I love to read. I learned how to read at age 4, and have read pretty much anything I can get my hands on ever since. Several weeks ago, Amber posted a list of the top 100 books selected by "The Big Read." "The Big Read" is a National Endowment for the Arts program designed to encourage community reading initiatives. Of their top 100 books, they estimate the average adult has read only six. Now, having majored in English, I have a distinct advantage with this list. I had fun going over it, and adding new books to my "to read" list over on Goodreads.
Here’s what you are supposed to do:
*Look at the list and bold those you have read.
*Italicize those you intend to read.
*Star the books you LOVE.
*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. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
*10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
*11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
*22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
*29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
*34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
*37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
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. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
*44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
*46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
*54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
*64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
*68. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
*73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
*81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
*87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
*92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
*98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
*99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
*100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
So, how many have you read?
6 comments:
I'm so bad...I love, love to read, but have only read, like, two of those on the list! I haven't read many of the classics, but I think I'm going to start!!
I love that you stared a majority of the ones you've read.
I was proud to learn that I had read 51 of the books, 10 more are on my "must read" list and the rest...well, it's just not happening. :)
I've read 46 of those on the list. I started reading at the age of 4 as well and never looked back!
I'm a former English major/teacher and avid reader, so that's why I've read 74 on the list (I did this on my blog last year.) The lists like this are a tiny bit strange, though. There are always some books I've never heard of (fair enough) but some are clearly not in the same category as Austen and Dickens (DaVinci Code? Mitch Albom?) No offense to those who like popular fiction, but why put those particular books on the "classics" list? And Hamlet is listed separately from the complete works of Shakespeare. End of rant!
Oh, and Cold Comfort Farm is much better than it sounds--very funny. I also think The Secret History and Possession are marvelous books.
WOW a 100 Books! I'm not into reading like most ppl. I did recently read Twilight by Stephanie Meyers and the other three in the series, I can't wait to see the movie.
U have an award here
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