Amazon List of the 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime

04 Wednesday Feb 2015

Posted by in All Posts, Books

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

I found a list on Amazon.com today.  It is a list of the 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime. It was the first list I’ve seen that encompassed both the classics and newer novels; children’s books, and non-fiction. All the other lists I’ve ever come across seem to only include older novels and these lists give me flashbacks to high school English class. Don’t get me wrong…I absolutely LOVE reading.  I just hated being forced to read something I had no interest in. Well, here is the list in alphabetical order.

  • 1984 by George Orwell
  • A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
  • A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
  • A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah
  • A Series of Unfortunate Events #1:  The Bad Beginning: The Short-Lived Edition by Lemony Snicket
  • A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
  • Alice Munro: Selected Stories by Alice Munro
  • Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
  • All the President’s Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
  • Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt
  • Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
  • Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
  • Beloved by Toni Morrison
  • Born to Run – A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall
  • Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat
  • Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
  • Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Ronald Dahl
  • Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
  • Cutting For Stones by Abraham Verghese
  • Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brene Brown
  • Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Book 1 by Jeff Kinney
  • Dune by Frank Herbert
  • Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
  • Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream by Hunter S. Thompson
  • Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
  • Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
  • Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
  • Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared M. Diamond
  • Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
  • In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
  • Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
  • Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
  • Jimmy Corrigan: Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware
  • Kitchen Confindential by Anthony Bourdain
  • Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
  • Little House on the Prarie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
  • Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
  • Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  • Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich
  • Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
  • Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
  • Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
  • Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
  • Moneyball by Michael Lewis
  • Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
  • On The Road by Jack Kerouac
  • Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
  • Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
  • Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth
  • Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
  • Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
  • Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
  • Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
  • The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
  • The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
  • The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley
  • The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
  • The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
  • The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
  • The Color of Water by James McBride
  • The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
  • The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
  • The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank
  • The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
  • The Giver by Lois Lowry
  • The Golden Compass: His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
  • The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
  • The House at Pooh Corner by A.A. Milne
  • The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
  • The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
  • The Liars’ Club: A Memoir by Mary Karr
  • The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1) by Rick Riordan
  • The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
  • The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
  • The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright
  • The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
  • The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks
  • The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan
  • The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
  • The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel by Barbara Kingsolver
  • The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert A. Caro
  • The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
  • The Road by Cormac McCarthy
  • The Secret History by Donna Tartt
  • The Shining by Stephen King
  • The Stranger by Albert Camus
  • The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
  • The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
  • The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
  • The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
  • The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: A Novel by Haruki Murakami
  • The World According to Garp by John Irving
  • The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
  • Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
  • To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  • Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
  • Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
  • Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein
  • Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

I’ve read a few of these already but some of these have been on my list to read for a long time.  Better get started.

Love, Bruiser

Curiouser and Curiouser….

09 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by in All Posts, Postcrossing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

How funny!! I’ve received two postcards in two days from two women named Natalia and they are both from Russia.  I thought for a moment that they were both sent by the same person but they were sent from two different places in Russia.

This particular card took 23 days and traveled a distance of 9,999 km (6,213 miles).

129 - Postcard from Russia

Love, Bruiser

 

Color Run 2014

01 Tuesday Jul 2014

Posted by in All Posts, New Things

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

I did it!! I finally completed a Color Run!  Check that off the Bucket list.

A group of us from work got together and completed it.  The 3.2 miles flew by and before we knew it we were back at Huizenga park for the after party.  We were absolutely COVERED in the colored powder at the end.  They also give you an awesome little goody bag before the race that includes a t-shirt, sweatband, bandana, race number, tattoos, and a bracelet.

The only downside to the whole thing was the hour long shower to get all the color off me when I got home.

Color Run 2014 (1)

The goodies! 

Color Run 2014 Part 2 (17) Color Run 2014 Part 2 (32) Color Run 2014 Part 2 (18) Color Run 2014 Part 2 (9)

Color Run 2014 Part 2 (33)

 

Tips/Advice for the race:

  • Wear clothes that you won’t mind getting ruined (all the color still won’t come out of my white shirt)
  • This includes shoes too
  • Put leave in conditioner in your hair before the race to wash the color out easier
  • Wear a bandana over your nose and mouth in the color zones

Love, Bruiser

 

My Nike Obsession

25 Thursday Jul 2013

Posted by in All Posts, Fitness, Obsessions

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

Nike is doing some absolutely wonderful things lately. I am currently obsessed with anything and everything that they have put out lately. And most of it is free. (I’m still not overly excited about how much their shoes cost though.)

They have their Nike Women Facebook page where you can view new clothing items, behind the scenes photos, and some amazing motivational posters. Here are some of them:

Nike Inspiration (3) Nike Inspiration Nike Inspiration (1) Nike Inspiration (2)

They also have an XBOX Kinect Training game for cardio and strength training. It lets you set how often you want to work out and exactly what days you want to work out on. What’s really neat is you take a “fit test” and it gives you a Fitness an Athleticism score. At the end of the training program you retake the test and see your improvement. The only issue I sometimes have with this is that you need a pretty decent sized space to get it work. It will switch between standing exercises and floor exercises and sometimes the Kinect sensor doesn’t “see” you.

Nike+ Kinect (2)

Nike+ Kinect (1) Nike+ KinectThey also have two phone apps.  There is the Nike Running app and the NTC app. The Running app tracks your time and distance and uses GPS to show your path on a map. So far its been pretty accurate. It gives you awards for beating previous distances and times and you can use it through Facebook to have your friends “cheer” you on it your workouts.

Screenshot_2013-07-25-15-42-38

NTC stands for Nike Training Club.  The NTC workouts are usually between 15 and 45 minutes.  It has Beginner, Intermediate and Advance workouts and workouts that help you get lean, toned or strong. Each completed workout adds to your total workout time which in turn awards you with different achievements similar to the Running app.  The app also gives you instructions and videos on how to do certain exercises if you are unfamiliar with them. And the absolutely best things about both these apps is that they are completely FREE!

Screenshot_2013-07-25-15-41-25

While surfing the internet today I came across the Nike Running Race Coach. It helps you with training for a 5K up to a Full Marathon.  I’m still a beginner so I chose the 5K Coach. It broke down what I should be doing each day so that at the end of 6 weeks I should be able run a 5K successfully. It utilizes the NTC app on the days you don’t run. (Sorry for the small size).

Nike 5KNike also has a Fuelband.

Nike FuelAccording to Nike’s website “NikeFuel counts all the activities of your athletic life. Running, walking, basketball. Nike+ devices measure your moves and turn them into NikeFuel. And since NikeFuel is calculated the same way for everyone, you can compare and compete with anyone.”

Your daily results/goals can be viewed on your smartphone via an app.  Sadly, the Fuelband is only available on iPhones right now. But once they transition over to Android you can bet your ass that I will get one of these ASAP.

Has anyone used any of these training apps or games yet?  What did you think of them? I’d love to hear your feedback.
Love, Bruiser