100 books to read

To my opinion, books are one of the greatest treasure one can have. They model our mind, strengthen our mentality, enrich our perspectives, offer answers, but also make us ask questions. Yes, I can consider reading one of my hobbies. However, due to these two final university years, my reading often resumed to speciality text books and did not include too much literature. And this is something I want to change. I found a list with 100 books which are the minimum you should at least have read in your life and you can find it below. I put an X next to those I've already read. However, I must confess that after I see the movie, I rarely read the book, unless it's a good one. So to be honest, I will just put a + to those I've seen the play in theatre or the movie, hoping that those who read the books already can make recommendations. And if you guys are good, I might also write some book reviews for those I enjoyed. I hope that in some time I will be able to put many more X-es to my list !



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 X
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 The Alchemist- Paolo Coehlo X
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier X
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
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 X
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 Tolstoi X
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens X
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis X
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis X
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 X
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
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 X
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas X
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
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens X
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce X
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 X
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
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint X
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 - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo X

Hope is here

Tonight, while in the library, I just noticed a lady bird mysteriously showing up on my book cover. Hello, little friend ! This means hope, my last ally, is here.

The 5 stages of pre-exam breakdowns

Found this on Facebook and thought it's funny and so true !

1. denial (don't worry its fine - its all good, i can deal with it, it wont be to hard, no worries)

2. Anger - are you fucking kidding me!! this is shit - i dont know any of this how do they expect us to remember this?? "hey mate, calm down" - dont you fucking tell me to calm down - you can fuck off

3. bargaining

Shit i wish i didnt have to do this - its all over, im going to fail. I would do anything to not have to do this, just one more day to study, anything to get out of this

4. depression

its fucked, im fucked, its all over - HSC over, im never going to pass, just give up now and drop out

5. acceptance

yes i finally acknowledge i am fucked - but nonetheless i will do this exam anyway and hopefully get through it somehow

An amazing quote (Romanian)

"N-am sa ajung pe culme... Se poate, foarte bine. Dar vreau sa urc atat cat am sa pot prin mine." Edmond Rostand

Things I didn't do

There are three things I regret in life. Piano, German and tennis. Huh, you'd say... Wait ! When I was little, my parents wanted me to have an all-rounded education. Not only excel in my studies, but also have passion for arts, cultures, sports and languages. Since I grew up in a rather small city, I must confess not that many opportunities were available, as in other big cities. However, I got to do a lot of activities as a kid. Those who know me are aware that I am person of action, dynamic, always have to do something. Always to enrich myself.

German. My parents really wanted me to speak multiple languages, since they consider these as one's possible greatest assets. This was what sparked initially my passion in languages. I can speak fluently two languages, I am conversational in one and I have basic knowledge of two (I am not counting here my native language, although to some I should because I must confess not everyone in my country masters a good level of proper Romanian). Yes, I know it's not too much, but I plan to add more to the list (Portuguese, anyone :P). However, as a child, I seem to have manifested an interest in the more romantic languages (except for English). Maybe it has to do with the Latin roots of my own language. Anyway, so although my parents wanted me to learn German, it simply did not happen. It did not stick, I was too young and day-dreaming of playing outside with the other kids. Now, with some age experience, I think differently. And I am sorry to not have explored further the opportunity I had. To manage to be fluent in German. Consequently, last year I started taking German classes as outside courses. I had to interrupt due to final year. But I will come back. And you'll see, Deutsch wird einfach sein.

Tennis. Again, not only the mind needs to be stimulated. Sports is key to movement, to a general well-being. I learned and played tennis for 3 or 4 years. Got OK at it. But unfortunately, I got to a the ceiling. That was the only level I could get to. I wish I had a better opportunity with this. As above, I will get to play tennis at a good level. This year. Somehow, some way. If I did not have the opportunity to perform then, I will create it now.

Piano. And this is very dear to me. This was not actually my parents' idea, but mine. I remember when I was very little, I was taken to classical music concerts by my parents, who are big, big fans. Yes, the passion for classical music came from the family. But I remember as a little girl that I simply adored the concerts where the piano was played. And I remember getting closer to the stage to see, as my mum and I recall, "the pianist hands". Because through his/her hands, in my mind, I could feel the real passion and motivation. Seeing those hands how they almost float above the keyboard. So delicate sometimes and so strong at other times. I think that was the real essence of the play. And I remember turning to my mum: "I want to do that. I want to see how it feels". And then came almost 4 years of piano classes at the Arts high school. I also managed to play at two concerts with other students from that high school (one even at the local theatre, what a memory) and I remember my teacher wanting to recruit me to actually study there. But I was too keen on studying mathematics and other theoretical subjects, that I decided just to take classes. And, as I still wrongly believe now, that I can manage to do everything. Going to university made me leave my pianola at home and let it get full of dust over time. Although I am not able to bring it to the UK, I will save some money to buy a new one where I will move this year. So I can see the player's hands again. This time, my hands.

Consequently, these are my things which I didn't do. For some of them, I did not have the opportunity to pursue them further. For others, it might have not been the right time or my right mood. But what is certain is that I want to pursue these interests. That my heart feels alive whenever I hear the sound of piano. That I still watch tennis games on TV (and not on court as I should be). That I cannot speak to my German friends in their own language. To transform these into passions, to become better. And not to regret not doing them. What do you regret of not doing ?

P.S. If anyone has any suggestions for good places in London for German, tennis and piano classes, I would be most grateful.

Something to listen to

Listen to this and think about your life.

A healthy tip for a short break

Recently, I have developed a quite weird sleeping habit. Unconsciously, I tend to put my left arm under me and sleep on it. Of course, you can imagine that in the morning my arm muscles hurt like hell and my whole arm is sour. Consequently, I talked to my physician about this and she told me something which didn't occur to me before. That I don't do this unconsciously. Actually, my mind is dictating me to do that while sleeping. And the cause is because there is something which is stressing me, something bothering me lately. Of course, you would all guess that the coming soon exams seem like a plausible explanation. Then she recommended something really simple, which actually helped me a lot so far. Every evening or when I feel that my mind is too congested from the reading, and I need a 2-minute break (I usually Facebook when I take my 2-minute break; not that great, I know), to lie down on the floor or preferably on the mat and just... play with my body! Stretch yourself, see where it hurts, see which muscle is sour, breath and empty your mind. Overall, it helps enormously to become more conscious of your body, to learn more about yourself. I guess that Pilates (which I greatly enjoyed, by the way) is functioning on the same principle.

I find the human body and mind very interesting. But what I find amazing is the link between the body and the mind. And how we can discover surprising things about ourselves, which we didn't think of before. But which the brain is signalling to us in some way. In my case, sleeping on my left arm. In other cases, it might be that exaggerated fatigue shows its signs when it's too late to notice them. Do not underestimate your body and learn how to read it.

So, everyone, shall we lie down for 2 minutes ?