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sunnyskywalkerFrom majorjune.
The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed.
1.) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2.) Italicize those you intend to read.
3.) Underline those you LOVE.
4.) Put an asterisk next to the books you'd rather shove hot pokers in your eyes than read.
01. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
02. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
03. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
04. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
05. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
06. The Bible (more than once) (at least, I think I got through it all, though I confess to skimming the begats and building codes)
07. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
08. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
09. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare - (I've read a fair number, but not, e.g., Pericles, Prince of Tyre)
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. *Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (I've read 2/7, and while I didn't particularly care for them [ETA: see my literary minority report], I intend to read the others eventually)
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 - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
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
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
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
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. The 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 have discovered that it's actually quite entertaining when read out loud, one chapter at a time - though obviously this would take forever)
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
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
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
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 - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Must re-read, now that they mention it)
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. *Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (In English)
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole (Tried, bounced off it hard)
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute (I read On the Beach, and give it a *)
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (read Le Notre-Dame de Paris, and an abridged 500 pg. version of Les Mis in 8th grade, plus I saw the musical)
So, 34/100, if I counted right. (Well, except that Harry Potter is actually 7 books, and His Dark Materials is actually 3, etc.) I wonder if these lists are supposed to make us feel like we're either culturally illiterate or should get gold stars, depending on how many we've read?
Some of them I would probably give an asterisk if I'd read them recently enough, but as it is, they're fuzzy enough in my memory that my response is more "meh, whatev" than "DIE BOOK DIE!" I would like to note, however, that I re-read the trial scene in To Kill a Mockingbird recently, and my reaction was FUCK YOU, ATTICUS FINCH, so seriously, imagine that this list has a lot more asterisks. (I didn't apply it here because I didn't re-read the rest of the book and didn't feel it would be fair.)
Finally, in the spirit of literary appreciation, I present Drunk Texts from Famous Authors. Some of the ones in the comments are excellent as well. Would you believe Dante texts in terza rima? And the Eliot one sums up the meaning of "Prufrock" quite nicely, I think. Actually that probably sums up a whole lot of Great Western Literature, as well as the reason so much of GWL is really irritating and not as deep as it thinks it is...
majorjune.The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed.
1.) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2.) Italicize those you intend to read.
3.) Underline those you LOVE.
4.) Put an asterisk next to the books you'd rather shove hot pokers in your eyes than read.
01. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
02. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
03. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
04. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
05. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
06. The Bible (more than once) (at least, I think I got through it all, though I confess to skimming the begats and building codes)
07. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
08. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
09. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare - (I've read a fair number, but not, e.g., Pericles, Prince of Tyre)
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. *Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (I've read 2/7, and while I didn't particularly care for them [ETA: see my literary minority report], I intend to read the others eventually)
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 - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
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
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
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
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. The 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 have discovered that it's actually quite entertaining when read out loud, one chapter at a time - though obviously this would take forever)
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
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
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
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 - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Must re-read, now that they mention it)
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. *Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (In English)
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole (Tried, bounced off it hard)
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute (I read On the Beach, and give it a *)
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (read Le Notre-Dame de Paris, and an abridged 500 pg. version of Les Mis in 8th grade, plus I saw the musical)
So, 34/100, if I counted right. (Well, except that Harry Potter is actually 7 books, and His Dark Materials is actually 3, etc.) I wonder if these lists are supposed to make us feel like we're either culturally illiterate or should get gold stars, depending on how many we've read?
Some of them I would probably give an asterisk if I'd read them recently enough, but as it is, they're fuzzy enough in my memory that my response is more "meh, whatev" than "DIE BOOK DIE!" I would like to note, however, that I re-read the trial scene in To Kill a Mockingbird recently, and my reaction was FUCK YOU, ATTICUS FINCH, so seriously, imagine that this list has a lot more asterisks. (I didn't apply it here because I didn't re-read the rest of the book and didn't feel it would be fair.)
Finally, in the spirit of literary appreciation, I present Drunk Texts from Famous Authors. Some of the ones in the comments are excellent as well. Would you believe Dante texts in terza rima? And the Eliot one sums up the meaning of "Prufrock" quite nicely, I think. Actually that probably sums up a whole lot of Great Western Literature, as well as the reason so much of GWL is really irritating and not as deep as it thinks it is...
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(no subject)
Date: 2012-07-13 11:15 pm (UTC)I read it when I was in my late 30s/early 40s, partially because it was on my list of allegedly classic books one "should" read, but mostly because at the time there was much talk about the supposedly hidden/secret meaning to it that supposedly triggered assassins (such as John Hinkley).
Can't say I found any hidden subtext; it definitely didn't make me want to go out and kill anyone, except maybe the author himself, if he hadn't already died.
Franny and Zoey is crap, too! :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2012-07-15 04:02 am (UTC)Another theory I heard is that Holden is developing schizophrenia or some other disorder based on all his conversations with his dead brother, but if that's the case, Salinger did a terrible job of portraying it (mental illness: not just a cool literary device which reveals Themes About Childhood and Innocence and Shit!). I don't buy it, anyway.