I'm going to live blog my 11 hour day at work.

Just so you can see the kind of people I get to deal with at the Y on a daily basis.


Got here at 6:55. Pamela is standing outside the doors while it's snowing, because she absolutely has to be the first one inside and get #1 for spin class. I think her head would explode if she wasn't first one day. (Just to be clear, all of the staff hates her, because she's a bitch. And then when a director goes to her and says "I'm hearing that you're mistreating the staff, she says "Oh no, it wasn't me, I wouldn't do that!" all sweet an innocent. Meanwhile, she made one of the toughest fitness instructors I've ever met cry one day.)

7:30 - Just watched a grown woman duck under the partition to go out the JCC door. Because she couldn't be bothered to walk 50 feet further and go out the doors she's supposed to.

7:36 - Phone Call:
Me: Community Campus, how can I help you?
Woman: Yes, I registered my daughter for the 9 o'clock swimming class.
Me: .................................. Oh...kay?
Woman: Yeah, I wanted to know if I can move her to a later class.
Wouldn't it have just been easier to tell me that in the first place rather than waiting for me to acknowledge your initial statement?

7:53 - Two people have called to ask if the Y is open or if classes are still going on because it's snowing. I have to just say "Yes, everything is running as scheduled today," but what I'd really like to say is, "Well sir/ma'am, look outside. There's about a centimeter of snow on the ground, and it's not sticking to the road. Would your place of business be closed because of that? No? Well then ours won't be either."

7:58 - It blows my mind that people spend $75 on a class for their child, and we print them an itemized receipt with the name of the class, class time, and the dates of the classes, and they still call us to ask what they signed their kid up for or when the class starts.

8:05 - Just got a call from Sallie May Loans for a girl who hasn't worked here since June of 2011, and using her maiden name, when she got married over a year ago.

8:07 - I really love it when people come to the desk, don't have their card, and make me type their name into the computer, and then get annoyed when I ask them what their address is, because there are 14 other people named "Amit Patel" who belong to the Y. Or when they tell me their name and get anoyed with me when I make them spell it for me. I'm sorry, I'm from America. I don't know how to spell "Devchandbhai" (no, I'm not making that one up).

8:45 - Current number of people who've called to see if we're open/classes are still on for the scheduled times because of the snow (which still hasn't gotten over a centemeter) - 5

8:47 - A woman just came up to the desk:
Woman: Hello, I'm here for my 9 o'clock adult swim lesson.
Me: ......... It's in the pool.
Woman: Oh it's in the pool. Ok, thank you.
o.O

9:33 - Another one!
Man: Excuse me, he's here for a basket ball class. Where is it?
Me: ...............On the basketball court.
Man: Ah, ok.

9:50 - I love the sense of entitlement that people have here. Just got off the phone with a woman who called asking about memberships:
Woman: How much is the membership?
Me: For two adults and any number of children in the household it's $54.50 a month.
Woman: Ok, and can we get any kind of discount on that?
Me: Um... we offer financial assistance for low income families, but not discounts on the membership.
Woman: Well what if we only want to use the pool and nothing else?
Me: We don't have a membership to just use the pool. Our membership rates are for the whole facility.
Woman: So you can't give us a discout if we only use the pool?
Me: No.
After another two minutes talking about what the facility has to offer:
Woman: So you have no discounts?
Me: No. No discounts.
I also love the fact that she started out the phone call by saying "Good morning. How are you?" "And when I responded "I'm good thank you, how are you?" She responded by nervously giggling.

9:54 - Grown man moved the partitians out of the way in order to go out the JCC door.

10:07 - Another person calling to ask if classes are still on due to the snow.

10:09 - Man comes in to register his kids for swimming classes.
Man: Can I get a discount?
Me: On.....?
Man: The swimming classes? Since I'm signing up two kids.
Me: No.
Man: Oh. Really? You don't give discounts for that?
Me: No, we never have.
Then I ask for his address because there are two people with his kid's name in the system. He wants to know how many people there are with the same last name as his. I tell him there are about 30, and he proceeds to tell me that every person with he same name is descended from the same family, and that he wants to get all of these people together and meet his "family".
Man: Can I get their addresses?
Me: No, I can't give out that kind of information.
Man: Well is there any way I could get it? Like maybe from the director? Maybe he can give them to me? Or their phone numbers?
Me: No, she can not give out the personal information of our members. That's an invasion of their privacy.
He goes on for another five minutes about finding some way to get their information. I finally told him the phone book would probably be his best bet, as we weren't going to give him anyone's personal information.

10:40 - I've stopped telling the grown adults going under the partitians that they're not supposed to be doing that. I just look at them and roll my eyes and shake my head, very condescendingly.

10:49 - Phone Call:
Man: Hello, yes. Actually I was calling because I want to register my daughter for swimming lessons, and I was wondering if you have any spots available?
Me: Well it would depend on what class you wanted.
Man: I was looking for a class on Saturday or Sunday. That would be best for me.
Me: Ok, well the YMCA classes are only on Fridays and Saturdays, and then the JCC runs classes on Sundays.
Man: Ok, I will take the Saturdays. What time is it.
Me: For which class?
Man: Which class?! The swimming class!!!
Me: Sir, we have about 15 different levels of swimming classes and five different time slots for them on Saturdays, you're going to have to be more specific.

11:15 - The JCC sells swim caps for the pool. Aparently the lifeguard told a man that his daughter needed one, so he came over to the desk to buy one.
Man: What colors do you have?
Me: Let me get them for you.
I bring over the plastic container and look through it.
Me: We have blue, red, white, and purple.
Man: Do you have pink?
Me: Nooo, we have blue, red, white, and purple.
Not believing me, he starts looking through all of them.
Man: Ok, I need a small one.
Me: Well they're all the same size.
Again, he thinks I'm lying to him and starts pulling out caps and measuring them against each other.
Finally, he's got three on the desk in front of him.
Man: Ok, can I take these over to the pool and show my wife?
Me: No, I can't let you take them without paying for them. They're $3 each. 
Man: Ok, well I'll just leave $10 here and then when I come back I'll buy the one.
Me: Or you could just ask what color she wants and come back...
Then he went to the Y desk and asked for a rubber band and never came back.

After that, I moved back to the Y desk, so it was less crazy.

12:00 - A man came to the desk with Jeff (sports director) and Jeff had me look up his cash history to see how much he had paid for the last set of soccer classes. He claimed that his son joined the class half way through the session but he had paid full price for it, so he should get more classes to make up for that.
Me: Well that wouldn't have happened because the computer automaitcally discounts for the weeks missed when signing up for a program. Yup, it says here that you only paid $25, because the class was halfway over. 
Jeff: So yeah, you only paid for the classes you got. So if you want him to do the class again, you'll have to register him again.
Man: Oh ok sure. 
He starts feeling around in his pockets.
Man: Oh, you know what? I left my wallet in the car. I'll be right back. 
After 5 minutes, we assumed he wasn't coming back.
Jeff: Put a note in the system that he has to pay full price because he came to the first class. I have a feeling he's just going to keep coming back and trying to pull the same thing. 


12:20 -  I went to lunch. At Panera, I really felt for the guy putting up the food. It was really busy and people were being just as stupid there.
Panera Man: Mary, your salad's ready.
Mary looks at her salad and makes a face.
Mary: Oh, I wanted the dressing on the side.
The guy looks up at the screen and doesn't see anything saying that. 
Panera Man: Did you tell them that when you ordered it?
Mary: No, they never asked me.


1:00 - Back at the Y, a woman came to sign up for a class card. We asked her if anyone had informed her of the new policy for the class cards. She said no, so we explained that now if she wasn't a member of our Y or one of our three "sister Ys", she had to buy an adult program membership for $115 for the year, and then buy the $80 class card on top of that. She flipped out, telling us over and over again how ridiculous it was. She complained so much that the supervisor came over to deal with her.
Isis: Believe me ma'am, I understand. We can sympathize, but if you want to buy the class card, this is the new policy.
Woman: But that's crazy. I don't want to be a member. I just want to take the classes. Why all of a sudden do I need a membership?
Isis: It's a brand new policy, it just went into effect this month. 
Woman: Well I'm already paying $80 for the class card. That's ridiculous. Why should I pay more for a membership that I don't want?
Isis: I understand ma'am, but there is nothing I can do about it. We have no control over it. 
Woman: Believe me, I'm not shooting the messenger. 
I had to fight the impulse to say "Well, actually, that's exactly what you're doing" so hard.
Woman: I was a member, and it's a joke. I was paying all this money to come for classes and I would get there and they were canceled, and they didn't let anyone know. 
Again, the urge to say "Well, sometimes instructors get sick and can't make it. They can't really call every member to tell them that a class got canceled, just in case they were planning to go to it. You could always call before a class to see if it was canceled." had to be choked down.
Finally, we did what we always do when someone complains on the weekend and refuses to be appeased. Give them the director's business card and told them to either email him or call him on Monday and complain to him.

After that, nothing much happened. In fact, it was boring as hell, because it was so empty.

Thank you Yahoo!

Useless Degree #3 - Theater

Number of Students Awarded Degree in 2008-2009: 89,140
Typical coursework: Theater, acting, directing, design, playwriting, communications, dramatic literature

Here's the good news: Sign up for theater as a major and at least you'll be really good at acting like you have a job.

Here's the bad news: Actors endure long periods of unemployment and frequent rejection, says the U.S. Department of Labor. The Department goes on to say that because earnings are erratic for actors, producers, and directors, many hold second jobs. In other words, how do you feel about waiting tables?

Of course, says Shatkin, "People go into this with such a love for it you can't stop them."

Total Number of Actors/Producers/Directors in 2008: 155,100
Projected Change in Number of Jobs 2008-2018: +16,900
Percent Change: +11

Thank God I have Khy

He's seriously been like a lifeline to AJ's soft side. When AJ gets romantic, he can make me cry he's so sweet and wonderful. Unfortunately, with both of our work/rehearsal schedules, we don't get much time for it.

The other night while I was driving back from Virginia, I got a text from AJ saying that he was out to dinner with Khy, Drew, and Jenna, and Drew and Jenna asked if they could sing at our wedding. When he asked if they had a song in mind, they said "Come What May" from Moulin Rouge. AJ said "they had no idea what that song means to us". My frist reaction was It means something to you? Really, cuz you've never told me that.  To me, that song was our relationship in the begining. We weren't supposed to be toghether, but we were going to anyway, because we in love. I knew he knew the song, and we had listened to it together, but he'd never mentioned it again. And if I asked him to watch Moulin Rouge with me, he'd make faces. But aparently, according to Khy, when AJ heard Drew and Jenna suggest it, he teared up, said he had to text me right now and tell me, and then told them how the song reminded him of us and how much we overcame together.

I really wish he would tell me those things. He talks to Khy about everything wedding related, but I can barely get anything out of him. Khy seems to think it's because his first wedding was so much "We're doing this and we're doing it here and you're wearing this" that he doesn't really know how to talk to me about his opinions. But every time I still go back to that time he told me that my planning stuff before he even proposed to me, even though we already knew we were going to get married, freaked him out. The words "I've only been divorced for three years!" still come to mind.

But I think Khy must have said something to him that night at rehearsal, because when he got home, he got into bed and stroked my cheek and held me and cuddled with me until I fell back to sleep.

Khy also told me that AJ took him to the mall to look at rings. And sort of confirmed my getting proposed to in Disney World theory by talking about the savings plan he helped AJ set up, saying that he should put money away every week so that by May...
Let the "I'm getting proposed to"  wardrobe planning commence!

Reading Challenge

I've read on my own
I read for school
I'm in the process of reading or plan on reading


#
*1984 by George Orwell
A
*The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
*Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
*The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
*An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
*Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
*Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
*Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
*Archidamian War by Donald Kagan
*The Art of Fiction by Henry James
*The Art of War by Sun Tzu
*As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
*Atonement by Ian McEwan
*Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
*The Awakening by Kate Chopin
B
*Babe by Dick King-Smith
*Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi
*Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
*Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
*The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
*Beloved by Toni Morrison
*Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney
*The Bhagava Gita
*The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy
*Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel
*A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy
*Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
*Brick Lane by Monica Ali
*Bridgadoon by Alan Jay Lerner
C*Candide by Voltaire
*The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
*Carrie by Stephen King
*Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
*The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
*Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
*The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman
*Christine by Stephen King
*A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
*A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
*The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse
*The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty by Eudora Welty
*A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare
*Complete Novels by Dawn Powell
*The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton
*Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker
*A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
*The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas père
*Cousin Bette by Honor’e de Balzac
*Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
*The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber 
*The Crucible by Arthur Miller
*Cujo by Stephen King
*The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
D
*Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
*David and Lisa by Dr Theodore Issac Rubin M.D
*David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
*The Da Vinci -Code by Dan Brown
*Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
*Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
*Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
*Deenie by Judy Blume
*The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
*The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx
*The Divine Comedy by Dante
*The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
*Don Quijote by Cervantes
*Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv
*Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
E
*Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
*Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook
*The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
*Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn
*Eloise by Kay Thompson
*Emily the Strange by Roger Reger
*Emma by Jane Austen
*Empire Falls by Richard Russo
*Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol
*Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
*Ethics by Spinoza
*Europe through the Back Door, 2003 by Rick Steves
*Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
*Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
*Extravagance by Gary Krist
F
*Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
*Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore
*The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan
*Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser
*Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
*The Fellowship of the Ring: Book 1 of The Lord of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
*Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein
*The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
*Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce
*Fletch by Gregory McDonald
*Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
*The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
*The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
*Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
*Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger
*Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers
G
*Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
*Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
*George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg
*Gidget by Fredrick Kohner
*Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
*The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
*The Godfather: Book 1 by Mario Puzo
*The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
*Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky
*Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
*The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford
*The Gospel According to Judy Bloom
*The Graduate by Charles Webb
*The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
*The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
*Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
*The Group by Mary McCarthy
H
*Hamlet by William Shakespeare
*Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling
*Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling
*A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
*Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
*Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry
*Henry IV, part I by William Shakespeare
*Henry IV, part II by William Shakespeare
*Henry V by William Shakespeare
*High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
*The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
*Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris
*The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton
*House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
*The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
*How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
*How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
*How the Light Gets in by M. J. Hyland
*Howl by Allen Gingsburg
*The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
I
*The Iliad by Homer
*I’m with the Band by Pamela des Barres
*In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
*Inferno by Dante
*Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
*Iron Weed by William J. Kennedy
*It Takes a Village by Hillary Clinton
J
*Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
*The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
*Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
*The Jumping Frog by Mark Twain
*The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
*Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito
K
*The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander
*Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
*The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
L
*Lady Chatterleys’ Lover by D. H. Lawrence
*The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal
*Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
*The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield
*Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
*Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
*Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken
*Life of Pi by Yann Martel
*Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
*The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway
*The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen
*Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
*Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
*Lord of the Flies by William Golding
*The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
*The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
*The Love Story by Erich Segal
M
*Macbeth by William Shakespeare
*Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
*The Manticore by Robertson Davies
*Marathon Man by William Goldman
*The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
*Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir
*Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman
*Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
*The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer
*Mencken’s Chrestomathy by H. R. Mencken
*The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare
*The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
*Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
*The Miracle Worker by William Gibson
*Moby Dick by Herman Melville
*The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion by Jim Irvin
*Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor
*A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman
*Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret
*A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars
*A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
*Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
*Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
*My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and It’s Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh
*My Life as Author and Editor by H. R. Mencken
*My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim Guest
*Myra Waldo’s Travel and Motoring Guide to Europe, 1978 by Myra Waldo
*My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
N
*The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
*The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
*The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
*The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin
*Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen
*New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson
*The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay
*Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
*Night by Elie Wiesel
*Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
*The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism by William E. Cain, Laurie A. Finke, Barbara E. Johnson, John P. McGowan
*Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell
*Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski
O
*Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
*Old School by Tobias Wolff
*On the Road by Jack Kerouac
*One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
*One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
*The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan
*Oracle Night by Paul Auster
*Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
*Othello by Shakespeare
*Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
*The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan
*Out of Africa by Isac Dineson
*The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
P
*A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
*The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan
*The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
*Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
*The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
*Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington
*Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
*Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
*The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
*The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
*The Portable Nietzche by Fredrich Nietzche
*The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill by Ron Suskind
*Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
*Property by Valerie Martin
*Pushkin: A Biography by T. J. Binyon
*Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
Q
*Quattrocento by James Mckean
*A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall
R
*Rapunzel by Grimm Brothers
*The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
*The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
*Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
*Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
*Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin
*The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
*Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman
*The Return of the King: The Lord of the Rings Book 3 by J. R. R. Tolkien
*R Is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton
*Rita Hayworth by Stephen King
*Robert’s Rules of Order by Henry Robert
*Roman Holiday by Edith Wharton
*Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
*A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
*A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
*Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin
*The Rough Guide to Europe, 2003 Edition
S
*Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi
*Sanctuary by William Faulkner
*Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford
*Say Goodbye to Daisy Miller by Henry James
*The Scarecrow of Oz by Frank L. Baum
*The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
*Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
*The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
*The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
*Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman
*Selected Hotels of Europe
*Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell
*Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
*A Separate Peace by John Knowles
*Several Biographies of Winston Churchill
*Sexus by Henry Miller
*The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
*Shane by Jack Shaefer
*The Shining by Stephen King
*Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
*S Is for Silence by Sue Grafton
*Slaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut
*Small Island by Andrea Levy
*Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway
*Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers
*Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore
*The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht
*Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos
*The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker
*Songbook by Nick Hornby
*The Sonnets by William Shakespeare
*Sonnets from the Portuegese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
*Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
*The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
*Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
*Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
*The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
*A Streetcar Named Desiree by Tennessee Williams
*Stuart Little by E. B. White
*Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
*Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
*Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals by Anne Collett
*Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber
T
*A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
*Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
*Term of Endearment by Larry McMurtry
*Time and Again by Jack Finney
*The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
*To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
*To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
*The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare
*A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
*The Trial by Franz Kafka
*The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson
*Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett
*Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
U
*Ulysses by James Joyce
*The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 by Sylvia Plath
*Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
*Unless by Carol Shields
V
*Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
*The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers
*Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
*Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground and Nico (Thirty Three and a Third series) by Joe Harvard
*The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
w
*Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
*Walden by Henry David Thoreau
*Walt Disney’s Bambi by Felix Salten
*War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
*We Owe You Nothing – Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews edited by Daniel Sinker
*What Colour is Your Parachute? 2005 by Richard Nelson Bolles
*What Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell
*When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
*Who Moved My Cheese? Spencer Johnson
*Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee
*Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
*The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum
*Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Y
*The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
*The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion