OK, a trivial post since I can afford to do those. . . I got this from Brandon who got it from Claw of the Conciliator. (Now that's an interesting blog name) Books in bold I've read; italicized are books I might be interested in reading; books with crosses are on my shelves; books with asterisks I've never heard of. I added in a few comments just to spice things up a tad.
1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
What a horrible book, btw. I don't mean the weird religious conspiracy that is undoubtedly quite unfair to the Catholic movement in question. (Reportedly he's doing a job on Mormons next) Rather he just writes amazingly stilted prose. And the book isn't nearly as "exciting" as it thinks it is.
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
Tangent alert. But I loved the subplot in Capote on this. I didn't know much about the author.
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)
When I was in college nearly every woman I met brought this book up when I mentioned I was from Halifax. I can't quite fathom this since the book takes place in PEI. (And, despite being next door, I've never been to PEI since the causeway opened after I left Nova Scotia)
9. * Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. * A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. + Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
I hated most of the movies. But someone convinced me to try the books and they are surprisingly good.
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
I've no desire to read this after reading his other. But everyone ought read this Crooked Timber post on it. The stuff about CERN is supposed to be crack up hilarious as well to anyone who has actually worked on big science.
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)
One of King's really good books - although one does wish he had an editor to reign him in a bit. It could have benefited from some aggressive editing. I've been told the original version was and then when King got more power he forced them to put the original version out. King's definitely someone who would be better with strong editing - something he normally doesn't get.
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)
I probably should be embarrassed that I've never read this one. Everyone keeps telling me how great it is. But then I keep thinking about how many crazy people love this book...
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)
I reread this series last year. I wonder if it is just one of those things, like Monty Python, that are just funnier when you're in college. I just didn't like it this time whereas it used to be one of my favorite books.
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
I liked it as a youngster. When I tried to read it as an adult I didn't get terribly far. I'll admit to not being a Lewis fan.
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
I love Steinbeck. One of these days I need to go back and reread his stuff. It's been years.
30. * Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
Or as I like to call it, "the readable one..."
32. + The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
It's on my shelf because my wife loves Nicholas Sparks so we have all his books.
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)
I heard so many good things about this. And the premise is interesting. But it's just so...boring. I made it about 2/3rds through the book before somehow never finishing it. I have a couple other books in the same category.
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. + Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
Everyone tells me I'd love Tolstoy. There for a while as I learned Russian I told myself I'd wait until I could read it in Russian. Still haven't read any Tolstoy.
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
19th century French serialists are the rare group that needs an editor more than Stephen King. The perils of being paid by the word.
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
Oddly, one of the few Steinbeck novels I've not read. I need to.
50. * She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. * The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
I read a bunch of Dickens as a kid. And I couldn't for the life of me tell you which books they were or much about them.
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
Great book even if structurally it has huge problems. The short story is, admittedly, better.
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
Love this book.
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)
I had to read a lot of Atwood in High School to meet Canadian content requirements. I hate reading Margaret Atwood. I'll never understand what folks see in her.
60. * The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
I have read some Dostoyevsky but by and large he's like Tolstoy for me.
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. * Fifth Business (Robertson Davies)
66. * One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
I don't remember the book very well but the movie stayed with me a long, long time.
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
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)
Love this book. Love both the Mad Max and South Park takes on it as well.
93. * The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
Great movie. Horrible book. Almost Dan Brown bad.
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)
Joyce is one of those figures I want to read and keep trying to read but... I think he's one of those authors who is on lots of shelves unread.
What's interesting is how many of the books I've heard of not because of them as literature but because there was a movie made of them. Indeed lots of the movies I've seen even if I've never read the book. I should probably be embarrassed about how many of the rest of the books I've never even heard of. But what can I say? If I'm going to read nine times out of ten it'll be either a philosophy book or a science book.
You've never heard of The Good Earth? Great book.
I'm surprised you've never read Catch-22. It's my favorite book of all time.
What'd you think of Anne of Green Gables? You should read Little Women next. :)
Yeah, it wasn't my ideal book. A lot of the books on that list were kind of more female targeted. (Which doesn't mean they aren't good of course) Just that I'm not really a big fiction reader. When I do read fiction I tend to read more "fun" stuff than heavy stuff. Of course that leads to lots of disappointments with crappy books. I need to buy more Steinbeck. I loved reading him.
I should make a list like this from my library and see how many other have read them.
Man, Wikipedia really does have everything:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Earth
I was a little surprised by the women's literature in that list. Talk about heavy---Angela's Ashes has to be the most depressing book ever written.
Didn't Anne of Green Gables attend King's College on the Dalhousie Campus in Halifax? I always thought so and my then girlfriend agreed to marry me based on that that information.
I think you should get your Canadian content through Yann Martel or the English Patient, I could never understood the appeal of Atwood's prose.
1984 is easily my favorite in the list. Hugo could have used an editor if Les Mis wasn't so deliciously drawn out.
Hugo said that Les Mis was a book written by God in one of his more accessible moods. I entirely agree and my religious thought has been heavily influenced by it.
Catcher in the Rye and Catch 22 is a must read and I think they are similar in some inexplicable way to Lord of the Flies
The orphanage she was in at the beginning is in Halifax as I recall. (It's been a long time since I read the book) I never read any of the sequels so I can't speak to that.
It's not just Atwood's prose. She just has these weird underlying images. She's also part of that generation of Canadian writers who grew up during the Viet Nam war and who tended to define themselves against America. That is to be Canadian is to not be American. One great thing in Canada the least 10 - 15 years is that there has been the development of a real Canadian identity that's not just an embrace of or reaction against Britain or the US. Remember that one beer ad from about 5 years ago on "I am Canadian?" Kind of cool all things considered.
Most of the Canadian literature I read in High School was frankly pretty horrible. Kind of depressing too. The Canadian literature I picked up on my own (Farley Mowat, E. J. Pratt, Robert Service, and even non-fiction authors like Pierre Burton) were all vastly superior to what the schools taught. Possibly because most of the teachers were children of the 60's and this was still during the period of the expansion of trends like feminism, Quebec nationalism, etc.
I didn't realize The English Patient was Canadian. I saw the movie but never read the book. And the book came out after I'd moved to the US. (1992) I'm curious about reading the book to see how it compares to the film. (Which I was mixed on)
I ought try some Victor Hugo. I'm just leery of "great literature." All my friends have their favorite authors they keep trying to have me read. Whenever I do I've had bad experiences. (i.e. Don Quixote, Atlas Shrugged, and a bunch else.) So I'm a bit gun shy. It's weird because one novel I read that I initially loved was Slaughterhouse 5. I thought it a wonderful piece of satire. Then I discovered that the cynicism wasn't just ironic but that Kurt Vonnegut really was that nihilistic. While it shouldn't have affected how I read the book I confess it did and I never could enjoy it thereafter.
I have read 53 of them. And I will read Ulysses this year if it kills me. Last year my big unreadable was Moby Dick. The only thing I got from it, besides some very puerile humour reguarding the word sperm, was the ability to say I have read it. I suspect the same result from Ulysses.
Other wise I try to read a few more books than the year before, which I have generally been sucessful at. Though last year I read 121, which will be a bit of a challenge to beat this year.
Two authors I've wanted to read, that I own books by, but haven't read yet, are James Joyce and William Faulkner.
I've read 17 of the books on the list, and own roughly 13 that I haven't read.
One of my favorite books that isn't on the list is Trinity by Leon Uris.
When you said " Claw of the Conciliator" was an interesting blog name, I hope you were remarking on it's literary reference.
Just in case - That's the name of one of the books in Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun one of the best science fiction novels ever written.
As for the list:
What an interesting list. I've read slightly over half, but it seems to be a somewhat random list.
I suspect it is bestsellers of all time.
Oh, I must confess I've not read Gene Wolfe. I should. I keep making the mistake of wanting to read something and just grabbing something at the best sellers section at the local grocery store so I can read it and relax while soaking in the tub. I almost always regret that. There for a while I had a list of fiction I wanted to read and was getting those at Amazon. I need to do that again so I have some worthwhile stuff on hand.
Gene Wolfe is one of the most intriguing writer's in science fiction. I recommend starting with the Book of the New Sun, since it's his most accessible and well-known as well. He's very much in the vein of Modernism - extremely unreliable narrators, overlapping genres, and sudden shifts in style. The best thing about it is that he never invents a single word - despite the futuristic setting, all the "unusal" words are from Latin, Classical Greek, Old French, Old English and other ancient languages.
The Book of the New Sun was meant to be published as one book, but it was so long, the publisher split it into four books and then later published it as two. The Sci-fi Book Club has an omnibus edition of all four in one volume.
He's also a practicing, believing Roman Catholic, though he wrote once that knowing that tells you nothing about what he really believes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_the_New_Sun
Interesting Clark.
I confess I somewhat enjoyed The Fountainhead, but I think this had a lot to do with having no baggage: I read it as a mildly interesting novel that someone off-handedly recommended. But I quickly learned to be leary of people who got really excited about her books.
I'll be curious to hear what you think of Dostoyevsky when you read him (and you simply must read him sometime...). I'm actually not too keen on Tolstoy, I enjoy him, but not enough to actually read much of. Oh, and if you watch a movie version of Anna Karenina, I actually think the best version is with Christopher Reeve and Jacqueline Bisset (made for TV). The Sophie Marceau version was very disappointing (IMHO).
Hmm. I've read 72 of these titles. It's my inability to sleep through the night that accounts for it. I agree with you about Rand, but, really you ought to read Tolstoy and Austen at least (especially Anna Karenina, which is probably in my top five favorite books of all time). Both Bronte's are good (I think I read Wuthering Heights a few too many times than was probably good for me though). Skip Memoirs of a Geisha, One Hundred Years of Solitude, and the Mists of Avalon for sure. Come to think of it, this is kind of an odd list. Where's Toni Morrison, Joan Didion, Marilynne Robinson, and Joyce Carol Oates, for example? Nathaniel Hawthorne anyone?
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