After much rain

The driveway is dry, the back yard drained OK the day after the heavy rain (yesterday, I think). I think we should have extended the French drain all the way across the west side of the yard to the property line; this would drain the low place quicker, and would also probably drain Mark's back yard, if one likes to do good to neighbors. Or even if one doesn't.

On her blog yesterday, Susan posted a link to a list of "1001 books you must read before you die," heavily weighted on the 1950-2008 end. Here's my list of ten on her list that I hope to read over the next ten months:

The English Patient, by Michael Ondaatje
Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Contact, by Carl Sagan
Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison
Cry, the Beloved Country, by Alan Paton
The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell (sp?) Hammett
Jacob's Room, by Virginia Woolf
The Shadow Line, by Joseph Conrad
The Wings of the Dove, by Henry James
The Master of Ballantrae, by Robert Louis Stevenson

I believe I've read some of them before, but don't remember them. "The Shadow Line," by Conrad, may be one of his short stories; if so, I've read it.

I'm tempted to make my own list of 1001 books you might want to read, or choose from to read. I guess I'd get bogged down in my comments, though. I would recommend Jane Eyre and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, only in contrast to the greatness of Wuthering Heights.