Book Meme
"The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed."
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) Strike out the books you have no intention of ever reading, or were forced to read at school and hated.
5) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them ;-)
1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen - I'm not a huge Austen fan, but I don't hate her either.
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien - Loved it. Always will.
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte - I've had so many people tell me to read this. I own it, just haven't read it yet.
4. The Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling - Enjoyable enough. Required reading just to get to the fanfic.
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible - Read it pretty much straight through at one point. Shows you just how much my views have changed.
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte - Yuck. Just a complete mess of a book.
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell - Enjoyable enough.
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman - Awesome first book, mediocre rest of the series.
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare - I adore Shakespeare in every way.
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier - Awesome, awesome read. Probably the best book I've ever read for a class.
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien - Started my life-long love affair with fantasy.
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 - Good...but WAY LONG.
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams - A brilliant and enduring classic. One of the best.
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck - I fucking HATE Steinbeck.
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll - Really lovely book. Better than the Disney version.
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis - Excellent series. Classic.
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - I can't say I loved it, but I liked it quite a lot. If only the writing hadn't sucked so hard!
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
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 - Own, haven't read yet.
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding - Own, haven't read yet.
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
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 - Fucking Steinbeck.
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov - Own, haven't read yet.
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
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 - Has such a terrible reputation that I'm not going anywhere near it.
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson - OMG! Bill Bryson made the list! This book is good, but I would have put "A Walk in the Woods" on the list instead.
75. Ulysses - James Joyce - I want to tackle this and "Finnegan's Wake" both, simply because they have such a rep as being ridiculously hard to understand.
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray - Own, haven't read.
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens - Beautiful little story.
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom - NO WAY I'm wasting time on this sappy shit.
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad - The single worst book ever written. Even worse because it keeps getting put on lists like this and therefore taught.
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams - Really fun book.
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl - A childhood classic.
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Total read: 31
Intend to read: 6
Loved: 11
Hated/Never going to read: 6
Seriously? People have read, on average, six of these? That's SAD.
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) Strike out the books you have no intention of ever reading, or were forced to read at school and hated.
5) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them ;-)
1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen - I'm not a huge Austen fan, but I don't hate her either.
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien - Loved it. Always will.
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte - I've had so many people tell me to read this. I own it, just haven't read it yet.
4. The Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling - Enjoyable enough. Required reading just to get to the fanfic.
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible - Read it pretty much straight through at one point. Shows you just how much my views have changed.
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte - Yuck. Just a complete mess of a book.
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell - Enjoyable enough.
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman - Awesome first book, mediocre rest of the series.
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare - I adore Shakespeare in every way.
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier - Awesome, awesome read. Probably the best book I've ever read for a class.
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien - Started my life-long love affair with fantasy.
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 - Good...but WAY LONG.
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams - A brilliant and enduring classic. One of the best.
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck - I fucking HATE Steinbeck.
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll - Really lovely book. Better than the Disney version.
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis - Excellent series. Classic.
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - I can't say I loved it, but I liked it quite a lot. If only the writing hadn't sucked so hard!
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
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 - Own, haven't read yet.
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding - Own, haven't read yet.
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
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 - Fucking Steinbeck.
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov - Own, haven't read yet.
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
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 - Has such a terrible reputation that I'm not going anywhere near it.
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson - OMG! Bill Bryson made the list! This book is good, but I would have put "A Walk in the Woods" on the list instead.
75. Ulysses - James Joyce - I want to tackle this and "Finnegan's Wake" both, simply because they have such a rep as being ridiculously hard to understand.
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray - Own, haven't read.
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens - Beautiful little story.
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom - NO WAY I'm wasting time on this sappy shit.
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad - The single worst book ever written. Even worse because it keeps getting put on lists like this and therefore taught.
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams - Really fun book.
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl - A childhood classic.
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Total read: 31
Intend to read: 6
Loved: 11
Hated/Never going to read: 6
Seriously? People have read, on average, six of these? That's SAD.