Random book meme
Gakked from
shipperxand
lordshiva
I have no idea where it comes from. The list is an interesting mix of old and new, and I find it weird that 2 of the 3 novels of Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle are included. Why not 3 out of 3? Or none? Anyway, I bolded the ones I’d read, and italicized ones that I have something to say about, but haven’t read...
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (One of my favorite reads of the last few years, despite the fact that no actual plot kicked in until page 300 or so...)
Anna Karenina (I tried...I should probably try again)
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22 (I tried reading it 2 months ago. First 50 pages were funny; after that it got extremely repetitive so I tossed it)
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights(Even though I hate all the characters with a fiery passion, structurally it’s very interesting, so I read it twice)
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre (one of my favorites, even despite its extraordinarily stiff dialogue)
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel (as a biologist, it surprised me that Diamond won such accolades for summarizing and presenting conclusions [habitat constraints dictate success of a population] that are BLAZINGLY obvious to all life-scientists. Is this actually new-ish theory in anthropology? If so members of different scientific disciplines REALLY need to talk more...)
War and Peace
Vanity Fair (I think I was too young to appreciate it...should try a re-read)
The Time Traveler’s Wife (on my bookshelf for this year)
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods (I’ve heard it’s good but I find Gaiman exceedingly overrated, so...)
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver(Really enjoyed it, but haven’t worked up the energy to tackle parts 2 and 3 yet)
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel (plot and characters sucked but I enjoyed the travelogue-ish-ness and creepy atmosphere)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World (I read 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, though! Doesn't that count? LOL)
The Fountainhead (the Ayn Rand cult is insane, but I enjoyed this novel and Anthem)
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo (I’ve read several other Dumas books, do those count?)
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange (eeek. I was too young when I read this)
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath (I keep meaning to, since I was just reading about the Dust Bowl)
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons (Free copy! On a plane! I didn’t buy it, I swear!)
Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles (I’ve started most of Hardy’s books at one time or another, and only the one about the sheep ranch is tolerable. God, he writes annoying whiny women)
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables (I’ve tried an abriged version and...just no)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune (I’m actually in the middle of a re-read right now)
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present (it’s on my list for this year or next)
Cryptonomicon (on my shelf, planned for this year)
Neverwhere (good world-building; otherwise, overrated)
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything (SQUEEE! Fantastic book that makes me fall straight back in love with science when I read it. The universe is an AMAZING place!)
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five (I read Galapagos and it sucked, so I’m in no hurry to read his other stuff)
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon (MZB may be a man-hater, but this is still a fun read)
Oryx and Crake
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed- (I’ve used Diamond’s lecture’s on this topic as jumping off points for discussion groups when I was teaching, and I definitely plan to read this year as a follow-up to G,G,&S...looks EXCELLENT)
Cloud Atlas (also planned for this year)
The Confusion (Part 2 or 3 after Quicksilver? If so, planned for this year. Next year if it’s part 3. Fuck, those books are long)
Lolita (I loved this and really need to re-read it)
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye (HAAAAAAAAATE; shut up, Holden)
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything (Fun read!)
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid
Watership Down (I love this novel like, whoa)
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit (about 50 times as a kid)
In Cold Blood
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
These memes always make me realize I’m not nearly as well-read as I think (although if I keep to this year’s reading schedule, I’ll be able to bold 6 more on this list by the end of the year.) The older I get, the more panicked I get at the prospect of my ever-diminishing time to read. It used to be that if I got 100 pages into a book I would doggedly finish it on principle. Now (as with Catch-22 recently) I won’t waste my time on stuff that isn’t grabbing me. Life’s too short.
On the other hand, discipline can be good, right? I once got hold of a ‘classical European-style education’ reading list and considered methodically working through it. But gah! All the philosophy! I’ve been much more disciplined in my reading habits the last few years, so maybe I should give that a shot again.
This is one of the problems with modern society; in order to get a decent education in your chosen field you have to specialize. And if you specialize there is much less time or incentive to read broadly amongst the classics. University faculties debate this CONSTANTLY, and it’s only getting worse. So we’re all left to catch up as best we can.
shipperxand
lordshiva
I have no idea where it comes from. The list is an interesting mix of old and new, and I find it weird that 2 of the 3 novels of Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle are included. Why not 3 out of 3? Or none? Anyway, I bolded the ones I’d read, and italicized ones that I have something to say about, but haven’t read...
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (One of my favorite reads of the last few years, despite the fact that no actual plot kicked in until page 300 or so...)
Anna Karenina (I tried...I should probably try again)
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22 (I tried reading it 2 months ago. First 50 pages were funny; after that it got extremely repetitive so I tossed it)
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights(Even though I hate all the characters with a fiery passion, structurally it’s very interesting, so I read it twice)
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre (one of my favorites, even despite its extraordinarily stiff dialogue)
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel (as a biologist, it surprised me that Diamond won such accolades for summarizing and presenting conclusions [habitat constraints dictate success of a population] that are BLAZINGLY obvious to all life-scientists. Is this actually new-ish theory in anthropology? If so members of different scientific disciplines REALLY need to talk more...)
War and Peace
Vanity Fair (I think I was too young to appreciate it...should try a re-read)
The Time Traveler’s Wife (on my bookshelf for this year)
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods (I’ve heard it’s good but I find Gaiman exceedingly overrated, so...)
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver(Really enjoyed it, but haven’t worked up the energy to tackle parts 2 and 3 yet)
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel (plot and characters sucked but I enjoyed the travelogue-ish-ness and creepy atmosphere)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World (I read 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, though! Doesn't that count? LOL)
The Fountainhead (the Ayn Rand cult is insane, but I enjoyed this novel and Anthem)
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo (I’ve read several other Dumas books, do those count?)
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange (eeek. I was too young when I read this)
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath (I keep meaning to, since I was just reading about the Dust Bowl)
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons (Free copy! On a plane! I didn’t buy it, I swear!)
Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles (I’ve started most of Hardy’s books at one time or another, and only the one about the sheep ranch is tolerable. God, he writes annoying whiny women)
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables (I’ve tried an abriged version and...just no)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune (I’m actually in the middle of a re-read right now)
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present (it’s on my list for this year or next)
Cryptonomicon (on my shelf, planned for this year)
Neverwhere (good world-building; otherwise, overrated)
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything (SQUEEE! Fantastic book that makes me fall straight back in love with science when I read it. The universe is an AMAZING place!)
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five (I read Galapagos and it sucked, so I’m in no hurry to read his other stuff)
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon (MZB may be a man-hater, but this is still a fun read)
Oryx and Crake
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed- (I’ve used Diamond’s lecture’s on this topic as jumping off points for discussion groups when I was teaching, and I definitely plan to read this year as a follow-up to G,G,&S...looks EXCELLENT)
Cloud Atlas (also planned for this year)
The Confusion (Part 2 or 3 after Quicksilver? If so, planned for this year. Next year if it’s part 3. Fuck, those books are long)
Lolita (I loved this and really need to re-read it)
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye (HAAAAAAAAATE; shut up, Holden)
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything (Fun read!)
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid
Watership Down (I love this novel like, whoa)
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit (about 50 times as a kid)
In Cold Blood
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
These memes always make me realize I’m not nearly as well-read as I think (although if I keep to this year’s reading schedule, I’ll be able to bold 6 more on this list by the end of the year.) The older I get, the more panicked I get at the prospect of my ever-diminishing time to read. It used to be that if I got 100 pages into a book I would doggedly finish it on principle. Now (as with Catch-22 recently) I won’t waste my time on stuff that isn’t grabbing me. Life’s too short.
On the other hand, discipline can be good, right? I once got hold of a ‘classical European-style education’ reading list and considered methodically working through it. But gah! All the philosophy! I’ve been much more disciplined in my reading habits the last few years, so maybe I should give that a shot again.
This is one of the problems with modern society; in order to get a decent education in your chosen field you have to specialize. And if you specialize there is much less time or incentive to read broadly amongst the classics. University faculties debate this CONSTANTLY, and it’s only getting worse. So we’re all left to catch up as best we can.