Fellow CBC listeners will recognize that name.For those who don't listen to the CBC (I know Americans do listen to it on the net), I recommend you tune in.As a writer, this radio series set in Afghanistan, is a great example of how to create and bring to life compelling, complex characters. For non-writers, it's a fantastic story of men and women fighting against the odds in a war into which they were thrust, half a world away.I've been listening since Season 1 (Season 3 started a couple of weeks ago). First with half an ear while I did other things and now, most of the time, with all my attention. The writers have drawn me into their story. As a radio drama it works differently from tv (well, I know that's obvious, but bear with me) - you listen to the voices to differentiate characters, but you also hear rather than see the action and in many ways it's even more vivid than watching it on tv. A novel writer can learn much from this - the ways to stir emotion. At the end of more than one episode I've been crying.I'd hoped that they'd do a podcast of each episode after it airs, but instead the CBC has now released CDs of the first two seasons for those who want to catch up.Anyone interested can catch it Wednesday nights at 11pm and Thursday mornings at 11:30 am. I rarely talk politics on this blog (for obvious reasons), but I will say this - I might not agree with the war on some levels, but I am in FULL SUPPORT of ALL those fighting both in Afghanistan and Iraq. Those women and men are doing a job I can't even imagine taking on. Listening to Afghanada has brought that home to me in no uncertain terms. Granted, I did used to work for the military (I was a Buyer's Assistant at the head office of the retail store chain on the Canadian bases/air wings) - in fact, my first temp job involved writing up orders for shoes for to be sent overseas during the months before the Gulf War.TeresaCurrently Reading: What Casanova Told Me by Susan SwanLink of the Day: 100 Awesome Blogs for History Junkies
I got this from fellow Canuck Cindy. Here's her intro - it was written so concisely, I figured I wouldn't mess with it:Seems The Big Read, sponsored by the BBC,
has estimated that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books on this list. How do you fare?1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.2) Italicize those you intend to read.3) Underline the books you LOVE.1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee6 The Bible (
This was a tough one for me as I've read a fair amount of it, yet really not enough to bold it)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens11 Little Women - Louisa M. Alcott12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (like Cindy, I haven't actually read them ALL, but enough of them - I did a Shakespeare course at university and read at least 26 plays that year + others in high school)15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger20 Middlemarch - George Eliot21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens 24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky 28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll 30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis34 Emma - Jane Austen35 Persuasion - Jane Austen36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne41 Animal Farm - George Orwell42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding50 Atonement - Ian McEwan52 Dune - Frank Herbert53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens72 Dracula - Bram Stoker 73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson75 Ulysses - James Joyce76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome78 Germinal - Emile Zola79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray80 Possession - AS Byatt81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks94 Watership Down - Richard Adams (I'm pretty sure I've read this one)95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl100 Les Miserables - Victor HugoMy score was a 27. And it's an interesting list. Both for what is on it and what isn't. I mean, why that particular Blyton title? One of the few I haven't read. Similarly I've read Hard Times by Dickens, yet it's not on there. And NO Canadian literature appears - grrrrr. I'd have included things like:- Josephine B series - Sandra Gulland
- A Brief History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson
- The Odyssey - Homer
- The Aeneid - Virgil
- Beowulf
- Dr. Faustus - Christopher Marlowe
- River Thieves - Michael Crummey
- Paradise Lost - Milton
- Little House series - Laura Ingalls Wilder
- Lives of Girls and Women - Alice Munro
- A Jest of God- Margaret Lawrence
- The Stone Angel - Margaret Lawrence
- Bonheur d'occasion - Gabriel Roi
- l'Etranger - Camus
- Candide - Voltaire
- The Mayor of Casterbridge - Thomas Hardy
- The Old Wives Tale - Arnold Bennett
- l'École des femmes - Molière
- Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood - Rebecca Wells
- Watermelon - Marian Keyes
- Sailing to Sarantium- Guy Gavriel Kay
- Christine de Pizan's The Book of the City of Ladies - I admit, I haven't read this one yet, but it's on my TBR list along withVirginia Woolff's A Room of One's Own.
Care to do the same with my list as well?Teresa
We're really hoping that at least some of the seed takes as it would be nice to see grass rather than dirt when driving up to the house and looking out the living room window :)
