Books (swiped from uinendolothen and jrstraus)
The Big Read thinks the average adult has only read six of the top 100 books they've printed below.
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) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them.
01 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen - I'm a big fan and own multiple copies of every JA book as well as continuation books by other authors, films, letters, modern-day takes, and even a beach towel & board game. :-)
02 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
03 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
04 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
05 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
06 The Bible
07 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
08 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
09 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
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier - I read and very much enjoyed Jamaica Inn but the same author, too.
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger - I'd highly recommend this to anyone who hasn't read it yet. Peter and I both read it a few summers ago and both REALLY enjoyed it!
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 - - anyone who came up with Jabberwocky is a god in my eyes. heh, heh. . . frumious bandersnatch.
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 - C.S. Lewis
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
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - I also enjoyed Angels & Demons recently thanks to a recommendation from _beal_.
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 - If you're a woman and haven't read this book you should definitely pick it up for yourself and any daughters you may have.
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood - this book was NOT what I thought it was going to be - in short I enjoyed being greatly disturbed by it.
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert - Peter owns this, I've just never moved it to my reading queue before today.
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen - I'm a HUGE JA fan and you may have noticed that 4 out of her 6 novels are on this list. If you haven't read one yet, you really should. If you're a guy, try watching one of the movies with your girlfriend/wife - you'll get brownie points and will have someone to explain to you what the hell a chaise and four is and why a guy earning 10 thousand a year is such a catch.
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 - this is the book that introduced me to the concept of science fiction back in early high school. Loved it!
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - this one is already in my reading queue, I just haven't gotten to it yet.
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck - good one but The Red Pony is better, IMO.
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov - I may have actually read this in class but since I don't remember it, I'm not counting it.
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold - this one also is waiting in my queue - it just sounds so depressing that I haven't done more than pick it up and put it back.
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas - yet another one sitting in my queue.
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding - this is essentially Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice in a modern form. I should have read it, but decided that seeing the movie was good enough.
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 - I read this in high school after the failed suicide attempt of a friend.
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray - I really need to get this one as I did enjoy the movie enough to read it.
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 - I striked out this one as I hated Madame Bovary with a passion. It's a freakin' miracle I actually finished the book. As a character she disgusted me.
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 - I've only read snippets but never the whole thing. Guess this goes back in my queue, too.
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 - strangely enough, I don't even own a copy of this.
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo-
Hmm, that's 47. Even with a degree in English Lit, I may have to consider the notion that perhaps I read too much of the wrong thing (knowing that I've already read 97 books just this calendar year).
If there's something that you've read that I have not that you would HIGHLY recommend, please let me know and I'll add it to my reading queue.
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) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them.
01 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen - I'm a big fan and own multiple copies of every JA book as well as continuation books by other authors, films, letters, modern-day takes, and even a beach towel & board game. :-)
02 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
03 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
04 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
05 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
06 The Bible
07 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
08 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
09 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
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier - I read and very much enjoyed Jamaica Inn but the same author, too.
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger - I'd highly recommend this to anyone who hasn't read it yet. Peter and I both read it a few summers ago and both REALLY enjoyed it!
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 - - anyone who came up with Jabberwocky is a god in my eyes. heh, heh. . . frumious bandersnatch.
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 - C.S. Lewis
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
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - I also enjoyed Angels & Demons recently thanks to a recommendation from _beal_.
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 - If you're a woman and haven't read this book you should definitely pick it up for yourself and any daughters you may have.
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood - this book was NOT what I thought it was going to be - in short I enjoyed being greatly disturbed by it.
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert - Peter owns this, I've just never moved it to my reading queue before today.
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen - I'm a HUGE JA fan and you may have noticed that 4 out of her 6 novels are on this list. If you haven't read one yet, you really should. If you're a guy, try watching one of the movies with your girlfriend/wife - you'll get brownie points and will have someone to explain to you what the hell a chaise and four is and why a guy earning 10 thousand a year is such a catch.
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 - this is the book that introduced me to the concept of science fiction back in early high school. Loved it!
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - this one is already in my reading queue, I just haven't gotten to it yet.
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck - good one but The Red Pony is better, IMO.
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov - I may have actually read this in class but since I don't remember it, I'm not counting it.
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold - this one also is waiting in my queue - it just sounds so depressing that I haven't done more than pick it up and put it back.
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas - yet another one sitting in my queue.
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding - this is essentially Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice in a modern form. I should have read it, but decided that seeing the movie was good enough.
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 - I read this in high school after the failed suicide attempt of a friend.
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray - I really need to get this one as I did enjoy the movie enough to read it.
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 - I striked out this one as I hated Madame Bovary with a passion. It's a freakin' miracle I actually finished the book. As a character she disgusted me.
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 - I've only read snippets but never the whole thing. Guess this goes back in my queue, too.
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 - strangely enough, I don't even own a copy of this.
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo-
Hmm, that's 47. Even with a degree in English Lit, I may have to consider the notion that perhaps I read too much of the wrong thing (knowing that I've already read 97 books just this calendar year).
If there's something that you've read that I have not that you would HIGHLY recommend, please let me know and I'll add it to my reading queue.