- Find a blog you love.
- Steal ideas from it
It’s that simple. Granted the blog I stole this from stole it from another blog. Woo Hoo. Lots of fun.
The instructions for passing this list around the internet like a viral disease are as follows:
- Look at the list and bold those you have read.
- Italicize those you intend to read.
- Underline the books you love.
Abdpbt has added to these instructions the following:
- Put in ALL CAPS the one that are also on the hypothetical list of books that Sarah Palin did not ask to have banned, but merely inquired about the theory of banning in general, a subtle and unimportant distinction.
Strike through books that should not be on the list. This might be due to the fact that you hate them, or think they are not “literary,” or just because you are being capricious today.
- Color green those books that are propaganda or glorified trash. Feel justified in making these kinds of distinctions based on your status as both an ivory tower intellectual and a card carrying member of the media elite. Accuse naysayers of living in a “fly over” state. Drink organic coffee sweetened with agave nectar or stevia.
- Color red those books you haven’t read but “should” have, or which you have never heard of. Offer self-effacing, anti-intellectual explanations where necessary. Talk about how much you like popular culture as diversion tactic, and to make people think that you are “quirky.” Wear glasses with dark rims.
- Add books that should be on the list to the end. Take comfort in the fact that no list of this kind could ever be complete, and will always alienate someone. It is the problem with establishing canonicity. Pat self on back for using word “canonicity” outside of academic paper. Also, punch self in face for being tool.
She says, “Listen, it’s my website and I make the rules. So I don’t want to hear any bitching. So without any further ado, the list:”
I have edited the list to reflect my changes with the above rules except rule number 1. I’m just too lazy to go try to find a copy of that list and compare.
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: I personally feel anything by this woman is useless drivel. If I want to read trashy romance novels I’ll go buy them on clearance at Big Lots for 50¢.
- The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
- The Harry Potter Series by JK Rowling: Loved every one of these books. I do reread them sometimes too. I did however get very angry with JK when Dumbledore died in book 6. Hope that didn’t ruin it for you.
- To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee: Had to read it in school. Don’t really remember it though.
- The Bible: I really should read this just to see what all the crazies are talking about and why they’re so fanatical about this book.
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
- Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell: I find it kind of scary that under the current administration, and possibly the next, we’re moving closer and closer to this state. Orwell was right just not on the date.
- His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
- Great Expectations by Charles Dickens: I’ve heard this is a really good book. I didn’t see the movie but it seems like it might be fun. I’ll let you know once I’ve read it.
- Little Women by Louisa M Alcott
- Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy: abdpbt said this was the most depressing book she ever read until she got to one of the other books on the list. I however found it wonderful. Makes me want to keep going no matter how bad I think things have gotten just like Tess did.
- Catch 22 Joseph Heller
- Complete Works of Shakespeare
- Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
- The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien: Read this as a child. I’ve always loved fantasy novels. Even the trash romance novels I read now are about things that probably can’t happen. Time travel and vampires and stuff like that. Some will say that this shouldn't have it's own place on the list as it's part of the LoTR Trilogy. In fact it is not a part of the trilogy. It's a prequel. (And OH MY GOD THE HELL! How much of a geek am I that I abbreviated it LoTR?)
- Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
- The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger: Another book I was forced to read in high school. Don’t really remember much of it though. I do know I liked it.
- The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
- Middlemarch by George Eliot
- Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell: hated the movie, and I know everyone always says the books better but I don’t think I can make myself care about such a spoiled rotten brat as Scarlett.
- The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald: Don’t really know what this one is about but I do know that there’s always a lot of hype surrounding it.
- Bleak House by Charles Dickens
- War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: This is one of those books you just have to read at least once in your life.
- The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams: Loved the movie, hope the books better.
- Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
- Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Another one of those books you have to read.
- Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck: I like the other Steinbeck work I’ve read so I’m hoping this is good as well. I think I may have read this in high school but I don’t remember.
- Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll: Loved the Disney movie as a child and didn’t realize quite how different they make things.
- The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame: Love Mr. Toad’s wild ride and like books with anthropomorphized animals.
- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
- David Copperfield by Charles Dickens: This is one of those books I SHOULD read but probably never will.
- Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis: Anthropomorphized animals. What more is there to say?
- Emma by Jane Austen: See number 1
- Persuasion by Jane Austen: See number 1
- The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by CS Lewis: See number 33
- The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini: I’ve heard of this book and heard good things about this book. So eh? Why not?
- Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis De Bernieres
- Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden: Another one where I loved the movie and hope the books better.
- Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne: Who hasn’t read Winnie the Pooh? If you haven’t there must be something wrong with you.
- Animal Farm by George OrwellMore anthropomorphized animals, and this one has a message.
- The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown: I read it because of all the hype surrounding the movie. It wasn’t as good as I had hoped but it was better than the movie.
- One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
- The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
- Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery: I read this as a preteen and thought it was boring. I still think it’s boring.
- Far From The Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy: I like his other work and therefore will hopefully like this one too.
- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.
- Lord of the Flies by William Golding: Another one of them required books.
- Atonement by Ian McEwan
- Life of Pi by Yann Martel
- Dune by Frank Herbert: I liked the movies and this is another that I hope will be better.
- Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
- Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen: See number 1
- A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
- The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
- A Tale Of Two Cities by Charles Dickens: I’ve heard Dickens is boring. I’ve been told a very verbose person. However if I can get through Hugo I could probably get through Dickens.
- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley: It’s another one of those future doom and gloom books but still there’s hope.
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
- Love In The Time Of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck: Yet another required read. However this one I enjoyed.
- Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov: I’ve heard the story outline but never actually read the book.
- The Secret History by Donna Tartt
- The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold: This want to read is based on comments other’s have left regarding this book.
- Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas: I’m just not one for prison stories. I know it’s supposed to be a great story but thbbpt is kind of how I feel about it.
- On The Road by Jack Kerouac: I don’t really have anything to say about this one I just don’t think I’ll ever read it.
- Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy: Another one of those that I think I might like because of my like of his other works.
Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding: Hated the movies would probably hate the books. I mean I have enough blogs to read already. I don’t want to add another.
- Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
- Moby Dick by Herman Melville.
- Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens: I like the musical that was adapted from this perhaps I’d like the book.
- Dracula by Bram Stoker: I’ve read lots of vampire stories. I usually like them all. This one was a fun twist on the usual story.
- The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett: I know I’ve read this but can’t for the life of me remember anything about it. Which means I was either really young or it really sucked.
- Notes From A Small Island by Bill Bryson
- Ulysses by James Joyce
- The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath: This is one of those woman books. Right? Something every woman should read. Right? At least that’s what I remember hearing about it.
- Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
- Germinal by Emile Zola
- Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray: The plot of this book seems incredibly boring. I’m not really interested in intrigues and plots to get the dying aunts money and other such drivel.
- Possession by AS Byatt
- A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens: Who doesn’t remember humbugs come x-mas time?
- Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
- The Color Purple by Alice Walker: I know Oprah was in a movie of this once. Or was in Whoopie. Shit I can’t remember and I’m not going to take the time to look it up.
- The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro: If this is the one they made the movie out of never never never going to read it. The movie almost put me to sleep it was so boring. And since most of my reading is done in bed I’m pretty sure the book WOULD put me to sleep.
- Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
- A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
- Charlotte’s Web by EB White: Loved this book as a child. We need more PEOPLE like Charlotte in this world. Willing to go out of their way to help others.
- The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom: How does this person know who I’m going to meet in heaven? Or even if that’s where I’m going? I mean come on. Did he die? Did he go to heaven? I know if I went to heaven I don’t think I’d ask to come back to write a book about who I met there.
- Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: This is bolded and italicized because I’ve read some of them and need to read the rest.
- The Faraway Tree Collection by Enid Blyton
- Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: I just like the title. Sound all dark and dangerous. It probably isn’t though.
- The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery: Read in the original French. Over the course of several months with my French-English dictionary next to me. I never was a good French student.
- The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
- Watership Down by Richard Adams: All I remember is something to do with rabbits. Not sure if that was in the story or if it was just the picture on the cover. But I definitely remember rabbits.
- A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
- A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
- The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: I’ve heard lots of things about the musketeers and what they did, what they stood for and all that I should probably read what all the fuss is about and really learn what Dumas thought they should be.
- Hamlet by William Shakespeare: Another one of those required reads in high school. And oddly enough one that I really did like. I know I said earlier that I didn’t care for intrigues and trying to get what you don’t really deserve but hey it’s Shakespeare.
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
- Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: The first time I read this, yes first time I have read it more than once, it was hard to get through. Damned Hugo and making the first 6 chapters about the history of what’s going on at the time.
Books added by abdpbt:
- The Moor’s Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie.
- White Teeth by Zadie Smith.
- Tom Jones by Henry Fielding.
- Geek Love by Kathryn Dunn.
- Blindness by Jose Saramago.
- The Corrections by Jonathan Frantzen.
- Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
- A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers.
- Fury by Salman Rushdie.
- Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri.
- The Monk by Mathew Lewis.
Books I would add:
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame By Victor Hugo
- The Sword of Truth Series by Terry Goodkind
- The Complete Works of E.A. Poe
- L’Etranger (The Stranger) by Albert Camus
- The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
- Something Wicked This Way Comes By Ray Bradbury
- The Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov
- Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonegut
- Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
Yes I have read all the books in my additions. Yes I liked them all. 113 is actually 8 or 9 books and 119 is at least 3, probably more.
As far as the books on the original list are concerned I have only read a quarter of them. Not great but still much better than abdpbt’s assertion that most people have only read 6 of the books.
So what would your list include?
