Unread Books Meme
From Grandmère Mimi:
What we have below is a list of the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing users. Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise)
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid (excerpts in school)
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers
Posts
5 comments:
I tried on three separate occasions to read Gravity's Rainbow. There were parts of it that would reach out and grab me and then he would be off and running and just leave me in the dust. Where am I going wrong?
The elusive Pynchon -- like many of the books on this list -- is not everyone's cup of tea. Actually, there are some similarities with Neal Stephenson, mostly the picaresque mode and the tendency to "set pieces" and bravado passages. Certainly a far cry from Mrs. Dalloway!
On which, a personal testimony. I only read Woolf because my 12th-grade HS English teacher made a deal with me, that if she read Joyces's Ulysees I'd read Mrs. Dalloway. (I was and still am a big Joyce fan, as the list indicates, though I'd have to italicize Finnegans Wake were it on the list -- surely one of the most unread books of all time!) Anyway, I enjoyed Woolf, though I've not run through the rest of her works except for To the Lighthouse. And my teacher enjoyed Ulysees... and I've never made it back to FW. Maybe a project for a sabbatical?
I'm a little surprised at how many of these I've read, and more surprised at how little of them I can remember, and somewhat surprised at those I've never heard of.
C*
Given the tenor of "The Grapes of Wrath," it was not on the reading list of my little Christian High School back in the day (i.e., the 70s). So, I am now reading it for the first time in my life, and realize why it should be hailed as the classic that it is.
I'll do this here, as I don't have a blog (anymore).
[Oh: and as in my own hardcopy version(s) of these type of lists, I ALWAYS note if I've seen some production of it via movies or TV! ;-) i.e., (Vid)]
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina (Vid)
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies (Vid)
War and Peace (Vid)
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad (Vid, "Troy" *g*)
Emma (Vid)
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway (Vid, "The Hours". Ick---there's a couple of hours I'd like back)
Great Expectations (Vid)
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales (tis true)
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein (Vid)
The Count of Monte Cristo (Vid)
Dracula (Vid)
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath (Vid)
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise)
The Satanic Verses [It's on my (soon) "To Read" list---also meaning, of course, I own it]
Sense and Sensibility (Vid)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (Vid)
Mansfield Park (Vid: just recently, via PBS)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Vid)
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles (Vid?)
Oliver Twist (Vid)
Gulliver’s Travels (Vid)
Les Misérables (Vid)
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune (Vid)
_The Prince_
The Sound and the Fury (Vid?)
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Vid)
Beloved (Vid)
_Slaughterhouse-five_
_The Scarlet Letter_
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon (Vid)
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita (Vid: it's literally at the top of my "To Read" list)
Persuasion (Vid)
Northanger Abbey
_The Catcher in the Rye_
_On the Road_
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Vid: I hope the Disney version counts? *g*)
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid (Worthwhile for "Camilla" alone!)
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood
White Teeth
Treasure Island (Vid?)
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers (Vid)
[This is a very strange list, IMO. So heavily weighted towards recent publications. I generally like to see if a book has lasted a few decades---or centuries!]
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