falada, falada

Yo, dudes. It has been quite some time. I don't have The Internet at my house any more, so I'm out of the habit of composing long-winded screeds for the pleasure of the masses. Up until now I have pretended that this is in fact an excellent thing, allowing me to put many productive hours into drawing, reading and writing. I have been one of those people you hate who gloat about not having The Internet, oh I am so much better without The Internet, I actually do stuff instead of checking my facebook! Blah blah. But now I am house-sitting and I have The Internet and oh my goodness, I am all addicted again.

This is how I imagine it will feel one day in middle age, after I get out of rehab and go to AA meetings and tell people that quitting drinking was the best decision of my life - and then one day someone (in my head probably Kate-Anna or Kiki, and I can't wait to experience both of those people in middle age) will hand me a G&T, and like Alice in Wonderland I'll innocently chug it down and suddenly remember the amazingly wonderful experience of drinking, or in this case The Internet, and never be able to stop. Ever.

Hrm.

NOW FOR A COMPRESSED COMPLAIN

1. Uni is moderate. I am having to drop a unit to cope with the workload, which is dumb, because the workload is not that dramatic really, but I am not functioning terribly well.

2. I don't get any magical payout from K-Rudd. I am below the Low Income Threshold. Read: I am too poor to receive government assistance.

3. My band broke up under horrid circumstances, ie one of the co-founders is a total jerk and spent basically all the band money, which was nearly $4000, and then dumped everyone in the band including the other founder to make a new lineup. He gave me $150, which is apparently all I deserve from playing 25-30 gigs. When I asked why we weren't splitting all the money evenly, he said that I didn't put as many hours into the band as he did, because he booked the gigs, and from his perspective the band money was his to spend. I hope the new improved version of the Lazy Railway fails dramatically. Fucker.

4. Tried to date a boy. Failed.

5. One of my housemates moved out and took the cat, Harrison Ford, with her. Even though she hadn't really lived with us for like two months and he slept on my bed and I loved him and I am sad that he is gone.

OK COMPRESSED HAPPY!

1. Kiki and I are getting kittens on Saturday!!! Mine will be called Triceratops.

2. Hatched went really well & I was happy with my work.

3. Arrested Development.

4. Dinosaur Comics.

5. Kate Beaton.

6. In the Pines: Too Much Wines!! (But mostly in a good way.)

7. Various Other Social Events: Also Too Much Of Various Alcoholic Drinks. (This should maybe not go in Happy. It is sort of uncertain, depending on the specific circumstances. But mostly happy.)

OK

I feel I have done my blogging duty by filling one and a half seconds of your life with mindless self-indulgent drivel. But I at least acknowledged that it is both mindless and self-indulgent. Good night!

What's this? Another update? SURELY NOT, you cry (all three of you still reading this), in shocked and echoing tones. No, your eyes do not deceive you. Here is why: I finally have a FLICKRRRRRRRRRR account. I sort of had to make one, for an application thing, but it's about time. You can go and look at my ridiculous drawings and stuff. This must be an exciting day for you, right? Yeah, I thought so! Cool. Well, I'll leave you alone to celebrate.

HERE IS SOMETHING I APPARENTLY WROTE A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO THAT I NEVER POSTED

Yesterday I was driving the band to JB O'Reilly's for a gig. Lewis was directing me, and he said "Go left here!" and he meant the next one, but I thought he meant the one I was almost about to pass. So I turned left really fast but unfortunately I was in the right-hand lane at the time and omitted to check my blind spot. And crashed into another car. Which turned out to be a shiny expensive car belonging to a fucking SURGEON. Too bad I didn't crash into a shitty old bomb driven by a pothead who wouldn't care. Anyway, I'm okay, and his car's mostly okay except for big scrapes on the paintwork, and my car's still drivable, just badly dented round the left headlight. Also, my indicator still works as an indicator, but instead of doing a sedate tick-tock-tick-tock it now does a crazy double-time small-bird-heartbeat tickatickatickatickaticka that makes me kind of nervous whenever I'm turning left.

OK HERE IS SOMETHING I AM ABOUT TO WRITE

Kiki and I watched a movie last night called Art School Confidential. It was all about how everyone in the art world is a total wanker and art is ultimately meaningless. It was a very stupid and depressing movie, all the more so because it was a little bit too close to home. After we watched it we sat there and didn't say anything and then asked each other if we were wankers like everyone in that movie. But it's hard to know, if you are a wanker, because obviously you won't think you are. After a while when we were still sitting there I said: "Wine?" And Kiki said: "Yes." We both jumped up and ran to the kitchen, and because we were so upset about art we drank a whole bottle very fast, forgot to eat dinner, and ended up sitting on the floor bawling. THANKS FOR NOTHING, ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL.

What else? That is all, I am still kind of upset about that. I was already having trouble convincing myself that art means anything, so that stupid movie didn't help.

In better news, I watched Me and You and Everyone We Know the other day and I greatly enjoyed it. So all is not lost. OK.

Dear The Internet,

Hello! I have been sort of slack with updating this thing, hey. Guess what? I graduated from art school! Hooray for me and all my graduating friends. Thanks to everyone who came to our exhibition opening, and I'm sorry if I was too drunk to communicate properly. But, you know, it was Grad Show. I was always going to be completely drunk. It's allowed.

Now I have nothing to do with my life, except work in a childcare job which I start on Tuesday, and also playing gigs with a band called the Lazy Railway, of which I am now part. We're playing at the Fly By Night on the 25th, supporting Abbe May. In a few weeks I'm going to Southbound and possibly St Jerome's and then in late February I'm going to Curtin. So. I guess I have a lot to do with my life, actually.

It is ridiculously hot today. The worst part is, it probably isn't actually that hot. It's going to get a lot hotter. But I can already feel my interior organs melting. (Or is that all the beer I've consumed recently? Hard to tell.) Stupid global warming.

Anyway, I can't particularly be bothered with this, but whatever, hi, I'm alive, and sometime I'm sure I'll have something interesting to write.

Love from Anna

 I am living in my new house! It is best ever. The cat, Harrison Ford, is slightly deranged as the result of a car accident, and spends a lot of time trying to get into cupboards and drawers and tiny spaces, then banging his head on the doors and miaowing. He is so so cute, however. This morning we tried to put him outside so we could leave and he hid under Jess's bed. We lured him out by dangling a cat toy and gently nudging him with an umbrella. Jess called him a little jerk. He did not appreciate that.

Yesterday I created a sheet-tent on the roof balcony and spent the afternoon reading and napping in the shade, on the warm balcony tiles, looking out over the roofs and grapevines. It was amazing.

Also, did you know it's five weeks until my graduate exhibition? Holy fucking crap, people. These three years are over way too soon.

AN OPEN LETTER TO LIFE

Dear Life,

OK, you are being pretty moderate right now in many ways, but (admittedly) pretty good in others. For example, as previously stated, my friend Tom died by being struck by lightning (I would just like to reiterate this: STRUCK. BY. LIGHTNING.), which is obviously fucked. But on the other hand, I am not curled up in a ball under my desk hyperventilating about the aforesaid fuckedness, which is good. Also, I am awfully poor right now (ie possess like ten dollars in the whole world), which is lame. But I get paid on Wednesday, plus I get ALL my tax back, which is great. I can't think of any other direct dichotomies but you know, stuff. Oh yes, I found out via Stalkbook that a former boyfriend (whom I regrettably dumped months ago - apparently in a cold and heartless manner, but actually in confusing and icky circumstances which I was unable to articulate at the time - and with whom I have not communicated since) is now dating a girl who is so freaking attractive I can't believe she exists, but yeah, whatever. What was the point of this letter again? Was it to be a giant whinge? Possibly. If so I guess it succeeded! (But then what else is livejournal for?) Life! Awesome! OK!

Yours glass-half-emptily,
Anna

Tom died in hospital. I don't exactly know what to feel about this, only that until I saw his photo on an internet news report a couple of minutes ago, I didn't feel anything at all. This whole thing is so fucked. Tom was 19 and he was a great guy. I wish I knew him better but you always think there will be more time and there fucking wasn't any more time. And I'm finding it very hard to believe that God had anything at all to do with this, no matter what people at church might say about everything being part of a plan. Because hello. There clearly is no fucking plan.

This article is about an Australian teacher who died in a freak lightning strike in Thailand yesterday.

The "teaching assistant" in critical condition is a 19-year-old guy called Tom. He's from my church. He's on life support in Bangkok with horrendous burns. The church helped raise money for him to go so he could visit orphanages and see some of Thailand. Everyone gave money. I did. I'm not close friends with Tom, but I know him, and people I'm close friends with are close to him and helped arrange this trip for him and thought it would be an amazing experience for him and God-filled and all that shit. Now look.

This is fucked, you know?

I found my primary school reports last week. The earliest ones - Years 1 to 4 - were handwritten in little blue booklets. It was weird to read them all at once, instead of cushioned by time. They said things like: "Anna needs to pay attention to instructions." And: "Anna frequently does not listen to instructions. This causes her to become quite anxious about set tasks." I'd forgotten about that, but all my teachers mentioned it. It makes sense: I was a daydreamer, and also I'm a very visual learner. I can't retain (or say) a new word or unusual name until I know how it's spelt, so I can visualise it before verbalising. I have trouble following verbal street directions. Once I've looked at it a map I'm fine, but I need to SEE it. All those rights and lefts mean nothing to my stupid brain. Anyway, I guess that's why I'm still kind of bad at taking instructions on board, along with the fact that in primary school all I wanted to do - ever - was read read read. I would read ahead in the history or maths book instead of listening to the teacher. In Year 7 we had an English comprehension textbook that contained short extracts from novels, with a questions after each one. While the teacher was reading that day's piece aloud to the class I'd skip ahead and read all the others. I must have read each one twenty times. It was so frustrating, so tantalising, not being able to keep going and find out what happened. There was one about a car crash, one from The Endless Steppe, one from a book by Isaac Bashevis Singer. (I thought that was a great name.) I remember them so vividly. The only one they had in the library was The Endless Steppe. I can't remember much of it though; only the comprehension-book extract. In it, Esther was lost in a snowstorm on the steppe. I guess all that happened was that she found her way back. I guess that's pretty much the end of every story.

Dear David Foster Wallace,

You hanged yourself two days ago. Infinite Jest has been sitting in my room for about a year, looking brick-like and postmodern, and I have never worked up the courage to start it. Sorry, David Foster Wallace. I once read some of your short stories, and there was one - I can't remember its name - but anyway it was about a psychology patient and I read it in Borders, standing next to the 'W' shelf, pretending I could afford to buy it. The story stuck with me. It was piercing and unrelenting in its cynicism about both psychology and its patients. In fact it made me hugely uncomfortable, in a way that kept me thinking about the story, which is the mark of a good writer. I also read an essay or two in Consider The Lobster, and I would've read more but then I broke up with my boyfriend (whose book it was) and so I could not. David Foster Wallace, I'm sorry you are dead, and I'm also sorry I didn't get around to reading more of your work while you were alive.

Yours regretfully,
Anna

---

Dear Kurt Vonnegut,

No. I still haven't read Slaughterhouse Five. Please don't look at me like that, Kurt Vonnegut. I'm very busy right now. Hope you're having fun in heaven or wherever. I'll read it soon, okay?

Yours procrastinatorily,
Anna

---

Dear Colin Thiele,

Don't worry. I still remember you.

Yours in memoriam,
Anna

---

Dear Sylvia Plath,

The other day I had to be interviewed by a Certificate IV student about my work. She said she'd requested to interview me because she was interested in poetry, and I'm working with words. I listed you as one of my influences. She looked at me sort of blankly. I said: 'Plath, you know, Sylvia Plath. She's a pretty famous poet.' She said: 'Oh, uh, yeah. I think my daughter might have read some of her poems.' She went to write down your name, then looked up and asked: 'So how do you spell "Plath"?'

Yours unbelievingly,
Anna

AN OPEN LETTER TO TISC

Dear TISC,

Your website is so stupid that it makes me not want to go to university. Here is why: I have a student number for Curtin already, but I kept deferring so I was never technically enrolled, and now I'm applying for a new course at the same uni. But there is no way I can communicate this! There is no box for me to check! I literally cannot explain that I already have a student number. But, TISC, apparently if I DON'T explain this you will give me a new number, and then I'll have TWO NUMBERS OH NO and your tiny little heads will explode. That is super frustrating for me, because obviously I wish to spare you pain. Also, some of your questions don't actually make sense. Or maybe I am too stupid to go to university? You certainly make me feel that way!

Yours frustratedly,
Anna

---

AN OPEN LETTER TO GIN

Dear Gin,

I have an excellent idea. You should start your own blog so I can read it! I recall that your former blog was hilarious, back in the day. If only I had something funny to read now! Also, it would give you a distraction instead of checking my livejournal and repeatedly pressing 'reload' in case I just updated it. How about it? Yeah? Yeah!

Yours hopefully,
Anna

---

What else? I am having a belated birthday party. It will be a Prohibition Tea Party in Hyde Park, next Sunday (the 21st) at 2.30. There will be teacups, gin and tonic, a pinata and cupcakes. You should come! Everyone should come! See you there, okay?

Last week at Cottonmouth there were many excellent performers and a whole bunch of beer. I wasn't actually too nervous about it, because usually I am okay at public speaking, but about three minutes before I was due to read I started freaking out a little bit and by the time I was on stage I was kind of seeing everything through the wrong end of a telescope. The first words out of my mouth were: "Hi. Um. This is really scary." AND IT REALLY WAS. But I pulled myself together and read what was actually on my piece of paper, and I think it was okay, I got some laughs at the funny bits, which was encouraging. Plus my friend Leon told me drunkenly that it was his favourite and that's really all that matters.

Later in the evening we got hold of a big poster someone stole from somewhere, and Sharpied it lavishly and offensively, and then we'd missed the last bus so we started walking to the Flying Scotsman. Ashley pushed me for a while in a shopping trolley while I made racing-car noises. Then Kate and I found a box of random china objects sitting on the verge, including some teacups and a salt/pepper/serviette holder shaped like a chicken, and a loveheart vase with bunnies on either side. Obviously this was an incredible treasure and we carried the box like Jack and Jill all the way to the Scotsman, which was closing, but my favourite Nice Lady Bouncer (who shared my musk sticks the week before) let me in to go to the toilet, which I appreciated.

Aside from that evening of greatness not much is new, except an excellent new tradition, Tafe-Beer Tuesday. And an annoying lingering cough, which probably stems a combination of exhaustedness, winter, midnight adventures and beer.

Also, I'm going to Bali on Friday, for ten days. I'm getting pretty excited. I hear they serve pina coladas in coconuts. I hear there's a volcano. Maybe even two.

---

Edit: Holy crap! I knew about this but forgot: I went to school with Miss Indonesia 2008, Sandra Angelia! We sat at the same table in Year 7 and she taught me to count to ten in Indonesian. BIZARRE.

I'm reading at Cottonmouth on Wednesday night. I am both excited and terrified. Also, I just re-read the piece I am supposed to be reading and it kind of sucks. There's kind of no point to it. Which is a bit awkward. But maybe I can insert a point by Wednesday.

Anyway if you want to come it's at the Rosemount and it starts at 8 and I'm on at about 9.15. The performers are all from First Page. I'm reading right before this girl who was in Year 12 at my school when I was in about Year 8. I read some of her writing in a school writing magazine that year, and was like OH WOW HOLY CRAP I AM IN AWE and kept the magazine so I could re-read her piece at intervals throughout the next eight years or so. I still have the magazine. I am still in awe. She's kind of a genius. I'm reading right before her. I may need a vast amount of beer to get through this.

Thanks to everyone who came to First Page and/or the auction, your support was very much appreciated, even if I seemed kind of distracted at the time and kept rushing off to do other things. I was so so grateful that my friends came. You are all best ever.

SCARY/ARDUOUS/DIFFICULT THINGS I HAVE SURVIVED RECENTLY

1. The Great TAFE Timetable Fuckup of 2008.
2. 24 Hr Drawing Marathon.
3. The First Page Exhibition & Launch.
4. Super Massive TAFE Auction.
5. Slamming My Finger In The Car Door.

Here's what I think about August: August is VERY FULL. Way to be the busiest thirty-one days of my entire life, possibly.

SO IF YOU ARE FREE ON SATURDAY THE 26TH, IE TOMORROW...

...You should come and visit me. I will be at Tafe, doing a 24-hour drawing marathon. It's being run by Hannah Bertram (the current artist-in-residence) and another artist called Louise Grant, both from Melbourne. Hannah Bertram makes these fucking amazing installations using dust and dry pigment. She makes entire carpets out of dust, with beautiful intricate patterns. Anyway they're running this thing from 8am Saturday until 8am Sunday. We'll all work on our own projects for 24 hours and presumably eat a whole truckload of food. It's an open thing, so people can come and visit and bring chocolate and console us as we become collectively more exhausted and insane.

If you want to come, it's in the artist-in-residence studio on the corner of Beaufort & Aberdeen St (between Tafe and a disused fish-and-chip chop; I imagine there will be signs with arrows). Visiting hours are 9am-5pm, but you can come after 5 if (a) you let me know beforehand and (b) I know you (psycho internet stalkers must adhere to official hours). Send me a text if you plan to drop by, preferably with some kind of delicious treat.

MY TWO MOST FAVOURITE PIECES OF SPAM THIS WEEK, REPRODUCED HERE FOR YOUR VIEWING PLEASURE

1. From: GERING BERGEM. Pot-candy llawsuit. - Halloha, Ha, ha, ha!! With a peniss of your's it's only ppossible to fuckk a TThumbelina!

2. From: LIFLAND STUFFLEBEAN. Dutch animmal rightss party wins 2 seats in election - Salut, Brring your wife We'll fuuck her! That's right we'll ffuck your wife! :)

Thank you, spammers of Europe. I am greatly indebted to you all.

HERE IS SOME MORE STUFF ABOUT FIRST PAGE

So the First Page website has been updated and changed and there is actually CONTENT on it now, hurrah, so you can go there and read about all the contributors and see lots of lovely pictures. How exciting! I know I'm excited. One of my lecturers came up to me today and said: "Did you know there's going to be an exhibition at the Breadbox Gallery, of art from this book? You should go!" And I said: "Really? Awesome!! Oh...wait. Wait, I'm actually in that." She said: "Oh, great, we're taking all the Certificate Fours to see it."

How weird. That I am in a Real Exhibition Thing that people go and see. You should go and see it, too.

So, when I mentioned that everyone in the book is exceptionally talented, but it came out sounding all self-congratulatory? Well, obviously I didn't actually mean it like that. I meant all my FRIENDS in the book are talented. Yet another Freudian blah blah blah.

Whoops.

Anyway, Gin The Anonymous Commenter: my art for the auction is going okay. I've been making a book (of course I have, that's all I can freaking do), but maybe I won't use it for the auction. Oh man...I anticipate a large amount of stress the night before the auction work is due. Auction auction auction. I spent a whole damn day last week organising the damn invitations for the stupid auction. I had to sit in the art gallery for two hours (TWO HOURS) with Crazy Gallery Lady while she arranged lists on Excel and printed labels. All I can say is, people better freaking show up.

In other thrilling news, I have brand-new glasses with new lenses to correct my increasingly poor vision (now with 100% more astigmatism!), hooray. Now I can read without getting headaches, and gaze upon distant mountains without squinting through the blurry fuzzy world.

Also, why is Safari called Safari, and why does it suck so completely in so many respects while being so excellent in others? It loads twice as fast as IE, but Rich-Text editors won't work (and I am useless at even basic html), and half the pictures don't load properly. Why does this happen? I need someone smart to fix it for me. Also, there are no elephants or giraffes. This saddens me.

THINGS I HAVE DONE A LOT OF THIS HOLIDAY (SO FAR):

food
TV
drawing (on paper, with ink pens and watercolour)
sleep

THINGS I HAVE NOT DONE ENOUGH OF THIS HOLIDAY (YET):
beer
dancing
drawing (on people and public property, with Sharpie markers)
staying awake until dawn


I have no doubt that this situation can be rectified. After all, there's a whole week to go.

I went to Taka (oh how I love Taka! So cheap! So delicious! So filling!) with stephmor on Wednesday and we decided we would Write, like that with a capital W, and we did. It was awesome. I wrote the draft of a whole entire short story, bar the first four sentences which were languishing in my notebook from weeks ago. And now it's finished. Are you proud, people? Probably not, but I am, and I'm sending it off to Voiceworks tomorrow. I did a little victory dance, sitting in my chair, when I pressed ctrl+S for the final (well, hopefully the final) time. I do that every time I finish a story.

Also, I'm in this book thing called First Page, which is being launched on August 2nd at the Bakery, with an accompanying exhibition, as that Facebook event should inform you. I tried to invite a whole bunch of people via Facebook and it screwed up somehow and I can't re-invite them and blah blah blah. But whatever. There's the link. I've got three images and a story in the book, and everyone in it is exceptionally talented. There will be some beautiful art and some quirky lovely writing and some intriguing photography. There will be bands at the launch. There will be champagne. You should come, all of you, every single one.

(I had a dream that I got my copy of First Page and my pictures were all misbound and they left out the story, and it was awful, and I don't think that will really happen, but you should come to the launch just in case it does and I have to be restrained from making dramatic gestures and weeping into my champagne.)

I've been drawing comic strips on filing cards. I drew a comic strip about my sister and her encounter with a giant teacup and a lot of tiny cacti. Maybe if I can get to a scanner, I'll post it for you.

Here are some of the things I have dreamed recently: I had a horribly sore throat, I accidentally cut my hair really short again and was too ashamed to go out, my friend died in a car accident, I had to teach an English class about the novel '1984' except I haven't read it so it was hideously embarrassing (but I was saved by a fire drill). Why are all my dreams about average things? I blame Freud for this.

I HAVE TRULY RUN OUT OF MATERIAL FOR THIS BLOG AND SHOULD PROBABLY STOP BUT I WON'T

Book meme:
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ
5) Strikeout the ones you started but never finished
6) Add an asterisk * if you've read the book more than once.



1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling*
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee*
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman*
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott*
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (Romeo&Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Othello, Macbeth, Henry V)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien*
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald*
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams*
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll*
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame*
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis*
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis*
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres*
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne*
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery*
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood*
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan (or the screenplay)
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens 
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon*
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold*
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett*
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath*
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome*
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White*
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton*
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad ('cause I had to) (ditto Steph, I hated every word) 
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery*
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory*
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo