Bookin' through Monday.

 Found today at Cursing Mama's blog. Thank you, ma'm!

(Not my bookshelf.)

Key

• Bold the books you have already read
• Blue the books you have listened to in audiobook form. (I added this for myself.)
• Asterisk the ones that you read for book club. (I added this for myself.)
  
• Italicize the books you intend to read
• Notes in parentheses next to note-worthy titles.

1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
   
2. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
6. The Bible (I'm working on it; bought a Bible in modernish English to help the effort)
   
7. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte*
   
8. Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell
   
9. His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (just finished it last week)
    
11. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
    
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare (I really need to *brush up on my Shakespeare* if I expect to do anything worthwhile on Jeopardy!)
15. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier*
16. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
17. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch by George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House by Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck*
29. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis (read these alound to #1 son when he was about 7)
    
34. Emma by Jane Austen
35. Persuasion by Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis De Bernieres
39. Memories of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne
41. Animal Farm by George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (what a stupid book)
    
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney by John Irving (I have read and enjoyed all his other books. Don't know why I haven't read this one.)
    
45. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (started, didn't finish)
    
49. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
50. Atonement by Ian McEwan* (twice!)
    
51. Life of Pi by Yann Martel* (twice!)
    
52. Dune by Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Why is this book on the list? It's no classic nor even a best-seller.)
    
57. A Tale Of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (I cannot count the number of time I have started this one; never got past the first twenty or so pages. But I shall keep trying.)
    
61. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
62. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (recently, as you all know)
    
63. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold* (twice!)
    
65. Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road by Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (tried several times, couldn't get into it)
    
70. Moby Dick by Herman Melville (audio version is on my iPod, it is my next listen)
    
71. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
72. Dracula by Bram Stoker
    
73. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island by Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses by James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal by Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession by AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (started, wasn't in the right mood)
    
83. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry*
87. Charlotte's Web by EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (multiple times in my youth)
    
90. The Faraway Tree Collection by Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
94. Watership Down by Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (stoopid book)
    
96. A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

* * * * *

I am a dedicated reader, almost a literate good citizen, and also an obsessive-compulsive bookworm and book snob. But you already knew that.

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Dedicated Reader   You are always trying to find the time to get back to your book. You are convinced that the world would be a much better place if only everyone read more.
Literate Good Citizen
Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm
Book Snob
Fad Reader
Non-Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

* * * * *

Well. That was fun.

Now for a dose of literary reality. The Ten Most Overrated Books of All Time. (link from soxanne's blog -- thank you, too, ma'm!)

10. The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien.
9.  A Passage to India by E.M. Forster.
8. White Noise & Underworld by Dom DeLillo.
7. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.
6. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Marcia Marquez.
5. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.
4. Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.
3. Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
2. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.
1. Emma by Jane Austen.

You can read the ranker's opinion on these ten books at the linked site.

Of course, I have read or listened to most of those. Too bad one cannot decide whether a book is worth the time and effort to read it... without actually spending the time and effort to read it.

Comments

[Heather]

I always feel a little guilty when I look at lists like those, because there are those books I know I probably should read - at some point - and haven't. Take this weekend, for example...I could have been reading something from the list (a bunch of those books are already loaded onto my ebook), but spent the weekend rereading the 'Herald Mage of Valdemar' trilogy. Not exactly classic literature. More like the mashed potatoes of reading: comfort food for the mind.

[sophanne]

I am with you on Love in the Time of CHolera- I really enjoyed 100 Years of Solitude- I just couldn't get started in the cholera- I keep trying as well. You made it further on the Confederacy of Dunces than I did. Does it actually make any sense in the end? SHould I try to finish it? Talk about dunce- I gave it away and then felt like one for not finishing it and bought it again! Duh.

I don't read many books a second time- I think I'm afraid I won't enjoy them as much- but I also read Life of PI and Atonement twice. They weren't always easy reads but I felt like I didn't get it all the first time.

[Amy]

What! What! Wuthering Heights and Emma at the top of the overrated list? What!! What!!! Gasp! Sputter! GAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!

[Chris]

I cam up with 39 of the books from that list that I'd read; however, since the list is a bit mucked up (why should Hamlet be separate from The Complete Works? Why is The Lion, the Witch... separate from The Chronicles?), put whatever stock you want into it.

I'd have to agree about Wuthering Heights, The Great Gatsby, Confederacy of Dunces, and Underworld - but NOT about 100 Years of Solitude or White Noise.

[Diane]

I came up with about 20 that I've either read or listened to. A few, like the Da Vinci Code I don't have any interest in, the hype was too great. After reading The Story of Edgar Sawtelle this weekend and googling it's deeper meaning, it's clear I'd better brush up on my Shakespeare. Totally didn't know what I was supposed to be getting out of it.

[Sheepish Annie]

I'm a fairly big reader, but I'm so glad you opted to include audio books. I think that some books were meant to be experienced as read-alouds. We loved it as kids and shouldn't be ashamed of loving it now!

I am also relieved to see that I'm not the only one who doesn't understand why the Da Vinci Code was such a hit. I found it to be rather predictable...

[cursingmama]

I'm still miffed that not a single Stephanie Plum made the list ;)

[Cathy]

I read all but 23 of those.
4, 5, 7 are the only ones I'd have on my overrated book list.

[Cathy]

Oh. I would have cleaned up the list and read them all but the Complete Works of Shakespeare and the Bible took up so much time. :-))))