Book Meme

[sistermagpie]

Gacked from teratologist, adela711 and sydpad.



These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users (as of today, 30 September 2007). As usual, bold what you have read, italicise what you started but couldn't finish, and strike through what you couldn't stand. Add an asterisk to those you've read more than once. Underline those on your to-read list.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights*
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice*
Jane Eyre*
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Iliad
Emma*
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations*
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales*
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault's Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Oliver Twist*
Gulliver's Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury*
Angela's Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People's History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey*
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an Inquiry into Values
The Aeneid
Watership Down*
Gravity's Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

The weird thing about that last one I didn't finish is I love Dickens, but for some reason I just can not get into that one, which I think is his favorite. I've read so many others, it's just very bizarre. I suspect there's not that many of us who've read Barnaby Rudge, Little Dorrit and The Olde Curiosity Shop but not David Copperfield.

Two of these I was just looking for in a used bookstore but they didn't have them--Beloved and 100 Years of Solitude.

Comments

[ackonrad.livejournal.com]

Well, you've done a lot of reading. :-)

May I ask why you didn't like The Historian? I'm aware that I'm biased, but if we exclude the heavy prose and the very unrealistic dialogue, I actually found that it was a well-researched and very sticking-to-the-facts book.

Lolita and 1984 have been on my to-read list forever. Are they worth it?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I didn't like the prose, it's true, and in the end I was just disappointed that a book about Dracula was so plodding. I probably missed everything about it that was well-researched, being ignorant! I didn't really hate it, but I didn't much like it, so I crossed it out.

Lolita and 1984 are pretty worthwhile, I'd say. They both are what they are, and I remember them being pretty quick reads. 1984 especially is very much what it is, if that makes sense. It makes you understand what people mean when they make references to it.

I took a seminar in Nabokov/Edgar Allan Poe in college so read a lot of Nabokov's stuff. He's a great writer, and I thought Lolita was very well done. Of course, I still shudder at JKR calling it a great "love story" but the narrator certainly thinks it is! So yeah, I'd recommend it definitely. Both of them. See if you like them, anyway. I remember them being relatively quick reads.

[static-pixie.livejournal.com]

I still shudder at JKR calling it a great "love story"

Say what? When was this?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

"There are two books whose final lines make me cry without fail, irrespective of how many times I read them, and one is Lolita. There is so much I could say about this book.

"There just isn't enough time to discuss how a plot that could have been the most worthless pornography becomes, in Nabakov's hands, a great and tragic love story, and I could exhaust my reservoir of superlatives trying to describe the quality of the writing."

It's certainly not worthless pornography, but I just can't go with "a great and tragic love story" either unless the pairing in question is Humbert/Humbert.

[sydpad.livejournal.com]

*nearly drops laptop* Okay, that's a new one.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Had you not heard that quote before?

[sydpad.livejournal.com]

I think there's a lot of italicized "Silmarilion's" out there. Hey, you've read "The Sound and the Fury" more than once, which means I should bump it up my 'to read' list.

Kavalier and Clay was one of my favorite reads in a long while, if you're looking for something new..

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I was saying to somebody that for some reason I'm afraid I won't like it--don't know why, exactly. I just bought Song of Fire and Ice volume 1 for somewhere down the line.

I tried my best with the Silmarillion. I even tried reading it out loud to keep focused and it didn't work. I have always liked Sound and the Fury, though I've read it more than once mostly for school. My dad is a huge Faulkner fan.

I'm thinking of trying to read whatever that book is on booklisters they're going to do as a discussion. I'd probably read it--I just don't trust myself to get a copy in time.

[kerosinkanister.livejournal.com]

I just bought Song of Fire and Ice volume 1 for somewhere down the line.

I forgot I wanted to comment on this before. If you read the book I'll be curious as to what you think. I picked up the series when the first three books had been published and read them in quick succession. Not the best fantasy I've ever read but I found them generally compelling, with an interesting mix of characters and a darker and more adult tone. But I've not read book four yet. It was published five years after three and ended up being split in two because of length and the delay, the second half still isn't out two years later. I admit, much of that was driven by the fact that my favorite character, Arya, is apparently not in four much and I guess will have a larger role in what's now five. My fear is that GRRM has lost control of the series between expanding characters and more and more subplots. What was originally intended to be a trilogy is looking to be at least seven books at this point. I may pick the series up again when it's completed but for now I'm getting tired of the general trend in modern fantasy with longer and longer series stretching out over years and years.

Robert Jordan, through his vast commercial success, I think re-wrote fantasy along those lines. There's obviously a huge incentive to continue series that make vast amounts of money. Now I've just learned that Robert Jordan unfortunately passed away two weeks ago, with the final volume of his epic series unpublished. I guess the plan is between his notes and files and audiotapes to complete the book. This would be book twelve and, like GRRM, I believe it was intended to be much shorter, perhaps six or seven books. I stopped reading years ago, though maybe I'll read the final volume if and when it's published. But I feel very for his fans, some of whom have been following the series since 1990.

Well, that's enough about fantasy, I think!

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

That makes me think of movies, which also seem to be getting longer and longer. I was talking about Robert Jordan the other night--I've never read his stuff but I heard that the last books basically covered a single day's time in something like 800 pages. Yeah, that's a little scary.

[ishtar79.livejournal.com]

I'm tempted to do this meme, but it's been so long since I read anything without disclaimers, it might get embarrassing.

I'm most fascinated by the strikethroughs. I always want to know *why*. Mind telling me why you hated...er, the Catcher in the Rye? (Haven't read it yet, but antirecs are good)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I'm loving all the strikethroughs too. I seem to totally not be a JD Salinger person. I just read Franny & Zooey and I thought they were idiots too. My impression of Catcher, from what I remember, was that I thought Holden was a whiner and really needed to get over himself.

[artystone.livejournal.com]

Yeah that's what I thought. And I was in HS the first time. It didn't get any better with age.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I always think of this friend of mine who said: "Nothing wrong with that kid that getting a job wouldn't cure!"

[montavilla.livejournal.com]

Glad to find another person who disliked Catcher in the Rye.

In my case, I think it was because I was nine or ten when I read it. It made no sense to me whatsoever. I just didn't get the teenage angst.

I did like Franny and Zooey, though. Not because of Franny, who was a pill, but because of Zooey. Also Buddy and Seymour. I loved their door full of quotes. I loved Zooey pretending to be Buddy on the phone. I loved all the stuff about them being child prodigies oddball celebrities.

I loved the consecrated chicken soup.

[cressida0201.livejournal.com]

I found the best way to get through the Silmarillion was to treat it like a book of short stories. I'd read one chapter, then go off and read other things for a couple of weeks, then come back and read another chapter, etc.

Overall, your list has a lot more "bolds" than mine! Of course, I realized at some point that, being a French major, I had read more classic literature in French than in English.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I need to try that with the Silmarillion. It sounds like a good idea.

I read one of those books in French! Of course, that might mean I didn't get the story at all. But yeah, a lot of those I read for school.

[grubby-tap.livejournal.com]

Mmmm, A Clockwork Orange is a spectacular book (and movie). And The Picture of Dorian Gray is awesome too. Still, some classics are great, but others make me cringe. Oh James Joyce, you go right over my head.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

You note I have Ulysses on my list, but we'll see if I'll actually get through it...

[professor-mum.livejournal.com]

I just finished re-reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and I loved it even more the second time through.

Please read Wicked, I beg you. I liked the sequel as well.

Right now I am struggling through "An Arsonists Guide to Writer's Home in New England" wondering why it got such great reviews.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yay Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell! I've been thinking I should read it again myself. I will avoid the Arsonists Guide unless it gets seriously better quickly for you.

[professor-mum.livejournal.com]

The first time through I felt a little distracted by all the footnotes in JS&MN, but this time I can relax and enjoy them. Such a clever book....I liked how Mr. Norrell wanted to keep magical knowledge all to himself as it was a reflection of his selfish and petty personality.

Liked the meme.

[elanor-x.livejournal.com]

I can't believe "The Three Musketeers" and "Treasure Island" are among the top 106 books most often marked as "unread". I thought practically every child, who read, read them.

My school English teacher, a very interesting & intelligent person, recommended "One Hundred Years of Solitude", so I think this book is certainly worth reading. (Didn't take it from the library myself, but it doesn't show anything.)

"Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books" was quite interesting. I enjoyed how she put some analysis of the books in it and even copied the passage, in which she answers the question of one of her students "Why did Lolita or Madame Bovary fill us with so much joy? Was there something wrong with these novels, or with us? - were Flaubert and Nabokov unfeeling brutes?" into my notebook.

"Angela's Ashes : a memoir" - Read 3 of McCourt's memoirs [all of them for now] and bought the first two on a discount. His language is humorous, introspective and, not the least, very honest with himself & the readers. His life had been pretty hard, but the books didn't make me depressed due to his style, the ability to see the comedy sides of life, etc. My favorite was the last one "Teacher Man", in which he describes his experiences teaching for 30 years as at public high school in New York City. In short, give it a try!

Re: Liked the meme.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I'm kind of interest in Frank McCourt's books--my mother knew his family, though she seems to have mostly known his brother Malachi. I'm not sure what the relationship was, though.

I think q_spade studied with him and loved it.