"Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers."
- Charles W. Eliot in The Happy Life (1896)
I saw this at May's, and thought I'd nick it and see if I've read any of the books on BBC's must-read book list. Apparently, the average person would have read 6 out of the 100 books listed below.
The crossed out ones are the books I've read.
1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien (I only managed the first ten pages. Sigh)
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien (couldn't even do #1, never mind this)
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
100. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie
Only 27 out of 100. I haven't read as many classics as I'd have liked. These days I don't seem to have the capacity to sit through heavy fictions.
In fact, I hardly read fiction these days. Most of the items on my reading list in the past months have been non-fiction (mostly finance). Either those or glossy mags.
How I miss the days when I was so engrossed in a good book, I'd stay up till the wee hours of the morning just to get to the last page. I know of people who'd skip the middle pages and go directly to the last chapter (or even just the last couple of pages) to see what the ending's like. I never understood that. What's the point in reading a book then, if all you wanted to know is the ending? It's not just the destination that matters, it's also the journey, is it not?
Anyway, I should get back to that reading list above. There are plenty of books in that list I'd love to read. Thank goodness for the inexpensive Penguin classics available at Target (also available at Borders, but the same books are cheaper at Target). I'm going to get me some of those. Hopefully I'd be able to cross off more books on that list.
3 comments:
Wow, better get cracking on those classics.
His Dark Materials is an awesome book. Forget the movie it was made into, the book is absolutely breathtaking.
Then again, alot of books on that list it pretty good too. I think I'll nick this list from you as well and see how many books I've actually read. :)
I hear you girl...sad to think we used to read a lot more 'serious' stuff compared to glossy mags and tabloids nowadays (but it's so nice to look at the preettee piktures!)
Hmmm..I think I'll nick this too... :D
Great..can I borrow them after you're done? :)
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