100 Book Meme 2x
A very belated posting. I did this about a week ago, but am only posting it now. Ripped off from wicked_liz here at lj, and from my best friend over at multiply.
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read. 2) Italicize those you intend to read. 3) Underline the books you LOVE.
1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee I didn't like it very much. Boring.
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë. I tried, I really did. But I hated it.
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger I used to love it, but later on I liked the Glass family saga more.
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame So long ago I can hardly remember it, does that count?
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell I remember thinking that the movie was better.
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen The proposal scene still makes me go awwww.
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery I used to love all of Montgomery's books. When I was a kid I wanted to visit Prince Edward Island. Duh.
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer Why not? If I can borrow a copy. Heh.
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind My copy is sitting on my "books to read" shelf.
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins I read the other one, "The Moonstone."
78. Ulysses, James Joyce I am not touching this, even with a ten-foot pole.
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac I tried but I couldn't finish it. I wanted to edit the damn thing.
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo I don't mind repeating myself: Michael Corleone is LOVE!
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho No, wicked_liz, I hated it too. You are not alone.
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie I haven't read any of his newer novels, but this one is still a favorite.
Only 30? Buhuhu. *mock tears* Such a failure of a literature major. But then again, the list is biased towards so many Anglo-American novelists I have no intention of ever reading.
I know I should read some Roald Dahl, although I'm not sure what title I should start with, and there's already a ton of other books on my to-read shelf.
And regarding this the list... *shock and awe* No Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?! You'd think they would stick in The Hound of Baskervilles even non-mystery fans have read that. I mean, how can they ignore the most popular detective in literature?! Holmes is the goddamn Batman, for Chrissakes.
Oh.... I just checked the website here: the big read. Among the recommended books are a couple more that I've read, Fahrenheit 451, The Maltese Falcon, Joy Luck Club, and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Should I feel better about myself? Ha.
This has been an interesting exercise in whatever. It's amusing to see that the Western literary canon is still alive and kicking, albeit updated with some science fiction, fantasy, and token representatives from the rest of the world. For instance, it skips almost all of classic and contemporary Chinese and Japanese literature, and let's forget Southeast Asia even exists. Africa? Where's that?
Not even Kawabata or Tagore, the best known Asian Nobel prize winners for literature, are here. Hmm. (I dislike Tagore with a deadly loathing, but he's just the type of writer I assume to find on a list like this. His liberal humanist poetry can offend no one but the leftists.)
Why it lists most of the Harry Potter books individually, while Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Pullman only get one mention each, is rather messed up too. It's an indication that whoever drew up this list wasn't thinking clearly. Just like those series (LOTR, Narnia, His Dark Materials), none of those Potter sequels can stand alone as individual novels. It would be hasty to say that popularity and author name-recall -- and not literary merit, cultural importance or historical significance -- is the guiding factor here, given that a lot of classics and bestsellers were also left out. It's all rather haphazard, that's all I'm saying.
Written todayyesterday afternoon, because I am/was in a procrastinating mood.
Okay. This is Paul's version of the same meme. The books are slightly different. I just feel like posting this to make a comparison. Heh.
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own blog so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them ;)
Paul’s Disclaimer: It's the Great White Canon, I'm afraid.
1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible ---> Most of the Old Testament, even the yawningly boring stuff like Leviticus and Numbers. Only half of the New Testament, because I found the letters not to my liking. When I was younger I read somewhere that all Catholics should read the Bible at least once, from Genesis to Revelations. I bogged down somewhere in Kings II and again in the Acts of the Apostles.
As with all books of monumental scope, the first one - Genesis - still rocks the best.
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles
13 Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare - Nope. Not even close to half.
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens (Now if you change this to Oliver Twist, at least then I can say I've read one of his works.)
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis ---> Paul cried out:Redundandant!
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden --- > I love Paul’s comment for this one: Saw the movie. If the book's anything like it, or any James Clavell novel, then it's an orientalist piece of snot.
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown ---> Possibly the worst piece of bestselling tripe my sister ever forced me to read. I was moaning the whole time while reading it: oh poor Umberto Eco, being ripped off like this so badly!
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez ---> Read several times for different majors (Third World Literature, Latin American Literature… you get the idea) but still good with each time.
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel One of the few contemporary bestsellers that I thoroughly enjoyed. Wonderful storytelling.
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas ---> Hahaha! Paul’s comment: The grandfather of the telenovela. Read this one chapter a day to simulate the experience.
66. On the Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker I should read this one.
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath Read during my angry feminist stage.
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola ---> Ugh. I tried and we just had to part ways.
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray ---> Ditto.
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker ---> It’s been so long ago, though.
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro Ohh, I loved this book.
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert I hated the class that required this (CompLit 30: Dead White Men Canon) but among everything we had to read, this is the book I hated most.
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom (Talaga?)
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad ---> No thanks.
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas ---> Paul’s comment: Loved the novel, hated the movie. Stupid Disney.
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Observations. Okay, so I got 35 on this version of the book meme. My original complaint about Sherlock Holmes is rendered moot, because he's mentioned here. The same goes for Shakespeare. Hmm. There's less Dahl, Prachett, and Rowling on this version, and more of the bestsellers that made up my required reading list in college (i.e., Possession, Remains of the Day) that are either postmodern or postcolonial.
Hmm. My final analysis? None, really, except that I'm amused to see the literary canon change as quickly as it takes someone to double-click their mouse. I think I can't have a final analysis on this, because once I have my arguments down pat the must-read list is going to change all over again.
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read. 2) Italicize those you intend to read. 3) Underline the books you LOVE.
1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee I didn't like it very much. Boring.
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë. I tried, I really did. But I hated it.
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger I used to love it, but later on I liked the Glass family saga more.
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame So long ago I can hardly remember it, does that count?
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell I remember thinking that the movie was better.
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen The proposal scene still makes me go awwww.
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery I used to love all of Montgomery's books. When I was a kid I wanted to visit Prince Edward Island. Duh.
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer Why not? If I can borrow a copy. Heh.
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind My copy is sitting on my "books to read" shelf.
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins I read the other one, "The Moonstone."
78. Ulysses, James Joyce I am not touching this, even with a ten-foot pole.
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac I tried but I couldn't finish it. I wanted to edit the damn thing.
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo I don't mind repeating myself: Michael Corleone is LOVE!
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho No, wicked_liz, I hated it too. You are not alone.
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie I haven't read any of his newer novels, but this one is still a favorite.
Only 30? Buhuhu. *mock tears* Such a failure of a literature major. But then again, the list is biased towards so many Anglo-American novelists I have no intention of ever reading.
I know I should read some Roald Dahl, although I'm not sure what title I should start with, and there's already a ton of other books on my to-read shelf.
And regarding this the list... *shock and awe* No Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?! You'd think they would stick in The Hound of Baskervilles even non-mystery fans have read that. I mean, how can they ignore the most popular detective in literature?! Holmes is the goddamn Batman, for Chrissakes.
Oh.... I just checked the website here: the big read. Among the recommended books are a couple more that I've read, Fahrenheit 451, The Maltese Falcon, Joy Luck Club, and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Should I feel better about myself? Ha.
This has been an interesting exercise in whatever. It's amusing to see that the Western literary canon is still alive and kicking, albeit updated with some science fiction, fantasy, and token representatives from the rest of the world. For instance, it skips almost all of classic and contemporary Chinese and Japanese literature, and let's forget Southeast Asia even exists. Africa? Where's that?
Not even Kawabata or Tagore, the best known Asian Nobel prize winners for literature, are here. Hmm. (I dislike Tagore with a deadly loathing, but he's just the type of writer I assume to find on a list like this. His liberal humanist poetry can offend no one but the leftists.)
Why it lists most of the Harry Potter books individually, while Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Pullman only get one mention each, is rather messed up too. It's an indication that whoever drew up this list wasn't thinking clearly. Just like those series (LOTR, Narnia, His Dark Materials), none of those Potter sequels can stand alone as individual novels. It would be hasty to say that popularity and author name-recall -- and not literary merit, cultural importance or historical significance -- is the guiding factor here, given that a lot of classics and bestsellers were also left out. It's all rather haphazard, that's all I'm saying.
Written todayyesterday afternoon, because I am/was in a procrastinating mood.
Okay. This is Paul's version of the same meme. The books are slightly different. I just feel like posting this to make a comparison. Heh.
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own blog so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them ;)
Paul’s Disclaimer: It's the Great White Canon, I'm afraid.
1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible ---> Most of the Old Testament, even the yawningly boring stuff like Leviticus and Numbers. Only half of the New Testament, because I found the letters not to my liking. When I was younger I read somewhere that all Catholics should read the Bible at least once, from Genesis to Revelations. I bogged down somewhere in Kings II and again in the Acts of the Apostles.
As with all books of monumental scope, the first one - Genesis - still rocks the best.
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles
13 Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare - Nope. Not even close to half.
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens (Now if you change this to Oliver Twist, at least then I can say I've read one of his works.)
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis ---> Paul cried out:Redundandant!
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden --- > I love Paul’s comment for this one: Saw the movie. If the book's anything like it, or any James Clavell novel, then it's an orientalist piece of snot.
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown ---> Possibly the worst piece of bestselling tripe my sister ever forced me to read. I was moaning the whole time while reading it: oh poor Umberto Eco, being ripped off like this so badly!
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez ---> Read several times for different majors (Third World Literature, Latin American Literature… you get the idea) but still good with each time.
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel One of the few contemporary bestsellers that I thoroughly enjoyed. Wonderful storytelling.
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas ---> Hahaha! Paul’s comment: The grandfather of the telenovela. Read this one chapter a day to simulate the experience.
66. On the Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker I should read this one.
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath Read during my angry feminist stage.
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola ---> Ugh. I tried and we just had to part ways.
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray ---> Ditto.
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker ---> It’s been so long ago, though.
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro Ohh, I loved this book.
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert I hated the class that required this (CompLit 30: Dead White Men Canon) but among everything we had to read, this is the book I hated most.
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom (Talaga?)
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad ---> No thanks.
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas ---> Paul’s comment: Loved the novel, hated the movie. Stupid Disney.
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Observations. Okay, so I got 35 on this version of the book meme. My original complaint about Sherlock Holmes is rendered moot, because he's mentioned here. The same goes for Shakespeare. Hmm. There's less Dahl, Prachett, and Rowling on this version, and more of the bestsellers that made up my required reading list in college (i.e., Possession, Remains of the Day) that are either postmodern or postcolonial.
Hmm. My final analysis? None, really, except that I'm amused to see the literary canon change as quickly as it takes someone to double-click their mouse. I think I can't have a final analysis on this, because once I have my arguments down pat the must-read list is going to change all over again.