Yet another book meme
Jan. 29th, 2009 09:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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kikibug13 and based on a Beeb "best reads" list from some years back. The Guardian has just been doing a series of 1000 "best reads" as well. I'm afraid I find many of their selections to be overly literary. The SFF section has some great choices, but too much magical realism, horror, alternate histories and "ghost stories", and some really annoying omissions. I'm sorry, Affinity by Sarah Waters is not a fantasy book. And nor is Naked Lunch.
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the ones you're half way through.
4) For all the bold ones you have read, put a bit of commentary - be it snark, poetic, or just explaining what the book is - but no longer than a sentence.
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen Who doesn't like Darcy? And I'm glad I read the books before I saw Colin Firth doing it.
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien I've read it on average about once a year since I was 14 or 15.
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte I love love love this book. I read it when I was 11 or 12, and it's still great. Interesting what you get out of it as you get older.
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling Meh, I gave up a couple of books before the end
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible - I didn't read all the "begats" (who does?), but I have actually read it cover to cover. Ammunition
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte Turgid, over-dramatic, and characters whose heads you want to bang together
8 1984 - George Orwell - Great book
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman - I really dislike the man's worldview. And I prefer more cheerful endings.
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott - I like all these books. It's a fascinating view into a non-conformist household, and hey, they used homeopathy!
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy - slash my wrists now
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier - the movie's good, though, if I'm in the mood. Mrs Danvers, muahahaha
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien First read this when I was about 9, I think
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot - apparently I need to just finish it. Ok, ok.
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell - don't get the Scarlett and/or Rhett love myself. It really just makes me have those TGIQ thoughts.
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald Can't really remember it; I didn't enjoy it that much.
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams Yay, yay. I think these were my first SF purchases.
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck - if I haven't yet expired after Tess of the D'Urbervilles, slash my wrists again.
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll I love love loved these books, and I love my Annotated Alice for explaining all the contemporary jokes
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame - I read this as an adult, and that probably explains why I don't really get the love.
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis I loved these as a kiddie, and some of them are still great.
34 Emma - Jane Austen Does anyone actually like Emma?
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen Yep, all good.
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis See 33 above!
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres - what was the point? Seriously?
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden - I really don't understand what is supposed to be so good about this book. I'd rather read honest porn about exotic oriental ladies.
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne Again, first read these as an adult. I don't much like Pooh or Christopher Robin.
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell - great book, studied it at school
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - a fairly average thriller. Ok, fun premise, but don't get the fuss (cos it ain't that well written, and talk about the male equivalent of Mary Sue (I've heard a few renderings of that, don't worry))
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - I think a liking for true fantasy and magical realism are somehow often at odds
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood One decent speculative fiction book she did. Yes, broadly drawn, but a nice paranoid feminist suspense.
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert Good SF, and the "hydraulic despotism" is even more pronounced today. I loved the interweaving of poltics and religion. However, it is not religion itself, so, yeah, not sure why the level of adulation for these books.
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen I like this one, even if it is less polished than some of the others.
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 Seminal, and deservedly so
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - I did give Marquez another go
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck - kill me NOW
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy - I think I did finish this one. I was desperate for reading material
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding - whatever you might think of "chick lit", and people taking it waay too seriously, this is an entertaining read
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker - great stuff, although I'm not really a fan of horror or vampire stories
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett One of the best ever kids' books
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson Very amusing
75 Ulysses - James Joyce I think the only people who finished this were the ones who needed to write a paper on it
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 I keep meaning to, but haven't done so yet.
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens Best Dickens story. Not too long.
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker - excellent read, but I actually like one of the sequels better
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert - it was some time ago
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White - one of best books I read when I was under 10
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom I have never ever heard of this book before
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - I love Holmes, and I'm actually looking forward to the movie with Robert Downey Jr in it. Hey, there's occasional male eyecandy.
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery Read it first as an adult, and it most certainly holds up
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks I like other Iain Bankses, but not this one
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams Compellingly written, but all the religious crap bugs me.
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas To be honest, I like the movie better
98 Hamlet - Shakespeare Out out, damn'd spot!
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl Another one of my kiddie faves
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo Eh.
kikibug13 and based on a Beeb "best reads" list from some years back. The Guardian has just been doing a series of 1000 "best reads" as well. I'm afraid I find many of their selections to be overly literary. The SFF section has some great choices, but too much magical realism, horror, alternate histories and "ghost stories", and some really annoying omissions. I'm sorry, Affinity by Sarah Waters is not a fantasy book. And nor is Naked Lunch.1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the ones you're half way through.
4) For all the bold ones you have read, put a bit of commentary - be it snark, poetic, or just explaining what the book is - but no longer than a sentence.
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen Who doesn't like Darcy? And I'm glad I read the books before I saw Colin Firth doing it.
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien I've read it on average about once a year since I was 14 or 15.
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte I love love love this book. I read it when I was 11 or 12, and it's still great. Interesting what you get out of it as you get older.
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling Meh, I gave up a couple of books before the end
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible - I didn't read all the "begats" (who does?), but I have actually read it cover to cover. Ammunition
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte Turgid, over-dramatic, and characters whose heads you want to bang together
8 1984 - George Orwell - Great book
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman - I really dislike the man's worldview. And I prefer more cheerful endings.
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott - I like all these books. It's a fascinating view into a non-conformist household, and hey, they used homeopathy!
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy - slash my wrists now
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier - the movie's good, though, if I'm in the mood. Mrs Danvers, muahahaha
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien First read this when I was about 9, I think
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot - apparently I need to just finish it. Ok, ok.
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell - don't get the Scarlett and/or Rhett love myself. It really just makes me have those TGIQ thoughts.
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald Can't really remember it; I didn't enjoy it that much.
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams Yay, yay. I think these were my first SF purchases.
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck - if I haven't yet expired after Tess of the D'Urbervilles, slash my wrists again.
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll I love love loved these books, and I love my Annotated Alice for explaining all the contemporary jokes
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame - I read this as an adult, and that probably explains why I don't really get the love.
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis I loved these as a kiddie, and some of them are still great.
34 Emma - Jane Austen Does anyone actually like Emma?
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen Yep, all good.
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis See 33 above!
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres - what was the point? Seriously?
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden - I really don't understand what is supposed to be so good about this book. I'd rather read honest porn about exotic oriental ladies.
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne Again, first read these as an adult. I don't much like Pooh or Christopher Robin.
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell - great book, studied it at school
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - a fairly average thriller. Ok, fun premise, but don't get the fuss (cos it ain't that well written, and talk about the male equivalent of Mary Sue (I've heard a few renderings of that, don't worry))
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - I think a liking for true fantasy and magical realism are somehow often at odds
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood One decent speculative fiction book she did. Yes, broadly drawn, but a nice paranoid feminist suspense.
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert Good SF, and the "hydraulic despotism" is even more pronounced today. I loved the interweaving of poltics and religion. However, it is not religion itself, so, yeah, not sure why the level of adulation for these books.
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen I like this one, even if it is less polished than some of the others.
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 Seminal, and deservedly so
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - I did give Marquez another go
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck - kill me NOW
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy - I think I did finish this one. I was desperate for reading material
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding - whatever you might think of "chick lit", and people taking it waay too seriously, this is an entertaining read
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker - great stuff, although I'm not really a fan of horror or vampire stories
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett One of the best ever kids' books
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson Very amusing
75 Ulysses - James Joyce I think the only people who finished this were the ones who needed to write a paper on it
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 I keep meaning to, but haven't done so yet.
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens Best Dickens story. Not too long.
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker - excellent read, but I actually like one of the sequels better
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert - it was some time ago
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White - one of best books I read when I was under 10
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom I have never ever heard of this book before
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - I love Holmes, and I'm actually looking forward to the movie with Robert Downey Jr in it. Hey, there's occasional male eyecandy.
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery Read it first as an adult, and it most certainly holds up
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks I like other Iain Bankses, but not this one
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams Compellingly written, but all the religious crap bugs me.
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas To be honest, I like the movie better
98 Hamlet - Shakespeare Out out, damn'd spot!
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl Another one of my kiddie faves
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo Eh.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-29 12:24 pm (UTC)36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
Isn't #36 part of #33?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-30 12:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-30 11:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-30 12:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-01 11:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-09 04:26 am (UTC)Also, yay for realizing how nonconformist the Alcott household was; they stereotypically have the prissiest reputation, & I don't know why. What with the Tolkien, Secret Garden, etc., we seem to have enjoyed the same kids' books, half a world apart. Kind of cool, that.