WARNING: This post shall contain absolutely no philosophy.

My, my, my.....

"Your what?"

*ahem* *starts over again* My, my, my, I think too much and blog too little.  All my thoughts go straight to my head, and hardly any go on paper, or screen, or whatever.  I was just thinking today how I love blogging, but blogging these days is going rather slow.  Some people have completely converted to Facebook.  I just simply re-post my blog posts on Facebook so that everyone is all happy (I have no idea if anyone actually reads them, but I can imagine that somebody along the way is happy).  I think the thing is that Facebook statuses are like really short blog entries, where I can say one thing and it starts an entire controversy.  It is really quite fascinating....5 seconds as opposed to 30 minutes to an hour of writing to create the same sort of response.  

Anyways, I will move on to other things, as each entry these days seems to start off with a long and annoying disclaimer about how I have not written in a long time.  At this moment, I am sitting in the kitchen, waiting for the chickens to reach 180 degrees inside and listening to the classical station on the radio.  I was listening to Relient K as I have been in a Relient K mood all day for some odd reason.  For the record, the album was "Five Score and Seven Years Ago", which I never really liked when it first came out because all the songs sounded the same and like all their other songs on their other CDs, thus driving me clinically insane and causing me not to endear myself to it at all, with the exception of "Must Have Done Something Right", or whatever it is.  But after wanting to listen to that song in the first place, and having done so, deciding to listen to the entire album all the way through while stuffing things up chickens, and I don't mind it as much as I did.  I can appreciate it lyrically.  Yes, so I was listening to that, and then it ended, and I was too lazy to walk the 30 feet to my bedroom and get a new CD, so I turned on the classical station. 

Have you ever noticed how chickens and Dickens rhyme?  It's pretty cool.

Yesterday I went to a square dance and....guess what.....?  I met some bloggy people and had TONS of fun!  I love dancing SO much....I can't even explain the passion that burns uncontrollably through my being, to be poetic-ish about it.  

I am getting a little tired of the people on the classical station asking for money.  OKAY!  It's back to music.  You know, it's funny how I walked back to my room to get my computer but didn't get any music.  

So I met Johnathan, AKA "Jos" in the blog world, and danced with him; I met Neil AKA Enil in the blog world and danced with him; and I met Abigail aka Abigail in the blog world, but did not dance with her, since she is a girl and all.  :)  Abigail is just as sweet as she is online, Johnathan has a REAL British accent!! and Neil is ever so Mr. Charming.  After the square dance, Lizzie, Allison, Sarah, and I went back to Lizzie and Sarah's house, made food, frolicked in the meadow, (well, just the front yard), and then ate the food and watched "Pride and Prejudice."  The new one.  I like that one best, but the entire time all my comrades could talk about was how Colin Firth is so much better and better looking.  Frankly I don't think that Colin Firth is any bit good-looking at all.  The new Mr. Darcy is better and better looking.  As usual, mine is an opinion that only the minority holds.  

Ah!  The chickens have completed their long journey in the oven.  

Keeping in the theme of the title of this post........um......I cannot philosophize about anything.  I am so incredibly boring that I cannot come up with anything else to write about.  Okay, that is NOT TRUE.  I hope.  Actually, my mind is preoccupied with visions of chickens dancing in my head, so I think I must leave you now to tend to them (they are sitting and steaming or something now...I'm just following the directions like the Doughnut Man said to do).   So long all mine faithful readers!

~Jessica 

Poetic License

As I have said many times before, this is my blog and I may do on it what I please.  Hence I present to you a fairly long sort of "poem", which has absolutely no structure whatsoever, and while writing it I couldn't seem to draw any nice, poetic words or phrases out of myself, so it sounds like plain English to me.  I also cannot think of anything to call it, so I am leaving it untitled:

Are you forever distant?

Have we become strangers?

Once so close...

But what is it that I long for?

I long for the closeness

Of one heart to another

Of two lives entwined

The deepest intimacy imagined

But do I really want it from you?

I think it is because we really were

Each other's exclusive sharers of life

That I cannot let what could have been go

Even if I know we aren't going the same way.

I wonder if I could ever love any

As much as I cared for you

When I was sure we wouldn't separate

And all my dreams would come true.

Why is it that I hold onto that emotion?

I thought I had lost it.  

I am better without it.

You waltz in and I can't get you to go out

You are at my side for a moment

But I clasp onto you and you stay there for weeks

On my heart which seemed complete beforehand.

So now - how will I know whom I really love

And whom I only want to love?

Are our paths in life perpendicular?

Meeting you was only our lives intersecting

I must continue on; I cannot go back

You cannot go back

If we go back, we get nowhere

And I refuse to live my life going around a traffic circle!

You go your way, I'll go mine

We'll drift further away

I never held your hand nor your heart

Yet something is hard to let go.

And how could you have been holding some part of me

All the while I didn't know?

Seeing the bright, beaming light of matrimony

Staring me straight in my face

I often to do not remember my present youth.

Yet even in the short time of our acquaintance

I have changed and grown so much.

There is something about the time

Since the day I first saw you

That brought magic in my life

And I saw in front of my dreams-

Both those entertained and whose which entertained-

Reality bestowed upon me things I believed

Were to forever remain my fantasies.

Also my cold and blind heart has warmed

And I can see now, though not as clearly as I might.

Are you the influence? Or merely an association

Only along for a ride as I stand in the meadow

And let the strong breeze of disestablishment 

Conquer me?

You are there, and you are gone.

Someday someone will be there and he will never leave.

He is not you, as I had naively hoped so intensely.

Hope can be so repulsive.

Have I not yet learned it must be avoided at all costs?

Names

"What is in a name?  That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet: so Romeo would, were he not Romeo called."  

Seriously.  I have had just about enough debate with myself about this.  "This what??"  Okay, this: the notion that some Christians or Messianics or whoevers are better off in God's sight simply because they do not call him "God", but "Yahweh", and instead of "Jesus" they use "Yahshua."  Oh, and let's not forget "Shaul" instead of "Paul", and "Yochanan" instead of "John."  Now, personally I have nothing against anybody who uses the Hebrew names.  I just don't think it should be a matter of who-is-holier-than-whom.  As far as I am concerned, as long as we are all worshipping the same God, it doesn't matter what we call him, as long as it isn't something insulting.  

All I can see is that this whole "making sure to call so-and-so by his real, Hebrew name" causes you to do is feel prideful that you are a better Christian or whatever than everyone else because you know God’s real name and you don’t ignorantly sin by calling Yahweh God.  You know, if my name is translated to something completely different in another language, and I happen to go to say…Poland or somewhere and they address me differently, I am not going to mind.  They are still talking to the same person.  And I would hope that my friends over here in the states wouldn’t feel a sense of pride over the Poles because they say my name correctly, and therefore must be held in a higher regard by me.  That is so stupid.

Still, it may not really be so much of a matter of pride as I think it is.  I know it can be, because for a while (two or three months or so) after I learned the Hebrew names from some people I know (and love dearly, don't get me wrong) who prefer to use them, I felt a little high and mighty because I was "informed" on this matter and wasn't on the "ignorant" side of things, which contained the people who were using the wrong names of Jesus and God when addressing OUR heavenly Father.  Yessiree, I was doing things RIGHT, they were WRONG, I was an "elite Christian" and they were just ordinary.  And it was a sad, sad little...time.  Now, I didn't think badly of anyone, really, so if you are anyone reading this blog don't assume that I looked down on you to the point of really thinking less of you...more like I was looking up on myself and thinking more of me, if that makes any sense.  I was being foolish and immature, if nothing else!  

Anyways, there is that Michael W. Smith song "You are Holy", which lists many of God and Jesus' names.  He doesn't just have one, good grief!! It says, "He is Lord of Lords, He is King of Kings, He is mighty God, Lord of everything, He's Emmanuel, He's the great 'I AM', He's my Prince of Peace who is the Lamb, He's the living God, He's my saving grace, He will reign forever, He is ancient of days, He is the Alpha, Omega, Beginning and End; He's my Savior, Messiah, Redeemer, and friend; He's my Prince of Peace and I will live my life for you!"  And that is just scraping the surface... :D

Christ Jesus.....Messiah Yahshua.....SAME THING.  I can use one, I can use the other, I can use them interchangeably.  The name "Jesus" is "Yahshua" in Greek.  In Mexico, "Jesus" is pronounced "Hey-suse" (I'm pretty sure).  It's the same guy.  He just happened to be born in Israel, and God happened to choose the Israelites as his people before Jesus came to save everyone, so of course the original is Hebrew.  But if God had chosen the Greeks or Jesus had been born in Greece, they would have different names.  

Now I am just going to take a deep breath and rest comfortably in the fact that whatever I feel like calling my heavenly Father at the time (usually "my heavenly Father"), is FINE.  I hate looking down on others for any reason.  Pride is not good.  The Bible says that.  The Bible does not say thou shalt call thine Maker by His one real name or thou shall burn in the firey furnace of.....you-know-where.  

Ah.  A blog entry completed at long last!  Sweet bliss....

~Jessica

before the storm

by Jessica

As a black cloud decends

and a chilling wind

sifts wildly through the trees

an hundred ravens seen high above

catch their wings on the air

and spill from the North

towards the lighter horizon

where the sun gives the impression

of setting in the stroke of a peach cloud

against a pale blue sky.

Could I Really be Afraid of Commitment?

Commitment....life....huh......what??  Oh, as in, the present?  Sorry, I forgot I was existing for a tiny bit.

Life has been a strange hullabaloo of nonsense flying past me at the speed of light lately, and I haven't quite gotten a grip of where I am again.  I guess this may be a pattern that might have been noticed by some people who notice things like that, but I don't know.  

First of all, I have gotten a Facebook.  Now you can all bring your palms up to your foreheads and smack accordingly, groaning, "Ooooooohhhhhhhhh, duh, that is your problem."  Yes, I have joined the ranks of the Facebookians who have had their brains sucked into the black hole of Facebook.  I am now of the opinion that Facebook is just another ploy of the High Elite to take over our minds and ultimately control us.  And I am completely serious about that.  

Much musing has mingled in my mind of late, involving just about everything under the sun, and at night the moon.  I am unfortunately cursed to be one of those people who always second-guesses themselves at every turn.  You probably figured that out too.  I guess I am not comfortable with making final decisions.  I make them, and then I go back on them.  I make new ones again, saying "This time I am really going to stick with this!!" and then something interferes with my brain frequencies and causes them to contort in some way or another, and then I fail before really even beginning.  

But you know what???  I am going to stick with something this time, no matter what.  

Of course, I will always be second-guessing myself; the idea might not always seem the most attractive, in fact it might look downright rotten at times; I will think of or come by something else more attractive and really want to switch over again; I will probably get jealous of what everyone else is doing and how much fun they are having and how successful they are being.  But you know what?  That is how life is.  That is how all commitments are.  That is how - and this is the biggie - marriage is.  Think of it!  Marriage isn't always in the fast-lane with romance happening all the time or anything crazy like that.  You have to choose, like Lizzie has said, to love this man, and love your children when you have them, most of the time.  Marriage isn't something you back out of just because you're unsure of it, it's going a little rough at the moment, another guy comes along whom you think you would rather be with, or someone else's marriage looks like it is going much smoother and you have no hope for your own...any number of things.  It is immature to think that way.  Sure, when you were a little kid, if you got tired of one toy you went and played with another.  Even if you had a favorite toy at home and you went to the store with your grandma or something and saw the latest something-or-other on the shelf and wanted it, she (being your grandma) would buy it for you and that would be your latest and greatest favorite till you got tired of it.  You may have returned to your old favorite, or gotten a new toy, but whatever it was, excessive toys teach nobody commitment. 

Great.  Now I won't let my kids play with toys either.  They are just going to hate me.  No television, no videogames, no toys...what's next?  Maybe I should lay off thinking about child neurology and psychology for a while.

I mean, I was that way, especially with books.  I'm still that way with books.  There are just too many good books to read and I read so slowly I just want to start them all at once.  Of course then I can't finish them any faster.  It's crazy.  I have some really bad habits.  Darn it.  

You know, I can look at commitment as existing with God or without God.  And there just seems to be so much more hope if I factor God into the picture!  Otherwise it is just little me trying to find my way in life all by myself, never knowing what is right, getting easily distracted, wondering excessively, among many other dreadful, anxious feelings.  But when I remember that God is there to lead me, I am just filled with "the peace that passes all understanding!"  I know that I can't go wrong by God.  The only way I can screw up is on my own accord.  I have PROOF that God will lead my way if I just put my head down and follow blindly.  Granted, I am sure everyone is some degree or another of sick and tired of hearing my story when I was 12 or so and got lost in the Henderson's woods.  But here it is again (leaving out the part about the coyote and how I got lost in the first place): I tried to find my way back several times, and finally I came to a road.  I didn't know what road it was, but I thought surely it would lead back to their house.  I walked forever in both directions and got nowhere.  BTW, the Hendersons live in the middle of nowhere on a huge piece of property, just for your general information.  Finally after who knows how long of hopeless deliberating with myself, and feeling like God was saying to go back in the woods and he would lead me home (but I didn't want to because of the coyote and if I just went back in the woods I would get lost all over again), I decided to listen to the voice in my head.  I literally put my head down and walked in some direction or another, not even bothering looking where I was going.  I walked in a straight line for probably 15 minutes, and then...lo and behold....the Henderson's cow pasture!!!!!  I climbed the fence, ran up the hill, climbed the other fence, and my dad was just coming out of the house and I burst into tears and really sentimental piano-and-strings music started to play and it was all happy................yeah.  

All of that to say that I know I can do it again with the rest of my life, as uncertain and hopeless as it seems.  God has blessed me so much in my life already with opportunities I could not have dreamed up if I was given a million years just to sit and ponder the possibilities.  In the words of the Gettys: "Don't let me lose my wonder!"  

Ah, I feel all better inside!  My brain has resurrected itself, I believe.  Now, on to productivity!!!

~Jessica         

The Finch Family

Once upon a time there was a family whose name was Finch.

Mrs. Finch was exceedingly fond of large hats, particularly the kinds with extravagant plumes in them. The bigger the hat and the bigger the plume was all the better for her. She was always on the lookout for hats, plumes, and hats with plumes which surpassed the ones she already owned in size. Her biggest fear was that someone in the world owned a hat and plume bigger than her biggest one, and that she would be put to terrible shame by this person, whoever it might be.

Mr. Finch appreciated bow ties, but only white ones with black polka dots, or black ones with white polka dots. You may think that there is not much variety in only liking bowties of those natures, which would make Mr. Finch rather boring in his like of bowties; but in fact there are many, many different types of black bowties with white polka dots and white bow ties with black polka dots.

Greta Finch was the eldest girl and the eldest child in the immediate Finch family. She had straight dark brown hair down to her thighs and light green eyes which always seemed to be focused elsewhere from the present. She appreciated two things: books, and reading them. If she was not reading, she was arranging her immense book collection or else deeply considering matters of books rather than paying attention to any sort of reality, except how reality pertained to books. That said, she was not the dreamy sort at all: to the contrary she was much more mournful of her situation in life and how it was not much like princess so-and-so who lived in such-and-such large castle and was married by prince whoever to carry on a life of bliss.

Edward Finch was very tall and was not much more than skin and bones. He possessed an affinity for being up and on top of things, and was frequently worrying whatever females were about by climbing all climbable anythings. He was a quiet lad who mostly kept to himself, though ate everything in sight and when he was not he was always wishing there was something in sight to be eaten.

Evelyn Finch had long, blonde, wavy hair and big dark brown eyes. She was always dressed all in black or very dark grey with a simple bow or two in her hair. She was an asker of accusing questions as well as a desirer of all she set her deep eyes on. Evelyn collected many, many different things. In fact, she had a collection of what must have been everything except for hats, plumes, bowties, and books. Her favorite collection was her sixteen jars of bacteria cultures, which she kept and fed as if they were her own pets.

Victor Finch wore very big, round glasses and liked to believe he was the number one most reliable source of all that there was to know in the world. If someone instructed him, he would rebuke the instructor and tell him otherwise, though what he assumed to be the truth was often a quite absurdly drawn conclusion. However, if he was able to find that the encyclopedia said otherwise (which he only consulted once a conversation had been had where he was not sure of something which he had just stated as fact, particularly if the person he stated it to disagreed), then he would slowly but surely wrap his head around the new idea and adopt it as his own and soon declare that he never thought otherwise.

The Finch family lived in a modest home right in the very middle of Fanghorn Avenue. The downstairs consisted of a parlor, kitchen, dining room, powder room, and a small cupboard for the placement of articles of warmth from the cold in the winter, which was located in the passage. Upstairs (the steps leading to and from which located next-door to the aforementioned cupboard), were four bedrooms. One for Mr. and Mrs. Finch, one for Greta and Evelyn, one for Edward and Victor, and one for guests when guests came, but otherwise for collection overflow on behalf of Mr. Finch, Mrs. Finch, Greta, and Evelyn (all of whom would have rather kept all of each collection in his or her room, but ran out of space). Edward and Victor, wanting to share in the equal subdivision of the spare room, collected odds and ends precisely for the purpose of storing when no guests were around. Edward, without giving much thought to it, collected many ounces of dust lying around the house (causing Mrs. Finch to keep her sanity in check in the most mundane respects of furniture dusting), and Victor had the clever idea of cutting out encyclopedia articles which he thought he might read in the future when he got around to it, (of course, Mr. Finch was not of the knowledge of this defacement) and putting them in spare jars which Evelyn discarded when any particular culture grew too big for it. This resulted in Victor not wanting to actually read the articles because to pull them back out again would render the entire time reading a time spent smelling nothing short of the most awful stench in the world, which was impossible to wash out of the jars. There was also a bathroom up stairs which everyone shared, though everyone complained considerably of everyone else taking much too long in the bathroom doing various and sundry preparations and primpings which were necessary to the party concerned with doing preparations and primpings, but were absolutely ridiculous to all who were affected by not being able to use the bathroom at the time they wished to.

All in all the Finch family lived their lives in the same way as you might live yours or I might live mine: with the sense that they are just simply living day by day as is best known to them, without giving much thought over to any sort of comparison with other families or other ways of life which may or may not be considered more normal or more abnormal. Did not the Finch family have friends? Surely. Did they spend time outside their home? Almost certainly. But those are other stories for other times.

I am very cold.

I am.  And I have reason to be.  After all, there happens to still be snow on the ground.  Sure, most of it has melted, but it is still cold outside.  I hate it.  

The weather people keep pushing the day when it finally gets in the 70s further and further away.  The day before yesterday it was Thursday, yesterday they said it would be Friday, and today they say it's going to be Saturday.  My wager is that they are just guessing as usual.  All this modern-day science and all those computers just to guess.  I think it's useless; almanacs in the 1800s were surely more acurate, not that I know much about them.  

I get cold WAY too easily.  I don't know what it is about me.  Yesterday I was reading about the symptoms of shock and I had to laugh for a moment because it seems as though I have about half of them all the time: reduced alterness (I'm very "out of it" in the area of paying attention), confusion (I get confused a lot), and cold, pale skin.  Of course, I don't consistently have general weakness, unconsciousness, or shallow, irregular breathing (although sometimes I do hold my breath for long periods of time, slowly letting it out, and then taking another deep breath and holding it, but that is just a weird swimming habit I seem to have).  

That said, I am freezing.  I really hope to marry somebody who is warm natured so he can keep me warm, but not too warm natured that he keeps the thermostat in the mid 60s.  During the day our thermostat is set to 68, and that is just too cold for me to be comfortable.  At night it is 66, which is even worse.  Thankfully I have my heating blanket which I always set on high, and on top of that I have another thick, wooly blanket, and then I have my big, thick comforter.  At night I roll myself up into a little cacoon with my head sticking out and sleep quite comfortably.  It is even nicer when my dog sleeps in my bed, because she'll usually snuggle up and keep me warm as well.  

I like to take showers when it is cold, because the hot water feels good, but when I get out...well, my hair is all wet, and takes forever to dry.  Plus, it gets on my clothes and gets them wet.  If I put my hair up it never dries completely.  It's worse at night, when it is colder, although if I get to use the hairdryer, then I feel better.  I also hate washing my face at night in the winter, because I have to splash cold water on my cold face and I feel very cold.  :(

And then I go to swim practice and it is always MUCH colder when it is cold outside, even though the water is supposedly the same temperature and the pool is inside.  And we have to swim in the cold pool, too, even though the warm pool is just as available.  And I freeze and freeze and freeze and freeze.  

Next winter I'm flying south and not coming back.  Don't miss me too much.

~Jessica  

What I have read....

I took this from Rebecca: books I've read are in bold. I've added an + to the ones I love and a * to the ones I plan on reading...

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. +Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. +To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell*
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë*
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. +Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. +Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy* 
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck*
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens*
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen*
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. +Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. +Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas*
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. +Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck*
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky*
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding*
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl 
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding*
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce*
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens*
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley*
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho*
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot* (I am considering reading it but have not quite made up my mind)
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
103. The Beach, Alex Garland
104. Dracula, Bram Stoker
105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz
106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens*
107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz
108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy
112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾, Sue Townsend
113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Misérables, Victor Hugo
115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy*
116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
119. Shogun, James Clavell
120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson
122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray*
123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
124. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle*
129. Possession, A. S. Byatt
130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl 
133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck
134. George's Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker*
137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan*
139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson
141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque*
142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson
143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
144. It, Stephen King*
145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
146. The Green Mile, Stephen King
147. Papillon, Henri Charriere
148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett
149. Master And Commander, Patrick O'Brian
150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz
151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett
153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement, Ian McEwan
155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier*
157. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey*
158. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon
161. Moby Dick, Herman Melville*
162. River God, Wilbur Smith
163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
165. The World According To Garp, John Irving
166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore
167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson
168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye
169. The Witches, Roald Dahl
170. Charlotte's Web, E. B. White
171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley*
172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway*
174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco
175. Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder
176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr Fox, Roald Dahl
178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery*
181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens*
183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner, George Eliot
185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Grossmith
187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine
189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. LawrenceLife of Lawrence
191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons
193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells*
195. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans
196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White
199. +The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle (of course!!  We still have this book.... :D)
200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews

So that is 34.....very deceptive, I actually have read a lot of books.  I just haven't heard of the majority of these titles.