Book meme

[wren_kt7oz]

I snagged this from Connor.



I have to admit that my main reason for posting this is to do a bit of venting.

Please feel free to ignore - or even to take offence if I can one of your faves. Be warned - I pull no punches with some of my opinions.

Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here...

Instructions: Copy/paste this. Bold those books you've read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read an excerpt.


1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen Love Austen. Love her understatement and her irony. Similar (to me) to Anthony Trollope, whom I adore.

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien Okay - super geekdom admission - I have read these so many times I can quote huge chunks of them. Love the story, but even more, love the story-telling, if that makes sense. Tolkein's use of language is so wonderful that it enchants me. "Then all listened while Elrond in his clear voice told of the Rings of Power and their forging in the morning of the world, long ago." It's like poetry. Just intoxicating.

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte Just loathe all of the Bronte sisters stuff. All of it. Overblown, melodramatic drivel as far as I'm concerned.

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling I stopped after the third one. I refuse to live in a world where Sirius is dead.

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee Brilliant, just wonderful. This is what I mean by my "real problems" comment. There's just no comparison between this, and the middle class angst of Gatsby or the dreary wallowing of Steinbeck, IMO.

6 The Bible I suppose I've read most of it at one time or another, but never the whole lot as it were


7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte see above

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman Seriously hated these. Read the first one and found it profoundly disturbing. If I were into banning books, these would be high on my hit list because I think they send a very dark and twisted message about the world.

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens Have a love/ hate relationship with Dickens, but I've read just about all of them at one time or another. Some I love, some leave me cold. This is one that I could take or leave.

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy If ever I wanted to drive someone to suicide I swear I'd force them to read Thomas Hardy. I've been both bored and frustrated by everything I've ever read of his. Although I'm told his poetry's okay.

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller Took me about five goes, but once I got into it it became one of my favourite books.

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare I'm a Shakespeare nut, what can I say?

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger I tried, alright. But American angst just isn't my thing. I keep thinking "Get over yourself, some people have real problems".

19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger Loved this. Simply loved it.

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell I fell asleep the only time I tried to watch the movie (after being asked to be quiet because I was laughing so much). Can't even imagine trying to wade through the book.

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald Again, "real problems".

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy Went through a stage of reading all the "great" Russians - Tolstoy, Chekhov, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky. Dostoyevsky is my favourite.

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams One of the funniest books ever.

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky Actually like "The Brothers Karamazov" better, or, for that matter, "The Possessed".

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck Okay - I admit that in terms of American Angst, Steinbeck's characters do, by and large, have real problems. But I will never read another Steinbeck after being forced to read "The Red Pony". He's another 'slit your wrists' writer from my perspective, and life is a) too short, and b) hard enough, without wallowing in it.

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll My nickname used to be "Alice" at one point in my life. Even my father called me that occasionally. So I have a soft spot for this one.

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis Have been fascinated by Lewis ever since I read his "Out of the Silent Planet" trilogy.

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 - A.A. Milne Gotta love these. If you want a real treat, track down the audio recordings the BBC did with Judi Dench and Michael Williams doing the narration, Stephen Fry as Winnie the Pooh and Geoffrey Palmer as Eyeore. It's a delight.

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown I have to admit that I once picked this up. I was curious to see what all of the fuss was about. I read about half a page and wanted to shred it. Of all the fatuous, derivative pieces of badly written sensationalist crap! That it was such a best seller frankly scares the shit out of me because to me it seriously seems like it was written either by or for (or both) a mildly retarded ten year old. The ideas are stolen (I read "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" years before this came out) and they weren't particularly good ideas to begin with. The sentence structure is absurdly simplistic and he rarely uses a word with more than two syllables. Honestly, if this is what people are interested in reading, I'm simply appalled. Okay, sorry, rant over.

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins Love this - one of the most subtly scary things I've ever read.

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy What I've always wanted to know is ... what makes whatsisface - you know, her husband, the soldier, come back? There's never the slightest explanation for that turn around. They see each other at the circus, and then suddenly he turns up again. That's the kind of stuff I hate about Hardy.

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood Simply brilliant book, and a powerful cautionary tale that we should never take our freedoms for granted

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert Loved this one - pity about the endless sequels - and about the movie - great Frank Herbert quote "I wrote a book about a man who was trying to play God, and they made a movie about someone who could make it rain."

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 Never fail to cry when Carton dies - oops, maybe shouldn't have said that for those of you who haven't read it.

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon Came to me highly recommended and I found it fairly tedious to be honest

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck see Steinbeck rant above

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold Surprised myself by liking this one

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 I tried

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 To be honest, I only made it through about twenty pages.

76 The Inferno – Dante

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray (Watched the TV series, does that count?)

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens One of my all time faves - I read it every Christmas

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

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton I am a sucker for these. I still read them occasionally.

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad Again, I tried.

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

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 Felt honour bound to try this, but seriously couldn't come at it.

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare Alright, this one's even worse - I think I can quote about 80% of Hamlet. I first read it when I was eight years old. Understood about one sentence in five, but fell in love with the language. I've been hooked on Shakespeare ever since. "See where the dawn in russet mantle clad peeps o'er the top of yon high eastern hills". Magic.

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo Loved the musical, so I tried. I wound up sort of skimming through it. Only scene did I really love in the book (and I'm so glad they left it in the musical) is the "Bishop's Candlesticks" bit.

Comments

[bodleian.livejournal.com]

I have read a few of these - but not many.
As far as 'Gone with the wind' is concerned, the first time I read it, it took me 3 weeks and the second time it took me 3 days. I loved it and I can tell you that it left the movie for dead. I made the mistake of reading the book first so the movie was a huge disappointment.

[wren-kt7oz.livejournal.com]

Well, I'll give some more thought to GWTW. The problem now, of course, is that every time I think of Rhett Butler, I see Gable's smirk, and Scarlet will always have Vivienne Lee's madly annoying simper. So it's kind of ruined any chance of me enjoying the book, I think.

[nolyana.livejournal.com]

I read more than a few. Highly rec Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden, though! Brilliant.

[wren-kt7oz.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's on the list that is on my personal "one day" list. Along with "Birdsong", "A Prayer for Owen Meaney" and "Love in the Time of Cholera".

[kitasangel.livejournal.com]

It always surprises me that I have read as many as I have from the list because I tend to not read the so called classics. I loved the mini series with Brian Brown of A Town Called Alice the book not so much. I had to read The DaVinci Code for my job before it was released and thought it was nothing special. I HATE Lovely Bones but like her book Lucky. I think that at one time I had 5 copies of Lovely Bones and never made it past the first chapter. I gave them al away to people who told me what a wonderful book it was. I think I read a happy little romance book instead and feel just fine about it.
:)
Lyn

[wren-kt7oz.livejournal.com]

"Lovely Bones" was an impulse buy of mine in an airport. I'd finished my "plane book" by half way through a journey and had to grab something quickly while changing planes. So I was kind of trapped with it, and actually wound up liking it.

I've read a lot of the classics, either because they were assigned reading, or because I was curious (I went through a stage in my late teens where I was terribly "serious" about things - read Sartre and the Russians, and O'Neil and Williams.) But I know what you mean about the "happy little romance book". Candidly, give me Georgette Heyer any day over the damned Bronte sisters - either her mysteries or her romances. And certainly over the likes of Dan Brown. At least her stuff is meticulously researched, and she can write a paragraph that doesn't sound as if it's come from a "learning to read" book. But then, I rarely feel guilty about what I read. I adore Terry Pratchett, read everything that Sally Vickers writes, return to Heyer unhesitatingly in times of stress and depression and yet read Shakespeare for fun. Reading, like life, for me, is all about balance.

[bknjt.livejournal.com]

I have read quite a few of these.... I agree with you about the DaVinci Code and the movie was even worse...lol... I am an avid reader...but..my taste runs more towards mysteries and horror.. Agatha Christie,Stephen King, James Patterson... etc... Thanks for posting this list..there are a few on here I missed...

[wren-kt7oz.livejournal.com]

I'm kind of leery of horror stuff ... I read a great deal of it at one time, but not so much lately. And I have to admit that I've never been much into blood and gore type horror. I like the more subtle stuff (like the Woman in White).

Mysteries, yes. Read quite a few of those. Favourites are the Peter Whimsey books by Dorothy Sayers. Oh, and Ellis Peters' Cadfael books. The first, I think, of the "historical detective" genre, and IMO by far the best. Another author who researches meticulously.

[connorblond.livejournal.com]

You've seen my list, so you already know what I read.
I also love "The Woman in White" because it's such a clever book.
I agree completele on the Bronte sisters, and I adore Jane Austen. I saw all the movies made of Pride and Prejucide (3 or 4) and I've read the book at least five times. I think it's an incredibly well observed book, the author knows her time and the quirks of the people.
To Kill a Mockingbird is just so, so, so good. *sighs*

I don't like all the stuff by Shakespeare but I'm seriously in love with a Midsummer Night's Dream - and all his other comedies for that matter. MacBeth is my fav book of his - of all times. Just perfect.
I was missing Oscar Wilde here, because he is my fav. author.

[wren-kt7oz.livejournal.com]

Yes ... I wondered about Wilde too. Another one where I can quote great chunks of his work - especially
"Earnest" of course. But then I also wondered about Chekhov, given the presence of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, and about O'Neill and Tennessee Williams, given the amount of "American angst". I'm guessing that except for Shakespeare they just went for novels, and didn't include the playwrights. But they could at least have included "Dorian Grey". That's why I wonder how the list was derived. I mean, anything that includes even "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time" (let alone Dan Brown) as something which, by implication one "should" have read, but doesn't include Wilde is just unfathomable to me.

I love "The Dream" too. Another one where I can quote huge chunks ... "I know a bank where the wild thyme grows ...". Oh, I love it. I can just get drunk on the words.

[debv3.livejournal.com]

35 out of 100 not bad right?

[wren-kt7oz.livejournal.com]

Not bad at all, if they're right and most people have only read about six.

Mind you, if the damned Da Vinci Code is an example of something they think people "should" have read ...

[spike7451.livejournal.com]

Irealise I have read 67 of these books, I always knew I was addicted to books.

Liked reading your commetns on each book.

#6 is my favourite book of all time. :)

[ycorgigirl.livejournal.com]

I was surprised at how many I had read but some were assigned reading in school. Some I read just because they were classics and I thought I should, not because I enjoyed them. I have definite book phases throughout my life. The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit I read straight through back to back when I was in college but when I tried to reread them around the time of the films, I couldn't do it for some reason. My mentality must have changed. Interesting list.