100 best (?) books

[secrets_and_lie]

Borrowed from arabianbecause I'm avoiding work and it looked fun. The Big Read figures that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed. I have apparently read 53. So who's pulling the average down? Aren't some of these required reading in high school

Comments

[hiddeneloise]

Hi there! Avoiding work is a perfectly good motivation for just about anything. I'm just saying. :)

I've read 57 books out of a 100. And I'm too lazy to mark them again, lol. (I did this in arabian's post). I guess I can be happy that I'm not the one pulling down that average. Though I do wonder about the list. It's pretty random and some things on it raise my eyebrows. But hey, it's a list of books, and that's the good and the important part. :)

Did you really only loved two out of the 53? Tough crowd! ;)

[secrets_and_lie]

Did you really only loved two out of the 53? Tough crowd! ;)

Heh. Yeah. I did love more of them at the time I read them. But I think about books like Dune, which I reread several times as a teenager, and I think it just wouldn't hold up now. Would it help to know I still like a number of these books? But yeah, I'm a tough customer.

[arabian]

God, you guys are making me feel like a dunce. I only read 36. I suck. And I call myself a reader.

[secrets_and_lie]

Eh, don't feel bad. It's a very random list. I'd likely score lower on some other random set of books. Plus, I was a Lit major in college, so I read more classics then.

[midnight_27]

Avoiding work is the best :)

I know I read more than 6 but definitely not near your number. This is a great motivation to read more. Like you said, it is an interesting list they complied.

[secrets_and_lie]

Some of the books are good reminders, definitely. I'd like to read Confederacy of Dunces, for example. And The Kite Runner.

[sowell]

I've read 43, and I don't even consider myself a heavy reader. Seriously - how did these people get their diplomas?

Also - I've never read any Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and I've always wanted to. But I proudly maintain my status as the only person in America who hasn't read The Da Vinci Code. :)

[secrets_and_lie]

I really loved 100 Years, but I've heard more mixed things about some of Marquez' others. Magical realism can be wonderful, but mix it with South American politics and it can get oh so heavy.

I proudly maintain my status as the only person in America who hasn't read The Da Vinci Code. :)

Congrats. :) Not a good book. As you might have heard. And not bad in a Twilight'y this-is-a-mess-but-I-can't-stop-reading-it sort of way, either. Tedious, exposition heavy, paper-thin characterizations, clunky writing, every plot point massively telegraphed. I wish I understood what people see in it. I read it to find out. I still don't know.