3 - 2015 - RodneyOlsen.net

books

I’m sure they’re designed simply to make me feel inadequate. They’re the lists that pop up from time to time that sit there mocking me. They leave me scratching my head wondering what I’ve done with my life.

Bookshop Dymocks has come up with a list of The Best 101 Books as Voted by Dymocks Booklovers.

Here’s their top ten:

1. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
3. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
4. Magician by Raymond Feist
5. The Lord of the Rings (Books 1-3) by J.R.R. Tolkien
6. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
7. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
8. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
9. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
10. The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling

I’ll admit that I’ve heard of most of the books on the list. I’ve read some, like Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca and The Bible. Animal Farm by George Orwell was required reading in school. I’ve seen the movie of The Princess Bride several times. Both 1984 and Wuthering Heights were amazing songs and I can sing along to both, even if I can’t get the high notes that Kate Bush can reach … or David Bowie for that matter.

What I need is someone to fund me to take a year or two off to just sit around and read. I need to catch up. Any takers?

To be honest, I do know what’s happening here. Those lists are designed to create what we now know as FOMO. Fear of missing out. If I haven’t read those books I’m inadequate so I need to rush out right now and by some copies … from Dymocks.

Yes, I should spend more time reading and there are probably many books on that list that I should lose myself in but my life is never going to be measured on whether I’ve read a list of books that others think I should.

There are dozens of books that I’ve read and enjoyed that aren’t on that list. There are still others on my shelf and in my electronic library that I would prefer to read before many that are in the top 101.

Just out of curiousity. If you were compiling a list of top books, what would your top three be?

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I don’t understand why anyone would choose to become a dentist. I have no desire to spend all day in someone else’s mouth. Facing the risk of having my fingers bitten by someone I don’t know doesn’t thrill me.

To be honest I don’t understand the attraction in many jobs, just as most people would never see themselves working in any of the jobs I’ve worked over the years. Thankfully we’re all wired differently and thankfully some people are wired to become dentists. I don’t want to be one but I’m glad that some people do.

This is all to say that I’m due to visit the dentist tomorrow. Not really a cause for celebration but rather a case of necessity. I don’t dislike dentists but put a visit to a tooth tweaker up against most other pursuits and I’d go with the latter.

Today I had to prepare for my dentist visit by a trip to a radiological clinic. I needed an X-Ray of my mouth for the dentist.

Everyone was pleasant enough but it was a little odd. I had to stand in front of a machine that looked like a robot from a B grade movie. Then I had to get closer, then closer again, then bite down on a small piece of plastic. At that point I had to stand even closer.

Then a set of calipers was clamped onto my head.

Next was the instruction to smile … while still clamping tightly onto the machine with my teeth and standing oddly close to the large apparatus. Then, to avoid the moving parts during the X-Ray, I had to drop my shoulders.

Finally the ultimate request. While doing all this …. RELAX.

Helpful, cheerful, pleasant, efficient and many other words would describe the staff at the clinic today. They just seem to have a very different concept of relaxing to me.

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Archive - March 2015