As much as I read, my score is worse than yours - four of those books read (1984, The Hobbit, Watership Down and Wuthering Heights). And *one* (The Sil) that I haven't yet finished. Eep.
Depends...it takes a while to get into and the "elevated" language can get on your nerves but it's a great story. If you'd like to read something from the early days of Tolkien's mythological world, The Children of Hurin is for most people a better choice.
Well, I managed to have read 18 of the books on that list.
Catch-22 Wuthering heights The Silmarillion (3 or 4 times) Don Quixote Jane Eyre A brave new world (twice) Frankenstein Dracula (2 or 3 times) A clockwork orange (highly overrated) 1984 (countless number of times...one of my favs of all time) Angels and demons (well, one book with that name...dunno if it's the one referred to. Written by Dan Brown at any rate) Gulliver's travels Les Miserables The unbearable lightness of being Catcher in the rye The Hobbit (at least twice) Treasure Island The three musketeers
As pretty much everyone else in the world has said, it's not so much romance as it is social satire. AWESOME stuff.
Eh. Since you resist, now you may read Terry Pratchett. That is also social satire, with much less "romance" than Austen. Also, it has trolls and dwarves.
Jane Austen (JKR Rowling beloved author) is pretty darn good. Written as conventional romance in the early 1800's, it went over the heads of most readers. All of her books are quite savage satire. Warning...she was an early feminist. Very extreme for her time. Her father raised her to think for herself. I'm not expecting the forth coming film on her to be much. She had a rather bad, lonely end. Not a film for Hollywood types, they fictionalized it.
I have read a lot of what I see on this list. Some surpriesed me. I did not expect to see the Mists of Avalon. I though that was a rather popular book, when it came out. Some like Ulysses is understandable, very difficult to read. I belong to a book club that tackles very difficult books. That is on my list (to be read in december). Not looking forward to it. Some of those books (Gravity's Rainbow) made me ill.
Not that much romance. Some of P & P is pretty funny.
You could do a "Stream of consciousness writing" (the writing style of Ulysses) ala Harry and Ginny fic. :) I'm not kidding about Ulysses, It has a vocabulary of over 30,0000 words (allegidly)
Does it count if I was an unwilling participant? I counted twelve books that were required reading in High School for me.
Books I actually chose to read: Memiors of a Geisha, Catch-22, The Mists of Avalon, Wicked, Les Miserables (yes, I chose to read it), and Dune. There are a lot I wouldn't mind reading, maybe one day. Right now I am working 12 hour days, 6 days a week. That really cuts into my reading time.
Oh, I understand. Most of the books on that list I was assigned. I did a decent job picking some up on my own, though. But obviously not nearly enough compared to others.
I've read 20, but started lots I couldn't finish, like Wuthering Heights and Lolita, both of which I thought sucked so badly it would be an insult to myself to finish them.
However, in defense of Jane Austen, can I just say, her books really aren't romances. You'd think they are if you've seen movies made of them, but truly they are social commentary and really witty biting satire, none of which translates well on screen. (well, they did an okay job with mocking the Elliots in the BBC production of Persuasion.
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Well, I managed to have read 18 of the books on that list.
Catch-22
Wuthering heights
The Silmarillion (3 or 4 times)
Don Quixote
Jane Eyre
A brave new world (twice)
Frankenstein
Dracula (2 or 3 times)
A clockwork orange (highly overrated)
1984 (countless number of times...one of my favs of all time)
Angels and demons (well, one book with that name...dunno if it's the one referred to. Written by Dan Brown at any rate)
Gulliver's travels
Les Miserables
The unbearable lightness of being
Catcher in the rye
The Hobbit (at least twice)
Treasure Island
The three musketeers
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You should read Jane Austen's stuff. I say so.
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Eh. Since you resist, now you may read Terry Pratchett. That is also social satire, with much less "romance" than Austen. Also, it has trolls and dwarves.
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I have read a lot of what I see on this list. Some surpriesed me. I did not expect to see the Mists of Avalon. I though that was a rather popular book, when it came out. Some like Ulysses is understandable, very difficult to read. I belong to a book club that tackles very difficult books. That is on my list (to be read in december). Not looking forward to it. Some of those books (Gravity's Rainbow) made me ill.
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You could do a "Stream of consciousness writing" (the writing style of Ulysses) ala Harry and Ginny fic. :) I'm not kidding about Ulysses, It has a vocabulary of over 30,0000 words (allegidly)
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Books I actually chose to read: Memiors of a Geisha, Catch-22, The Mists of Avalon, Wicked, Les Miserables (yes, I chose to read it), and Dune. There are a lot I wouldn't mind reading, maybe one day. Right now I am working 12 hour days, 6 days a week. That really cuts into my reading time.
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However, in defense of Jane Austen, can I just say, her books really aren't romances. You'd think they are if you've seen movies made of them, but truly they are social commentary and really witty biting satire, none of which translates well on screen. (well, they did an okay job with mocking the Elliots in the BBC production of Persuasion.
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1984's good, Oliver Twist is good, American Gods or Anansi Boys are both modern and loved by many.
You'll beat me soon. lol
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