Reading material...

[fajrdrako]

I got this from przed:

"These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish."

This is not a meme I could resist.



Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Liked it, too, but looong....)
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment (A favourite.)
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick (Hated it. And it quotes so well.)
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre (Many, many times. "There was no possibility of taking a walk that day." One of my favourite books ever.)
A Tale of Two Cities (Many times.)
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel (It sits unread in my bookcase. One of these days...)
War and Peace (I tried four times; I keep stopping during the Battle of Borodino.)
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Iliad (Fagles translation; loved it.)
Emma
The Blind Assassin
Zatoichi
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Quicksilver Exposition
Wicked
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault's Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo (Another favourite.)
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & Demons (Not if you paid me!)
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver's Travels
Les Misérables (Do excerpts for school count?)
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune (But not the sequels.)
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela's Ashes
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots &
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake
Collapse
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid (Do excerpts in my Latin texts count? And I've read a synopsis or two.)
Watership Down
Gravity's Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield


Some nice memories here. Persuasion is the only Austen I unreservedly like, and I still haven't read Emma. Love all the Dickens. To be strictly honest, we did study A Tale of Two Cities in high school, but I'd already read it by then, and read it again several times afterwards. (Aaah, Sidney Carton! - And this the list incorrectly had the title listed as The Tale of Two Cities. Faugh.) Most of this list doesn't reflect our assigned work at school at all - for instance, we studied The Moon Also Rises instead of The Grapes of Wrath, which I still haven't read - though I like Steinbeck. I'm surprised to see so much Neil Gaiman here, though it's no secret that I prefer his comics to his prose by a long shot. I thought everybody liked his novels but me.

There are a few things here I intend to read (e.g., Gravity's Rainbow, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Dubliners), some I wouldn't read at gunpoint (Oryn and Crake, Angels and Demons), and a few I never heard of (The Blind Assassin, White Teeth).

Comments

[taraljc.livejournal.com]

DOOD. I love The Name of the Rose. I actually read it in a Medieval Lit course, because Eco really nailed the 14th century views on love, philosphy, and religion.

Sadly, I discovered no matter how much I loved Mists of Avalon when i was 14, every subsequent re-read it fell apart a little bit more.

And I read Eats, Shoots & Leaves cover to cover the day I got it.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

no matter how much I loved Mists of Avalon when i was 14, every subsequent re-read it fell apart a little bit more.

I was horribly disappointed by that book. I'd loved the Darkover novels, and I like Arthurian books, but I found that one dull to the point of soporific.


read Eats, Shoots & Leaves cover to cover the day I got it.

Me too! It was a Christmas present - or maybe a birthday present - and I just read it right away, all the way through. Fun.

[catslash.livejournal.com]

So which HTML tags should I use for when I read half of it, then skipped to the end, then totally got away with it by writing the paper on a comparison of the book to another one entirely? Because I did that with Madame Bovary AND Great Expectations.

Underline and italics?

I am not surprised by how many of these I haven't read. My book reading is similar to my movie watching - I tend to take a left turn somewhere and end up with the more obscure stuff, while the bigtime classics that "everyone" is supposed to peruse completely pass me by.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

So which HTML tags should I use for when I read half of it, then skipped to the end, then totally got away with it by writing the paper on a comparison of the book to another one entirely?

LOL - yeah, underline and italics, I'd say.

When I was in my teens I was sort of obsessive about reading all the 'famous books' that existed, whether they were on the best seller lists or considered classics or studied by some other school somewhere. I learned pretty quickly what I liked and what I didn't. Bronte and Dickens - yes. Austen and Atwood - no.

[janne-d.livejournal.com]

I think there was only one book on that list that we had to read for school - Oliver Twist. And I suspect from the age we read it that it was abridged.

I noticed there were an awful lot of Neil Gaiman books on there. But he probably shouldn't feel bad that lots of people haven't read his books since he's in pretty good company.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Nice icon!

I remember starting to read Oliver Twist at home when I was about ten. My mother said to me, "You might find you'll enjoy it more when you're a little older," and she was quite right - I bogged down quicky. Read it again, and enjoyed it very much, about five years later.

And yes, Gaiman can be happy to be classed with the likes of Jane Austen and Gyodor Dostoyevsky, though I suspect he'd rather have everybody read his books right through.

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

There's a lot of books on that list that are quite readable: interesting collection.

OTOH, I completely agree with you about "some I wouldn't read at gunpoint (Oryn and Crake, Angels and Demons)".

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It is an interesting list. I was surprised by some of it, since most of the books were in my opinion, not difficult ones to finish. (Assuming one would want to read them in the first place.) The ones I wouldn't want to read are the ones I think of as assinine (Angels and Demons) or pretentious. Others - and I could have made quite a list - are things I've wanted to read and never got to, like Ulysses and Reading Lolita in Tehran.

[blackbyrde.livejournal.com]

I read The Hobbit for grade 9 English. No one else really liked it, but I loved it and subsequently read The Lord of the Rings trilogy. :)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

The others didn't like The Hobbit? That seems incredible. I thought I was the only person who didn't like it - and there are two chapters of it that I love, and I respect it as part of the Tolkien canon.

[anaross.livejournal.com]

The last Sidney Carton scene in Tale of Two Cities is one of the most powerful and restrained (Dickens! Restrained!) in 19th C lit-- you remember, where he is going in the guillotine cart, and there's a girl going to, and she's scared, and he holds her hand? You know, it is SO Spikelike. Really. She's like Dawn in the first episode of S6.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Dickens! Restrained!)

He could do it when he tried. Amazing.

You know, it is SO Spikelike. Really.

No wonder I love them both.

[maisedoat.livejournal.com]

The strange thing is, I've read everything before 1925 and virtually nothing after - for some reason, I've always been disappointed by modern American writing. In Cold Blood was pretty good but that's about it. I actually read Angels and Demons, because it was a present. I found I could manage perfectly well by reading the first and last few paragraphs of every chapter - the rest was just padding showing off his research. I did the same with The Da Vinci Lash-Up because there was a bit of a controversy about it, my best friend is devout and wanted to talk about it with someone.

And I hated Moby Dick for the best part of 35 years, tried again about two months ago and adored it.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

for some reason, I've always been disappointed by modern American writing.

I don't know if 'disappointed' is the word I'd use, but I usually gravitate to non-American books and it was only when I discovered Raymond Chandler that I really changed my mind on American writing enough to give it a go, outside of assigned things in school. I do like some American authors - Hemingway and Steinbeck, for example - but almost no 19th century American writers, or earlier. The only exception I can think of is Emerson - who wrote poetry, not prose. There may be other exceptions, but the 'famous classics' of American literature I find well-nigh unreadable. And don't even ask me about Emily Dickinson!

There are numerous American writers I currently love, though. Mostly writers of mysteries. (And fanfic.)

Some of those 19th-century authors' bios are interesting, though.

[filkferengi]

In high school, American lit was 2 quarters. I only took the first. Rather than take the 2nd [20th cent. lit.], I took a tragedy class, which was much less depressing. Hence, I've failed to find Faulkner & have yet to read Hemingway, inter alia. Yet, my life is rich & full.

P. S. Emerson rocks!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I took a tragedy class, which was much less depressing.

Well said.

I've failed to find Faulkner

I rad The Sound and the Fury and didn't 'get' it at all. Do you ever read books that just bypass you entirely - intellectually, emotionally, and on every other level? I ended it thinking, "What was the talking about?" It might as well have been written in Swahili.

have yet to read Hemingway

I love Hemingway. He makes me cry. In a good way.

Emerson rocks!

Emerson is amazing.

[filkferengi]

My high school library had a collection of Swahili love poetry I enjoyed checking out. Try it & see!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Try it & see!

Hee - okay, I will!

I'm losing easy public library access, though. The branch I usually go to at lunchtime at work is about to undergo much-needed revovations. It's going to be much harder to take books out and return them.

It will probably be good for my character. I do tend to... overindulge.

[filkferengi]

A wheeled crate is the Best Thing Ever for library booksales, but might be tricky to manage in the ice.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I will work at finding able-bodied friends with cars and wheeled crates.

[filkferengi]

You could get the wheeled crate from an office supply place [search online under "wheeled file carts" for $20-25. Friends with cars are definitely a plus.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes. Thank goodness for good-hearted friends with cars, who understand a love of books. (Or even an irrational addiction to books...)

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

Where'd the list come from? Some very recent "flash in the pan" books, there. And I'm with you on Angels and Demons, ugh.

I think I gave yout hat copy of Guns, Germs & Steel... heh.

A Portrait of the ARtist as a Young Man is... um, very Joycean. Non-linear. I admire that.

Wicked! you've listened to it, that counts! hee

What an interesting list & notion, in all. I have my own "high-falutin'" book list, but alas, I have read all of them... and then put them out to show off, too. Heh. For instance, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Which I liked the way you've said you like Pinker! Maybe Julian Jaynes is neurologically atypical?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Where'd the list come from?

Someone made it up, I suppose. From a combination of current best-sellers and old US high-school classics.

Some very recent "flash in the pan" books, there.

So it would seem.

I think I gave yout hat copy of Guns, Germs & Steel... heh.

Did you? [g] I still want to read it - I just haven't yet! I've read more formidable books. Just haven't got to it yet. Sigh.

A Portrait of the ARtist as a Young Man is... um, very Joycean. Non-linear. I admire that.

Really, the only Joyce I've read is Finnegan's Wake. Which I loved.

Wicked! you've listened to it, that counts! hee

See the musical, hear the book - !

For instance, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.

That was a best-seller when it came out, wasn't it? It was at least very famous and much-discussed.

Maybe Julian Jaynes is neurologically atypical?

Wouldn't surprise me.