Meme time!

[rkold]

Stolen from at least becroberts, lovelycoconuts, and dilettantka, and possibly others:

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicise those you intend to read
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Strike those you HATE and encourage people to burn before reading (now i Normally do not encourage burning books so I just striked the books I really did not like and would never re-read again)


1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien read in 7th grade
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte read in 9th and currently re-reading
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling I read some of them but overall they are SO overrated
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible I've read a good portion of it going to services or at least the Torah part of it. Heck, I've even read some of it in the vowelless Hebrew :P
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte Senior Year of HighSchool
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman the heavy handed anti-Christian attitude even got to me and I'm Jewish.
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens 10th grade
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (not bolding but I have read a bunch of his plays)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier 9th grade
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger I spent this whole book praying Holden Caulfield would get hit by a car and die, damn you High School English!
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell 9th grade
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald My favorite book in 11th grade English
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 And I read Through the Looking Glass too
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy Senior year high school and I hated everyone in the book. I liked Lermontov's Hero of Our Time so much more
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis All of them but Horse and His boy which SUCKED
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis Ummmm 33?
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini When I feel like being weepy >>;
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden should have been about catboy geisha >>;
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell 6th Grade
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (absolutely no desire to read this)
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 I hated this book and the anti-semitism and anti-immigrant attitudes as well.
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood I tried starting this book..
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding 6th Grade, It has more subtext and fewer cardgames XD;
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 10th grade
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 So BAD!
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 Why is this here????
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 Though I like Little Princess a lot more
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 No but after Un Coeur Simple I have sworn off all Flaubert, that was like torture!
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom (I think I would rather go to Heaven than read this book >>; )
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (I read some excerpts)
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad I think this is the Conrad I read?
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 - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo


OK what the hell, why is this mostly Russian Lit for non English lit? Shouldn't Camus or Macchiavelli be on this list? ^_^;; Also where is Hawthorne????? I don't feel bad because my minor in English concentrated on plays and pretty much Shakespeare is the only playwright represented here. ~.~ *shakes fist at the lack of Susannah Centlivre, Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal and Eugene O'Neill*

Comments

[jusrecht.livejournal.com]

Totally with you on the lack of Machiavelli and Hawthorne. I want my 'Il Principe'! XD

[rkold.livejournal.com]

Il Principe is the favorite book of several Geass cast members XD;;;

It's just such an odd selection since some of the books are just junky recent books. I mean even if I personally don't like it perhaps Ethan Frome ought to be there. XD; Or maybe Ibsen or Checkov?

[kerina.livejournal.com]

You read Les Misérables! \o/ I love that book.

I don't remember much about Of Mice and Men except that it was really, really sad.

[rkold.livejournal.com]

Yup, I read it for French class XD; My spelling is atrocious and my teacher offered me extra credit if I read Les Miserables and wrote a paper on it. I of course happily complied.

I admit as French Lit I've read goes, I'm a sucker for Moliere and I like Beaumarchais <3 I tend to like plays. lol J'ai pris Francais au lycee mais j'ai oublie beaucoup. ;;_;;

Mice and Men was rally sad and I didn't really like any of the characters either. I'm not into overly sad and not liking the characters makes it worse >>;

[kerina.livejournal.com]

Wow, congrats then, because that's not the easiest book your teacher could have chosen ^^; I wish we had studied it in school, it's a great classic and I never had real classes on it >.>

Wow, yay! \o/ I'm not too fond of Molière (because studying his plays four years in a row does get...slightly annoying xD;) But I loved Beaumarchais's Le Mariage de Figaro! One of my favorite plays <3

Et ton français me semble assez bon! :)

[rkold.livejournal.com]

Merci beaucoup :D Mais, Vous etes meilleur que anglais que Je suis francais lol

I read it in English. XD;; It helped a lot. As a reward my parents bought me Les Miserables the musical on CD. I later read Phantom because I was curious.

I actually read in French though Un Coeur Simple (hated), L'Ecole de Femmes (liked), Huis Clos (liked), L'etranger (liked), and quite a bit of poetry in French. I think I liked Moliere because L'Ecole de Femmes seemed quite amusing after poetry and the other Moliere I've read for fun on my own in English XD;; (same with Le Mariage de Figaro) In general I tend to like plays from the late 1600's-1700's with their interest in sexual politics and sexual farce. In Brit Lit I positively adore Restoration Comedy.

I know we read Phedre by Racine, Ronsard whose theme seemed to be "have sex with me now, as soon you will be old and ugly" lol Apollinaire who I suspect would make as little sense in English, Baudelaire, same as above, and Rimbaud. In English I read Candide for fun which BTW should also be on that list. O_O;;

The city I grew up in was founded by the Huguenots so the French program was quite well organized and I actually spent a month on a French exchange program. :D

[kerina.livejournal.com]

Merci :p I have great admiration for people trying to learn French because it's one tricky language >.> Alors bravo! ;D

I love the musical. Well, what I've heard of it of course. <3 Some songs are really beautiful. ♥

Un Coeur Simple was written by Flaubert, right? I hate that guy xD Only read one of his books, Madame Bovary, and it's probably the worst book I ever read xD;; I think you might have read more french classics than I have o.o I've never read L'école des Femmes :( I know Phedre though, but don't remember much about it. And only read bits of Candide! ^^;

Really? That's awesome! \o/

[kimber-rose.livejournal.com]

I totally agree that there's not enough variety on there. Most of the stuff that I would put on there, I haven't read, but I would! Gore Vidal and Tennesee Williams should definitely be on there.

I never read Of Mice and Men, but after my Senior year when everyone had to choose a "classic" book for a book report/presentation, I have no desire to read it. I had to sit through at least *six* presentations about it and it completely ruined it for me. I can't even watch the movie with Gary Sinise, and I love Gary Sinise!

[rkold.livejournal.com]

I love Gore Vidal. I would love to see more playwrights on there than Shakespeare because we've had some excellent ones that have really contributed a lot to literature, a lot more than say JK Rowling or Dan Brown. Something by Ibsen should be there, though my preference would be Enemy of the People <3

Yeah I read Jane Eyre, Rebecca, and Gone With the Wind from 9th grade where I got to pick classics from a list of about 50 books. I enjoyed all 3. XD; It's depressing and just not that interesting. I read a short story by Steinbeck and didn't like it either. He does nothing for me. It's like I read a short story by Faulkner and hated it. ;;_;; Though I much enjoyed Edith Wharton's short story I read vs. Ethan Frome. It just feels like even books I don't like should be on that list and maybe umm fewer books by Dickens and Hardy. ^_^;;

[kimber-rose.livejournal.com]

I don't think something should be considered classic until it's at least a decade old and/or is something likely to be required reading in school.

What would you reccommend for a first Vidal read? I've always wanted to read his stuff because I've always heard how good he is, but I've never known where to start!

I'm not a Steinbeck fan either. I was always so grateful that we didn't have to read "The Grapes of Wrath" in school. (Instead, I got stuck with Pearl S. Buck.) And I hated having to read Faulkner. I liked "Ethan Frome, though. I think I was one of the only ones in AP who did. ^^

I'm curious as to why there's not any Mark Twain or Hemingway on the list too. I don't like either of them, but they should be there. (Why is it I keep defending authors that I loathe on this list? ^_^)

[rkold.livejournal.com]

And even that I am not sure is enough. I'm sorry, Harry Potter might et kids reading but its still junky, it's like putting Animorphs or the R.L. Stine books on the list. It's complete ridiculous to put them in the same category as something like The Wind in the Willows.

I happen to like The Best Man and A Visit to a Small Planet. :D But again, I tend to prefer plays.

Luckily the year everyone read the Good Earth my teacher was more interested in teaching us anthropology so I never read it XD;;; I think Ethan Frome has one of the most amusing methods of suicide ever, or attempts at suicide but I just didn't actually like any of the characters in it. ^_^;;

Yeah, I hated Huckleberry Finn, but it should be on the list! Or something by Henry James. Yes, Austen is great but do all her books need to be there? Now I'm trying to remember what else I've read in school lol Or hey, how about The Canterbury Tales! XD;;; I know at some point in Elementary we read: Johnny Tremain which was then considered a must read. Jr High had: Hiroshima (OMG that was the scariest and saddest book I ever read!) and High School there was: A Separate Peace. I wish I could remember more of what we read now. lol

I'm all for reading junky books for fun, I most certainly do. I loved the United State of Arugula but I do not think it is a piece of classic literature and would be somewhat insulted if it made a list and Ethan Frome did not.

[kimber-rose.livejournal.com]

Oh, The Canterbury Tales, yes! (Anything but Beowulf- I hated that thing). I remember reading "Johnny Tremain" too, but I can't remember if I liked it or not. I know I hated "The Red Badge of Courage." And I am so glad that I'm not the only one who dislikes Huck Finn. I think there was maybe one chapter that I liked out of the entire thing.

There needs to be a list where each author can only appear once, I think. That would even things out quite a bit.

I so need to get back into reading the classics. It's easier for me to get into modern books, but when I find a classic that I like, it stays with me. I had the hardest time with "The War of the Worlds" but once I finally got into it, I loved it. Same with "The Great Gatsby."