Anyway, for about the twelfth time in my life, I've come across (via StumbleUpon) the list of 100 books the BBC thinks you've only read six of. For the twelfth time again, I've been convinced that the BBC underestimates us and the school system, because I've read over six of them for school alone. But in my motivation, I am going to copypasta my present list status, along with some blerbs about the ones I have experienced.
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Of course this is at the top of the Brits' list. Good choice, though. Jane Austen is one of the few chick-lit writers I can tolerate, and I don't know if it's the fancy language or the society-status conscious undertones, but regardless, I approve.2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
Of course I read these. Back when the movies came out. I sort of fit reading all of them right in between all of the films. Plus I'm a huge nerd, so obviously I'm going to read this.
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Honestly, I couldn't ever get into the Brönte sisters. Apparently the third one, whoever she is, was the one who wrote the book with the least dislikable love interest- not that that's saying much.4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
I'm pretty sure there are several other posts in here dedicated to my love of these, so we'll just leave it at that.
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
You know, I didn't like this book when we first read it in eighth grade, but when we went through it again only a year later in high school, I liked it a lot better. I don't know if I matured greatly as a person in that year (doubtful, as I'm really mad I can't play MarioKart right now) or if we went through it with a better teacher (also doubtful, as my freshman year teacher was a sub for the first semester, and an idiot to boot) or if it's just better the second time.
6 The Bible
Arguably, I've read a decent chunk of this.7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Yeah this goes back to the Brönte sisters issue I have.
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
Only pretty much my favourite book ever. I re-read it all the time.
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
I read this in high school. It was enjoyable enough. I don't remember it much.10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
I read this in grade school for some reason, probably because I'm insane. I like the story it told, but actually reading it was a pain in the ass.11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
I read this just because we have a really old copy that belonged to my Grandmother. It was a long time ago, but novels about women being womenly isn't really my thing.
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
I'm not even counting this shit because I got to 174/400-something and said fuck it. Worst. Ever.13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
A delightful and batshit insane look at war. Also pretty funny despite how bleak the underlying tone is. Definitely worth reading.
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
No where near complete, but I've done my share of Shakespeare. Honestly, it's best performed.15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
The non-honours class had to read this one summer (while I was reading David Copperfield, below) and I decided to check it out years later, in college. I actually ended up enjoying it for the most part.
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
Read this along with the trilogy.
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
Fuck this book, it's stupid.
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
I read this when it hit the bestseller list and was pleasantly surprised. Not my favourite ever, but I don't regret having read it.
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
I remember liking this book a lot in high school but for the life of me I don't remember it very well, except the end.
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
I just re-read this last November. The whole set, actually. Amazing.
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fucking. Love. Dostoyevsky.
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
I read this so long ago I barely remember actually reading it. Seriously I was a child.
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
Read this for high school. I prefer Dostoyevsky, but this book taught me that despite their density, Russian Novels are definitely worth reading.32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
I read 50% of this book the day I was slated to take an exam on it. I only missed three questions. My friend read it over the summer, like we were supposed to. She got a C.
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
I actually reread these not terribly long ago. I first read them in grade school and didn't really like any of them, especially NOT The Lion, The Witch, and The Warddrobe. When I re-read them, I liked them better, but still I prefer my children's stories to be less... God-y
34 Emma - Jane Austen
I feel like I read this but I can't remember35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
I actually finished this book about three days ago. Totes legit.
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
See 36
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
This was another bestseller I was surprised I enjoyed. Again, not in my top list or anything, but it had a good story and an interesting look into Muslim culture.
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
For some reason I really enjoy reading this book. I really don't have an excuse.
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
Here's another thing I read back when I was in single-digits
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
Reading this in 8th grade is what prompted me to read 1984, which is what prompted me to *heart* Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
Why did the BBC put this on their list at all?
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
This is not an easy book to get through. We read some Marquez in Spanish (the class and the language) and for some reason I was motivated to try it. In English. I really ended up enjoying it, depite how utterly bizarre it is.
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
I've read a decent amount of John Irving, but not this one.
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
This book makes me laugh. I didn't want to read it for a really long time, but whenever I'd go to Borders, Susan would pick it up and suggest it. Finally I caved and just read it, and ended up at least liking it. Of course, Susan went over-the-top and bought me the whole set, which I don't think I ever made it through.
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy.48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
Read this during my sci-fi kick last winter due to my psuedo-women's studies class. I liked it, I suppose. Couldn't complain.
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Here's another one I think I've read but can't remember specifically enough to count.
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Fun read.
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
I actually saw this movie first, when I realised my nerdism was missing a huge chunk of its pop-culture. When I read the book later, I enjoyed it, but it was kind of dry in parts. Definitely worth reading, and I see why it plays such a big role in nerd-culture, but I prefer stuff that's a little less Messiahanic. Is that how you spell that? I'm not proofreading this shit so whatever.
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
Another nice Jane Austen book. Probably one of my less favourite- it always seemed like a poor man's Pride and Prejudice.
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth.
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
I seriously spent a month trying to read this two summers ago and never made it past the first three chapters. I don't actually like Dickens a whole lot.58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
I have a thing for dystopian novels. Of course I read this, and of course I loved it.
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
I failed to follow common advice, "Don't Judge a Book By Its Cover" and bought this book because its cover featured an upside down dog. It most definitely was not what I expected, but ended up not being a terrible read.
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
This book was not anywhere near as magical realism-y as Cien Años de Soledad, but I still liked it. Marquez has this oddly old-fashioned way of writing that I actually enjoy. I'm not sure how much of this comes from it being translated, however. I should try reading in Spanish again...
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
I... don't like Steinbeck. I know, I know, I'm a bad hipster.
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
I kind of want to read this.
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
This book was so overrated to me. It was bizarre, but not in a good or interesting way. I felt like it was trying too hard to give me a message but I couldn't tell what the message was.
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
I was sort of torn on this book. First of all, I read the unabridged version, which is the drug-fueled bender version, which is basically one giant paragraph. It's a mess to read because my mind doesn't work like that of a man on amphetamines. But it was pretty good as far as a book about nothing goes, and part of the advantage of the stream-of-conciousness is that you really feel like you're on this wacky adventure.
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
This is another one I read back in high school when the movies were popular. It was pretty funny, but I don't know if it really belongs on this list.
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
Soooo much better than Twilight.
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
Read this in grade school at some point. Didn't really like it.
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
Loved Dubliners, but this is... an undertaking. Cait said to never read it unless it's part of a class, and as a science major, there's no way that's going to happen.76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
I hate this book, and I hate Lyla for lying to me and telling me it's good.
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt.
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
Never read it, but I wrote a really hilarious fake origin of colour story for no reason, which shared a title.
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
Here's another school-mandated book I read. I liked it, but between reading this and Anna Karenina and a few other shorter things, I feel like we did a lot of "Adulterous Women" stuff.
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
I read this a bazillion times when I was little, simply because I owned it. The weird thing was, I never really loved it.
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
In Catholic School they make you read stupid things.
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The book I read a long, long time ago, and I barely remember most of the stories. BUT I'm OBSESSED with that BBC show they made, "Sherlock," and cannot wait for the second season.
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
This is one of my favourites. Probably my favourite tragedy that I've read. I just recently watched the David Tennant/Patrick Stewart version and it was pretty amazing, not just because The Doctor was in it.99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
I read a pile of Dahl's books in grade school, and I never really liked any of them. I don't think I had the right kind of imagination for them or something.
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Final count: 51/100. Barely over half, and to be fair, I've read several works of Shakespeare and more of the bible than I care to admit. Also, this list has a disporportionate amount of Charles Dickens on it, which, I get it's a British list, but honestly, I don't like Dickens enough to read that all that shit. I got a few, it's better than nothing.
I used to have a really cool photo of my "bookshelf" i.e. the window ledge all my books are shelved on, but I forgot it was on my old phone (the one I lost while drunk one night in Wrigleyville... fucking Wrigleyville) and since my room is actually assembled now, it's kind of hard to see how awesome it is, so instead I shared with you the one picture I could find on my phone that showed a book I own. Naturally, it's the Cracked book.
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