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...