Monday, April 23, 2007

Books that I've read

I found this meme over at Vivi's blog and out of curiousity, I've done my version of it.

bold - I've read
ititalicized - I'd like to read it
Normal - have no desire/never heard of it


1. The DaVinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. The Bible [The kids version counts, right?)
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez) in Spanish, no less
67. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. -22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupert) after several aborted attempts, I managed to read it in French
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding) I read this in an afternoon while I was desperately avoiding writing my masters thesis. The perfect thing to empty your mind...
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According to Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

To be honest, most of the ones that I have left in the 'Unread' category are books that I have never heard of. If its anything approaching science fiction, its no wonder because that is a genre that I have absolutely ZERO interest in. Even if there was nothing else to read and I was bored to tears, I don't think that I would try reading the Lord of the Rings. On the other hand, I am pleasantly surprised to see how many of the Russian classics I have read. I went through a phase when that is all that I wanted to read and I had forgotten how much I got through. I should really buy copies of those for my own library because I really did enjoy them and will definitely re-read them someday.

That reminds me something that I was discussing with a friend the other day- because I am always loaning out my favorite books, I get horrifically embarrassed whenever people glance at the things sitting on my shelf. Since I fly quite often I have an over-abundance of stupid 'airplane literature'. You know- books that you don't care if you don't finish, they are just something to distract you if the inflight movie is bad. I try to keep them all on the top shelves and keep all the Good Books down low, at eye level, to protect my reputation.

The other thing about this list is that I am not sure of the significance of the choices. I tried to follow the links back to the original author, but didn't manage to find out why these specific books were chosen. It seems to be a fairly wide variety of authors and genres. Is this supposed to be a sort of list of modern classics? Like I said, the science fiction I will keep avoiding, but I am sort of glad to be reminded of a few of the classics that I have overlooked. I think I may be putting in an order to Amazon very shortly.

If I were to add a few books to the list from my own library, books that I would recommend, these would be my choices:

1. White Teeth (Z Smith)
2. Man and Boy (Tony Parsons)
3. The Nanny Diaries
4. Breakfast at Tiffanies (T Capote)
5. Mrs Dalloway (V Wolff)

(to be continued...)

2 comments:

Jennifer said...

Speaking of books, I've already bought a "livre de grossesse", maybe even the same one you mentioned in your comment on my post. It's been very helpful and has given me a lot of things to think about so far...

Nicole said...

Wow- you are ready to do this! Of course, I suppose its not completely shocking that you might not have made the announcement on your blog THE EXACT SECOND you made the decision.