Book Meme
I saw this over on Our Own Creation and thought I’d take a shot at it.
Here’s how it works:
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline (or mark in a different color) the books you LOVE - mine are in red
4) Reprint this list in your blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve only read 6 and force books upon them.
The premise of this exercise is that the National Endowment for the Arts apparently believes that the average American has only read 6 books from the list below.
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 Traveller’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 Meany - 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 ~ I did read about half of it.
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 I had to read this book when I was teaching because some idiot decided that every kid in the school had to read it one year and every English teacher had to teach it. What a horrible fucking excuse for a book.
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection
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
I don’t believe In Search of Lost Time isn’t on this list.
How ’bout you?
Stumble it!
Donate to the Zoë and Lennox Simpson Memorial Fund
and the 529 college savings accounts get a kickback.
July 26th, 2008 00:33
I’ve read 3 books on the list, and I taught high school English. I’d say the average only being 6 is pretty accurate.
July 26th, 2008 08:04
What an odd list. Such a mish-mash of classics, bestsellers, random juvenile literature, etc. Truthfully, the random way the list is put together means that the average of six isn’t terribly shocking.
That said, I’ve read 28 of them; I had read sixteen by the time I graduated from high school.
July 26th, 2008 08:41
I’m somewhere in the 25 to 30 range (kids are screaming for waffle and I lost count). I agree it’s a random list. Although I liked both Bridget Jones and Emma, and perhaps someone could draw some parallels, I don’t believe they belong on the same list.
July 26th, 2008 09:27
I did this recently on my blog too. I got 61. If you google “the big read” and click on the BBC link you’ll find a very similar list. I really think that BBC one was the original and somewhere along the line people have substituted bestsellers in there. I also had comments about “The Five People You Meet in Heaven.”
Bottom line though, it makes me pretty sad that the average person hasn’t read more good books.
I’d recommend Brideshead Revisited. Excellent, quick read.
July 26th, 2008 10:01
43. Some of the books I read for pleasure as a high school student. (NERD.) Many of them were required reading in high school or college.
It is a rather random list.
July 26th, 2008 10:19
@threeundertwo, thanks for the explanation.
So, interestingly, the list doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the NEA’s “Big Read” program– it’s from a BBC program of the same name. The British origin of the list explains some of the odd biases, and the bastardization explains the rest. Limiting it to one book per author as the BBC apparently did for voting purposes would result in a more balanced list.
July 26th, 2008 10:23
Hmmm. Weird list. I got 35.
July 26th, 2008 20:06
Wow…I was disapointed in myself that I could only bold 53….most people can’t do 6?
July 26th, 2008 22:07
If you love to read, I would recommend that you read some others on this list… particularly To Kill A Mockingbird, The Kite Runner, Life of Pi (one of my favorite books of all time), The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, and Watership Down.
Many of these titles were required reading in my high school English classes. It does surprise me that a high school English teacher has only read three books on this list. I wonder which three?
July 26th, 2008 23:48
Yeah, Life of Pi is really fun to read. Kite Runner’s really good, too.
One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of my all time favorite books.
July 27th, 2008 01:00
I’ve read 18….I need to read more!
July 27th, 2008 09:29
On that list it would be really hard to pick my favorite, after the Tolkien and CS Lewis, I’d have to say it’s a toss up between To Kill a Mockingbird, and A Prayer for Own Meany.
July 27th, 2008 11:47
I’m at 38, but I’m not quite sure what that means. Yes, I’ve read Moby Dick (all of it, twice), and the DaVinci Code (all of it, once, but I also saw the movie), and enjoyed them each in their own way, but I think the only list they can meaningfully both occupy is the “List of Famous Novels over 500 Pages Long.” Also, having read “Hamlet” gives you one check, and the entire works of Shakespeare (including, I imagine, the Phoenix and the Turtle) only gives you another check? Weird….
That said, Brideshead Revisited changed my life.
July 27th, 2008 16:10
Ah! An explanation of the sheer oddness of the list. http://ourowncreation.wordpress.com/2008/07/23/because-im-also-a-research-geek/
July 27th, 2008 16:18
Here is the Modern Library’s similar lists of 100 best novels. The first list was chosen by their board. The second by readers.
1. ULYSSES by James Joyce
2. THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce
4. LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov
5. BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
6. THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner
7. CATCH-22
8. DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler
9. SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence
10. THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck
11. UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry
12. THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by Samuel Butler
13. 1984 by George Orwell
14. I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves
15. TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf
16. AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser
17. THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers
18. SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut
19. INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison
20. NATIVE SON by Richard Wright
21. HENDERSON THE RAIN KING by Saul Bellow
22. APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA by John O’Hara
23. U.S.A. (trilogy) by John Dos Passos
24. WINESBURG, OHIO by Sherwood Anderson
25. A PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M. Forster
26. THE WINGS OF THE DOVE by Henry James
27. THE AMBASSADORS by Henry James
28. TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald
29. THE STUDS LONIGAN TRILOGY by James T. Farrell
30. THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford
31. ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell
32. THE GOLDEN BOWL by Henry James
33. SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser
34. A HANDFUL OF DUST by Evelyn Waugh
35. AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner
36. ALL THE KING’S MEN by Robert Penn Warren
37. THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder
38. HOWARDS END by E.M. Forster
39. GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN by James Baldwin
40. THE HEART OF THE MATTER by Graham Greene
41. LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding
42. DELIVERANCE by James Dickey
43. A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME (series) by Anthony Powell
44. POINT COUNTER POINT by Aldous Huxley
45. THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway
46. THE SECRET AGENT by Joseph Conrad
47. NOSTROMO by Joseph Conrad
48. THE RAINBOW by D.H. Lawrence
49. WOMEN IN LOVE by D.H. Lawrence
50. TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller
51. THE NAKED AND THE DEAD by Norman Mailer
52. PORTNOY’S COMPLAINT by Philip Roth
53. PALE FIRE by Vladimir Nabokov
54. LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner
55. ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac
56. THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett
57. PARADE’S END by Ford Madox Ford
58. THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith Wharton
59. ZULEIKA DOBSON by Max Beerbohm
60. THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy
61. DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather
62. FROM HERE TO ETERNITY by James Jones
63. THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLES by John Cheever
64. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger
65. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess
66. OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham
67. HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad
68. MAIN STREET by Sinclair Lewis
69. THE HOUSE OF MIRTH by Edith Wharton
70. THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET by Lawrence Durell
71. A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA by Richard Hughes
72. A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS by V.S. Naipaul
73. THE DAY OF THE LOCUST by Nathanael West
74. A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway
75. SCOOP by Evelyn Waugh
76. THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE by Muriel Spark
77. FINNEGANS WAKE by James Joyce
78. KIM by Rudyard Kipling
79. A ROOM WITH A VIEW by E.M. Forster
80. BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh
81. THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH by Saul Bellow
82. ANGLE OF REPOSE by Wallace Stegner
83. A BEND IN THE RIVER by V.S. Naipaul
84. THE DEATH OF THE HEART by Elizabeth Bowen
85. LORD JIM by Joseph Conrad
86. RAGTIME by E.L. Doctorow
87. THE OLD WIVES’ TALE by Arnold Bennett
88. THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London
89. LOVING by Henry Green
90. MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie
91. TOBACCO ROAD by Erskine Caldwell
92. IRONWEED by William Kennedy
93. THE MAGUS by John Fowles
94. WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys
95. UNDER THE NET by Iris Murdoch
96. SOPHIE’S CHOICE by William Styron
97. THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles
98. THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain
99. THE GINGER MAN by J.P. Donleavy
100. THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS by Booth Tarkington
1. ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand
2. THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand
3. BATTLEFIELD EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard
4. THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkien
5. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee
6. 1984 by George Orwell
7. ANTHEM by Ayn Rand
8. WE THE LIVING by Ayn Rand
9. MISSION EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard
10. FEAR by L. Ron Hubbard
11. ULYSSES by James Joyce
12. CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller
13. THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
14. DUNE by Frank Herbert
15. THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS by Robert Heinlein
16. STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND by Robert Heinlein
17. A TOWN LIKE ALICE by Nevil Shute
18. BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
19. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger
20. ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell
21. GRAVITY’S RAINBOW by Thomas Pynchon
22. THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck
23. SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut
24. GONE WITH THE WIND by Margaret Mitchell
25. LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding
26. SHANE by Jack Schaefer
27. TRUSTEE FROM THE TOOLROOM by Nevil Shute
28. A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY by John Irving
29. THE STAND by Stephen King
30. THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT’S WOMAN by John Fowles
31. BELOVED by Toni Morrison
32. THE WORM OUROBOROS by E.R. Eddison
33. THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner
34. LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov
35. MOONHEART by Charles de Lint
36. ABSALOM, ABSALOM! by William Faulkner
37. OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham
38. WISE BLOOD by Flannery O’Connor
39. UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry
40. FIFTH BUSINESS by Robertson Davies
41. SOMEPLACE TO BE FLYING by Charles de Lint
42. ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac
43. HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad
44. YARROW by Charles de Lint
45. AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS by H.P. Lovecraft
46. ONE LONELY NIGHT by Mickey Spillane
47. MEMORY AND DREAM by Charles de Lint
48. TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf
49. THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy
50. TRADER by Charles de Lint
51. THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY by Douglas Adams
52. THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers
53. THE HANDMAID’S TALE by Margaret Atwood
54. BLOOD MERIDIAN by Cormac McCarthy
55. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess
56. ON THE BEACH by Nevil Shute
57. A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce
58. GREENMANTLE by Charles de Lint
59. ENDER’S GAME by Orson Scott Card
60. THE LITTLE COUNTRY by Charles de Lint
61. THE RECOGNITIONS by William Gaddis
62. STARSHIP TROOPERS by Robert Heinlein
63. THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway
64. THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP by John Irving
65. SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES by Ray Bradbury
66. THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE by Shirley Jackson
67. AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner
68. TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller
69. INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison
70. THE WOOD WIFE by Terri Windling
71. THE MAGUS by John Fowles
72. THE DOOR INTO SUMMER by Robert Heinlein
73. ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE by Robert Pirsig
74. I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves
75. THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London
76. AT SWIM-TWO-BIRDS by Flann O’Brien
77. FARENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury
78. ARROWSMITH by Sinclair Lewis
79. WATERSHIP DOWN by Richard Adams
80. NAKED LUNCH by William S. Burroughs
81. THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER by Tom Clancy
82. GUILTY PLEASURES by Laurell K. Hamilton
83. THE PUPPET MASTERS by Robert Heinlein
84. IT by Stephen King
85. V. by Thomas Pynchon
86. DOUBLE STAR by Robert Heinlein
87. CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY by Robert Heinlein
88. BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh
89. LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner
90. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST by Ken Kesey
91. A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway
92. THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles
93. SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION by Ken Kesey
94. MY ANTONIA by Willa Cather
95. MULENGRO by Charles de Lint
96. SUTTREE by Cormac McCarthy
97. MYTHAGO WOOD by Robert Holdstock
98. ILLUSIONS by Richard Bach
99. THE CUNNING MAN by Robertson Davies
100. THE SATANIC VERSES by Salman Rushdie
July 27th, 2008 18:32
Veeeemen? Eeeeeeen luff? (Stupid college joke about Women in Love. Ahem.)
I’m just happy to know someone else appreciates The Great Gatsby. Even my literate friends seem to hate it for reasons I cannot fathom.
The first list I think I have 45. List 2, 17 (WHY does The Good Soldier always make the list? Why???). List 3, 26. Please read Dune. Do it for your Alice.
I’m embarrassed to say there are some I’ve never heard of on these lists.
July 27th, 2008 19:40
58 on the first list, plus about fifteen more I’ve either partially read,or read others by the same author.
However, I am completely unable to take seriously any list which includes _The DaVinci Code_. Seriously, Brown’s not even a worthwhile potboiler writer. (I also don’t think much of Frank Herbert — sorry, Alice.)
July 27th, 2008 19:50
I got 74 on the original list, parly due to my parents’ library being chock-full of the Huxley/Orwell/Hardy kind of thing. I will go and look for an Australian version of the list and post it if I can.
July 27th, 2008 21:07
I’ve probably read half those books. I can’t believe most have only read six. They’re missing out.
A few suggestions:
• Watership Down - Richard Adams, is just fantastic. Please read that.
• Animal Farm - Orwell
• Mitch Albom DID write that terrible book, but he is a fantastic sports columnist, and his “collection” books, especially the third, when he writes about the Itariod (sp), are worth your time. “Gone with the Dogs.”
• The Stand - Stephen King. The Shining is fantastic as well. I love King.
• Bill Bryson’s “A Walk in the Woods” is wonderful. Wonderful.
• John Irving is damn good too and “A Prayer” might be his best.
• †he Shipping News or anything by Annie Prolux.
• The Road - Cormac McCarthy.
• Heartsick - Chelsea Cain
• The Call of the Wild
• Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer
That’s a good start for you.
I loved Ronald Dahl as a kid.
July 27th, 2008 22:42
And commenting again to add, I think you would enjoy Cold Comfort Farm if you enjoy Austen - it’s a very funny comedy of manners. I wanted to call my twins Seth and Reuben but was shouted down.
July 28th, 2008 17:44
I did this on my blog, and was disappointed in myself. I must read more.
July 28th, 2008 18:15
Ok, 22 on the Modern Library’s list… must be the modern bias…
July 29th, 2008 13:09
I think I have read about 15 of those books, plus lots others in the short-kid-versions. I have seen about 10 others in movie form. I have read hundreds of books, but apparently not many made this list!
Anyway, Stacey I was wondering if you would do a post about cloth diapers some time. I remember reading your posts when you said you were “stuffing” and folding… I am looking into the “bumGenius! 2.0 DELUXE All-In-One” and am wondering if you have ever used these. We have been a disposable diaper family for 14 months, so we need a really gentle transition…All in ones seem to be the way to go…you thoughts would be appreciated. You are one of the few cloth diapering MoM’s that I know of. Thanks!
July 30th, 2008 10:09
Wow, I can’t believe the average is 6!!!!!! I have read tons of other stuff, but so many of these are classics! I posted my list on Monday.