobody by George Grossmith
52. The Little World of Don Camillo by Giovanni Guareschi
53. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
54. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
55. Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House by Eric Hodgkins
56. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
57. I Served the King of England by Bohumil Hrabal
58. The Lecturer’s Tale by James Hynes
59. Mr Norris Changes Trains by Christopher Isherwood
60. The Mighty Walzer Howard by Jacobson
61. Pictures from an Institution by Randall Jarrell
62. Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome
63. Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
64. The Castle by Franz Kafka
65. Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor
66. Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov
67. The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester
68. L’Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane (Gil Blas) Alain-René Lesage
69. Changing Places by David Lodge
70. Nice Work by David Lodge
71. The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay
72. England, Their England by AG Macdonell
73. Whisky Galore by Compton Mackenzie
74. Memoirs of a Gnostic Dwarf by David Madsen
75. Cakes and Ale – Or, the Skeleton in the Cupboard by W Somerset Maugham
76. Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
77. Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney
78. Puckoon by Spike Milligan
79. The Restraint of Beasts by Magnus Mills
80. Charade by John Mortimer
81. Titmuss Regained by John Mortimer
82. Under the Net by Iris Murdoch
83. Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
84. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
85. Fireflies by Shiva Naipaul
86. The Sacred Book of the Werewolf by Victor Pelevin
87. La Disparition by Georges Perec
88. Les Revenentes by Georges Perec
89. La Vie Mode d’Emploi by Georges Perec
90. My Search for Warren Harding by Robert Plunkett
91. A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell
92. A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell
93. Excellent Women by Barbara Pym
94. Less Than Angels by Barbara Pym
95. Zazie in the Metro by Raymond Queneau
96. Solomon Gursky Was Here by Mordecai Richler
97. Alms for Oblivion by Simon Raven
98. Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth
99. The Westminster Alice by Saki
100. The Unbearable Bassington by Saki
101. Hurrah for St Trinian’s by Ronald Searle
102. Great Apes by Will Self
103. Porterhouse Blue by Tom Sharpe
104. Blott on the Landscape by Tom Sharpe
105. Office Politics by Wilfrid Sheed
106. Belles Lettres Papers: A Novel by Charles Simmons
107. Moo by Jane Smiley
108. Topper Takes a Trip by Thorne Smith
109. The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom by Tobias Smollett
110. The Adventures of Roderick Random by Tobias Smollett
111. The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle by Tobias Smollett
112. The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by Tobias Smollett
113. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
114. The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark
115. The Driver’s Seat by Muriel Spark
116. Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark
117. A Far Cry from Kensington by Muriel Spark
118. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne
119. White Man Falling by Mike Stocks
120. Handley Cross by RS Surtees
121. A Tale of a Tub by Jonathan Swift
122. Penrod by Booth Tarkington
123. The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray
124. Before Lunch by Angela Thirkell
125. Tropic of Ruislip by Leslie Thomas
126. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
127. Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope
128. Venus on the Half-Shell by Kilgore Trout
129. The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain
130. The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike
131. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
132. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
133. Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh
134. Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
135. Black Mischief by Evelyn Waugh
136. Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
137. The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh
138. A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh
139. The Life and Loves of a She-Devil by Fay Weldon
140. Tono Bungay by HG Wells
141. Molesworth by Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle
142. The Wimbledon Poisoner by Nigel Williams
143. Anglo-Saxon Attitudes by Angus Wilson
144. Something Fresh by PG Wodehouse
145. Piccadilly Jim by PG Wodehouse
146. Thank You Jeeves by PG Wodehouse
147. Heavy Weather by PG Wodehouse
148. The Code of the Woosters by PG Wodehouse
149. Joy in the Morning by PG Wodehouse
150. The Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren
151. Fantomas by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre
152. The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler
153. Epitaph for a Spy by Eric Ambler
154. Journey into Fear by Eric Ambler
155. The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
156. Trent’s Last Case by EC Bentley
157. The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley
158. The Beast Must Die by Nicholas Blake
159. Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary E Braddon
160. The Neon Rain by James Lee Burke
161. The Tin Roof Blowdown by James Lee Burke
162. The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
163. Greenmantle by John Buchan
164. The Asphalt Jungle by WR Burnett
165. The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M Cain
166. Double Indemnity by James M Cain
167. True History of the Ned Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
168. The Hollow Man by John Dickson Carr
169. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
170. The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
171. No Orchids for Miss Blandish by James Hadley Chase
172. The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers
173. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
174. The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
175. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
176. The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie
177. The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie
178. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
179. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
180. A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle
181. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
182. The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle
183. The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon
184. The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad
185. Under Western Eyes by Joseph Conrad
186. Postmortem by Patricia Cornwell
187. The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
188. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
189. Poetic Justice by Amanda Cross
190. The Ipcress File by Len Deighton
191. Last Seen Wearing by Colin Dexter
192. The Remorseful Day by Colin Dexter
193. Ratking by Michael Dibdin
194. Dead Lagoon by Michael Dibdin
195. Dirty Tricks by Michael Dibdin
196. A Rich Full Death by Michael Dibdin
197. Vendetta by Michael Dibdin
198. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
199. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
200. My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier
201. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
202. The Pledge by Friedrich Durrenmatt
203. The Crime of Father Amado by José Maria de Eça de Queiroz
204. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
205. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
206. LA Confidential by James Ellroy
207. The Big Nowhere by James Ellroy
208. A Quiet Belief in Angels by RJ Ellory
209. Sanctuary by William Faulkner
210. Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
211. Goldfinger by Ian Fleming
212. You Only Live Twice by Ian Fleming
213. The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth
214. Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
215. A Gun for Sale by Graham Greene
216. The Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene
217. The Third Man by Graham Greene
218. A Time to Kill by John Grisham
219. The King of Torts by John Grisham
220. Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton
221. The Glass Key by Dashiell Hammett
222. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
223. Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
224. The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett
225. Fatherland by Robert Harris
226. Black Sunday by Thomas Harris
227. Red Dragon by Thomas Harris
228. Tourist Season by Carl Hiaasen
229. The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V Higgins
230. Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith
231. The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
232. Bones and Silence by Reginald Hill
233. A Rage in Harlem by Chester Himes
234. Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg
235. Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household
236. Malice Aforethought by Francis Iles
237. Silence of the Grave by Arnadur Indridason
238. Death at the President’s Lodging by Michael Innes
239. Cover Her Face by PD James
240. A Taste for Death by PD James
241. Friday the Rabbi Slept Late by Harry Kemelman
242. Misery by Stephen King
243. Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King
244. Kim by Rudyard Kipling
245. The Constant Gardener by John le Carre
246. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carre
247. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carre
248. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
249. 52 Pick-up by Elmore Leonard
250. Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard
251. Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
252. The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum
253. Cop Hater by Ed McBain
254. No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
255. Enduring Love by Ian McEwan
256. Sidetracked by Henning Mankell
257. Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley
258. The Great Impersonation by E Phillips Oppenheim
259. The Strange Borders of Palace Crescent by E Phillips Oppenheim
260. My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk
261. Toxic Shock by Sara Paretsky
262. Blacklist by Sara Paretsky
263. Nineteen Seventy Four by David Peace
264. Nineteen Seventy Seven by David Peace
265. The Big Blowdown by George Pelecanos
266. Hard Revolution by George Pelecanos
267. Lush Life by Richard Price
268. The Godfather by Mario Puzo
269. V by Thomas Pynchon
270. The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
271. Black and Blue by Ian Rankin
272. The Hanging Gardens by Ian Rankin
273. Exit Music by Ian Rankin
274. Judgment in Stone by Ruth Rendell
275. Live Flesh by Ruth Rendell
276. Dissolution by CJ Sansom
277. Whose Body? by Dorothy L Sayers
278. Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy Le Sayers
279. The Madman of Bergerac by Georges Simenon
280. The Blue Room by Georges Simenon
281. The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo
282. Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith
283. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
284. The League of Frightened Men by Rex Stout
285. Perfume by Patrick Suskind
286. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
287. The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
288. The Getaway by Jim Thompson
289. Pudd’nhead Wilson by Mark Twain
290. A Dark-Adapted Eye by Barbara Vine
291. A Fatal inversion by Barbara Vine
292. King Solomon’s Carpet by Barbara Vine
293. The Four Just Men by Edgar Wallace
294. Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
295. Native Son by Richard Wright
296. Therese Raquin by Emile Zola
297. The Face of Another by Kobo Abe
298. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
299. Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson
300. Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood
301. Epileptic by David B
302. Room Temperature by Nicholson Baker
303. Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac
304. Le Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac
305. The Crow Road by Iain Banks
306. The L Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks
307. Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
308. Malone Dies by Samuel Beckett
309. A Legacy by Sybille Bedford
310. Herzog by Saul Bellow
311. Humboldt’s Gift by Saul Bellow
312. The Old Wives’ Tale by Arnold Bennett
313. G by John Berger
314. Extinction by Thomas Bernhard
315. Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles
316. Any Human Heart by William Boyd
317. The Death of Virgil by Hermann Broch
318. Evelina by Fanny Burney
319. The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler
320. The Sound of my Voice by Ron Butlin
321. The Outsider by Albert Camus
322. Wise Children by Angela Carter
323. The Professor’s House by Willa Cather
324. The Wapshot Chronicle by John Cheever
325. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
326. Les Enfants Terrible by Jean Cocteau
327. The Vagabond by Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette
328. Manservant and Maidservant by Ivy Compton-Burnett
329. Being Dead by Jim Crace
330. Quarantine by Jim Crace
331. The Mandarins by Simone de Beauvoir
332. Roxana by Daniel Defoe
333. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
334. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
335. My New York Diary by Julie Doucet
336. The Millstone by Margaret Drabble
337. My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell
338. Silence by Shusaku Endo
339. The Gathering by Anne Enright
340. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
341. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
342. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
343. The Sportswriter by Richard Ford
344. Howards End by EM Forster
345. Spies by Michael Frayn
346. Hideous Kinky by Esther Freud
347. The Man of Property by John Galsworthy
348. Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell
349. The Immoralist by Andre Gide
350. The Vatican Cellars by Andre Gide
351. The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith
352. The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
353. Hunger by Knut Hamsun
354. The Shrimp and the Anemone by LP Hartley
355. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
356. Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse
357. Narziss and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse
358. The Three Paradoxes by Paul Hornschemeier
359. Tom Brown’s Schooldays by Thomas Hughes
360. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
361. The Ambassadors by Henry James
362. Washington Square by Henry James
363. The Tortoise and the Hare by Elizabeth Jenkins
364. The Unfortunates by BS Johnson
365. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
366. Ulysses by James Joyce
367. Good Behaviour by Molly Keane
368. Memet my Hawk by Yasar Kemal
369. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
370. The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi
371. Sons and Lovers by DH Lawrence
372. Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee
373. Invitation to the Waltz by Rosamond Lehmann
374. The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
375. How Green was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn
376. Martin Eden by Jack London
377. Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
378. The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers
379. Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz
380. The Assistant by Bernard Malamud
381. Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann
382. The Chateau by William Maxwell
383. The Rector’s Daughter by FM Mayor
384. The Ordeal of Richard Feverek by George Meredith
385. Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry
386. Sour Sweet by Timothy Mo
387. The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne by Brian Moore
388. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
389. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
390. Who Do You Think You Are? by Alice Munro
391. The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch
392. The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil
393. A House for Mr Biswas by VS Naipaul
394. At-Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O’Brien
395. Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness by Kezaburo Oe
396. The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
397. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
398. My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok
399. The Good Companions by JB Priestley
400. The Shipping News by E Annie Proulx
401. Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust
402. A Married Man by Piers Paul Read
403. Pointed Roofs by Dorothy Richardson
404. The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney by Henry Handel Richardson
405. Call it Sleep by Henry Roth
406. Julie, ou la Nouvelle Heloise by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
407. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
408. The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
409. Alberta and Jacob by Cora Sandel
410. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
411. Unless by Carol Shields
412. We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
413. The Three Sisters by May Sinclair
414. The Family Moskat or The Manor or The Estate by Isaac Bashevis Singer
415. A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
416. On Beauty by Zadie Smith
417. The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead
418. East of Eden by John Steinbeck
419. Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield
420. Confessions of Zeno by Italo Svevo
421. The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington
422. Angel by Elizabeth Taylor
423. Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson
424. The Blackwater Lightship by Colm Toibin
425. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend
426. Death in Summer by William Trevor
427. Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev
428. Peace in War by Miguel de Unamuno
429. The Rabbit Omnibus by John Updike
430. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
431. Jimmy Corrigan, The Smarest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware
432. Morvern Callar by Alan Warner
433. The History of Mr Polly by HG Wells
434. The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West
435. Frost in May by Antonia White
436. The Tree of Man by Patrick White
437. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
438. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
439. I’ll Go to Bed at Noon by Gerard Woodward
440. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
441. Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
442. Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss
443. Le Grand Meaulnes by Henri Alain-Fournier
444. Dom Casmurro Joaquim by Maria Machado de Assis
445. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
446. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
447. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
448. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
449. Emma by Jane Austen
450. Persuasion by Jane Austen
451. Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
452. Nightwood by Djuna Barnes
453. The Garden of the Finzi-Cortinis by Giorgio Bassani
454. Love for Lydia by HE Bates
455. More Die of Heartbreak by Saul Bellow
456. Lorna Doone by RD Blackmore
457. The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
458. The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen
459. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
460. Vilette by Charlotte Bronte
461. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
462. Look At Me by Anita Brookner
463. Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown
464. Possession by AS Byatt
465. Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote
466. Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey
467. A Month in the Country by JL Carr
468. My Antonia by Willa Cather
469. A Lost Lady by Willa Cather
470. Claudine a l’ecole by Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette
471. Cheri by Sidonie-Gabrielle Collette
472. Victory: An Island Tale by Joseph Conrad
473. The Princess of Cleves by Madame de Lafayette
474. The Parasites by Daphne du Maurier
475. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
476. The Lover by Marguerite Duras
477. Adam Bede by George Eliot
478. Daniel Deronda by George Eliot
479. The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
480. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
481. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
482. Tender is the Night by F Scott Fitzgerald
483. The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald
484. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
485. The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
486. A Room with a View by EM Forster
487. The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles
488. The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico
489. Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell
490. Strait is the Gate by Andre Gide
491. Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon
492. The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang Goethe
493. Living by Henry Green
494. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
495. The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall
496. Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
497. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
498. Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
499. The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy
500. The Go-Between by LP Hartley
501. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
502. The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard
503. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
504. The Infamous Army by Georgette Heyer
505. Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer
506. The Swimming-Pool Library by Alan Hollinghurst
507. Green Mansions: A Romance of the Tropical Forest by WH Hudson
508. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
509. Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley
510. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
511. Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
512. The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
513. The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek
514. Beauty and Saddness by Yasunari Kawabata
515. The Far Pavillions by Mary Margaret Kaye
516. Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis
517. Moon over Africa by Pamela Kent
518. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera
519. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
520. Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre-Ambroise-Francois Choderlos de Laclos
521. Lady Chatterley’s Lover by DH Lawrence
522. The Rainbow by DH Lawrence
523. Women in Love by DH Lawrence
524. The Echoing Grove by Rosamond Lehmann
525. The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann
526. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos
527. Zami by Audre Lorde
528. Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie
529. Samarkand by Amin Maalouf
530. Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
531. The Silent Duchess by Dacia Maraini
532. A Heart So White by Javier Marias
533. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
534. Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham
535. So Long, See you Tomorrow by William Maxwell
536. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
537. Atonement by Ian McEwan
538. The Child in Time by Ian McEwan
539. The Egoist by George Meredith
540. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
541. Patience and Sarah by Isabel Miller
542. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
543. The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford
544. Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
545. Arturo’s Island by Elsa Morante
546. Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
547. Lolita, or the Confessions of a White Widowed Male by Vladimir Nabokov
548. The Painter of Signs by RK Narayan
549. Delta of Venus by Anais Nin
550. All Souls Day by Cees Nooteboom
551. The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
552. Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
553. Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost
554. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
555. Maurice Guest by Henry Handel Richardson
556. Pamela by Samuel Richardson
557. Clarissa by Samuel Richardson
558. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
559. Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan
560. Ali and Nino by Kurban Said
561. Light Years by James Salter
562. A Sport and a Passtime by James Salter
563. The Reader by Benhardq Schlink (Important note: I think the author’s name is actually spelled “Bernhard Schlink”)
564. The Reluctant Orphan by Aara Seale
565. Love Story by Eric Segal
566. Enemies, a Love Story by Isaac Bashevis Singer
567. At Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept by Elizabeth Smart
568. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
569. The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif
570. Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
571. Waterland by Graham Swift
572. Diary of a Mad Old Man by Junichiro Tanizaki
573. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
574. Music and Silence by Rose Tremain
575. First Love by Ivan Turgenev
576. Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
577. The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler
578. The Night Watch by Sarah Waters
579. The Graduate by Charles Webb
580. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
581. The Passion by Jeanette Winterson
582. East Lynne by Ellen Wood
583. Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
584. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
585. Non-Stop by Brian W Aldiss
586. Foundation by Isaac Asimov
587. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
588. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
589. In the Country of Last Things by Paul Auster
590. The Drowned World by JG Ballard
591. Crash by JG Ballard
592. Millennium People by JG Ballard
593. The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
594. Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks
595. Weaveworld by Clive Barker
596. Darkmans by Nicola Barker
597. The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter
598. Darwin’s Radio by Greg Bear
599. Vathek by William Beckford
600. The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
601. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
602. Lost Souls by Poppy Z Brite
603. Wieland by Charles Brockden Brown
604. Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys
605. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
606. The Coming Race by EGEL Bulwer-Lytton
607. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
608. The End of the World News by Anthony Burgess
609. A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
610. Naked Lunch by William Burroughs
611. Kindred by Octavia Butler
612. Erewhon by Samuel Butler
613. The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino
614. The Influence by Ramsey Campbell
615. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
616. Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll
617. Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter
618. The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter
619. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
620. The Man who was Thursday by GK Chesterton
621. Childhood’s End by Arthur C Clarke
622. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
623. Hello Summer, Goodbye by Michael G Coney
624. Girlfriend in a Coma by Douglas Coupland
625. House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski
626. Pig Tales by Marie Darrieussecq
627. The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R Delaney
628. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K Dick
629. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick
630. Camp Concentration by Thomas M Disch
631. Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco
632. Under the Skin by Michel Faber
633. The Magus by John Fowles
634. American Gods by Neil Gaiman
635. Red Shift by Alan Garner
636. Neuromancer by William Gibson
637. Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
638. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
639. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
640. Light by M John Harrison
641. The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
642. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A Heinlein
643. Dune by Frank L Herbert
644. The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse
645. Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban
646. The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg
647. Atomised by Michel Houellebecq
648. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
649. The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro
650. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
651. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
652. The Children of Men by PD James
653. After London; or, Wild England by Richard Jefferies
654. Bold as Love by Gwyneth Jones
655. The Trial by Franz Kafka
656. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
657. The Shining by Stephen King
658. The Victorian Chaise-longue by Marghanita Laski
659. Uncle Silas by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
660. The Earthsea Series by Ursula Le Guin
661. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin
662. Solaris by Stanislaw Lem
663. Memoirs of a Survivor by Doris Lessing
664. The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis
665. The Monk by Matthew Lewis
666. A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay
667. The Night Sessions by Ken Macleod
668. Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel
669. Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith
670. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
671. Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin
672. The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe
673. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
674. Ascent by Jed Mercurio
675. The Scar by China Mieville
676. Ingenious Pain by Andrew Miller
677. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M Miller Jr
678. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
679. Mother London by Michael Moorcock
680. News from Nowhere by William Morris
681. Beloved by Toni Morrison
682. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
683. Ada or Ardor by Vladimir Nabokov
684. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
685. Ringworld by Larry Niven
686. Vurt by Jeff Noon
687. The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien
688. The Famished Road by Ben Okri
689. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
690. Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
691. Nightmare Abbey by Thomas Love Peacock
692. Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
693. The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and CM Kornbluth
694. A Glastonbury Romance by John Cowper Powys
695. The Discworld Series by Terry Pratchett
696. The Prestige by Christopher Priest
697. His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
698. Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais
699. The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe
700. Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds
701. The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson
702. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by JK Rowling
703. Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
704. The Female Man by Joanna Russ
705. Air by Geoff Ryman
706. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
707. Blindness by Jose Saramago
708. How the Dead Live by Will Self
709. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
710. Hyperion by Dan Simmons
711. Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon
712. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
713. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
714. Dracula by Bram Stoker
715. The Insult by Rupert Thomson
716. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
717. The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
718. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain
719. Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
720. The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
721. Institute Benjamenta by Robert Walser
722. Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
723. Affinity by Sarah Waters
724. The Time Machine by HG Wells
725. The War of the Worlds by HG Wells
726. The Sword in the Stone by TH White
727. The Old Men at the Zoo by Angus Wilson
728. The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
729. Orlando by Virginia Woolf
730. Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
731. The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham
732. We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
733. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
734. Anthills of the Savannah by Chinua Achebe
735. London Fields by Martin Amis
736. Untouchable by Mulk Raj Anand
737. Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
738. La Comedie Humaine by Honore de Balzac
739. They Were Counted by Miklos Banffy
740. A Kind of Loving by Stan Barstow
741. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
742. Oroonoko, or The Royal Slave by Aphra Behn
743. Clayhanger by Arnold Bennett
744. The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen
745. Room at the Top by John Braine
746. A Dry White Season by Andre Brink
747. Shirley by Charlotte Bronte
748. Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess
749. The Virgin in the Garden by AS Byatt
750. Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell
751. The Plague by Albert Camus
752. The Kingdom of this World by Alejo Carpentier
753. What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe
754. Disgrace by JM Coetzee
755. Waiting for the Barbarians by JM Coeztee
756. Microserfs by Douglas Coupland
757. Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
758. Underworld by Don DeLillo
759. White Noise by Don DeLillo
760. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
761. Bleak House by Charles Dickens
762. Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens
763. Hard Times by Charles Dickens
764. Little Dorritt by Charles Dickens
765. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
766. Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion
767. Sybil or The Two Nations by Benjamin Disraeli
768. Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin
769. The Book of Daniel by EL Doctorow
770. Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
771. The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
772. USA by John Dos Passos
773. Sister Carrie by Theodor Dreiser
774. Castle Rackrent by Maria Edgeworth
775. Middlemarch by George Eliot
776. Silas Marner by George Eliot
777. The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
778. Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert
779. Effi Briest by Theodore Fontane
780. Independence Day by Richard Ford
781. A Passage to India by EM Forster
782. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
783. The Recognitions by William Gaddis
784. Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
785. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
786. The Counterfeiters by Andre Gide
787. The Odd Women by George Gissing
788. New Grub Street by George Gissing
789. July’s People by Nadine Gordimer
790. Mother by Maxim Gorky
791. Lanark by Alastair Gray
792. Love on the Dole by Walter Greenwood
793. The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
794. A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines
795. The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
796. South Riding by Winifred Holtby
797. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
798. Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood
799. Chronicle in Stone by Ismael Kadare
800. How Late it Was, How Late by James Kelman
801. The Leopard by Giuseppi di Lampedusa
802. A Girl in Winter by Philip Larkin
803. Passing by Nella Larsen
804. The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing
805. Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
806. Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis
807. Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
808. Absolute Beginners by Colin MacInnes
809. The Group by Mary McCarthy
810. Amongst Women by John McGahern
811. The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
812. Of Love & Hunger by Julian Maclaren-Ross
813. Remembering Babylon by David Malouf
814. The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
815. The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni
816. Bel-Ami by Guy de Maupassant
817. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
818. The Time of Indifference by Alberto Moravia
819. A Bend in the River by VS Naipaul
820. McTeague by Frank Norris
821. Personality by Andrew O’Hagan
822. Animal Farm by George Orwell
823. The Ragazzi Pier by Paolo Pasolini
824. Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
825. The Moon and the Bonfire by Cesare Pavese
826. GB84 by David Peace
827. Headlong Hall by Thomas Love Peacock
828. Afternoon Men by Anthony Powell
829. Vineland by Thomas Pynchon
830. The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth
831. American Pastoral by Philip Roth
832. The Human Stain by Philip Roth
833. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
834. Shame by Salman Rushdie
835. To Each his Own by Leonardo Sciascia
836. Staying On by Paul Scott
837. Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr
838. The Lonely Londoners by Samuel Selvon
839. God’s Bit of Wood by Ousmane Sembene
840. The Case of Comrade Tulayev by Victor Serge
841. Richshaw Boy by Lao She
842. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe
843. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
844. Novel on Yellow Paper by Stevie Smith
845. White Teeth by Zadie Smith
846. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovtich by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn
847. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
848. The Red and the Black by Stendhal
849. This Sporting Life by David Storey
850. The Red Room by August Stringberg
851. The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore
852. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
853. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell
854. The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope
855. The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope
856. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
857. Couples by John Updike
858. Z by Vassilis Vassilikos
859. Billy Liar by Keith Waterhouse
860. Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
861. The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West
862. The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West
863. The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
864. The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
865. Germinal by Emile Zola
866. La Bete Humaine by Emile Zola
867. Silver Stallion by Junghyo Ahn
868. Death of a Hero by Richard Aldington
869. Master Georgie by Beryl Bainbridge
870. Darkness Falls from the Air by Nigel Balchin
871. Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard
872. Regeneration by Pat Barker
873. A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry
874. Fair Stood the Wind for France by HE Bates
875. Carrie’s War by Nina Bawden
876. The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano
877. The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles
878. An Ice-Cream War by William Boyd
879. When the Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs
880. Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
881. Auto-da-Fe by Elias Canetti
882. One of Ours by Willa Cather
883. Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine
884. Monkey by Wu Ch’eng-en
885. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
886. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
887. Nostromo by Joseph Conrad
888. Sharpe’s Eagle by Bernard Cornwell
889. The History of Pompey the Little by Francis Coventry
890. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
891. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
892. Bomber by Len Deighton
893. Deliverance by James Dickey
894. Three Soldiers by John Dos Passos
895. South Wind by Norman Douglas
896. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
897. Justine by Lawrence Durrell
898. The Bamboo Bed by William Eastlake
899. The Siege of Krishnapur by JG Farrell
900. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
901. Parade’s End by Ford Madox Ford
902. The African Queen by CS Forester
903. The Ship by CS Forester
904. Flashman by George MacDonald Fraser
905. Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
906. The Beach by Alex Garland
907. To The Ends of the Earth trilogy by William Golding
908. Asterix the Gaul by Rene Goscinny
909. The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass
910. Count Belisarius by Robert Graves
911. Life and Fate by Vassily Grossman
912. De Niro’s Game by Rawi Hage
913. King Solomon’s Mines by H Rider Haggard
914. She: A History of Adventure by H Rider Haggard
915. The Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton
916. Covenant with Death by John Harris
917. Enigma by Robert Harris
918. The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hasek
919. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
920. The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope
921. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
922. A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes
923. Rasselas by Samuel Johnson
924. From Here to Eternity by James Jones
925. Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor
926. Confederates by Thomas Keneally
927. Schindler’s Ark by Thomas Keneally
928. Day by AL Kennedy
929. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
930. Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler
931. The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski
932. If Not Now, When? by Primo Levi
933. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
934. The Guns of Navarone by Alistair MacLean
935. All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
936. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
937. The Mark of Zorro by Johnston McCulley
938. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty
939. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
940. La Condition Humaine by Andre Malraux
941. Fortunes of War by Olivia Manning
942. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
943. The Children of the New Forest by Frederick Marryat
944. Moby-Dick or, The Whale by Herman Melville
945. Tales of the South Pacific by James Michener
946. The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat
947. History by Elsa Morante
948. Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
949. The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh
950. Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian
951. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
952. The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy
953. Burmese Days by George Orwell
954. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
955. The Valley of Bones by Anthony Powell
956. The Soldier’s Art by Anthony Powell
957. The Military Philosophers by Anthony Powell
958. Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
959. The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen by Rudolp Erich Raspe
960. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
961. The Crab with the Golden Claws by Georges Remi Herge
962. Tintin in Tibet by Georges Remi Herge
963. The Castafiore Emerald by Georges Remi Herge
964. The Devil to Pay in the Backlands by Joao Guimaraes Rosa
965. Sacaramouche by Rafael Sabatini
966. Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini
967. Everything is Illuminated by Jonathon Safran Foer
968. The Hunters by James Salter
969. Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
970. The Rings of Saturn by WG Sebald
971. Austerlitz by WG Sebald
972. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
973. The Young Lions by Irwin Shaw
974. A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
975. Maus by Art Spiegelman
976. The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal
977. Cryptonomicon by Neil Stephenson
978. A Sentimental Journey by Lawrence Sterne
979. Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
980. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
981. A Flag for Sunrise by Robert Stone
982. Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
983. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
984. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
985. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
986. Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
987. A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne
988. Williwaw by Gore Vidal
989. Candide by Voltaire
990. Slaughter-House Five by Kurt Vonnegut
991. Put Out More Flags by Evelyn Waugh
992. Men at Arms by Evelyn Waugh
993. The Island of Dr Moreau by HG Wells
994. The Machine-Gunners by Robert Westall
995. Voss by Patrick White
996. The Virginian by Owen Wister
997. The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
998. The Debacle by Emile Zola

Total Progress: 13 out of 20

1. The Adventures of Augie March (1953), by Saul Bellow
2. All the King’s Men (1946), by Robert Penn Warren
3. American Pastoral (1997), by Philip Roth
4. An American Tragedy (1925), by Theodore Dreiser
5. Animal Farm (1946), by George Orwell
6. Appointment in Samarra (1934), by John O’Hara
7. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (1970), by Judy Blume
8. The Assistant (1957), by Bernard Malamud
9. At Swim-Two-Birds (1938), by Flann O’Brien
10. Atonement (2002), by Ian McEwan
11. Beloved (1987), by Toni Morrison
12. The Berlin Stories (1946), by Christopher Isherwood
13. The Big Sleep (1939), by Raymond Chandler
14. The Blind Assassin (2000), by Margaret Atwood
15. Blood Meridian (1986), by Cormac McCarthy
16. Brideshead Revisited (1946), by Evelyn Waugh
17. The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927), by Thornton Wilder
18. Call It Sleep (1935), by Henry Roth
19. Catch-22 (1961), by Joseph Heller
20. The Catcher in the Rye (1951), by J.D. Salinger
21. A Clockwork Orange (1963), by Anthony Burgess
22. The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967), by William Styron
23. The Corrections (2001), by Jonathan Franzen
24. The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), by Thomas Pynchon
25. A Dance to the Music of Time (1951), by Anthony Powell
26. The Day of the Locust (1939), by Nathanael West
27. Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927), by Willa Cather
28. A Death in the Family (1958), by James Agee
29. The Death of the Heart (1958), by Elizabeth Bowen
30. Deliverance (1970), by James Dickey
31. Dog Soldiers (1974), by Robert Stone
32. Falconer (1977), by John Cheever
33. The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969), by John Fowles
34. The Golden Notebook (1962), by Doris Lessing
35. Go Tell it on the Mountain (1953), by James Baldwin
36. Gone With the Wind (1936), by Margaret Mitchell
37. The Grapes of Wrath (1939), by John Steinbeck
38. Gravity’s Rainbow (1973), by Thomas Pynchon
39. The Great Gatsby (1925), by F. Scott Fitzgerald
40. A Handful of Dust (1934), by Evelyn Waugh
41. The Heart is A Lonely Hunter (1940), by Carson McCullers
42. The Heart of the Matter (1948), by Graham Greene
43. Herzog (1964), by Saul Bellow
44. Housekeeping (1981), by Marilynne Robinson
45. A House for Mr. Biswas (1962), by V.S. Naipaul
46. I, Claudius (1934), by Robert Graves
47. Infinite Jest (1996), by David Foster Wallace
48. Invisible Man (1952), by Ralph Ellison
49. Light in August (1932), by William Faulkner
50. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), by C.S. Lewis
51. Lolita (1955), by Vladimir Nabokov
52. Lord of the Flies (1955), by William Golding
53. The Lord of the Rings (1954), by J.R.R. Tolkien
54. Loving (1945), by Henry Green
55. Lucky Jim (1954), by Kingsley Amis
56. The Man Who Loved Children (1940), by Christina Stead
57. Midnight’s Children (1981), by Salman Rushdie
58. Money (1984), by Martin Amis
59. The Moviegoer (1961), by Walker Percy
60. Mrs. Dalloway (1925), by Virginia Woolf
61. Naked Lunch (1959), by William Burroughs
62. Native Son (1940), by Richard Wright
63. Neuromancer (1984), by William Gibson
64. Never Let Me Go (2005), by Kazuo Ishiguro
65. 1984 (1948), by George Orwell
66. On the Road (1957), by Jack Kerouac
67. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962), by Ken Kesey
68. The Painted Bird (1965), by Jerzy Kosinski
69. Pale Fire (1962), by Vladimir Nabokov
70. A Passage to India (1924), by E.M. Forster
71. Play It As It Lays (1970), by Joan Didion
72. Portnoy’s Complaint (1969), by Philip Roth
73. Possession (1990), by A.S. Byatt
74. The Power and the Glory (1939), by Graham Greene
75. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961), by Muriel Spark
76. Rabbit, Run (1960), by John Updike
77. Ragtime (1975), by E.L. Doctorow
78. The Recognitions (1955), by William Gaddis
79. Red Harvest (1929), by Dashiell Hammett
80. Revolutionary Road (1961), by Richard Yates
81. The Sheltering Sky (1949), by Paul Bowles
82. Slaughterhouse Five (1969), by Kurt Vonnegut
83. Snow Crash (1992), by Neal Stephenson
84. The Sot-Weed Factor (1960), by John Barth
85. The Sound and the Fury (1929), by William Faulkner
86. The Sportswriter (1986), by Richard Ford
87. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (1964), by John le Carre
88. The Sun Also Rises (1926), by Ernest Hemingway
89. Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), by Zora Neale Hurston
90. Things Fall Apart (1959), by Chinua Achebe
91. To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), by Harper Lee
92. To the Lighthouse (1927), by Virginia Woolf
93. Tropic of Cancer (1934), by Henry Miller
94. Ubik (1969), by Philip K. Dick
95. Under the Net (1954), by Iris Murdoch
96. Under the Volcano (1947), by Malcolm Lowry
97. Watchmen (1986), by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
98. White Noise (1985), by Don DeLillo
99. White Teeth (2000), by Zadie Smith
100. Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), by Jean Rhys

I’ve crossed off the ones I’ve already seen.

Total Progress: 34 out of 50

1. Citizen Kane (1941)
2. The Godfather (1972)
3. Casablanca (1942)
4. Raging Bull (1980)
5. Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
6. Gone With the Wind (1939)
7. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
8. Schindler’s List (1993)
9. Vertigo (1958)
10. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
11. City Lights (1931)
12. The Searchers (1956)
13. Star Wars (1977)
14. Psycho (1960)
15. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
16. Sunset Boulevard (1950)
17. The Graduate (1967)
18. The General (1927)
19. On the Waterfront (1954)
20. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
21. Chinatown (1974)
22. Some Like It Hot (1959)
23. The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
24. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
25. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
26. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
27. High Noon (1952)
28. All About Eve (1950)
29. Double Indemnity (1944)
30. Apocalypse Now (1979)
31. The Maltese Falcon (1941)
32. The Godfather Part II (1974)
33. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
34. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937)
35. Annie Hall (1977)
36. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1941)
37. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
38. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
39. Dr. Strangelove (1964)
40. The Sound of Music (1965)
41. King Kong (1933)
42. Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
43. Midnight Cowboy (1969)
44. The Philadelphia Story (1940)
45. Shane (1953)
46. It Happened One Night (1934)
47. A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
48. Rear Window (1954)
49. Intolerance (1916)
50. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
51. West Side Story (1961)
52. Taxi Driver (1976)
53. The Deer Hunter (1978)
54. M*A*S*H (1970)
55. North by Northwest (1959)
56. Jaws (1975)
57. Rocky (1976)
58. The Gold Rush (1925)
59. Nashville (1975)
60. Duck Soup (1933)
61. Sullivan’s Travels (1941)
62. American Graffiti (1973)
63. Cabaret (1972)
64. Network (1976)
65. The African Queen (1951)
66. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
67. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
68. Unforgiven (1992)
69. Tootsie (1982)
70. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
71. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
72. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
73. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
74. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
75. In the Heat of the Night (1967)
76. Forrest Gump (1994)
77. All the President’s Men (1976)
78. Modern Times (1936)
79. The Wild Bunch (1969)
80. The Apartment (1960)
81. Spartacus (1960)
82. Sunrise(1927)
83. Titanic (1997)
84. Easy Rider (1969)
85. A Night at the Opera (1935)
86. Platoon (1986)
87. 12 Angry Men (1957)
88. Bringing Up Baby (1938)
89. The Sixth Sense (1999)
90. Swing Time (1936)
91. Sophie’s Choice (1982)
92. Goodfellas (1990)
93. The French Connection (1971)
94. Pulp Fiction (1994)
95. The Last Picture Show (1971)
96. Do the Right Thing (1989)
97. Blade Runner (1982)
98. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
99. Toy Story (1995)
100. Ben-Hur (1959)

Hands down, the worst sunburn I have ever received happened when I was in high school; specifically during spring break of my freshman year, which would have made me 14 at the time. Age is an important factor; keep in mind I was a stupid teenager who wasn’t all that concerned with sun damage and my skin. Also, let’s remember that one of the most important things to a 14-year-old girl is boys; especially the boy she REALLY likes…and even more so if he wants to spend time with her.

So. I spent my spring break that year on a cruise in the Bahamas with a group of students from my high school – our jazz band and ensemble was performing on the ship. Since I wasn’t actually part of the group performing, I got to spend my free time wandering about the boat and relaxing. One of the days of our trip, all of the students were permitted to go off the boat for a “day excursion”. There were really only two options for the excursions that day: swimming with the dolphins or snorkeling. Just about everyone in the group wanted to go swimming with the dolphins…EXCEPT the guy I really liked. And it just so happened that I was close friends with his friend, so when his friend invited me to go snorkeling with them instead of going swimming with the dolphins, I jumped at the chance!

There were definitely some things on my mind OTHER than sunscreen at that time: what bathing suit to wear, how should I wear my hair, ummm I’ve never been snorkeling before…I hope I don’t suck, OMG I’m PMSing, etc. etc. I donned my favorite swimsuit of the bunch: a cute one-piece with a low-scooped back. I tied my hair back in a ponytail. I popped some Midol. I sprayed myself with my best-smelling suntan oil: Banana Boat. With an SPF of 4.

You read that right. I put on suntan OIL, not sunscreen, with an SPF of 4. Let’s remember I was a stupid teenager. Also, I’m half-Asian and had never really had sunburn before; I always tanned. Sunburn was the last thing on my mind that day.

Snorkeling was amazing. I got to spend time with my friends and the guy I was crushing on. We even held hands under water while swimming together! (Let’s keep that part between you and me; the hubby wouldn’t be a fan; even if it was over 10 years ago.) But here’s the thing about snorkeling – you are just below the surface of the water the whole time (I didn’t dive down) and the sun is reflecting directly onto you. And here’s the thing about snorkeling in the Caribbean – you’re pretty freaking close to the equator, so the sun is particularly harsh there. Let’s not forget the thing about my favorite bathing suit – it had a low scoop in the back, meaning there was nothing between my skin and the water and therefore, the sun. Oh, and one other thing: SPF 4 does absolutely NOTHING, except make your skin a little shiny when you put it on.

I snorkeled for several hours. It was wonderful. We got back to the cruise ship and I headed off to my room to shower and change before the captain’s dinner that night. (For those of you who haven’t been on a cruise like this before: there was a “themed” dinner each night; the theme was really just the dress code. The Captain’s Dinner was the formal dinner of the trip.) I pulled out my amazing cocktail dress (short, black, spaghetti straps with a criss-cross back) and hung it up in the bathroom to steam out the wrinkles while I showered. I got into the shower with my face facing the water and I noticed my face felt a little tender. I realized I still had marks on my face from where the snorkeling mask was, so I attributed the minor pain to that. No worries, right?

Then I turned around. And promptly screamed. Oh.My.God. I was not prepared for the pain. I still shudder when I think about it. It was like someone was stabbing me with a million hot knives in my back. Ow, ow, ow, ow. Not good. I finished showering the best I could and got out as quickly as possible. The air in the bathroom felt cool on my back, but then I made the mistake of rubbing my towel on my skin. Ow, ow, ow, OW. Such a bad idea. I wiped the steam from the mirror and turned around to see if I could get a glimpse of what was going on with my back.

Bad idea. It was all different shades of pink, red and a purplish color. And there were bubbles. BIG bubbles. Bubbles that popped and leaked fluid when you touched them. All appearing just inside the white tan lines marking where my bathing suit had been. As I stared at my back in horror, I saw my cocktail dress out of the corner of my eye. OMG, I have to put that on. With multiple straps diagonally crisscrossing my back. OMG. I didn’t even have aloe.

I slathered on as much lotion as I could stand and somehow shimmied into the dress without causing too much pain. I figured if I could just sit still for the rest of the night, I would be okay. Little did I know that part of the dinner with the captain involved him dancing with every single female on the ship. Granted, it was only for a few seconds each, but I was cringing in terror. He was grabbing the women’s hand and putting his hand square on her BACK. His plan of attack didn’t change with me and the second he placed his hand on my back, I had to bite my tongue to keep from crying in pain. Good Lord, was that painful!

Thankfully, that was our last night on the cruise and we were headed home the next morning. I bought some SolarCaine the second we got back to my hometown. I wasn’t able to sleep on my back or wear a bra for a week or two after that incident. The bubbles healed quickly and the burn eventually faded. But I’ll always remember how awful that was and remember to always, always put on sunscreen.

And today, I read a fantastic post by E on Mommy’s Still Fabulous about her wedding song (prompted by Mama Kat - thanks, E, for introducing me to her blog; I’m looking forward to expanding my blog with her writing prompts) and I was compelled to write about my own wedding song. So here goes…

Hubs and I had a helluva time picking our wedding song. Honestly, I had my wedding song picked since I was in middle school: the love song from “The Princess Bride”, aka “Storybook Love” by Willie DeVille and Mark Knopfler (Google it; I can’t find a decent version on YouTube at the moment); but I was VERY specific about it. I ONLY wanted to have the instrumental version played. No words. Because the words are cheesy. And Willie DeVille has an…interesting voice. I was dead set on this song. The hubs just wanted to make me happy, so he said he would listen to it and give it a yay or nay. Not a minute into the song, he cracks up laughing. I blame Willie De Ville’s voice; it’s ridiculous. He told me he couldn’t listen to the song, even the instrumental version, without losing it on the dancefloor. So that song was out.

Which meant we had to start from scratch. Which was NOT good, because hubs and I had very different ideas as to what an “appropriate” wedding song would be (not to mention our tastes in music are quite different). Hubby only listens to rock and alternative; I didn’t think either of those genres would be a good choice for our first dance as husband and wife. I didn’t want to use a “standard” first dance song and hubs hates slow songs (unless it’s a rock ballad, of course). I kept tossing out ideas, the hubs kept shooting them down.

Then I had an idea: what if we used a rock song for when we walked into the reception and something slightly more appropriate for our first dance? Compromise – it’s the first lesson in marriage

And it worked. Our bridal party entered the reception to the Foo Fighters singing “Times Like These” (Foo is hubby’s favorite band). Hubs and I walked in dancing to Plain White T’s singing “You and Me” (sooo catchy and upbeat, you can’t help but dance along). And our first dance was NOT a slow song. It was a little bit fast, a lotta bit chill and totally perfect for us. At the time, it wasn’t playing on the radio and not a lot of people at the reception knew what it was; but it’s definitely one people recognize now.

“I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz. Check out the lyrics. Amazing, right? We chose it because it was a good melding of the types of music we both like: pop and rock. It was such a fun, loving song and it completely set the mood for the rest of the reception. Everyone was on the dance floor that night and it was the most fun I have ever had at a wedding. Hands down, the best party I’ve ever thrown!

The song was absolutely perfect for us. Want to know how I know? Every time either of us hear it, we smile and think and back to our first dance. And in every picture of our first dance (except the one where the photographer made us stop and pose), we’re smiling, giggling, twirling and singing along. We had FUN with it. And that was the whole point for us – lots and lots of fun.

I’ve been religiously following my checklist on The Bump, and apparently I’m a little behind in interviewing potential daycare facilities. I really didn’t think anything of it at first because, honestly, I didn’t think it would be THAT hard to find a great daycare near my house. Apparently I was wrong. On so, so many levels.

First, there are NO daycares in my town which offer an infant care program. I’m going to have to drive to neighboring towns to find a place. This isn’t too bad for me because I live in a fairly populated suburban area, so by expanding my search a few miles, I was able to locate several reputable facilities within a 15-minute drive.

Second, and third, and fourth: I should have started looking at places WAY sooner than now. Apparently infant care programs are in high demand and there are waiting lists at most places. Also, scheduling tours of the facilities was harder than I thought it would be. Come on, people. I’m looking at daycares because I need someone to look after my child during the DAY; you know, when I’m at WORK. So when your facility only offers tours from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., it makes it a little difficult for me…because I’m at WORK. And speaking of tours; WHY is taking a tour and meeting with people the only way I can get information on your tuition rates? Sneaky bastards. Say the tour is fabulous and I absolutely love the facility and all the people who work there, then BAM, you hit me with a tuition that’s more than double what I can afford. I wouldn’t have even bothered to schedule time out of my work day to visit here if I knew I couldn’t afford it. Sneaky, sneaky.

After coming to all of the realizations in a mode of panic, I calmed myself by making plans. And by making plans, I mean making appointments. For the damned tours. Another part of my plan? Having the hubs look over our financial situation to see what exactly we can afford in a daycare. OK, so the tours are scheduled and we have a range of tuition fees we can afford. I felt a little better.

Until I realized the first tour is this afternoon and I have no idea what I’m supposed to do when I get there. I mused aloud to the hubby last night and came up with a list of things we should be looking at when we go to the facility, along with some questions I should probably ask. But I know I’m forgetting a crapload of stuff, so I’d really appreciate any feedback from other parents who have already gone through this process. Here’s what I came up with:

• The overall look of the facility – is it clean, how many rooms are there, how is it set up, what is the parking situation, etc.
• Do the infants have their own room?
• How many children are in the infant care program at a time?
• How many adults are working with the infants?
• What sort of activities are planned for the infants? (i.e. tummy time, music, sensation stimulation, etc.)
• How do they keep parents informed of a child’s progress?
• Facility policies: tuition, sick child, hours, etc.
• Information about other programs (toddler, pre-K, etc.)

What am I missing? Is this a good start?