(no subject)

[fajrdrako]

I got this one from przed, who said: "Apparently the Beeb reckons most people will only have read 6 of these books... Bold those books you've read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started, but didn't finish."

I think my count here is 54 of the books. Some of them seem like odd choices to me, for a list like this. And some of them (like To Kill a Mockingbird and A Tale of Two Cities) are among my very favourite books.

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 - the first book only
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
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’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 - just the first book
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 - again, only the beginning
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-Exupéry
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 - what, isn't this part of the complete works?
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo - I've read excerpts

Comments

[cionaudha.livejournal.com]

The Beeb either doesn't get out much or grievously underestimates us.

I get 76 (and two more started but thrown aside), and a creeping feeling that I've been neglecting 21st century literature...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

The most recent ones were the ones I was most likely not to have read. I have the feeling I should read Hardy, and probably will one of these days; and Emma is the only Austen I haven't read, though I'm not much of an Austen fan anyway.

Thing is, they're probably thinking of non-readers. But even so... a lot of those were books I read in school. Everybody has to have read something in school.

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

Tess of the D’Urbervilles was one of my favorite books from school, and I recently reread it.

I love it!

Ooh, and The Secret History by Donna Tartt is wonderful.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Okay, thanks for the recommendations! I saw the movie version of Tess when I was in a phase of being in love with Nastassia Kinski, but I still haven't read Hardy after all these years. I think I read the first paragraph of Jude the Obscure once. And that should inspire me, being a Christopher Eccleston reference and all.

I don't think I've even heard of The Secret History.

Tess

[filkferengi]

Beware the phallic turnips!

Also, the book is major ose. If that's your scene, prepare to wallow [quite literally].

Re: Tess

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

What's ose mean?

Re: Tess

[filkferengi]

Short for "morose" it's a subgenre of filk, usually sung very late at night, typically long, dirgey epics in minor keys. I like it in small doses, but Hardy is a miasma of morose. I am admittedly biased, as I'm still shuddering from that six-week slog 25+ years after high school.

Re: Tess

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

We had a few slogs like that, too! And this is maybe what has scared me off Tess all these years.

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

Or else have been calculating the mean. Include all the people who call a magazine a "book" and haven't read all the way through any books, and the figure becomes more realistic.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

That's probably it. We on LJ are a sort of pre-selected group of people who like to read as a general rule. And those books are so generalized, most of them - things assigned in school, or on the best-seller lists - it's not rare or remarkable to have read Harry Potter or, god help us, The Da Vinci Code. Or, for that matter, at least parts of The Bible. It's our ambiant culture.

[cyberducks.livejournal.com]

I have read almost all of them and I am in no way the most well-read person I know.

[mad-jaks.livejournal.com]

SNAP!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Ooh, nice icon!

No, I'm far from being the most well-read person I know, and I'm falling behind on the reading I want to do - because life has just been too busy to spend much time reading in recent years. Which is okay. I love knowing all the books that are out there waiting for me.

Besides, a lot of my reading is of books that just aren't (by type) on that list - I love genre fiction. Mysteries, romances, SF, fantasy. Lord of the Rings has slipped into "classic" status and isn't quite the same.

[topgeargirl2.livejournal.com]

I've read 23 of those book. did this meme awhile ago now.

I enjoyed Catch 22.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Catch-22 as fun, wasn't it? I read it because I'd liked the movie, with Alan Arkin. Loved the book, and still occasionally quote it - "ou sont les neigedens of yesteryear?", that sort of thing.

[topgeargirl2.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen the movie.

Just decided to read it though it was confusing it parts, maybe that's why I loved it.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Being confusing was part of the mind-game it was playing. Which was fun.

[mad-jaks.livejournal.com]

Lots of those were on my O'level syllabus! And several of them are still on the current reading list at my son's school - so even teenagers should have read at least 2 of the 'classics' and they had things like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory read to them at junior school.

Which leads me neatly to my next question: You haven't read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory??

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Lots of those were on my O'level syllabus!

Well, exactly. I might have read them anyway, probably would have, but a lot of those are things I read because they were assigned or at least discussed in English class. Couldn't have avoided them if I'd tried.

No, I haven't read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I only recently saw the movie version, because of Johnny Depp. I did read one Roald Dahl, once. When I was in Orkney. The ten-year-old son of the family who ran the B&B I stayed at was a huge Dahl fan, and let me borrow his copy of The Witches.

See, I'm not entirely ignorant. [g]

[gillo]

I've read about seventy; most of those published in the last decade or so are on my "guiltily aware I ought to read but fantasy is so much more fun" pile.

Bearing in mind that various apocryphal studies suggest the average books per household in the English-speaking world is four, the suggestion that the average is six makes more sense. My family, friends and flist and I are likely to have read more and own more - we are probably depriving whole villages of books to even the averages out!

This was the list from the BBC's "Big Read" campaign of some years ago now. Not only are

Hamlet

and Shakespeare's

Complete Works

both in there, so are

The Chronicles of Narnia

and

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

- double tautology. Or redundance.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

most of those published in the last decade or so are on my "guiltily aware I ought to read but fantasy is so much more fun" pile.

Hey, I have a pile like that, too! I have always wanted to read the famous books because I am always curious about them. And I'm often disappointed, when I do read them, though not invariably. Bu the obscure books, the genre books, the books slated to appeal to me but not necessarily the world at large - they're the ones that are more fun. And frankly, I have so little time to read these days that I just don't want to spend that time on War and Peace, where I never got past the Battle of Borodino.

Except for Shakespeare and Dickens, I don't think any of my favourite writers were on that list. Not even Charlotte Bronte, whom you'd expect would be a natural for it.

various apocryphal studies suggest the average books per household in the English-speaking world is four

And at least one of those is probably a cook-book or a how-to manual.

My family, friends and flist and I are likely to have read more and own more - we are probably depriving whole villages of books to even the averages out!

Gad, that's probably true. My whole circle of friends - we think the most important item of furniture you can own is a bookcase. Or ten. (After all, you can always sleep on a mattress on the floor, if necessary.)

Another thought is that the survey probably included equal numbers of men and women. They say men read comparatively little fiction, in general - though I must say, that's not true of most of the men in my own social group, who read pretty much as voraciously and widely as I do. But then, they're my friends and it isn't by coincidence.

Not only are Hamlet and Shakespeare's Complete Works both in there, so are The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
- double tautology. Or redundance.

Seems a bit of a cheat.

[lunacy-gal.livejournal.com]

Eek - I've only read 36 of them (and only didn't finish Dan Brown's). But many others are on my to-read-next list.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I've only read 36 of them (and only didn't finish Dan Brown's).

Proving you are smarter than I am. I read it to the bitter painful silly end. But it was at least a quick read, and I liked the albino assassin monk.

Some of the books there are on my to-read list, too. But of the ones I've read, a lot of them aren't worth it, IMHO. They're famous. They're fashionable. They're not necessarily good.

But that's subjective anyway.

[lunacy-gal.livejournal.com]

I liked the premise of The Da Vinci Code. But I made it to about half-way before hurling the book across the room.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I liked the premise of The Da Vinci Code.

The premise was fine. The characters might have been okay if they'd had a quarter brain between them, and a personality transplant would have done no harm either. But for the rest of it - hah! I made it all the way throught without doing violence to the book or the wall it would have been thrown at, and I think I deserve a medal for that.

[teenygozer.livejournal.com]

I read a little over half of them, but like another commenter, above, I find I'm lacking in the more modern novels. I really do not like contemporary fiction!

Hee, I read The Little Prince *and* Le Petit Prince! We were assigned to write another chapter for Le Petit Prince in Advanced French in high school: we had to write a crossover with Moliere's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (a play we read before Le Petit Prince.) Thus, I can honestly say that the very first piece of fan fiction I ever wrote was in French!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I really do not like contemporary fiction!

I do ... sometimes. But I don't gravitate towards it without a reason. And sometimes, when I read it, I'm sorry I did.

Re Le Petit Prince: grin. I had such fun writing that Prince/Torchwood crossover drabble.

[chazzbanner.livejournal.com]

I've read 83 -- and I plan to read Catch 22 this year.

On the Road, Catch 22, and Ulysses were always my 'not reads' in Top 20 classics. I read the first last year, will read C22 this year.. and probably I'll read Ulysses next year.

At this point I'm skittish about starting another no-go (not on this list): Proust. Could I stick it out for just Swann's Way? At least I think that's the first one!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I plan to read Catch 22 this year.

I read it. Enjoyed it. Long ago.

I've read excerpt from Ulysses, but the Joyce I've read was Finnegan's Wake.

I've never decided about Proust. For one thing, he's like Les Miserables: if I read it, I have to decide whether to read it in French or English. The French intimidates me. The English is a cop-out. So I haven't read either, except in extracts.