Sunday, December 7, 2008

On Being Well Read

The Elusive Offspring put this list on his LJ, with the comment that the average person has read only 6 of the "to 100" books printed. He says to highlight the ones you've read, and italicize the ones you plan to read. I'm going to try this...

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible (some of it)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 1984 - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (Golden Compass, etc.)
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 (all 36 plays, most sonnets)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot (can't remember!)
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 Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh (Guess the miniseries doesn't count)
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
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 (My copy is on a shelf, not read yet)
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 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
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 (I read Just One More Day)
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
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
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I'm fascinated more by what I have NOT read than what I have read...for example, Ulysses and Jude the Obscure! What the--!
Right now, I am reading all of the Alexander Kent "Bolitho" series. Why? Heaven knows. Probably because they are easier to understand than the Patrick O'Neil series, of which I have managed to get through three. After I finish with the 27 Bolitho books (all checked out from the library), I have a pile of other books to read, including The Other Boleyn Girl and Daughter of Fortune...and did I mention that I REALLY, REALLY want a Kindle for Christmas?

6 comments:

Margo said...

Neat list! Where did this come from? I'm going to post it on my blog too later today.

SunWolf said...

I got it from my son's blog...I don't know where he got it. But I can't wait to check out your list!

A Girl From Texas said...

I saw the movie Jude the Obscure, it was horribly depressing....like everything Hardy does. Reading something by Edgar Allen Poe makes me feel better after Hardy.

Speaking of Poe, are any of his books on the list?

SunWolf said...

I don't know who came up with this list. Personally, I think there are better lists out there, but this happens to be the one on the EO's blog. But it is fun to check out booklists. I'm still working on Alexander Kent's Bolitho series. I have a pile of unread books, too.

Margo said...

Wow - I am so impressed that you have read so much Shakespeare. Good for you going to the library. I need to do that more often. The branch by our house is terrible, but I should walk to the one downtown.

Anonymous said...

I've read 39, although a couple, like Charlot's Web, were read to me as a Child. I think the list is missing a few biggies, like Atlas Shrugged, The Stranger, and Huckleberry Finn. Others, like the Da Vinci Code, are contemporary pulp fiction and don't belong. If I have one regret from taking up piano, it's that I don't read as much anymore.

Here are the ones I've read:

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible (some of it)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 1984 - George Orwell
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
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
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
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
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
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
98 Hamlet - Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl