So here goes...Apparently this is a list voted by the British people of their favorite books, and the theory is that the average adult has only read 6 books from the following list. Although most of my students believe I've read every book ever written, I'm afraid it's not true. I'm going to be honest here, even if it makes me look like an illiterate clod.
I'm interested in what books from the list you've read. Copy and paste it into your blog and let me know!
1. Bold those books you've read
2. Italicize those you intend to read
3. Underline those books you LOVE.
Ready? OK!
1. Pride and Prejudice - I love Jane Austen. This is the BEST Austen there is. I was in love with Mr. Darcy even before Colin Firth lept into the pond in that white shirt.
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien. Love the story, hate the writing style. I've tried at least 5 times to read these. Can't do it.
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte I can't even begin to describe the love I feel for this book and its heroine. We could all benefit from being a little more like Jane. I force this one on my sophomores. They love me for it.
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling.
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee. Quite possibly my favorite book in the entire world. That's a hard choice for an English teacher, but I'm going with it.
6. The Bible. Set a goal in high school to read it all, did it.
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte. Yuck
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell. Yuck Yuck. I have to teach this one.
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman.
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens.
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott. I read this book approximately 1,000 times in the fourth grade. I'd read it, finish it, and start it over again. I just love this book.
12. Tess of. the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy I've never finished it. It just makes me so sad.
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller. My beloved high school English teacher loved this book and I've always planned on reading it. I bought it at a thrift store for 25 cents and haven't ever read it.
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare. I must confess I haven't read every single play, although I'm close. I love Measure for Measure most, Julius Caesar least.
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien. See Lord of the Rings above.
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks.
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger. This book totally rocked my world as a 17 year old. I need to re-read this one to see if I still feel the same.
19. The Time Traveler’s's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger.
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot. Watched the BBC miniseries, but haven't yet read the book.
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell I read this out loud to my roommate in college. We didn't get all the way through, but I did.
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald. The most beautiful opening and closing pages in all of literature. I love this one. And, bonus: Toby Stephens stars in the most recent television adaptation.
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens. Yeah, I like film adaptations of Dickens, but notsomuch his novels. Does that make me a bad English teacher?
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 I've read excerpts, but not the whole thing. This does make me a bad English teacher.
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck. My dad's favorite book, and one of mine. The closing scene makes me cry like a baby every time I read it.
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll.
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy The Russians are just so sad!
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis. I can't bold this 'cause I've never read them all.
34. Emma - Jane Austen. I've never actually read this entire novel. I need to turn in my English teacher card. It's on the list. I'm on it.
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen Anne Elliot speaks to my soul. Unfortunately, I have no Fredrick Wentworth waiting in the wings.
36. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini. Loved it.
37. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
38. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
39. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne. Not all of it.
40. Animal Farm - George Orwell Yuck. Not a fan of Orwell.
41. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown. meh.
42. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez I feel like I should read this one.
43. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving. BEAUTIFUL! I have to thank my friend Jill for turning me on to this one.
44. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
45. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery. These remind me of college and my dearest Jaci Claire.
46. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
47. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood.
48. Lord of the Flies - William Golding Love reading and teaching this novel.
49. Atonement - Ian McEwan
50. Life of Pi - Yann Martel I tried over and over to read this one and wanted to blow my brains out. What happened with the boy and tiger on the raft? Do I give a darn?
51. Dune - Frank Herbert
52. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
53. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
54. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
55. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
56. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
57. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley.
58. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
59. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
60. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck. This is the book that made me love Steinbeck.
61. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
62. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
63. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold.
64. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas.
65. On The Road - Jack Kerouac. Couldn't handle it. I'm with Truman Capote who said, "That isn't writing at all, it's typing"
66. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy. THE most depressing book in the history of the world. I couldn't make it through.
67. Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding. I just told a friend today that Bridget is my id. I swear, if I weren't Mormon I'd be a
68. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie.
69. Moby Dick - Herman Melville. I know it's supposed to be the great American novel and all that, but (I'm sorry Mr. Tilson) I hate Melville.
70. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
71. Dracula - Bram Stoker
72. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett. One of my mom's favorite books and just a delightful read.
73. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson This is the first book by Bryson I read and it got me hooked. Of course, his being an American born Brit speaks to me. Even if you don't usually like nonfiction I urge you to pick up this one or A Walk In the Woods and give it a try.
74. Ulysses - James Joyce. I don’t know...has anyone ever actually finished Ulysses?
75. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath.
76. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
77. Germinal - Emile Zola
78. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
79. Possession - AS Byatt. I started this one a few years ago, but life got in the way. I need to put it back on the "to-read" list.
80. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens.
81. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
82. The Color Purple - Alice Walker.
83. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro see #79
84. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
85. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
86. Charlotte's Web - EB White I've read and cried over this book for most of my life.
87. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom This one made the list?
88. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
89. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
90. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad. Yuck. No.
91. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
92. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
93. Watership Down - Richard Adams. I just could never get into the whole "bunnies at war" idea.
94. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
95. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
96. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
97. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
98. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo. I love this story and want to put it on my to-read list, but it's just too darn long. I'm sorry. I know myself, and while we're at it, if I'm going to be honest the same thing goes for Crime and Punishment.
apparently 99 and 100 have been lost.
As I look over the list I realize that I've read about a third, not too shabby. I'm definitely above the 6 they believed the average adult had read.
So, take a crack at it. I promise, I won't judge. I'm not that kind of English teacher. Really.
11 comments:
I've read a few of these books! Does watching the movies based on the books count? Thanks for giving me a good reading list!
Please don't anyone read Love in a Time of Cholera. It is the worst book I have ever read (Thanks college English professor). Oprah is so misguided!!!! One of the opening paragraphs says something about this passionate undying love one character has for another meanwhile stating that he has slept with a ton of people (I am thinking over 500).
What a great list! Thanks for posting it, I'm always trying to figure out what to read next. Unfortunately, I am too embarrassed to play along, because, although I read considerably more than six of those books, you may be shocked by some of the books I haven't read!
I agree with you on Melville. I really tried with Moby Dick! Have you read Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus? If not, it may replace your least favorite.
Well, I think I have some homework. I really need to catch up on some reading!
Good grief, I've only read 13 of those. If half-books counted, my number would go up significantly. I've started quite a few of those, but never finished them. oops. And why is Da Vinci Code and Bridget Jones on there?
Yeah, there were a few head scratchers on the list. That's what happens when you let anybody chime in. The one that surprised me was The Five People You Meet in Heaven.
I will get on this, but a couple of things first.
1) I read One Hundred Years of Solitude en Espanol. Cien Anos de Solidad. Thankyouverymuch! That totally counts, right?
2) I *heart* Owen Meany.
3) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, is in my purse as we sit.
4) How could you not throw yourself behind the idea of bunnies at war?
Ok Jill, Ok, you're better than me. One Hundred Years of Solitude in Spanish? Geesh. I can't understand the man in my native tongue and here you go, showing off.
Don't feel too bad. I couldn't tell you what that book was about if you put a gun to my head. But by damn, I turned every page.
Maury, I am such a loser, I think I have read like 5 of those books. Ugh, what to do :( Anyway, it just helps to confirm my belief that I just don't read books. (I am sure my english teacher is dying now)
20 of these. I really like to read and I thought I’d have a bigger portion of this list under my belt.
One comment:
Bunnies at war? I think you're thinking of Redwall. Watership Down isn’t a war book. It is one of my favorite books of all time-- and it's about friendship, trust, survival, and doing what is right. It is kind of a boy book though so I can see why you didn't dig it. I'm glad it made the list, because most of those books were chick books. For example: I've tried to read Jane Austen, because I have really enjoyed the movies made from her books. I've come to the conclusion that there are some stories that you can like (or love) for a week or a day and there are some things that you can only escape into for an hour or two... I like Jane Austen for 2 hours and probably only then because when I’m watching the movie I’m sitting with Emily in a dark room with no kids. (Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink.)
The worst book on this list: The Little Prince. What the hell is that book even about?
I'd tried to read Life of Pi numerous times, but couldn't get into it until I was stuck in an airport in Kiev for 8 hours. Turns out, it's one of my new favorite books, along with Crime and Punishment. (It's not just the Russian in me that loves the book. It's actually really, really good. Long, but it's so good you almost forget you've been reading it for months and months...)
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