Nicole’s Inventory and Reflection

Inventory

I know my inventory is grossly incomplete, I find myself remembering more titles I have read every day, or stories that I can not put a title to, and also all the ones I’ve simply forgotten. But I thought this was a good a list as any to represent a kind of overview.

In the second part of this inventory, I tried to break the titles into their respective genres.

As a side note, I enjoyed rediscovering some of these books, as well as placing them on a timeline. It was surprising to see the school required reading paralleled to my personal choices. I am certainly a mimetic reader, which I knew in other terms. But writing out the types of books I enjoy reading gave the thought new life.

Up to 5th Grade (0-11)

• The Berenstain Bears, Stan and Jan Berenstain, Mike Berenstain
• Little Critter, Mercer Mayer
• Corduroy, Don Freeman
• Good Dog, Carl, Alexandra Day
• Dr. Seuss Books
• Goodnight Moon, Margaret Wise Brown
• The Rainbow Fish, Marcus Pfister
• There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, Simms Taback
• The Bad Case of Stripes, David Shannon
• The Magic School Bus, Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen
• Winnie the Pooh, A. A. Milne
• The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Beatrix Potter
• Classic Fairy Tales
• I-SPY, Walter Wick, and Jean Marzollo
• Amelia Bedelia, Peggy Parish
• 365 Rainy Day Activities, Vivienne Bolton
• Junie B. Jones, Barbara Park
• Magic Treehouse, Mary Pope Osborne
• Nancy Drew, Carolyn Keene
• Amber Brown, Paula Danziger
• Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White
• Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Alvin Schwartz
• Goosebumps, R. L. Stine
• Captain Underpants, Dav Pilkey
• Where the Sidewalk Ends, Shel Silverstein
• The Giving Tree, Shel Silverstein
• Eyewitness
• Bunnicula, Deborah Howe, and James Howe
• Bridge to Terabithia, Katherine Patterson
• From the Mixed-up Files of Mirs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E. L. Konigsburg
• The Zucchini Warriors, Gordon Korman

Middle School (6-8th Grade) 11-14

• Number the Stars, Lois Lowry
• Gossip Girl, Cecily Von Ziegesar  
• Vamps, Nancy A. Collins
• Freak the Mighty, Rodman Philbrick
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
• The Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum
• Night World, L. J. Smith
• The Outsiders, S. E. Hinton
• The Boy Who Couldn’t Die, William Sleator
• Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling
• Milkweed, Jerry Spinelli
• Twilight, Stephanie Myers
• Vampire Academy, Richelle Mead
• The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
• Blue Bloods, Melissa de la Cruz
• Fallen, Lauren Kate
• The Giver, Lois Lowry
• Hush, Hush, Becca Fitzpatrick
• Forbidden, Tabitha Suzuma
• Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
• Shiver, Maggie Stiefvater
• Green Angel, Alice Hoffman
• House of Night, P. C. Cast and Kristin Cast
• Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson
• Linda Lael Miller

High School (9-12th Grade) 14-18

• Wake, Lisa McCann
• The Mortal Instruments, Cassandra Clare
• Lord of the Flies, William Golding
• The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros
• Everlasting, Alyson Noel
• To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
• Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
• Epic of Gilgamesh
• Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare
• Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
• Night Shift, Stephen King
• The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
• The Crucible, Arthur Miller
• King Lear, William Shakespeare
• The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin
• Sentinel Mage, Emily Gee
• Kissed by an Angel, Claire Helldorfer
• Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams
• Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller
• The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
• The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
• Animal Farm, George Orwell
• Macbeth, William Shakespeare
• A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry
• Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
• The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
• Castle of Otranto, Horace Walpole
• Dracula, Bram Stoker
• Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
• Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
• The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson
• The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux
• Nightmares and Dreamscapes, Stephen King
• Edgar Allen Poe
• 1984, George Orwell
• The Stranger, Albert Camus
• Othello, William Shakespeare
• The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• American Gods, Neil Gaiman

College (18- )

• Ready Player One, Ernest Cline
• The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
• Song for Night, Chris Abani
• Memory for Forgetfulness, Mahmoud Darwish
• A Midsummer’s Nights Dream, William Shakespeare
• Hamlet, William Shakespeare
• The Tempest, William Shakespeare
• Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare
• The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• Beowulf
• Eleanor and Park, Rainbow Rowell
• Every Day, David Levithan
• The Lottery, Shirley Jackson
• On Writing, Stephen King
• Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, Nick Flynn
• The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz
• Slade House, David Mitchell

 

Teen/Romance

• Gossip Girl, Cecily Von Ziegesar
• Vamps, Nancy A. Collins
• Night World, L. J. Smith
• Twilight, Stephanie Myers
• Vampire Academy, Richelle Mead
• Kissed by an Angel, Claire Helldorfer
• The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
• Blue Bloods, Melissa de la Cruz
• Fallen, Lauren Kate
• Hush, Hush, Becca Fitzpatrick
• Forbidden, Tabitha Suzuma
• Everlasting, Alyson Noel
• Shiver, Maggie Stiefvater
• Green Angel, Alice Hoffman
• House of Night, P. C. Cast and Kristin Cast
• Eleanor and Park, Rainbow Rowell
• Every Day, David Levithan
• Linda Lael Miller and other assorted Romance novels

Creative Nonfiction

• On Writing, Stephen King
• Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, Nick Flynn

Fantasy

• Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin
• Sentinel Mage, Emily Gee

Science Fiction

• Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
• Ready Player One, Ernest Cline

Children’s Stories

• The Berenstain Bears, Stan and Jan Berenstain, Mike Berenstain
• Little Critter, Mercer Mayer
• Corduroy, Don Freeman
• Good Dog, Carl, Alexandra Day
• Dr. Seuss Books
• Goodnight Moon, Margaret Wise Brown
• The Rainbow Fish, Marcus Pfister
• There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, Simms Taback
• The Bad Case of Stripes, David Shannon
• The Magic School Bus, Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen
• Winnie the Pooh, A. A. Milne
• The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Beatrix Potter
• Classic Fairy Tales
• I-SPY, Walter Wick, and Jean Marzollo
• Amelia Bedelia, Peggy Parish
• 365 Rainy Day Activities, Vivienne Bolton
• Junie B. Jones, Barbara Park
• Magic Treehouse, Mary Pope Osborne
• Nancy Drew, Carolyn Keene
• Amber Brown, Paula Danziger
• Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White
• Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Alvin Schwartz
• Goosebumps, R. L. Stine
• Captain Underpants, Dav Pilkey
• Where the Sidewalk Ends, Shel Silverstein
• The Giving Tree, Shel Silverstein
• Eyewitness
• Bunnicula, Deborah Howe, and James Howe
• Bridge to Terabithia, Katherine Patterson
• From the Mixed-up Files of Mirs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E. L. Konigsburg
• The Zucchini Warriors, Gordon Korman
• Freak the Mighty, Rodman Philbrick

Gothic Literature/Horror

• Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
• Night Shift, Stephen King
• Castle of Otranto, Horace Walpole
• Dracula, Bram Stoker
• Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
• Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
• The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson
• The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux
• Nightmares and Dreamscapes, Stephen King
• Edgar Allen Poe
• Slade House, David Mitchell

Literature

• Number the Stars, Lois Lowry
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
• The Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum
• The Outsiders, S. E. Hinton
• Milkweed, Jerry Spinelli
• The Giver, Lois Lowry
• Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson
• Lord of the Flies, William Golding
• The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros
• To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
• Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
• Epic of Gilgamesh
• Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare
• The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
• The Crucible, Arthur Miller
• King Lear, William Shakespeare
• The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams
• Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller
• The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
• The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
• Animal Farm, George Orwell
• Macbeth, William Shakespeare
• A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry
• Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
• The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
• 1984, George Orwell
• The Stranger, Albert Camus
• Othello, William Shakespeare
• The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• American Gods, Neil Gaiman
• The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
• Song for Night, Chris Abani
• Memory for Forgetfulness, Mahmoud Darwish
• A Midsummer’s Nights Dream, William Shakespeare
• Hamlet, William Shakespeare
• The Tempest, William Shakespeare
• Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare
• The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• Beowulf
• The Lottery, Shirley Jackson

Self-Help/Spiritual

• The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz

 

Reflection

It took me a few tries to get my reflection off the ground. I was approaching it in a mechanical way, starting with one book, narrating what I thought the book did for me, and then moving onto the next one. But I didn’t like how it sounded, or how it felt to read.

I revisited the assignment page and read the example and I realized I could be approaching this in a wholly different direction. After this, the words came easily.

Also as a side note, I decided to work backward from the present to the past. I liked the journey back to my roots instead starting at the seed. It was easier for me to move from where I am now to the place I used to be.

The five books for my reflection:

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Harry Potter #1) – 1/28/97 by J.K. Rowling Original Mary GrandPre’ cover design

• Nancy Drew, Carolyn Keene
• Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling
• The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
• The Stranger, Albert Camus
• 1984, George Orwell

I have never thought about how books have shaped me, how they have changed me. I have never thought about the beautiful parallels of an old dystopian future to the present that I now live in. But then I read 1984 by George Orwell. I never noticed the speaker on the wall because I carried it in my pocket, or the daily Hate we all participated in until I scrolled through a social media feed. The similarities, the utter unashamed reality of a book published sixty-eight years ago and my current life were astounding. I never thought, and I still fail to. I continue to read as I always have, for the simple pleasure of a good story, an escape from life.

But what of a different kind of life? One devoid of remorse, a plain retelling of murder and a kind of joy that was never quite joy. I had never thought that life could be so different until I read The Stranger by Albert Camus. I have never thought that I could be so different, think so strangely, and still find peace. I read of this man and I felt something visceral in response to his words, the words of him, the ink that he was. Did he change me, shape me?

I never thought I was a part of something larger, a world unseen, because I did not look. I never thought I could hide, silent, in an alley, and watch as my friend was brutalized. But then I read The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and I realized that what I don’t do matters as much as what I do. But still, I read back for pleasure, to leave the mundane for something more. I read for magic where there is none.

I still saw magic in the dark, and Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling only confirmed what I already knew. We all were special even when cursed, love would always win, and no matter what someone or something would help me out in the end. I fell down the rabbit hole per say and found myself in potions class and waiting for a letter I knew would never come. I never thought that the hope, the imagined conversations in stone hallways, or the shelf heavy with papers bound and painted had changed me, shaped me.

I read for the joy of the story, the discovery of what can be between the covers. Nancy Drew by Carolyn Keene showed me that there were clues in everything, if only I ran in my pumps and paid enough attention. She also showed me what a mother valued, sitting in her bedroom reading to her daughter. I started listening to these stories in my mother’s voice. I never thought they changed me, shaped me. I never thought that soft words, under a warm light, in a cozy blanket, could show me that there was so much more. I think that I never thought, because I never wanted to. To admit that ink on paper has changed me more than a slap, or that a ruined paper spine has shaped my own of bone, sounds like a weakness. So I read in the shallows, drifting in good stories, shocked when I find myself lost at sea.