Jennie listed a meme that sounded like fun. I wasn't going to post it, but I wanted to see how many of them I'd actually read. As I feared, not many. It's too bad movies don't count. Of the ones I read, I liked them all. If I'm not liking a book, I don't finish it. I know, it means I don't "stick to it." But there are millions of books out there that I know I WILL love. I just don't think I have time to waste on the ones I don't. Which is a lazy man's way of saying "I'm too lazy." There is a lot of growth to be had out of some of those books I don't feel like finishing. So here's the list (the ones I've read are in white;) Feel free to ignore it, but I would like to know: what books do you like to read? Do you finish the ones you don't like reading? What qualifies as a good book for you?
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
7 Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell
9 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 William Shakespeare (some but not all)
15 Rebecca Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler's Wife Audrey Niffenegger
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
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 Bernières
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 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
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 William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Roald Dahl
100 Les Misérables Victor Hugo
8 comments:
I'm afraid I've read less of these than you have. Yes, I often leave books unfinished if they don't hold my attention...especially nonfiction. As far as fiction goes, I love a book that is really well written...I don't want a book full of fluff. And while I'm usually very good at figuring out what will happen ahead of time, a good book is one that surprises me.
Your blog looks beautiful by the way.
I did this list before and I had read about 40 of them. I've read nearly 50 now. I was thinking too bad you couldn't count the movies, cuz that'd be about 30 more ;) hehe
I love classics. :) I love old books. I ADORE children's books! :)
I have had to put books down before. Anna Karenina for instance. HATED the story. Maybe it was just a bad time in my own life, but the story stunk to me!
A good book to me has to be well-written, like the language has to be better than normal. I don't want to read a book how I talk, kwim?
And also there has to be the "Real Life" themes and actions. If I think a character would never do what he just did, or if it doesn't end how I think it should (happily. the sad/bad stuff is only for the middle of books, for pity's sake!) then I do not consider it a good book. Or if I think it was pointless. Like Anna Karenina. Like 1984, which I did finish and wished I hadn't. STUPID BOOKS! Pointless.
Ok, so I bet this ole long post was more than you'd bargained for when you posted that ;)
I don't finish books that don't move me. I've probably read the same amount of books on this list as you, though I've read different ones. And I'd argue that there are quite a few books on this list that aren't worth the paper they're printed on, and certainly won't stand the test of time. But that's just me.
I'm glad I'm not the only one leaving them unfinished. Lawanda, I totally agree on the happy ending thing. An absolute must. This is probably why Austen is my favorite.
Wait, you read 100 Years? I don't understand your system. Is this one you liked? I read it this summer and ugh, yuck, blech, patooey! I read the whole thing thinking it had to get better. Wait, have we had this conversation before? I discussed it with someone. I can't stand it when my brain fails me like this.
I've got a quote from America and Americans that explains a lot about why I love Steinbeck's writing so much. It's probably too long to post here, but I think I'll put it on my blog soon. It also says a lot about most of the books that I really love.
Oh, goodness, no. The few I read are in white. A few are showing up in bold print, but I can't figure out why it's doing it or how to remove it.
I'm mostly reading kids books. The Secret Seven is our current fave. Non-fiction is becoming more and more interesting to me as I enter my old age....a few more months and I'll be 33. I suppose I'll need to subscribe to Reader's Digest or some such soon. It becomes law at some point, doesn't it?
I have read so many of these, My daughter (13) is a huge Jane Austen fan, having read all her books by the time she was 11. And with the curriculum we use, several are on our reading lists presently, and in coming years.
Very cool post, interesting to see some of the books posted, I have trouble getting into some of them.. I will start, and put it down, thinking I will come back to it, but rarely do.
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