So the dear BBC has put out it's own Book meme now. Since it's boring just to read through a list like this, I've added a few brief thoughts to certain books...
Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here. Instructions: Copy this. Bold those books you've read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read an excerpt.
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Over and over again. Usually my January book selection along with B.Jone's Diary.
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
Not entirely yet. My sisters will still be appalled.
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Several times, sort of a sleepy book till the end and then it pisses me right off.
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
Need to start from the beginning and work to the end, missing a few of the latest ones.
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Superb.
6 The Bible
Thanks to my Biblical Theology and Ethics class in college, I truly can say there is not one single verse I've missed.
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
I've just picked up a book based off the Bronte sisters isolation and how that possibly sparked their imaginations.
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
Hal's favorite yearly read.
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Gag.
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
Found a fabulous note-riddled edition in a thrift store down here, part way through now.
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
Favorite read through was with Marianna when she illustrated each chapter of the book and we bound it into her own book.
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
I have a hard time with Hardy. He has a tendency to freak me out.
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
Part way, obviously!
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
Adore it.
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
Sigh. Sorry dear sisters.
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
I've heard it described as one of the few English novels written for grown-up people. I should read it.
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
Read it outside one summer under a tree - perfect setting.
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
I remember closing the book and just being in a daze. I had to reread the ending to make certain I had read it correctly and I had! I wasn't expecting that!
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
Mom's favorite book, I hate it.
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
"There is nothing- absolutely nothing-
half so much worth doing
as simply messing about in boats."
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
Brrrr... Loved the images.
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
Many, many times.
34 Emma - Jane Austen
Nearly as frequently as P&P as it usually follows close on the heels of the later!
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
Would an affirmative surprise you?
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
First time by my 3rd grade teacher, the only nun in the school.
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Berniere
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
The book was painted, not written. The images created are so strong.
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
To Marianna a long, long time ago now.
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
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
Many times, though not my favorite LM Montgomery book. Rilla wins that followed closely by a few of the heroines in the short story collections, then Emily and Jane.
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
Again with Hardy!
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Thought provoking! Marianna just brought it up again this week.
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
One that I've seen the movie before I've read it actually!
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
Yes, of course. Seriously one of my favorites.
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
I prefer Huxley's
The Crows of Pearblossom
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
Uggh. Steinbeck.
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
Yay! Love Dumas.
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
I thought I had, but it was Ethan Frome instead.
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
Adore Bridget! Always reread in January with P&P.
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
Started it but still have issues over having to watch the movie halfway through once a week at our piano teacher's when I was young.
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
Read right before a trip to England.
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
Have been reading and rereading it since I was a child. The dialect was truly difficult to get through then.
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
Don't read on a plane. People will stare at you as you snort and giggle your way across the Atlantic.
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
- Yay! It is my goal to one day own the whole series.
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
I found an old gorgeous copy in that thrift store again. The endpapers are lovely and there was an old postcard tucked inside. I don't remember anything else about the book, it was that impressive to me.
80 Possession - AS Byatt
It came recommended from
Melissa Wiley but I hated it 50 pages in. Some other time, maybe...
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
Need to order/find a copy. the season is upon us!
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 actually really liked this book. I still have images of the house and the countryside in my head from it. I think I had a terrific translation which probably made all the difference in the world.
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
Mom read this to Michelle and I at bedtime!
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle I still have a book report on this from my homeschooled years!
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (in French &
English!)
I'd truly rather read about the author's own adventures than the Little Prince's.
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
Soon. Our library has a copy of Richard Adams
Nature Diary, which I think would be cool to read simultaneously.
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
Definitely.
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
Michelle's favorite, I think.
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
I don't like Dahl. He freaks me out too.
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
So there we go BBC! Definitely more than 6 and this list gave me some new ideas for my To Be Read pile...