IN WHICH The Girl Has Dolla Dolla Bling

Whenever the lottery reward reaches record heights, many people get swept up in the dream of suddenly rolling in the big money. I'm generally not a lottery player, but even I felt that need to put my two dollars in for a Powerball ticket. Unfortunately, I didn't get even one number right. At least give me the four dollar prize guys!

In the time leading up to the drawing, I did have a chance to play out multiple fantasies of wealth. Life with more than $10 in my bank account! Paying off those ungodly student loans! Food! A beautiful condo with a view! And books... books... books...

As a literary lover, I came up with several awesome things I could do with my millions. If you did happen to win the jackpot, here are some ideas:

Buy Things

Of course, now that I no longer need to worry about money, I can stop waiting on hold for the most popular books from the library. I can just buy them right away! What? That's crazy. I think I look at the library website every day to see if they have the new releases in yet. Yes, I know that I have a bazillion other books to read, but I want the pretty, new things. Plus, now that I won't need to work for a living, I will have all the time in the world to read all the books in the world.

But these are small potatoes. Why think about ten dollar books when you can think about ten thousand dollar books? Now is the time to start collecting rare books. For example, I could get a special first edition copy of Winnie-the-Pooh on Japanese vellum, signed by both the author and the illustrator for $51,941. 

Flickr/British Library

I'm a billionaire now - let's ignore the realities of taxes - so I can also try to get my hands on the most expensive books out there. Forbes list of the most expensive books ever sold lists the Codex Leicester of Leonardo da Vinci at $49.4 million and Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies (1623), The First Folio by William Shakespeare at $8.2 million. Want to sell me that Codex, Mr. Gates?

Where shall I sit while reading Shakespeare's first folio? Why in Pemberley of course! For a mere $12.5 million - less than that Codex you might note - I can purchase Wentworth Woodhouse, which may have inspired Jane Austen's version of Pemberley in Pride and Prejudice and is currently for sale. I've already started auctioning off the 300 rooms to friends. I'm generous. 

Wentworth Woodhouse                Flickr/Allan Harris

For my additional homes across the world, there are several houses associated with famous authors that I could purchase. How about this lovely $35 million estate in California that once belonged to Thomas Mann and was in Scarface. Here's a list of additional literary housing options as well.

Visit Things

Real Gabinete Português de Leitura   Flickr/Mathieu Bertrand Struck

Now that I am comfortably settled in my Austen-style mansion filled with books, I can start traveling. There are hundreds of literary destinations. I could take a world library tour, for instance, including the Liyuan Library in Beijing, China, which apparently is built with timber to blend into the forest and sits on a lake, and the Real Gabinete Português de Leitura in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil that is just darn beautiful. 

Liyuan Library Outside         Flickr/LiXiaodong Atelier

Liyuan Library Inside         Flickr/LiXiaodong Atelier

Or I could travel around to the literary museums. Did you know that there is Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem where you can view the Dead Sea Scrolls? Bustle has put together a list of several more. From here I also learned that The American Writer's Museum will be opening up in Chicago next year! Yay!

Shrine of the Book                         Flickr/Christyn

After all this museum and library hopping, I will probably want to sit back and take in a good play. I could then attend some of the greatest theaters in the world. There's of course the Globe Theater in England, but also the National Noh Theatre in Tokyo that is made out of cypress trees, the Minack Theatre that sits on a cliff in Cornwall, and the Palais Garnier in Paris where The Phantom of the Opera was set.

Palais Garnier                                 Flickr/Jonathan

Learn Things

In between my jet-setting, I might actually want to take some literature classes. Don't scoff! Learning is fun (says the teacher). With my winnings, I can pay off all my student loans and get as many degrees as I want - from as many schools that will accept me at least. I'd still love to get my Ph.D. Even if I don't want to get a full degree, however, I can now afford to take a random class here or there. I could even take one while traveling. Did you know Harvard has an online extension school? I could take American Dreams from Scarface to Easy Rider or Masterpieces of World Literature for $2,400, though it's unclear whether that is for the whole course or per graduate credit. By the way, they also have a bunch of free courses of which anyone can take advantage.

That was a nice trip through fantasy land. Well, these might not happen at this point, but life goals! Since I do still need to make a living, I suppose I should get working on those syllabi then.

What would you do with a jackpot win?

IN WHICH The Girl Becomes a Classic

Two of my reading goals for 2016 are to read more of the books I already own (I have a tendency to buy in bulk from used book stores) and to read more classics. To this end, I found the perfect 2016 reading challenge: The Women's Classic Literature Event hosted by The Classics Club.

Essentially the point is to read classic literature by women throughout the year and share your thoughts with other participants in the event. I perused my bookshelves and came up with these six books to get me started.

1. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
2. Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte
3. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
4. Sula by Toni Morrison
5. Persuasion by Jane Austen - Bonus: this one is on the book club list for this year too.
6. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

I think I'm going to start with Agnes Grey because I had actually pulled that one out to read soon anyways. Should I get through these books, I can always supplement my list with library books as well.

I'm looking forward to the event and a good reading year!

IN WHICH The Girl Picks Favorites

Happy 2016 everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful New Year's. Personally, after the obligatory drinking of New Year's Eve, I spent New Year's Day in a blissful lazefest with two of my best friends. We started the day off by eating Chinese food while watching Big Trouble in Little China. Then, because sitting up on a couch obviously was too much effort, we blew up an air mattress and all snuggled in for a marathon of Making a Murderer. I followed this up by going home and reading for the rest of the evening. It was beautiful.

Now that we are officially done with 2015, it's time for me to list my favorite books in the second half of 2015. Overall in 2015, I blew my original goal of 50 books out of the water but did not reach my second goal of 150 books. I successfully read 118, of which I'm fairly proud. On the other hand, this may just be a sign that I need to get out more. I kind of hit a book slump towards the end of the year. I found many of the books I was looking forward to reading somewhat disappointing. However, there were some definite jewels in the rough.

Best Books of 2015 Part II

I posted Part I of this list covering my favorites from January to July earlier in the year. Therefore, Part II only includes books I read since July. Also, these are books I read in 2015 - not books published in 2015. Few if any were actually published last year. My backlog is long enough that I rarely get to books that quickly. 

The Adult

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. Probably my favorite in this set of books, and ties with Never Let Me Go as favorite of the year (and they are both science fiction - imagine that!). Now I paid a lot more attention to this book than normal because I was using it for class, so that may have influenced my opinion. This is just great science fiction though. It asks the age-old question: what does it mean to be human? But in the futuristic sense of being compared to androids. Dick is able to bring up all sorts of serious topics - technology, religion, animals, government, love, disabilities, etc - while still writing an exciting, suspenseful, and humorous novel. I enjoyed every second of it.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver. Carver's work is somewhat of an acquired taste. The language is very sparse and understated with a lot of questionable endings to very short stories. Carver also presents an incredibly bleak outlook on love of all sorts - romantic, familial, friendly, and even violent. This collection mainly focuses on the aftermath of love, and it was hard to get into at first. However, by about halfway through I was completely invested. These will stick in my mind for quite awhile. It's definitely worth reading - though maybe not right before walking down the wedding aisle.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. I loved this book. This is traditional storytelling at its best. It's a totally immersive experience in that you feel like you really are in 1940s Barcelona, walking down dark and foggy streets with mystery around every corner. The characters, particularly Fermin, are great and it's also all about book love and the act of storytelling, which gets me every time. Both the writing and the story can get a bit melodramatic, but that doesn't actually bother me. I would love to sit in front of a fire on a dark winter night and have someone read this novel to me (see I'm melodramatic too).

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. What a wonderful little book. Like Carver's work, this is also a series of very short stories - vignettes - but they are not nearly as bleak. Cisneros provides a look at Esperanza, a young Latina girl, and her community in Chicago. Through tiny windows in her life, we see Esperanza mature and come to understand both the beautiful and harsh realities of life. Cisneros' writing reminds me a lot of Amy Tan's in that the most emotional and heartbreaking moments are understated. You'll miss them if you don't look carefully, but they are incredibly important.

The Youthful

The Legend series by Marie Lu. When I binge read a series, it's hard to separate the books, so I'm grouping them together here. It's another young adult dystopian series in a long line, but it has engaging characters and tons of fast-paced action. They are simply a lot of fun to read. This series actually gets better as it goes along, and I liked the third book best because we start to see the characters mature into adults. The characters and situations gain complexity over time, and Lu even managed to surprise me at the end. And make me cry.

To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han. Just adorableness. I'm not always a big fan of contemporary young adult novels, but this one is super cute and low on the sob story/tragedy scale. This story has the feel of an 80's teen rom-com movie. To get over each of her adolescent crushes, Lara Jean wrote each one a love/hate "letter" she never intended to send. When they accidentally get sent out, she must do damage control, including adopting a fake boyfriend. It's silly and fun - plus it focuses on the sister relationship as much as the romance. I did not like the sequel nearly as much, but you need to read the first 20 or pages or so for the real ending to To All the Boys I've Loved Before.

The Raven Boys series by Maggie Stiefvater. I actually read this first earlier in the year, but since I reread most of the series again a couple months ago, I'm going to count it in this list. Here we have a cursed townie girl, Blue, who befriends a group of boys from the nearby private school who are on a quest to find a supernatural king. This is another series that gets better as it goes along, and each book gives us further insight on each member of the group. I particularly like Stiefvater's wit and that she provides a look at the complex friendships between boys, which I don't think we see nearly enough in young adult literature. I'm excited for the final book in the series, The Raven King, to come out this year. 

The Thousand Dollar Tan Line and Mr. Kiss and Tell by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham. For the novelized continuation of Veronica Mars, these books are surprisingly good. It helps that they are written by the creator of the show, and this book series actually relates back to the tv show better than the movie did. Both books get back to the base of Veronica Mars: the class disparity and corruption of Neptune that Veronica tries to crack away at one small victory at a time. There are also some great call backs to events in the original series, and Thomas does a nice job bringing in several of our favorite characters without it feeling too forced. I haven't seen anything about a third book, but I would certainly read more! 

Cheers to a happy new year of reading in 2016!