The next ten books I read...

Anna Karenina: Anna Karenina - Count Alexei, her husband - Young son, Sergei - Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. - Anna's brother Stepan and his wife Dolly, married with children - crisis...Stepan has cheated on Dolly - Anna talks Dolly into staying with Stepan - Dolly's younger sister, Kitty, comes to town for her debut ball - Count Alexei Vronsky comes to town to supposedly woo Kitty - Vronsky meets Anna first and falls instantly in love - virtuous landowner, Kostya Levin, proposes to Kitty on the night she's expecting Vronsky to propose - Kitty turns down heartbroken Kostya who returns to his country estate - Vronsky flirts with Kitty, but asks Anna to dance instead - Kitty humiliated into poor health - Vronsky pursues the married Anna - Anna falls for Vronsky, becomes pregnant, tells her husband, and he still wants to make their marriage work - Anna rejects her husband, gives birth to daughter, Annie, and is near death - her husband forgives her and Vronsky, but Anna rejects her husband again - Anna and Vronsky go to Europe to live in sin, but are social outcasts - Anna has abandoned her young son and somehow the reader is supposed to feel sorry for her - meanwhile Kostya is working the land and happy with his agriculture and Russian peasants - Kostya sees Kitty again - this time Kitty loves Kostya too - Kitty and Kostya get married and live in the country, happy for awhile - Kitty gives birth to son, Mitya - Kostya's happiness shattered by death of his brother Nikolai - Kitty is his rock - Kostya contemplates the birth of his son and the death of his brother: Yet that grief and this joy were alike outside all the ordinary conditions of life; they were loop-holes, as it were, in that ordinary life through which there came glimpses of something sublime. - Anna is further shunned by all her former Russian society friends, while Vronsky can come and go in society as he pleases - Anna gets paranoid and turns to morphine to calm her nerves - Vronsky finds having Anna does not fulfill him as he thought it would - Anna and Vronsky are insufferably self-centered - why are they considered one of the greatest love stories of all time?? - Kostya struggles with his beliefs, but loves his family - Anna struggles period - Anna asks Vronsky to meet her at the train station - Anna commits suicide by throwing herself in front of the train - Kitty and Mitya trapped in a storm - Kostya realizes the depth of his love for his family as they reunite after storm.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: Harry Potter - the boy who lived - lightening scar - parents killed by Voldemort - he who should not be named - Harry is hidden with his aunt, uncle and cousin who torment him - Muggles - Harry's 11th birthday - Hagrid comes - Harry is a wizard! -Hogwarts invitation - Hagrid takes Harry shopping - Diagon Alley - Hedwig the white owl - the wand - Hogwarts Express train - Platform 9 3/4 - The Weasleys - Ron Weasley - red hair - Hermione Granger - intelligent - Bertie Bott's jelly beans - Dumbledore - Professor McGonagall - the cat - The Great Hall - the sorting hat - Gryffindor - Slytherin - Snape - Draco - broomsticks - Quidditch - the Golden Snitch - does Snape try to hurt Harry on his broom? - Neville - the three-headed dog - charms - spells - the ogre - Hermione takes the blame - Harry, Ron and Hermione best friends - invisibility cloak - Mirror of Erised - Harry's parents in the mirror - the Philosopher's Stone - elixir of life - Hagrid's illegal baby dragon - the injured unicorn - Harry's scar burns - Firenze, the centaur - Ron's human chess game - Quirrell tries to steal the Philosopher's Stone - Quirrell is possessed by Voldemort - Snape was protecting Harry! - the stone goes to Harry not Voldemort - Voldemort fails for now - the stone is destroyed - Harry back to the Muggles for the summer

Captains Courageous: Harvey Cheyne Jr. - 15 years old - washed overboard - rescued by fishing boat - Captain Troop - son Dan Troop - Harvey offers to pay them to take him home to his father the railroad tycoon - Captain says the fishing boat is out for the duration - Harvey works on the boat - all about how to bring in the fish - from spoiled boy to responsible young man - experience of a lifetime - finally the fishing boat docks - Harvey's parents are notified that he's alive - long, private train ride across the country to get to Harvey - family reunited - Harvey has matured - Harvey's father offers Dan Troop a place to work in the shipping lines he owns - Harvey goes to work for his father

Don Quixote: A man who loves books about knights - chivalry - knighthood - delusional Don Quixote - the quest - Sancho Panza - Recinante the tolerating horse - reality distorted - windmills are giants - the inn is a castle - the shepherd boy tied to the tree - Dulcinea - Cardenio and Luscinda and Don Fernando - misadventures - near escapes - accidentally doing wrong for all the right reasons - a bowl for a helmet - a Duke and Duchess toy with Don Quixote - Sancho rules a town...for awhile - Don Quixote, defeated in one last "battle", lays down his arms and goes home - Don Quixote comes to his senses before dying - No more adventures about Don Quixote can be written

The Great Gatsby: Nick Carraway, narrator - 1922 - West Egg, Long Island - wealthy people - Tom & Daisy Buchanan - Daisy loved Jay Gatsby first - Jay poor, not rich, so went to war - Daisy married Tom - Jay attains wealth...bootlegging? - Daisy and Gatsby meet again - feelings resurface - Gatsby's mansion the place to party - Daisy introduces Nick to a woman named Jordan - Tom has a mistress...Myrtle Wilson - Myrtle's husband owns a garage - Tom, Daisy, Gatsby, Nick and Jordan go into town for the night - Plaza Hotel - Gatsby's yellow Rolls Royce - Gatsby wants Daisy to dump Tom and be with him - Daisy claims she has loved Tom too - Gatsby and Tom argue - Daisy wants to go home - Daisy drives the yellow Rolls - nearing home, Myrtle runs out into the road after a fight with her husband and Daisy accidentally hits and kills her with the yellow Rolls - witnesses blame Gatsby...it was his car they saw - Gatsby takes the blame for Daisy - Tom & Daisy cut off all communication with Gatsby and Nick - distraught Wilson kills Gatsby while he's in his pool - Nick arranges Gatsby's funeral, which very few people attend - disenchanted Nick dumps Jordan and heads back to the Midwest.

To the Lighthouse: Summer house in Scotland - 5 year old James - the lighthouse - Mrs. Ramsay - eight children - gifted Andrew, beauty Prue, mischievous Cam, precocious James, independent Nancy - guests in and out of the house - Mrs. Ramsay's dear friend, Lily - Lily's canvas painting - dinner party - lost brooch on the beach - Mr. Ramsay denies James trip to lighthouse due to weather - a few years later, Mrs. Ramsay has died - son Andrew killed in WWII - daughter Prue dies from childbirth complications - 10 years after start of novel Mr. Ramsay finally takes James to the lighthouse - James steers the boat - Cam goes along - Lily goes along - finally father is able to connect with two of his children - finally Lily is able to complete her portrait - complicated, stream of conscious book.

Lord of the Flies: Plane crash - remote island - all boys - self-governing - Ralph - chief - Piggy - conch shell - leadership - Piggy's glasses - fire - choir boys - Jack Merridew - innocent Simon - leadership struggles - boundaries crossed - right from wrong blurred - "the beast" - Simon finds the pig head - boys become savages - ritual dance - Simon savagely killed by the boys - the beast is really a dead parachutist - Jack Merridew and his tribe become more savage - Castle Rock - conch is shattered - Piggy deliberately killed by boulder - tribe sets fire to the forest - Ralph runs for his life towards the beach from the tribe and the fire -  finally a rescue ship - British naval officer finds the boys - savagery comes to a glaring halt - boys are saved - Jack Merridew just looks like an innocent school boy - Piggy's glasses hang at Jack's waist

Slaughterhouse-Five: Billy Pilgrim - WWII - Dresden - marching in the snow - freezing - POW - old slaughterhouse is the prison - So it goes. - Tralfamadores - aliens - fourth dimension - Billy time travels - Billy is kept in the Tralfamadore "zoo" - Billy knows when he'll die and who will kill him - So it goes. - Edgar Derby - American school teacher POW - Edgar executed for looting teapot - So it goes. - Billy married with two kids after war - gives speeches about Tralfamadores around the country - Billy killed by former fellow POW Paul Lazzaro. - So it goes.

This Side of Paradise:  Amory Blaine - wealthy, charming, Princeton - mother Beatrice - mentor Monsignor Darcy - Big Man on Campus versus The Slicker - Amory wants to be popular, but not to conform - writes for The Daily Princetonian - member of The Triangle Club, musical theater - meets voracious reader and friend, Tom D'Invilliers - Amory fails a class - member of social club on campus, The Cottage - lots of drinking until prohibition hits - Amory's mother dies - family money has dwindled due to bad investments - Amory grapples with being "poor" - Amory loves Isabelle - short and passionate, not right for each other, a pesky fight is their undoing - Amory loves Clara - widowed cousin with children, doesn't love Amory back - Amory loves Rosalind - rich debutante loves Amory back, but her mother berates her into marrying rich man instead of poor Amory - Amory is heartbroken - The unwelcome November rain had perversely stolen the day's last hour and pawned it with that ancient fence, the night. - Good friend, Dick Humbird, killed in accident, affects Amory the rest of the book - Amory is a bayonet instructor in WWI - keeps in touch with Monsignor Darcy, his father figure - Amory loves Eleanor, meets her in a rainstorm, instantly like each other, relationship over when Eleanor deliberately rides her horse towards a cliff, jumps off, and lets horse go over - Monsignor Darcy dies - Amory lost and disillusioned - After all his relationships and experiences, last line of book by Amory, "I know myself, but that is all." 

The Importance of Being Earnest: Delightful, funny, play - Algernon Moncrieff: The very essence of romance is uncertainty - Algernon Moncrieff - John Worthing - best friends - John maintains an innocent, duplicitous identity, one for the country and one for the city - John pretends to be his libertine brother, Ernest, in the city, and goes by John in the presence of his ward, the beautiful Cecily, in the country - Cecily lives there with her governess, Miss Prism - Miss Prism: Memory, my dear Cecily, is the diary that we all carry about with us. Cecily: Yes, but it usually chronicles the things that have never happened, and couldn't possibly have happened! - John proposes to Algernon's cousin Gwendolen - Gwendolen loves John, but seemingly because she adores the name Ernest (who she met him as) - John decides to ask the rector to formally change his name to Ernest - John, adopted as a baby, was found in a handbag in a train station - upon this knowledge of questionable lineage, Gwendolen's mother (Algernon's aunt), Lady Bracknell says no to the marriage - meanwhile, Algernon decides to go and meet John's ward, Cecily - Algernon passes himself off as John's never-seen brother, Ernest - Algernon and Cecily fall instantly in love! - Algernon determines to also ask the rector to formally change his name to Ernest, as Cecily loves the name - At that moment, John arrives home to see Cecily - deciding to end his duplicity by telling Cecily that his brother, Ernest, has passed away - this is news to Cecily since she is in the presence of who she assumes to be his brother Ernest - John and Algernon retreat to a different room to figure out what to do - Gwendolen then arrives at John's country house, having run from her mother, to let John know she will marry him no matter what - Gwendolen and Cecily come face to face - both claim to be in love with and be loved by and engaged to Ernest - John and Algernon appear to confess their shenanigans - Lady Bracknell arrives in pursuit of Gwendolen  and is surprised to find Algernon engaged to Cecily - meanwhile, John will only agree to let Cecily marry Algernon if Lady Bracknell allows Gwendolyn to marry John - the awkward moment is broken up by the arrival of Cecily's governess, Miss Prism - Lady Bracknell recognizes Miss Prism as the family employee who went for a walk with her sister's baby boy 28 years before and returned without him - the literary-minded Miss Prism explains that she accidentally put the baby in her handbag and a manuscript she was reading in the pram, and then left her handbag in the train station - John shows that he still has the handbag he was found in - Voila! John is the long lost baby and Algernon's older brother - Gwendolen insists she will still only marry a man whose name is Ernest - After looking at old records, it is determined that John and Algernon's father, always just known as Colonel Moncrief, was named Ernest, and the eldest son, and lost child had, in fact, been named Ernest after him - the happy couples embrace - after all the antics Lady Bracknell says to her new-found nephew, "My nephew, you seem to be displaying signs of triviality" John responds, "On the contrary, Aunt Augusta, I've now realized for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest". :-)