Book meme, etc.
Mar. 7th, 2006 12:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vaznettiSeen 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?
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.
Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne OK, a classic, but why is it here?
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
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 Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov Everything I've heard about this book suggests to me that I really, really need to read it.
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver Enjoyable, but not a "must-read."
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?
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Date: 2006-03-08 03:02 am (UTC)But yes, Moby-Dick. It's not an easy book, but how on earth it can be missing from any must-read list is a mystery to me. And I'm enjoying Njal's Saga, althouhg now that it's the week I have less time to read it, somehow. I've been collapsed on the couch all night.