(no subject)
The Big Read thinks 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) Italicise those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who’ve only read 6 and force books upon them ;-)
I pretty much love all books, so I’m not going to take the time to underline them all. I probably would have italicized more, as it is likely I will read most of these, but as it is I have only italicized those I have more or less immediate plans to read.
1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - J. K. Rowling (minus book #7)
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible (pretty much all of it)
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 May Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare (I’ve read many and I’m sure there are many more to come.)
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - J. D. 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
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. The 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. The Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C. S. Lewis (redundant, much?)
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 - A. A. Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (Too much hype. Not terribly interested, but I picked up a copy at a thrift store.)
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (The only one I will underline. This is perhaps my favorite book.)
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - Lucy Maud Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood (Read three times now).
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel (Been trying to mooch this for ages.)
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 (I suppose I was wrong. I underlined this as well-- García Márquez is my favorite author.)
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (Also been trying to mooch for ages.)
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’ Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
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
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
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 - E. B. White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom (Of all the books I have read that appear on this list, this is the only one that I strongly believe does NOT belong here. Not a fan.)
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (Got to underline this one as well. French, English, and Spanish.)
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
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (And Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, to boot)
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
37 read. 12 intentions to read.
Joy > Zeke
Interesting. Only about 6 of the aforementioned authors are not European.
Edit: Continuing the above thought. I'm not so sure that having read more of these books is that great of an accomplishment. Who is missing from this list? Pretty much anyone who is from a marginalized culture. Where is Toni Morrison? My god, who better represents modern black literature than Toni Morrison? Why is The Bluest Eye not part of this list?
Where is Chinua Achebe? Zora Neale Hurston? Barbara Kingsolver? Ayn Rand? Virginia Woolf? Don't tell me Mitch Albom made it onto this list and Langston Hughes did not. Don't tell me that the Harry Potter series is better literature than Kurt Vonnegut.
Including Dan Brown and not Toni Morrison is akin to including Madonna on a "best music ever" list and not Billie Holiday.
This meme has suddenly become something far more sinister to me.
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicise those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who’ve only read 6 and force books upon them ;-)
I pretty much love all books, so I’m not going to take the time to underline them all. I probably would have italicized more, as it is likely I will read most of these, but as it is I have only italicized those I have more or less immediate plans to read.
1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - J. K. Rowling (minus book #7)
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible (pretty much all of it)
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 May Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare (I’ve read many and I’m sure there are many more to come.)
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - J. D. 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
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. The 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. The Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C. S. Lewis (redundant, much?)
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 - A. A. Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (Too much hype. Not terribly interested, but I picked up a copy at a thrift store.)
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (The only one I will underline. This is perhaps my favorite book.)
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - Lucy Maud Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood (Read three times now).
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel (Been trying to mooch this for ages.)
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 (I suppose I was wrong. I underlined this as well-- García Márquez is my favorite author.)
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (Also been trying to mooch for ages.)
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’ Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
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
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
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 - E. B. White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom (Of all the books I have read that appear on this list, this is the only one that I strongly believe does NOT belong here. Not a fan.)
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (Got to underline this one as well. French, English, and Spanish.)
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
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (And Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, to boot)
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
37 read. 12 intentions to read.
Joy > Zeke
Interesting. Only about 6 of the aforementioned authors are not European.
Edit: Continuing the above thought. I'm not so sure that having read more of these books is that great of an accomplishment. Who is missing from this list? Pretty much anyone who is from a marginalized culture. Where is Toni Morrison? My god, who better represents modern black literature than Toni Morrison? Why is The Bluest Eye not part of this list?
Where is Chinua Achebe? Zora Neale Hurston? Barbara Kingsolver? Ayn Rand? Virginia Woolf? Don't tell me Mitch Albom made it onto this list and Langston Hughes did not. Don't tell me that the Harry Potter series is better literature than Kurt Vonnegut.
Including Dan Brown and not Toni Morrison is akin to including Madonna on a "best music ever" list and not Billie Holiday.
This meme has suddenly become something far more sinister to me.