Oh yeah. I have a diary.

Oh, sweetmotherofpearl! I’d posted back in AUGUST, asking if you guys had any requests for entries, because I had plans to get back to entrying all proper like, even in the face of Phil (laptop) deciding a long nap was in order.

Hello, almost-the-end-of-October! Clearly, I’ve gotten very spoiled by the portability of a laptop and haven’t quite gotten back on the desktop-when-available horse. Or the leaving-notes-while-using-JasonBateman (iPod Touch) bandwagon. While I sort out my technical usage issues, how about I finally get to that entry in response to Helen’s brilliant idea/request? Lo, these 2+ months later.

For a refresher, since we probably all need it, this is the said idea/request:

Pick 10 of your favourites and recommend a mix of 3 songs and 2 books for each. [catch the sparks]

I decided to go for volunteers. There were five of you . Thank goodness! Because I think I maxed out my book recommendations at 10. (I’m kind of sad about, and yet okay with this.) Speaking of which, since I’m pretty certain Aarika has read all (or very nearly all) of these, and I would be inclined to recommend several of these to more than one of you, I’m lumping all the books into a "list of ten," with no one specifically assigned to them. But you each get three songs picked specifically for you. Hopefully you’re down with this. I still love you, even if you aren’t.

For the songs! Granted, these are largely influenced by my preferences, though we’ve been hanging out around these parts long enough that I have a pretty good idea of what you guys dig. So, if I were to take over your iPod for three songs and insist you listen to things I think you like, this is probably what you’d hear. (the YouTube playlist for all of them is here.)

First up, [catch the sparks]! These make me think warm, Helen-y thoughts. 🙂 (Did that sound weird? I didn’t mean it weird. You’re possibly quite glad you live very far away from me right now.)

1. Corner – Allie Moss

2. Impossible – Daniel Merriweather

3. Fader – The Temper Trap

Next up, [Phade]! I think you were the one to bear the brunt of my Paste Magazine-generated love for the obscurities that make people think I’m trying to be indier than them. Which only reflects on you in that I was pretty sure you’d not give me some spiel about "listening to bands that don’t exist yet." But, you know, if you’re so inclined, I won’t fault you.

1. When We Swam – Thao with The Get Down Stay Down

2. Still Sound – Toro Y Moi

3. Lakeside – BLK JKS

On to [MsJess]! So, I went all, YAY!!!!! COVERS!!!! with yours. I figured you’d be okay with that. I did try to reign it in and not fill it with YouTube musicians. Which only lasted for two songs. 🙂

1. Millionaire – Eliza Doolittle & Friends

2. Heartless – William Fitzsimmons

3. Moves Like Jagger – Drew Tabor

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And now it’s [Merinda] time! You’ve brought so many awesome jams to my life! Here’s hoping I can return the favor.

1. Mystic Eyes – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

2. Reckoner – Gnarls Barkley (I guess I wasn’t done with the cover love)

3. Little Bit – Lykke Li

Yay! [aglow]! My resident sparkle love! Whether dance-y or mellow and smooth, these songs sound like good times. Which makes me think "Ashley!"

1. Moneygrabber – Fitz & The Tantrums

2. Pull My Heart Away – Jack Peñate

3. Animal – Javier Dunn (another cover – because I can’t help myself, apparently)

In no particular order, books I would recommend (okay, I could recommend more than 10 books, but these I liked enough that they stuck really well)

1. Blink by Malcolm Gladwell – I will gladly read anything by Malcolm Gladwell, this one just happens to be my favorite.

2. Stumbling on Happiness by Dan Gilbert – I have this in the queue for re-reading. It may have been the moment in time that I read this, but it so changed my outlook on the less than awesome moments in life for the better that I can’t help but love it.

3. Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter – Oh my, I LOVE this book! (And no one is surprised.) It’s only a bit different than the Disney movie. So if you’ve seen it, there won’t be any major surprises here, really. But it is so very charming!

4. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee – It is assuredly a classic for good reason.

5. Speaking with the Angel edited by Nick Hornby – This is where I learned short story collections can be amazing. And it also set me on a spree of digging into several authors, including the following.

6. The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank – I was almost instantly smitten with this book, despite the somewhat unconventional layout/flow of it. Actually, now I kind of want to read it again.

7. The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – I’d checked this out from the local library many years ago, after having come across several quotes I quite liked from Goethe. It was one of those ancient looking books that seemed like it’d been knocking around a library for numerous generations. I’m not sure whether or not my fondness for it is almost entirely attributable to the particular translation I read. A translation that I couldn’t track down at Amazon at the time, as I recall. So, I suppose that’s a bit of a disclaimer here.

8. Songbook by Nick Hornby – I find I’m not quite so into the sad stories as I used to be. Which means Nick Hornby isn’t really a go-to author for me anymore. But I still treasure this book. A collection of essays centering on various songs and/or music. It has its sad moments, but it also has a few that changed the way I look at some songs. I’m glad for both.

9. O Pionners! (and also My Antonia) by Willa Cather – I never had to read any of Willa Cather’s books in school. Which may make it easier for me to like them. And I never would’ve thought a prairie book (let alone two) would make it on a list of favorites. It’s a genre I tend to dislike. But I was just so smitten with her writing. Seeing a Cather quote from Gretchen Rubin’s Moment of Happiness Daily Quotation made me smile. ("That is happiness; to be dissolved intosomething complete and great.") I fully intend to re-read both of these at some juncture.

10. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris – I think this is my favorite Sedaris book. It’s definitely a good one to start with.