Sometimes I read books.

[triedunture]

The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed. Well let's see.

1) Look at the list and underline those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Bold the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've only read 6 and force books upon them

Everything that's bolded is a book I've read more than once.

Everything in italics is actually on my bookshelf, waiting its turn.

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

29. That's not so bad.

Comments

[ironicbees.livejournal.com]

Ooh, "The Woman in White", that's a good one. I've read it twice. Loooong (seriously, it felt like it would never end), but fun! :D

What did you think of "Alice's Adventures In Wonderland"? It's sitting on my bookshelf, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

[triedunture.livejournal.com]

I read it as a kid. In fact, most of these "classics" I read before I turned 15. So it's been awhile, but Alice has always been awesome. I remember my brother and I dressing as the Walrus and the Carpenter for Halloween once...I think? Or maybe I'm just imagining things again.

[potatofiend.livejournal.com]

I defy anybody to find a person who's only read 6 of these. I can't be arsed to go through bolding, but I've just counted, and I've read 50. Albeit I don't quite understand the prevalence of Jacqueline Wilson on the list. o.O

[hwshipper.livejournal.com]

*counts busily* I've read 39. Quite good? Although like you I think I read most of them before I was 15. Not enough time for reading these days (except fanfic of course!)

[narfistic.livejournal.com]

59 here. (Some of them in translation (I am Norwegian), as a kid.) You've read Night Watch, but not Guards! Guards!? I think Night Watch is a lot better, but I always recommend people read the Discworld books in publishing order, at least within every sub-series. That is, if people are interested in my opinion, of course. :) Lord of the Flies and To Kill a Mockingbird are my favourites among those you have italicized. Captain Corelli's Mandolin was good, as I remember, and Watership Down was a *huge* favourite when I was a kid.

[cadeira.livejournal.com]

*facepalm*
That idea backfired gloriously... now I feel even more behind.
Mort is still my Pratchett favorite.

[srsly-yes.livejournal.com]

Thirty-nine for me. I wonder how TPTB arrived at 6? Did it encompass the entire adult population of the planet? ;-)

The one book I want to read the most is Ulysses, but I'm a bit intimidated to read it.

[triedunture.livejournal.com]

Maybe, factoring in all the non-English speakers, it is 6. Poor statistics, though.

I didn't underline Uylesses because I had only read a bit before giving up, so I didn't think it fair to count it. Joyce is the most.... *simmers in anger*

*deep breath* At his time in history, perhaps what he was doing was important. But I think there is little place for it in today's literary world. And, while I should always encourage reading and learning and overcoming fears, I will say....I told my parents to give up on it too.

[srsly-yes.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I don't feel quite so bad for pushing the book off until a later time.

Perhaps I'll start with one of his contemporaries first. I need to read Hemingway.

[triedunture.livejournal.com]

YEAH why isn't Hemingway on this list? Where's a LOT of people?

[srsly-yes.livejournal.com]

Why aren't a lot of people on the list?...I was considering that too. I'm assuming "The Big Read" people are using unique parameters, like "most popular books in the last 50 years."

Even the selection is odd -- popular works along side classics, i.e. "Gone with The Wind" and "War and Peace."

[theangrywaffle.livejournal.com]

Oh god. One of my classmates/coworkers last year loved Joyce; he claimed on a regular basis that he and Shakespeare were the only two writers worth reading. And also that the public university system's "low admissions standards" were lessening the value of his own [community college associate's] degree.

Many a long afternoon I had visions of setting him on fire, but the fact that he's now at the University of Albany being outscored on every assignment and test by someone who works hard for every grade they get? This fills me with joy.

It may be a while before I pick up anything by Joyce, though.

[dorothy-notgale.livejournal.com]

31 or 35, depending on whether you count the trilogies as single entities! This is going up in my journal as soon as I have access to an actual computer rather than my phone. Left-wing intellectual elitist?

[aalens.livejournal.com]

There are 78 I have definitely read (I am old so have had the time. lol ) Some of those I have counted as read, eg Watership Down, Ulysses, Midnight’s Children and a couple of others, I have attempted to read but could not get far into them. Watership Down and Midnight's Children because they bored me and Ulysses as it was inpenetrable.
Others which I have not counted as read, such as The God Of Small Things, Anne Of Green Gables,Goodnight Mis-ter Tom, and Winnie the Pooh and the Enid Blyton book I think I have read but cannot be certain.
There are two I have read and hated; Animal Farm (I love Orwell's other books!) and The Hobbit - and I did not much like The Lord of the Rings either.
There are some on this list that are among my all time favourite books; Pride and Prejudice, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, A Tale of Two Cities, Captain Corelli's Mandolin ( infinitely better than the film, a must read), most of Terry Pratchett's , Aldous Huxley's, George Orwell's books and the first 3 or 4 Harry Potter books.
And oh why do they only have Dahl's children's books - his adult short stories are brilliant.