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Apparently the BBC reckons most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. Come on, well-read friends, it's time to feel good about yourself.
Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read. [Ken note; I put a 'y' by those I have read in part but not in full. I put an 'xx' next to those I have read multiple times, though the number of x's is not equivalent to the number of reads. Some like Emma or The Bible I've read more times than twice.]
2) Add a '+' to the ones you LOVE.
3) Star (*) those you plan on reading.
4) Tally your total at the bottom.
5) Put in a note with your total in the subject
6) Cut and paste to notes and link me in too please...
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1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (x+)
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (xx+)
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte x
4 The Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling x
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee xx
6 The Bible xx+
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte x
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell x
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman x
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens x
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott y
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare yxx
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien xx
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger xx
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot xx+
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell *
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald xx
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy *
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams xx
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky x
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck x
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll y
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis xx
34 Emma- Jane Austen xx+
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen xx
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis xx
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 y
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown x
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 y
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding xx
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert xx+
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen x
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens x
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley x
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 x
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov xx+ (I love it and hate it both, but that's 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 xx+
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker xx
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson x
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 y
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker xx
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro xx+
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert x
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White xx
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle xx
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad xx
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams x
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 xx
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl xx
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo x (The unabridged version, too!)
3 comments:
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (xx+)
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 The Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling y
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee xx
6 The Bible xx
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 Hard
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller x
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare y
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien xx+
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger x
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger x
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald xx
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens x
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams xx+
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll xx
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy y
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis xx+
34 Emma- Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis xx+
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 x
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell xx
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 xx
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel x
52 Dune - Frank Herbert xx+
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 xx+
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley xx
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon x
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck x
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 y
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 x
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 x
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell x
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro x
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert x
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White x
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle y
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad xx
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks x
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams x
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 xx
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl xx
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
What a weird list. The Wasp Factory? Most of these are at least "good books" but that was just about a thoroughly unpleasant and exploitative as a book gets. Interesting mix of British canon classics (Dickens, Shakespeare, Austen, Hardy), continental canon classics (Dumas, Hugo, Flaubert, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky) with modern classics (To Kill a Mockingbird, Brave New World, Of Mice and Men, Great Gatsby, Ulysses), children's classics (Winnie the Pooh, Narnia, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and well-reviewed/awarded contemporary titles (Life of Pi, The Lovely Bones, Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, Remains of the Day). I believe I noticed only three books that come from non-Western cultures: a couple by Gabriel Marquez Garcia and The Kite Runner.
Well, I've read 33 from the list. I'm five times better than the average person!
Scott, that's as good a parsing of the logic of the list as I've heard, though my own tendency is just to chalk it up to the Brits being eccentric.
Incidentally, I wonder where that "six" came from? I haven't met anyone yet who purports to have read less than six items on the list, though, admittedly, that may have something to do with the circles in which I run.
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