an asperger adventure

My son and I have both finished reading the book Blue Bottle Mystery: An Asperger Adventure by Kathy Hoopman which is the first book I believe we have both read, independently. Admittedly I had to encourage him to read it because all he really wants to read right now are Geronimo Stilton books. He can read at an adult level now but up till recently I did read aloud to him in additon to his own reading. We both finished this one in under an hour, its an easy and pleasant read for children (and adults!). What really jumped out at me was Hoopman's understanding of a boys life with asperger's, as the main character struggles at school in many of the same ways my son does.

 The story certainly echoed some of the problems we experience as a family like anxiety with change, and those who don't understand the problem. Sometimes I don't understand the problem! Ben, the main character's miscommunication with his teacher is very well written I think, highlighting how difficult it must be to have asperger's and try to connect with people. Despite Ben's best efforts to behave and please his teacher, he often gets it wrong, trying desperately to get it right he still gets punished. I know my own son has experienced this many times and how frustrating it must be to be accused of being naughty when you are just trying to work out one of a thousand possibilites in your mind, work out what comes instinctively to neuro-typical people. Its also a nice little adventure and Ben does have one good friend in the book, who helps him and seems to understand him. My son related very well to this as he also has one or two friends who do seem to 'get' him.

This is a simple book  that offers good insight into the life of an asperger boy and autism and I would love so very much if all of my son's classmates read it!!

Kathy Hoopman is a primary school teacher and mother of three in Queensland Australia. If she doesn't have any children on the spectrum, she certainly has a great grasp of it.

Has to be...

I've just finished this book edited by Linda Andron and have found the most enlightening chapter yet, of all that I've read. Chapter 5 'How to Speak Asperger's' by Fran Goldfarb with Guthrie Devine, spoke so directly to me and my son that I am convinced it must be Asperger's.

There were so many examples of her son's behaviour in this chapter and it echoed so much of my son. Particulary the paragraph in which she says that if something is true once, then for the child with AS it is true forever. This would explain why we've lost our special treats, as they seem to need to happen the same day every week, even though it was meant to be a 'special' treat, why Friday nights staying up later is sooooo important every single week, and generally, why things can get so confusing for my son, when everything changes.

I especially loved the paragraph where she discusses the trouble with social rules in a classroom or other group situations, where if her son, like mine, is interested in what is going on, he has trouble understanding that he isn't the only one that the teacher is speaking to and ends up shouting out answers like a conversation rather than a lesson. And he usually knows the answer, alot of the time before anyone has even taught it, and he's quite willing to tell everyone about it as well! This has all given me the dawning realisation that his 'inability' to sit still in class is not due to ADHD, but rather his own need to follow his interests, unfortunately to the detriment of the rest of the class.

What I need now is to learn to speak Asperger's myself, because although this chapter led to so many 'ah hah's' it is still very hard and frustrating at times, which makes it that much more frustrating for my son too.

How much is too much?

I'm currently reading Enough, Breaking free form the world of more by John Naish, which I discovered through Lisa G's blog, The State I'm In. I'm a great believer, or noticer of synchronicities so when my husband discovered his hotmail account had been hacked and used to spam everyone on his list about chinese computers, I was reading this book and feeling all-luddite again! I often feel overwhelmed with technology but not in itself, I realize, but rather because of the overload of information it brings to my doorstep. Particularly with my son and my quest to find out as much as possible about autistic spectrum disorders, but the trouble is, there is sooo much out there its very difficult to know where to start. I'm back to basics, starting at the library, as my preferred intake of knowledge is through reading books, and not the computer.

So Enough is about simplfying, but also realizing how damaging consumerism is in all its modes, including eating, which is a really interesting chapter, as there's been a barrage of television shows recently on how Britain is getting fatter (like us, its fat American cousins!).

Of course it makes me wonder about keeping up with my blog, and if its really necessary or am I just contributing pointlessly to the info smog. I don't know. I have a job interview later today, and that could determine a big change in my daily life and time schedules.

However, thinking about the hotmail thing, I cancelled my account as I no longer use it, which was probably why my husband's was infiltrated, he rarely uses it.. and I cancelled my Myspace account a few weeks ago as I had experienced a similar hijacking problem with my account sending out some ridiculous bulletins that I of course had no idea about until a friend emailed me. Frankly I found myspace very annoying and rubbishy. Of course I also spend too much time on Facebook, which is also unreal and rubbishy- but not in the same way to me as myspace was. I may do what Bill Gates apparently does once a year, and have a 'think-week' away from the computer. That could go for the television as well.. in fact when we move, I'm considering leaving it behind and making a clean break!

From the book:

"We are so wired to gather information that often we no longer do anything useful with it. Instead of pausing to sift our intake for relevance and quality, the daily diet of prurient, profound, confusing and conflicting information gets chucked on to a mental ashheap of things vaguely comprehended. Then we rush to try to make sense of it all by...getting more."

One point mentioned in the book is that it bears thinking about measuring our computer, tv and other technology time in a reasonable manner, especially for and with our children, as they are growing up completely immersed in this and never knowing anything other. We have hindsight as to what our lives were like as children without computers, but we don't know the true effect it will have on our children as they grow up. That said, my own daughter is shouting at me now which is not a good sign, a sign that I should get off here.

More Help? More Paperwork!

I met with my son's teacher again on Friday and spent the weekend writing a letter to the council requesting a statement for my son, and also filling in more paperwork for the school to submit on his behalf. The behavioural support woman spoke to us about observing our son, she was dismayed at some of the things going on at the school. Music class for instance, is a particular bane to my son (and many other kids as well), and she told us that there are 60 kids in this weekly session (with an outside teacher), all sitting for the one hour lesson. They get to play an instrument (BORING triangle as my son says, whereas he'd rather have a bongo, but is not allowed?!) but otherwise the teaching is dull, uninspired and well, boring. For someone with my son's issues, this is like being in a torture chamber.

But I can respect where my son's teacher is coming from in that they have to work with the resources they have, and while they are trying to get more, its all about money, unfortunately. This doesn't necessarily account for creative strategies, but then, I'm not a teacher and I don't want to demand they 'think more outside the box' as I'm not sure how I'd handle a class like this.

In the meantime I'm still reading more and more and right now am enjoying John Elder Robison's memoir, Look Me in the Eye, My Life with Asperger's. From the Prologue he says:

Sixty years ago, the Austrian psychiatrist Hans Asperger wrote about children who were smart, with above average vocabulary, but who exhibited a number of behaviours common to people with autism, such as pronounced deficiencies in social and communication skills....

Aspergers is not a disease. Its a way of being. There is no cure, nor is there a need for one. There is however, a need for knowledge and adaptation on the part of Aspergian kids and their families and friends.

I have read this part to my son, as he is now starting to wonder what it means to have Asperger's or anything else for that matter, questioning why he's different and helping him to realise that 'normal' is really a myth, everyone is slightly different, unique in their own way. Despite taking medication to calm down a bit and concentrate more, this is something he was born with, and I suspect, while most of us spend a great deal of time searching for our path in life, his path is already pronounced in that it might be difficult but it could also be a wonderful surprise gift.

Spiritual Compass

Sometimes in my daily life I feel as if I've strayed away from my ideals, or perhaps have gotten weighed down in the mundane and need a refresher, a reminder of the bigger picture. For me the bigger picture is one viewed through my lens of my buddhist understanding and my desire to live a fruitful and peaceful life. This book by Satish Kumar (editor of Resurgence magazine) is a wonderful and gentle read (probably due to the fact he has been a monk), and while it poses tough questions it also provides some answers for that as well, through his eleven points of action.

The main idea of the book is about cultivating the 'three qualities of life' for which he uses the Indian Ayurvedic tradition to illustrate. Like buddhism, Ayurveda describes qualities of mind, three qualities, that influence our entire lives. Sattva, the highest, most desired quality, is about calmness, clarity and purity. The middle quality is Rajas which encompasses passion and energy, and then there's Tamas, which encompasses dullness and ignorance. One can view the entire world through these three gunas, from food (spicy being more rajasic), to housing (concrete ugly buildings being tamasic) to people-- most of whom encompass at least two if not all three qualities at some level. Seeing in this way, we can then seek to balance those qualities in ourselves and in our surroundings, aiming for a more sattvic (peaceful) existence, rather than a tamasic (poisonous) one.

One of the main issues is that of poverty, hunger and food. I often find myself wishing to go back to nature, or living more self-sustaining, and yet at the moment that is just not a possibility. For one thing, we live in a flat, with no garden, no place to grow enough to sustain us. All the nearby allotments are taken, and there is a waiting list.

This is a point raised very articulately in the book, that poverty is not a natural phenomenon. No other animal is denied food and water from the earth-- nor made to pay for it. Why have we done this to ourselves? No other animal claims ownership. Sure they probably all mark out some territory, but in the end, their needs are met by nature (unless we've put them into a zoo that is). If we wish to become self-sustaining, we still need to buy the land to do that, we can't just pack up and head for the hills, as they'd belong to someone, or the government perhaps.

Here in England there are so many small terraced homes without gardens, in fact the same in any urban area, so a great majority of people would be stuck without any means to feed themselves should the whole commercial structure collapse.

Satish talks about the point of return, meaning we all need to take a step back, to try and live simpler lives. I have many grateful days when I truly appreciate the things I do have. I am happy to have money to buy food and have a roof over my head. But when I think deeper about what life used to be like, I wonder whether we are really 'evolved' at all. Just looking at the bread sitting inside a plastic bag brought a strange realisation of the artificiality of our lives. I took this book out the library, but it is certainly the type of book I'd consider buying to keep to refer to again and again, for when pessimism (tamasic) takes over, or you lose sight of the bigger picture.

World Autism Awareness Day

The UN has declared today, the 2nd April 2008, World Autism Awareness Day which has now become meaningful to me as my son is on the autism spectrum with Asperger's syndrome. My own awareness has grown because of it, and for that I'm grateful. My husband as well, who also has some signs of Asperger's but was never diagnosed, has discovered a new awareness of himself through learning about and watching his son grow. Its a mutual path of growth. I still consider myself a newbie to all this though, and have so much to learn, grasp and understand. We are meeting with the child pyschiatrist in two weeks, to begin the process of statementing. He did say that more questions than answers have been raised after his visit to my son's school, so I'm wondering what that will entail. I have read a couple of wonderful books recently, Born On A Blue Day by Daniel Tammet, which is written by an absolutely amazing man about his own experience of living with Asperger's, and Finding Ben: A Mother's Journey Through the Maze of Asperger's by Barbara LaSalle, which did make me cry.

Too much of everything

I'm currently reading this book by Sue Palmer, but not finished, so this is not a review. I shouldn't be surprised that my son is one of the millions with ADHD and other issues as it seems to be growing not just in the US and Britain, but even places like Japan.

We have tried to give my son (and now daughter too) a fairly non-toxic childhood so far. I am vegetarian and had been for about seven years when he was born, and he and my daughter are also being brought up vegetarian. I never smoked, didn't drink when I was pregnant, etc. Perhaps though as I'm learning, he didn't get enough Omega 3 from my diet, and now his. I'm working on that.

He didn't watch any tv until after age 3, and then it was only select videos like the wiggles and thomas the tank engine and educational ones that he chose. He never ate candy (not until starting school.. again, school ugh!!!) and never and still doesn't drink fizzy soda or copius amounts of juice. No artificial sweeteners, and no processed crap. I breast fed him until he was 2 1/2 and he slept in our bed until he was nearly three, when he naturally moved into his own and sleeps heavily through the night. He stopped napping though at age 1 1/2. He didn't start to use the computer until 4 1/2, which might still be young in some people's books, but it was under close supervision. (Here I am justifying my parenting)

He still doesn't watch alot of tv, definitely no tv in his bedroom, we only have the one, and its small, and if I had my nerve I'd get rid of it (my husband and I existed for two years without one and yet now that we have kids we can't seem to get rid of it!!). He doesn't have a nintendo ds, or a playstation but recently received a second hand dreamcast which he does love, but we do have limits. All this and guess what, he still has ADHD, and ticks & twitches and Aspergers. There's no fighting genetics, if that's what it is.

Reading this book has had its enlightening moments, and I like her reference to the elephant tale (where a blind man each feels one part of an elephant and interprets what the elephant is and looks like) in relation to 'experts' findings on childhood issues. Already (and we are only at the beginning) I have encountered 'experts' who disagree as to what my son may or may not have.

I have found myself saying though, as I read the book, I did all that and it didn't help! Except maybe it has helped. Living a healthy lifestyle has probably kept my son from plunging into the worst depths of his problems. I suppose if I wasn't aware of food additives and sugar and let him veg out in front of the telly or computer for days on end, then maybe he'd be 100 times worse. I think the Omega 3 supplements may actually be helping with the attention and hyperactivity part. Palmer does make a point about how kids today don't play outside enough, to work off that natural energy as well as building their imaginations and muscles, due to our fears about their safety. I agree play is very important, but if its Asperger's one's dealing with, it seems to me the personal safety issue comes up in many differnet ways, not just stranger-danger or automobiles.

We don't even have a garden right now, which is terrible and I hope-hope-hope to move this spring. We are near to a small park though, and we do alot of walking. When we lived in America we had over an acre of land, and it was fabulous to point out a tree at the bottom of the garden and say to my son, 'run to that tree, hug it and run back' -- a good way to burn off excess energy. But he was only 3 then, he could really use that now -we could really use that now... we spent so much time outside our house then. We find ourselves saying that alot--what we had then we didn't need, but really need now and don't have!

I spent hours playing out on my own as a kid, riding my bike all over from age 7. My son doesn't want to ride a bike. He is naive for his age (could be the AS, maybe just him) and I worry about letting him out on his own for too long, as sometimes the kids he plays with turn on him, often they just run off and leave him, but sometimes they end up hurting him. We only just started letting him play outside without one of us there and now this. So I know he probably doesn't get the chance to work off the energy he needs to. I'm considering a running club or something for him, since he does like to run...

I'm sure that starting school at such early ages doesn't help and this early years education plan the government has cooked up looks like disaster. Why aren't we looking more toward the successful Scandinavian educational models, and alternatives like Steiner, where kids start education at age 7! Until then, they play, they enjoy family life. All this required 'fitting in', testing, etc. its no wonder kids are having trouble, being made to do so much at such young ages. Well that's me winded, I'm off to carry on reading..

Naturally Clean

I never thought I'd be thinking that I can't wait to get cleaning, but I'm looking forward to trying out some new old recipes for healthy cleaning. I ordered this book, Clean House Clean Planet by Karen Logan, which arrived yesterday and it is packed full of traditional preparations for cleaning everything in the house.

For lack of anything better I used plain vinegar to clean the glass tv cabinet the other day, and was surprised at how easy and efficient it was. It did smell though, which is why chemical glass sprays have other fragances added to them. But now I realise I can use a little bit of lemon or essential oils to combine and mask the smell. So now I'm off to do a bit of cleaning.

Manners & Philosophy

I suppose I should have picked a theme for Nablopomo as I seem to be somewhat random in my thoughts on here, but I suppose there's an overall loose theme to my blog, to my life. And what is that? Probably what I set out in my 'mission statement' of sorts when I started this blog.. to blog about what means something to me, my kids, my life, spirituality, health, the environment, music, books and anything in between. So there you have it.

Yesterday I finished reading The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith. I first read 44 Scotland Street a couple of years ago, and having lived in Edinburgh I love reading stories set within its fascinating streets. Somehow, I forgot about these books, but am back to them now. I will be reading Friends, Lovers, Chocolate next in this series, as well as Espresso Tales, more from 44 Scotland Street. I have not read The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series yet, which is also by Alexander McCall Smith and highly acclaimed. The setting for that series is Botswana, and I'm afraid its really Edinburgh that draws me more.

In The Sunday Philosophy Club, which never meets, by the way, we are introduced to Isabel Dalhousie, philosopher, editor of an ethics magazine and aspiring private detective. Its the philosophical observations running through the book that I really enjoyed, as well as the mystery to be solved. In one section Isabel (who naturally, has perfect manners, but can be nosey!) rails on manners and the decline of this generation to have any, which I would say is true (oh but it makes me sound old), and a topic I came across on Blogher (i think it was) this week as well. From The Sunday Philosophy Club:

Good manners depended on paying moral attention to others; it required one to treat them with complete moral seriousness, to understand their feelings and their needs.

... How utterly shortsighted we had been to listen to those who thought that manners were a bourgeois affectation, an irrelevance, which need no longer be valued. A moral disaster had ensued, because manners were the basic building block of a civil society. They were the method of transmitting the messege of moral consideration.

In this way an entire generation had lost a vital piece of the moral jigsaw and now we saw the results: a society in which nobody would help, nobody would feel for others; a society in which aggressive language and insensitivity were the norm.

(Ugh I can't seem to get the block quote to go off!!)Whew what a mouthful, but I love philosophy and especially enjoy it in this form, truths within a base of an absorbing fiction story. Enjoyable and thought provoking without too much banging of the head. There was a local news story recently of a woman who died in a doorway due to a brain annuerism as she was carrying home some wood shelving from the DIY store. Two young men, in thier 20's came along and urinated on her (and filmed themselves of course). She died shortly after.

They claim to have been drunk and high, but at that moment they came along, she had actually been in the midst of dying. How completely awful and without conscience is that. I don't know anyone who ever did that when they were drunk. Does being drunk mean you completely lose your moral compass? Or is it just a convenient excuse for no moral compass? And with this new 'happy slapping' phenomena (I've just seen yet another depressing news story about it today -here in the UK), where one doesn't think of helping first, but filming or creating crime instead, it does seem that a portion at least, of our society is slipping into some clockwork orange netherworld. Oh, I'm getting irritable again so I'll quit!!

Hooray for older mums!

I just came across this tidbit of info courtesy of workingmums.co.uk.

The Observer (Oct. 28, 2007) in The Guardian Newspaper noted a report citing a new book by Professor Elizabeth Gregory that says women who have their first child in their 30s or 40s live longer. This is good news for me as my first was born when I turned 30 and my second at 36. I never considered having children any sooner and at one point in my early twenties, thought I'd never have children at all!

In her new book Ready: Why Women Are Embracing The New Later Motherhood , Gregory says older mums are more prepared for motherhood, more likely to be financially stable and more focused on the family. I have found this to be absolutely true for myself. Apparently this is because they have already realised career and other ambitions, are more likely to be in settled relationships and/or have a good support network. This has also been the case for myself, not that I have given up all previous desires, but I did lots of clubbing, drinking, travelling, cavorting, finished university etc., in my twenties, and have no real need for those things now. I certainly don't feel like I'm 'missing out' due to the kids. The career thing is ongoing, and I assume will find its place in my life again when the time is right.

I'm looking forward to reading this book as it also says that older mothers live longer than their younger counterparts and cites a report by the Population Research Centre at the University of Texas which suggests the best age for childbearing is between 34 and 40. Reasons for this include older women are more settled, less likely to engage in risky behaviour and have a more healthy and conscious pregnancy.

Another another study was also cited which shows that women who give birth after 40 are four times more likely to live to 100 plus. I'm not sure that I even want to live that long, but since there's been some negative press about older mums and health risks associated with it (like increased risk of Downs Syndrome), I find this new information refreshing. I was also surprised to learn that the average age of new mothers in Britain is 29, despite having the highest teen pregnancy rate of all European countries.

Potty reading

With lots of thoughts of travelling dancing through my head, and definite America plans in the pipeline, the push is on to get the little one out of nappies.

She's not two yet, so of course we don't want to pressure her. She is interested though and no doubt will master it soon, or at least probably before we manage to get all the passports sorted out. Because potty training is definitely easier than planning a trip back to the states!!

And she does love her reading!

Literary List

This list is courtesy of A Mindful Life via Newsweek which ran an article on Baby Boomers books and what inspired a generation. The list ranges from the youngest of the baby boomers (probably me, growing up in the 70's) to the oldest end. There's also a quiz to take at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17506646/site/newsweek/ to see how much you know about the literature of the generation.. I gave up after the first 10 questions.

Take the list below, paste it into your own blog or email it or just mentally complete it in your head. Insert READ next to those you’ve read, WANT TO next to those you are interested in, LOVE next to those you’ve read more than once, and leave blank those you don’t care to read. I'm not sure if they are listed in any particular order.

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) Read
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell) Read
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien) Want to
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien) Want to
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien) Want to
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery) Read
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling) Read
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling) Read
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving) Read
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden) Read
16. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Rowling) Read
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling) Read
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) Read
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien) Want to
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger) Love
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott) Read
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold) Read
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) Read
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte) Read
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis) Read
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand) Want to
34. 1984 (Orwell) Read
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb) Read
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho) Love
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel) Read
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. The Bible Read
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy) Read
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt) Read
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck) Read
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb) Want to
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver) Read
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens) Read
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens) Read
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald) Love
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling) Read
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood) Read
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger) Reading
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky) Read
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand) Want to
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy) Read
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice) Read
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez) want to
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery) Love
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding) Read
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez) Read
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett) Read
76. Tigana (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving) Read
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White) Love
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen) Read
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams) Read
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley) Read
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding) Want to
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck) Read
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd) Want to
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton) Love
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield) Love
100. Ulysses (James Joyce) Love