InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "HORSES"

gingertart50 (gingertart50) wrote,
@ 2008-06-28 17:34:00

My 100 books

The Big Read thinks the average adult has only read six of the top 100 books they listed. Well, that might have been because their selection is a little odd, but so is my own personal 100 list. It includes a few of the original list. I didn't necessarily like all these books (the ones I truly hated are struck out) and they are in no particular order. The list include some clunkers but what the hell, they made an impression on me even if they are flawed in some way. This is my list, so sue me! (PS Can anyone tell me why 'Dracula' was on the original list yet not 'Frankenstein'?) No doubt it is obvious where my interests lie. Oh yes, and some books on this list aren't politically correct by any means and some are now almost unobtainable. Remember that I'm old....

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. The Little White Horse - Elizabeth Goudge
6. The Swish of the Curtain - Pamela Brown
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
~~8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell~~
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. The Box of Delights - John Masefield
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Interview with the Vampire - Anne Rice
13. Consider Phlebas - Iain M Banks
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
18. The Rose - Umberto Ecco
19. I Capture the Castle - Dodie Smith
20 The Colour of Magic (and the other 'Discworld' books) - Terry Pratchett
21. Don't Shoot the Dog - Karen Pryor
22. 101 Dalmations - Dodie Smith
23. White Fang - Jack London
24. Black Beauty - Anna Sewell
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Hotel du Lac - Anita Brookner
27. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K Dick
2~~8. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck~~
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Kilvert's Diary - Francis Kilvert
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. Wilt - Tom Sharpe
37. The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady - Edith Blackwell Holden
38. Ballet Shoes - Noel Streatfeild
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. ~~Animal Farm - George Orwell~~
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. The Little Grey Men - 'BB' (D.J. Watkins-Pitchford)
44. The Crystal Cave - Mary Stewart
45. The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins
46. Weaveworld - Clive Barker
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Mists of Avalon - Marion Bradley
~~49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding~~
50. The 'Earthsea' novels - Ursula le Guin
51. Ash, A Secret History - Mary Gentle
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Moonfleet - J. Meade Falkner
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. Last Tango in Aberystwyth - Malcolm Pryce
56. Faerie Tale - Raymond E Feist
57 Shadowmancer - G.P. Taylor
58. Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K. Jerome
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. King Solomon's Mines - H Rider Haggard
61. Take Back Plenty - Colin Greenland
62. I, Claudius - Robert Graves
63. The Daughter of Time - Josephine Tey
64 The 'Brother Cadfael' novels - Ellis Peters
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. The 'Marcus Didius Falco' novels - Lindsey Davies
67. The 'Inspector Morse' novels - Colin Dexter
68. Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
69. The Thirty-Nine Steps - John Buchan
70. Nine Princes in Amber - Roger Zelazny
~~71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens~~
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Artemis Fowl - Aoin Colfer
75. Tom's Midnight Garden - Philippa Pearce
76. The Owl Service - Alan Garner
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. The Pirates in the Deep Green Sea - Eric Linklater
79 Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow - Peter Hoeg
80. The Worm Ouroboros - E.R. Eddison
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Fevre Dream - George R R Martin
83. The 'Gormenghast' trilogy - Mervyn Peake
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. The Stress of Her Regard - Tim Powers
86. The Sword in the Stone (the Once and Future King cycle) - T H White
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. Ring of Bright Water - Gavin Maxwell
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. My Family and Other Animals - Gerald Durrell
91. The Picture of Dorian Grey - Oscar Wilde
92. The 'Doctor Doolittle' books - Hugh Lofting
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. Emil and the Detectives - Erich Kästner
96. The Code of the Woosters (and other Wooster & Jeeves novels) - P G Wodehouse
97. Just So Stories - Rudyard Kipling
98. Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
99. Heidi - Johanna Spyri
100. The Log of the Ark - Kenneth Walker

(Post a new comment)

	starchaser 2008-06-29 01:05 am UTC (link)
	I guess that makes me 3 times the reader as the average person as I've read 18 & I'm only 30. heehee. but then again I LOVE to read! We're at 46 books and 13 scrpit/screenplays so far this year. * (Reply to this)

	starchaser 2008-06-29 01:48 am UTC (link)
	Actually that is wrong. I've read 18 from your list & 26 from theirs. * (Reply to this) (Thread)

	gingertart50 2008-06-29 01:16 pm UTC (link)
	Heh, the point is, I will probably only have read 18 from your 'top 100' list too. The selection of 'classics' probably depends upon which books people were made to study at school. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	snapesgirl_62 2008-06-29 02:39 am UTC (link)
	I've read 25 off your list. To be honest, I too am old. :P (Reply to this) (Thread)

	gingertart50 2008-06-29 01:17 pm UTC (link)
	But I bet i'll only have read 25 off your list too. It depends upon what you studied at school and which books you were given as a child, I think. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	snapesgirl_62 2008-06-29 08:30 pm UTC (link)
	I know it is most dependent upon the school systems we attended. My brother and I went to different secondary schools and had vastly different reading lists for our classes. I am making up a TBR list off of this meme. There are some things I missed out on and what to read now that I'm older and will appreciate the books for their own sake. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	angela_snape 2008-06-29 02:58 am UTC (link)
	I didn't count ... but I have read some of the ones you included, particularly the Crystal Cave & Frankenstein. Way better list! (Reply to this) (Thread)

	gingertart50 2008-06-29 01:18 pm UTC (link)
	g I thought so too! (Reply to this) (Parent)

klynie1
2008-06-29 04:51 am UTC (link)

I've read 62 on your list and another 12 of them are on my "to read" list. Though really, I've only read 61, since the only Terry Pratchett I've actually read is "Colour of Magic." Since I had to force myself to finish that one, even thought everyone tells me he gets better I haven't been able to pick him up again yet. *g*

A much better list, my dear!

Is "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time" worth reading? I love the title for the Holmes reference, but nothing jumped out at me when I paged through it in the bookstore.

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gingertart50
2008-06-29 01:26 pm UTC (link)

Heh! Terry Pratchett is an author you either love or hate, so don't force yourself to struggle with him. I absolutely love his books but many of my friends don't.

The Curious Incident ... is ... ok. Fairly original but I wouldn't bother reading it again. I left it on only because it was on the original list.

You read 61 and are intending to read another 12? Wow, we do have similar taste in books! *vbg*

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	gryffindorj 2008-06-29 10:24 am UTC (link)
	I don't blame you for not having read Orwell or Lord of the Flies. Not something I would do recommend. The Grapes of Wrath was meh to me but I REALLY liked The Winter of our Discontent which Steinbeck won the Noble Prize for. I'm impressed with your list. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	gingertart50 2008-06-29 01:28 pm UTC (link)
	Oh I have read the ~~struckout~~ ones, I just hated them! Was forced to read them in school. I just didn't get why you had to read books that made you feel awful; I always assumed reading novels ( as opposed to textbooks) was for pleasure! Glad you liked the list! vbg (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	gryffindorj 2008-06-30 04:30 am UTC (link)
	Oh! Sorry I misunderstood. Good choices on the ones you didn't enjoy. Apparently neither did I. (Reply to this) (Parent)

blpaintchart
2008-06-29 01:21 pm UTC (link)

Haha! Well, I've read 43ish of your list, but a few of them have been a "can't get any further, must burn now" situation.

How interesting that the ones you've striked out are some of my favourite stories ever, and you have included so many classic children's novels that I would happily walk over hot coals to avoid.

But you've reminded me to read I, Claudius again. What a great book!

And, we'll always have our love of flying!Snape in common. :)

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gingertart50
2008-06-29 01:37 pm UTC (link)

Well, the ~~struck out~~ ones were books that I was forced to read in school and I loathed them. I didn't understand why you had to read novels that made you feel awful, I loved reading and assumed that one did it for pleasure. Never was a masochist! They would have been my own 'must burn now' books had they not been required texts for O-level English literature.

Some of the classic children's books are not ones that I would choose to read again, nor would I give them to children now, I just put them in because I'd read them! There are others, such as the 'Just William' books, that I left out because they made me want to bleach my brain and I still hate them.

Glad you loved I, Claudius too! Great book, that, and I really enjoyed the tv series with Derek Jacobi as Cl-clau-clau-claudius. Not quite as good as Flying!Snupin, of course.

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mac_tunes
2008-06-29 03:54 pm UTC (link)

I think I only read 20 of your list (can't remember, but I vaguely remember reading a few more but well, it's vague)... looks like I'm not quite the bookworm I thought... or rather I only read selected stories... or... nvm.

What do you think of "Nine Princes in Amber - Roger Zelazny", that one piqued my fancy... nice?

Gosh.... you're really, way, way, way ahead of me :p *being cheeky*

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gingertart50
2008-06-29 04:54 pm UTC (link)

I loved 9 Princes in Amber, it totally blew me away (there's a whole series of sequels too) but it was the first fantasy of its kind that I read. There have been many more since then, in fact there is a whole sub-genre of someone-from-our-world-gets-into-another-dimension wish-fulfilment fics now so if you read many of them, you may find it unexciting. It was the first book I read that had magic in it that really worked and wasn't for laughs.

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	carpet_diemon 2008-07-13 01:42 am UTC (link)
	Hmm, I think I've read about 26 of these, but--do you not like Steinbeck, or is it only Grapes of Wrath that you didn't like? }: (Reply to this) (Thread)

gingertart50
2008-07-13 09:43 am UTC (link)

I was forced to read it in school and hated it so much that I couldn't bear to read anything else by Steinbeck. Similarly, I had to read Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol and David Copperfield and I still cannot stand Dickens. Reading, to me, should not be a chore; I do it for pleasure. Oddly enough, I also had to read Pride and Prejudice. My best friend immediately got hold of everything by Austen and encouraged me to try the other books; I did, and we both loved them. Quite why Austen is a pleasure and Dickens a chore, I don't know.

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carpet_diemon
2008-07-13 02:22 pm UTC (link)

Hm, I didn't have to read Dickens for school and still managed to dislike him. I also had to read Pride and Prejudice for school; frankly, I think it's in a class all its own. We might have felt otherwise if we had to dissect it to death using various and sundry criticisms, but we didn't, and so everyone rather enjoyed it. Jane Eyre on the other hand. Yuck.

Maybe someday you'll try East of Eden? *is hopeful* It leaves Grapes of Wrath in the dust. I mean, Grapes of Wrath was pretty much journalist!social commentary. East of Eden is an epic.

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