The 106 Books Of Pretension
Now this is what I call a MEME.
This is a list of the top 106 books people think they should read but never quite get around to, as established by the top books listed on LibraryThing as owned-but-unread. Or something like that. Which ones have you read or not, which ones bogged down on you, which ones did you throw across the room?
The list:
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina - in school, don't remember much of it
Crime and Punishment - ditto
Catch-22 - yes, and everything else he wrote I could get my hands on
One Hundred Years of Solitude -
Wuthering Heights - Yes, and I was the only girl in my 10th grade class who wanted to smack Catherine for being a big emo wussygirl. I really wanted her cape, though.
The Silmarillion - I'm ashamed to say I bogged down halfway through, not once but several times.
Life of Pi : a novel - on the stack.
The Name of the Rose - yes, love it.
Don Quixote - yes, in English and muddled my way through in Spanish with a dictionary close by.
Moby Dick - Oh god, make it stop.
Ulysses - yes, I was a mythogeek
Madame Bovary - yes
The Odyssey - yes
Pride and Prejudice - yes
Jane Eyre - yes, several times
The Tale of Two Cities - yes
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies - idk this one
War and Peace - bogged down
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad - yes
Emma - yes
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations - yes, one of my favorites
American Gods - who the hell doesn't read Gaiman these days?
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged - yes
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha - yes, OK but not a keeper.
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West - yes
The Canterbury tales - yes
The Historian : a novel - yes
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - yes
Love in the Time of Cholera - yes, but I didn't like it nearly as well as felt like I was supposed to.
Brave New world - yes
The Fountainhead - yes
Foucault’s Pendulum - yes
Middlemarch - yes
Frankenstein - yes
The Count of Monte Cristo -yes
Dracula - yes
A Clockwork Orange - oh god yes
Anansi Boys - again, who doesn't read Gaiman in this day and age?
The Once and Future King - aw yeah
The Grapes of Wrath - yes, went through a Steinbeck phase in Jr. High
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984 - hells yeah
Angels & Demons
The Inferno - yes, sort of
The Satanic Verses - bogged down
Sense and Sensibility - yes
The Picture of Dorian Gray - yes
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest - yes
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles - yes
Oliver Twist - yes
Gulliver’s Travels - yes, a childhood favorite.
Les Misérables - in English AND French, so there.
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune - who didn't finish DUNE?!? The later ones OK, they kind of sucked, but the original? "Fear is the mind-killer?" When I was 14 that was the coolest thing in the history of ever.
The Prince - yes, but they made me
The Sound and the Fury - yes, under protest
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir - heard enough to be disinclined
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present - on order, actually
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere - yes
A Confederacy of Dunces - yes
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being - yes
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five - yes
The Scarlet Letter - yes
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon - are you kidding? Four times, plus the sequel.
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita - does anyone actually admit it?
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey - yes
The Catcher in the Rye - yes
On the Road - yes, at sort of a high-speed skim. The language is interesting for a few pages, then annoying, then by page 20 I wanted to hit him with my shoe. Sorry. I might have to try again now that I know about the jazz thing.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame - yes
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values - yes, but.
The Aeneid - yes
Watership Down - yes, a kid favorite
Gravity’s Rainbow - mostly
The Hobbit - about a dozen times. Seriously, who the hell doesn't finish this one? Good god, it's the short and easy one.
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island - yes
David Copperfield - yes
The Three Musketeers - yes, another kidhood favorite. I even read the sequel.
OK, what are yours? MEME away.
God, the things I do when I can't sleep...
This is a list of the top 106 books people think they should read but never quite get around to, as established by the top books listed on LibraryThing as owned-but-unread. Or something like that. Which ones have you read or not, which ones bogged down on you, which ones did you throw across the room?
The list:
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina - in school, don't remember much of it
Crime and Punishment - ditto
Catch-22 - yes, and everything else he wrote I could get my hands on
One Hundred Years of Solitude -
Wuthering Heights - Yes, and I was the only girl in my 10th grade class who wanted to smack Catherine for being a big emo wussygirl. I really wanted her cape, though.
The Silmarillion - I'm ashamed to say I bogged down halfway through, not once but several times.
Life of Pi : a novel - on the stack.
The Name of the Rose - yes, love it.
Don Quixote - yes, in English and muddled my way through in Spanish with a dictionary close by.
Moby Dick - Oh god, make it stop.
Ulysses - yes, I was a mythogeek
Madame Bovary - yes
The Odyssey - yes
Pride and Prejudice - yes
Jane Eyre - yes, several times
The Tale of Two Cities - yes
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies - idk this one
War and Peace - bogged down
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad - yes
Emma - yes
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations - yes, one of my favorites
American Gods - who the hell doesn't read Gaiman these days?
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged - yes
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha - yes, OK but not a keeper.
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West - yes
The Canterbury tales - yes
The Historian : a novel - yes
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - yes
Love in the Time of Cholera - yes, but I didn't like it nearly as well as felt like I was supposed to.
Brave New world - yes
The Fountainhead - yes
Foucault’s Pendulum - yes
Middlemarch - yes
Frankenstein - yes
The Count of Monte Cristo -yes
Dracula - yes
A Clockwork Orange - oh god yes
Anansi Boys - again, who doesn't read Gaiman in this day and age?
The Once and Future King - aw yeah
The Grapes of Wrath - yes, went through a Steinbeck phase in Jr. High
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984 - hells yeah
Angels & Demons
The Inferno - yes, sort of
The Satanic Verses - bogged down
Sense and Sensibility - yes
The Picture of Dorian Gray - yes
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest - yes
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles - yes
Oliver Twist - yes
Gulliver’s Travels - yes, a childhood favorite.
Les Misérables - in English AND French, so there.
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune - who didn't finish DUNE?!? The later ones OK, they kind of sucked, but the original? "Fear is the mind-killer?" When I was 14 that was the coolest thing in the history of ever.
The Prince - yes, but they made me
The Sound and the Fury - yes, under protest
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir - heard enough to be disinclined
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present - on order, actually
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere - yes
A Confederacy of Dunces - yes
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being - yes
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five - yes
The Scarlet Letter - yes
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon - are you kidding? Four times, plus the sequel.
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita - does anyone actually admit it?
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey - yes
The Catcher in the Rye - yes
On the Road - yes, at sort of a high-speed skim. The language is interesting for a few pages, then annoying, then by page 20 I wanted to hit him with my shoe. Sorry. I might have to try again now that I know about the jazz thing.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame - yes
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values - yes, but.
The Aeneid - yes
Watership Down - yes, a kid favorite
Gravity’s Rainbow - mostly
The Hobbit - about a dozen times. Seriously, who the hell doesn't finish this one? Good god, it's the short and easy one.
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island - yes
David Copperfield - yes
The Three Musketeers - yes, another kidhood favorite. I even read the sequel.
OK, what are yours? MEME away.
God, the things I do when I can't sleep...