#39 Read Alice's Adventures In Wonderland and Through The Looking-Glass And What Alice Found There

Status: In a child-like state

"I had sent my heroine straight down a rabbit-hole ... without the least idea what was to happen afterwards." — Lewis Carroll

I'll say! A perpetually late White Rabbit, a disappearing cat, a lecturing mouse, a race-organising Dodo, a gardening lizard, a gigantic puppy, a caterpillar who takes insult when people point out his size, Fish- and Frog-Footmen, an ugly Duchess, a Mock Turtle (as opposed to a real one), a Gryphon, a deck of cards come to life (including a Queen of Hearts, obsessed with decapitation) and, of course, a Hatter who is, as you would expect from a tale this ludicrous, mad.

And all that's before Alice passes Through The Looking-Glass! Yep, I've been getting reacquainted with the first of Carroll's two-part tale, a classic for children, on whom Carroll's amazing knack for puns, wit and all-around cleverness must be utterly lost.

Everything about Carroll's writing sparkles and Alice is as well-crafted and imaginative a character as the creatures who populate the world around her.  The Penguin Classics edition, which I'm reading, contains both stories and is packed with a lengthy introduction, annotations, appendices, an essay, the manuscript of Alice's Adventures Under Ground, which became the first of the two stories, and John Tenniel's fantastic illustrations.

It is with nothing but pure excitement that I await Tim Burton's adaptation of this phenomenal book.

#76 Try haggis

Status: Not disgusted

I expected to knock this one on the head when I returned to the UK (#11 for those of you playing along at home), but was offered the opportunity to sample this Scottish cuisine at Fort Edmonton Park's Highland Gathering.

If anyone's culturally ignorant, Wikipedia offers the following list of typical ingredients:

Sheep's 'pluck' (heart, liver and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally boiled in the animal's stomach for approximately three hours.

Surprisingly decent.

#28 Buy and read Bill Bryson's A Short History Of Nearly Everything

Status: Learned

Well, I didn't buy it – it was a birthday present from Jackie – but Bill Bryson's brief yet thorough guide to the universe is an extraordinary read.

The subject matter remains suitably intellectual, but Bryson handles it with such deftness and profundity that reading about 13 billion years of history becomes hugely enjoyable – and very funny.

Bryson relates countless mind-blowing facts about the universe, some you would never have considered, and others you'll never be able to fathom.  From the Big Bang and the universe it created...

"In a single pulse, a moment of glory much too swift and expansive for any form of words, the singularity assumes heavenly dimensions, space beyond conception. In the first lively second (a second that many cosmologists will devote entire careers to shaving into ever-finer wafers) is produced gravity and the other forces that govern physics. In less than a minute the universe is a million billion miles across and growing fast. There is heat now, ten billion degrees of it, enough to begin nuclear reactions that create the lighter elements ... In three minutes, 98 percent of all matter there is or ever will be has been produced. We have a universe. It is a place of the most wondrous and gratifying possibility, and beautiful, too. And it was all done in about the time it takes to make a sandwich."

...to the rise of mankind and our ignorance at appreciating such a place...

"We are awfully lucky to be here – and by "we" I mean every living thing. To attain any kind of life in this universe of ours appears to be quite an achievement. As humans we are doubly lucky, of course: We enjoy not only the privilege of existence but also the singular ability to appreciate it and even, in a multitude of ways, to make it better. It is a talent we have only barely begun to grasp. We have arrived at this position of eminence in a stunningly short time. Behaviourally modern human beings – that is, people who can speak and make art and organise complex activities – have existed for only about 0.0001 percent of Earth's history. But surviving even that little while required a nearly endless string of good fortune."

A Short History Of Nearly Everything ultimately opens your eyes to the phenomenal universe around us - and everything in it - and develops a great appreciation for life itself.