Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Classic Books Meme

 I saw this on The Kitchen Madonna's blog. I'm going to be sad, because I know I haven't read nearly the number of classics I should have... but here goes anyway. I'm supposed to bold the ones I have read, italicize the ones I am planning on reading and underline (I'll just color them red instead) the ones I have loved.

1.Pride and Prejudice -- loved the A&E version of it, but can't get into 19th century literature (gasp!). Too wordy and over-emotional for me. Still, I just bought a copy of it, so I'll be giving it the old "college try" soon...

2. The Lord of the Rings -- liked it, but couldn't handle all the elf songs. Terrible to say, but I got so much more out of the movie (isn't that sad???).

3. Jane Eyre -- I know, too sad. See #1.

5. To Kill a Mockingbird  -- high school read. I really should read it again.

6. The Bible -- this one should be obvious!  

7. Wuthering Heights -- again, #1. Yuck.

8. Nineteen Eighty Four -- Why was this not assigned in high school???

9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman - Not in this lifetime, or the next. You've gotta be kidding me.

10. Great Expectations -- Ah, freshman year in high school!

11. Little Women -- again, high school.

12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - (Thomas Hardy) I think this was freshman year of college. Can't say it did all that much for me.

13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller -Nope.

14. Complete Works of Shakespeare -- I've read quite a bit, but can't say I've read EVERYTHING.

15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier – Saw the movie!

16. The Hobbit - (JRR Tolkien) Picked this one up a few years ago. Glad I finally read it!

17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

18. Catcher in the Rye - (JD Salinger) High school.

19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20. Middlemarch - George Eliot

21. Gone With The Wind - (Margaret Mitchell) Watched the movie several times... does that count?

22. The Great Gatsby - (F Scott Fitzgerald) Wow! I just read this for the first time a few years ago (during our "classics challenge" here at the house), and I loved it!

23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens- saw the PBS series...

24. War and Peace - (Leo Tolstoy)

25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - (Douglas Adams) - Of course!!

26. Brideshead Revisited - (Evelyn Waugh) Keep hearing about this one. Guess I need to add it to the list...

27. Crime and Punishment - (Fyodor Dostoyevsky) - HATED his book THE IDIOT. Oh my gosh.. bad high school memories...

28. Grapes of Wrath - (John Steinbeck). I'm pretty sure I read this one.

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) Loved it! It's CS Lewis, c'mon!

34. Emma - Jane Austen

35. Persuasion - Jane Austen

36. The Kite Runner - (Khaled Hosseini) -- I know there is a disturbing scene in there, so I haven't gotten my guts up to read it yet.

37. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

38. Memoirs of a Geisha - (Arthur Golden) Yep.

39. Winnie the Pooh - (AA Milne) Again, it's a given.

40. Animal Farm - George Orwell

41. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - I have better things to do with my time.

42. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

43. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - (John Irving) Loved it up until the very end, but then it fell apart.

44. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

45. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery -How have I not read this yet???

46. Far From The Madding Crowd - (Thomas Hardy) How many ways can I say "bleck"????

47. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood. Disturbing, but good!

48. Lord of the Flies - William Golding

49. Atonement - Ian McEwan

50. Life of Pi - Yann Martel

51. Dune - Frank Herbert

52. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

53. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

54. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

55. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

56. A Tale Of Two Cities - (Charles Dickens) Again, high school.

57. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

58. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

59. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

60. Of Mice and Men -( John Steinbeck) Didn't we all have to read this one in high school?

61. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

62. The Secret History - Donna Tartt

63. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

64. Count of Monte Cristo - (Alexandre Dumas) One of my all-time favorite books. I was intrigued when I heard that Michael Card spoke so highly of it. I picked it up and devoured it! It is a classic for a reason!!!

65. On The Road - Jack Kerouac -

66. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

67. Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding

68. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie

69. Moby Dick - (Herman Melville) -Yes, it's dry in places, but I had NO IDEA it was going to be so funny! My husband and I read it during our "classics challenge" here at home, and the phrase, "Alas, he was a butterless man" still makes us smile...

70. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

71. Dracula - Bram Stoker

72. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

73. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

74. Ulysses - James Joyce

75. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

76. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

77. Germinal -(Emile Zola). I was a French major! Of course I read this one!

78. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

79. Possession - AS Byatt

80. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens. Read it with the kids.

81. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

82. The Color Purple - Alice Walker

83. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

84. Madame Bovary - (Gustave Flaubert). I'm pretty sure I read this... but I've seen various adaptations of it for sure...

85. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

86. Charlotte's Web - EB White

87. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

88. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

89. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

90. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad. The horror! The horror!

91. The Little Prince - (Antoine De Saint-Exupery) In French.

92. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

93. Watership Down - Richard Adams

94. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

95. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

96. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
97. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
98. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
99. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - (Mark Twain) Can you believe I've NEVER read this???
100. The Outsiders by SE Hinton

6 comments:

The Last Ephor said...

Can I make a few suggestions?

Animal Farm - George Orwell

Amazing book. Had to read it in school and liked it even then. Now it's even more poignant.

Lord of the Flies - William Golding

Another one I had to read for school and ended up loving. Brisk pace keeps younger readers engaged and I learned a lot about the human capacity for barbarism when anarchy reigns.

Dune - Frank Herbert
Call me a nerd but I loved this book.

Dracula - Bram Stoker
Absolutely brilliant.

Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
American author leaving England after living there for years and decides to take one more lap around England. Very very funny.

A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

Another brilliantly funny book. To tell you anything about it would spoil it.

Ouiz said...

THANK YOU so much for your suggestions!! I am hoping to restart our "classics challenge" here at the house, and you've given me several to choose from (sometimes, the list is soooooo overwhelming I don't know where to begin.) Many of them we have on our bookshelves already, but I've just never picked them up.

CD said...

I absolutely loved "The Three Musketeers." I didn't think I would like it but but was pleasantly surprised. I am a big Dumas fan, though.

Ouiz said...

And WHY isn't that book on the list? You would think that one would be on there for sure...

Neuropoet said...

I have to admit I've read and loved everything by Jane Austen - I just love the depth of her characters... :) Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice are two of my favorites, but I also liked Persuasion and Mansfield Park.

~Jenny

Ouiz said...

Well, I said I would try again, but I can't make any promises on the Jane Austen books!

If I do... and I wind up liking them... I will publish a big apology to Austen fans everywhere!

*grin*