Comments | anyjen: Book meme

anyjen

Book meme

Feb 23, 2011 03:46

Book meme, because it was shiny. The BBC estimates most people will have read six. I've read a few more than that... and many, many others that aren't on this list.

( cut for looooong list of books )

meme

Comments 13

popkin16 February 23 2011, 07:33:34 UTC

I've read 17. I'm...kind of disappointed in myself. I need to read more classics, but all the ones I start get depressing, so I quit. There are a bunch that I've started and quit on the list though!

anyjen February 24 2011, 06:02:49 UTC

Funny, that's almost my exact reaction. I'm starting to think that Classic = long, depressing, boring and complicated. :/

There's also not a single Borges book in here, either... or Isabel Allende's. This list is highly biased.

popkin16 February 24 2011, 06:48:58 UTC

It does seem to be a common theme, doesn't it?

I recognize the name Isabel Allende, but not Borges.

anyjen February 25 2011, 07:13:38 UTC

I recognize the name Isabel Allende

Could that have anything to do with all my nagging to get you to read one of her books? XD

but not Borges.

Borges is considered by many to be the best Argentinian writer there ever was. He was one of those people whose mindless scribbles on a napkin ended up being more literary significant that the combined efforts of a boatload of high-minded writers.

The only reason he never got a Nobel Prize for literature is that he never wrote a novel. You see, Borges preferred to write short stories (some which could even be considered drabbles, by fanfiction length standards), and those snooty people up there who picked the nominees for the shiny golden medal of the year decided that short stories were not literature, even though, like I said, what this guy wrote in napkins would have made the work of other nobel prize winners look like something barely good enough to wipe one's ass with. Seriously, this guy was THAT good.

preosmo February 23 2011, 08:14:03 UTC

Why isn't War of the Worlds on here? Or the Wizard of Oz?

anyjen February 24 2011, 06:07:02 UTC

Or anything by Jack London, or Borges, or Isabel Allende... Who made this list, I wonder...?

It was fun, though. ^^U

preosmo February 24 2011, 11:36:40 UTC

It was! I'd make my own list but that would be a bit biased.

(The comment has been removed)

anyjen February 24 2011, 06:07:31 UTC

Steal away! I don't remember who I pilfered it from, though. ^^U

sparklyfanta February 24 2011, 00:38:27 UTC

Awesome! *has posted to own LJ*

If it makes you feel better, there's not a single book by Toni Morrison there, either.

(Yet somehow, Bridget Jones's Diary is there. It's a funny book, sure, but....um.)

anyjen February 24 2011, 06:11:15 UTC

My thoughts exactly. I've been meaning to read it, but I wouldn't put it in the same list as the entire works of Shakespeare, A Tale of Two Cities, A Hundred Years of Solitude or The Bible (a hard-to-read book if there ever was one. One of my aunts used to be a nun, and even she hasn't read the whole thing yet, at age 65. It took me almost two years, and I only managed it because I'm stubborn. :P).

sparklyfanta February 24 2011, 14:28:30 UTC

Yeah, it's a fun book (provided one doesn't over-identify with the main character), but it's not up to the same standard as any of those.

You are more stubborn that I, my friend! I'm afraid I tend to associate the Bible with my dad's unmovable beliefs, and, well....they kind of turn me off. So I haven't read it. But I'm going to a CSU (uh, hopefully), so I might get to take a "Bible as Literature" class.

anyjen February 25 2011, 07:05:33 UTC

Oooooh, yeah, I'm stubborn. I have a thing about doing my damnest to finish a book once I've started to read it... there are several books which are slow at the beginning but get interesting somewhere in the middle or nearing the end ( ... )

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