Book meme, etc.

[vaznetti]

Seen here, there, and everywhere:

The Museum, Libraries and Arts Council's list of 30 Books Every Adult Should Have Read. Bold the ones you have read. Italicize the ones you would like to read. Strike out the ones you never plan to read, or started but couldn't finish:


To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
The Bible Enough of it to count, anyway.
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien Many, many times, as I believe I might have said earlier.
1984 by George Orwell I may have been too young for this book when I read it (I'd just read and loved Animal Farm), because I didn't enjoy it at all.
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. I have a feeling that I have in fact read this text, but it's possible that I've only seen film and TV versions.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Some summer I expect I'll get around to this.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Best comfort book ever.
All Quite on the Western Front by E M Remarque
His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks. This is a WWI book, isn't it? BH, whose job it is to know such things, believes A Very Long Engagement to be the best novel written about the First World War. But Birdsong is on our shelves at home, and I expect I'll give it a try someday.
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck I'm a little ashamed not to have read this already.
The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon Why is this book here? It's not that good.
Tess of the D'urbevilles by Thomas Hardy. If I could ban one author from all libraries everywhere is would be Hardy. I loathe this book, and really do think that young girls, in particular, should be prevented from reading it.
Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne OK, a classic, but why is it here?
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham I don't have anything against it, but I suspect that I missed my window of opportunity on this one.
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Don't much care for Dickens. See below.
The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger I've seen this, and it looks pretentious.
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold If I were going to read this, I would have done it by now.
The Prophet by Khalil Gibran I'd rather read a real religious text, frankly.
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. The original cause of my loathing for Dickens. My seventh grade English teacher set me Catcher in the Rye, and when I came back and told him I didn't like it, he gave me Copperfield instead. God, I hated this book. And it just went on, and on, and on.
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Isn't this some kind of weird, new-agey thing?
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov Everything I've heard about this book suggests to me that I really, really need to read it.
Life of Pi by Yann Martel I have a bad feeling about this book; not sure why.
Middlemarch by George Eliot Tried, failed, and anyway, I saw the BBC version.
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver Enjoyable, but not a "must-read."
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. Not going to happen.
A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzenhitsyn I expect I'll read this someday. Maybe. Anyway, I read The Gulag Archipelago as dissertation research -- surely that gives me an automatic out?

This is a very strange list -- I don't understand why some of these books are here. Why is there so much Dickens? And where is Moby Dick? I may hav my issues with C.S. Lewis, but there's no way that Pullman deserves "must-read" status and Narnia doesn't. When I make myself absolute dictator, there will be a very different list, that's for sure! Out with Dickens and all this modern novel stuff -- people will have to read Herodotus and Thucydides and Homer.


I'm reading Njal's Saga at he moment, in the dull, prosy Penguin translation, and like it very much. Considering that it's about cycles of violence and revenge, the style is surprisingly soothing. That Hallgerd woman really is a piece of work, though, isn't she?

Comments

[thepouncer.livejournal.com]

Great Expectations was the cause of my loathing for Dickens. His books do make decent movies though, since that forces the scriptwriter to strip away all the extaneous characters and sidebars and focus in on the main plot. Dickens really needed a good editor to be readable.

I agree with you that this list is very odd. I've read a majority of the works they cite, but many of the others hold no appeal whatsoever.

[reginaspina.livejournal.com]

This is just a bizarre list – it looks like they smooshed the New York Times best-seller list with some “Classics of World Heritage” thingummy and made this up. I thought The Time Traveller was quite bad and The Lovely Bones very good, but neither of them is a MUST-read, IMO.

Bulgakov is fantastic; maybe you want to start with Heart of a Dog, though. It’s one of my all-time favorite novellas.

[lasultrix.livejournal.com]

I would reassure you that A Life of Pi is indeed not worth reading, but as Tess is one of my favourite books, perhaps that'd just send you straight off to read it. :)

I'm curious, though. Hardy was excoriated by the public for publishing a book so favourable to a woman who had been, if not raped, certainly date-raped. The book said the unsayable in suggesting that there could be life and even love after the loss of virginity, and Tess' ultimate tragic ending is painted clearly as Angel Clare's fault (well, his as well as Alex's), not her own. So how come you think girls, in particular, shouldn't read Hardy?

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

Thank god there are other people who loathe Dickens. Many of my friends look askance at me when I say that but... ugh. I hate Dreiser, too, for many of the same reasons. *shudder*

I can't believe The Lovely Bones is on there. I thought some of the writing was lovely, but oh god there's this thing that happens towards the end? It ruins the whole book. Gah. *stabs*

And I'm bitter that there's no Faulkner and no Gatsby, but that's just me. There are so many things missing and the things that are on there instead are just baffling.

I'm tempted to do a "the top 50 books victoria's LJ circle things you should read" poll. But it'd be way too much work.

[ms-pie.livejournal.com]

What an odd, odd list. Bizarre really. Alas, I guess I shall not be meeting the expectations of The Museum, Library and Arts Council :-)

A few book-specific comments -- Time Traveller's Wife was really quite good, but more in the "good on a plane as it moves quickly and is interesting" versus "good in a groundbreaking" way.

Life of Pi was horrid IMHO.

And why the loathing of Hardy? Just curious :-)

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Hallgerd only gets more interesting. Best Scene Ever; you'll know when your each it.

[kaseido.livejournal.com]

A very very bizarre list, with a lot of entries in the category of "I'd pry my eyeballs out with a rusty spoon first."

OTOH? Bulgakov=Love.

reposted to fix the html

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

And actually, Catcher in the Rye, even though I didn't care for.

I'm not sure I'd dig CinR now, but as a teenager I *adored* it.

I could probably write a list of 30 books I think everyone ought to have read. It would be an interesting exercise, anyway.

You should! I think we all should. There was a meme last year with the "top 25 songs everyone should know" - we should do it with books. *nods*

I don't know if I could stop at 30, though. And I fear revealing my terribly plebian tastes to the world...

[dagnylilytable.livejournal.com]

Go for the Bulgakov-- I have a feeling it's your kind of thing. Plus, it's a great example of the kind of thing that got censored during the Soviet period, for being way too *true*. I haven't even finished reading it yet, (darn not getting to take a class where it was assigned), and I already adore it.

Okay, taking off Russianist hat now.

[rez-lo.livejournal.com]

With you on Melville: WTF? Moby-Dick is a favorite of mine, anyway, and I do think it's actually a great book. And Njalssaga! Eee!

(I've just started Volume I of The Pentagon Papers and already it's crack. The bones of the debate never seem to change.)

I've been meaning to ask: Do you know whether the BH has an opinion on Margaret MacMillan's Paris 1919? I've been eyeing it with this amazon.com gift certificate burning a hole in my inbox.

[leadensky.livejournal.com]

The Prophet by Khalil Gibran - I'd rather read a real religious text, frankly.

Recommendations? (Assume the Bible and the Koran are on the list.)

- hg