100 Books (Only About Half Worth Reading)
Bub and Pie invited us to help ourselves to the book meme going around based on the 100 favourite books of all time, voted by the public. I have to warn you, I’m not endorsing this list—it’s a piece of crap. DaVinci Code beats Pride and Prejudice? WTF people? However, I can’t resist a book meme. I had to steal Bub and Pie’s categories too, with slight modifications. Bold denotes books I’ve read.
Let me know if you think I’d like any in the no thanks category.
The Essentials (Read more than twice)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
Books I’ve Read More Than Once
17. Fall on Your Knees(Ann-Marie MacDonald)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
Cracking Good Reads
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
Books I’ve Read Once (And That Was Plenty)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
The Red-Faced Files (Oh! The Shame!)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
63. War and Peace (Tolsoy)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davies)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
What the Fack?
1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown
Overrated
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold) I hate this book.
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields) I love Shields, but this is my least fav)
I’m Not In Oprah’s Book Club
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
Wouldn’t Mind Reading
42. Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini) I have this under the bed somewhere.
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
No, Thanks
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring* (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)*
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
45. The Bible*
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
* started and did not finish
I’ve Never Actually Heard of These Books
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
76. Tigana (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
Help yourselves to this one. K-girl, I know you’re dying to show off.
Labels: books
posted by metro mama @ 1:19 PM
23 Comments:
I just commented on this at Bub and Pie's. I'm at 66 books on the list. That's what happens when you are a stay at home mom with no kids at home....
I try to steer clear of Oprah, but I did read Tuesdays with Morrie. I didn't mind it. I have to put the Harry Potter series on my thanks, but no thanks list.
*She slinks away from all the booing and hissing...*
boo! hiss!
Gasp! Clutch! Get thee to Chapters and buy Rebecca! It won't be quite as good now as when you were 14 years old (at which point it should be distributed by government issue), but it's still a must.
Rebecca is one of my favourite books. I loved it. I wholeheartedly suggest you check it out. :)
Watership Down is quite good, too. I read it a long, long, LONG time ago though...
I really liked White Oleander and the two on your 'like to read' list.
I think I've heard of the Power of One. In an airy-fairy class I took the prof kept talking about it. Given that The Da Vinci Code was ranked #1 (wtf???) I am guessing this is the same book flako prof was on about.
Who voted on this list?
I would recommend reading at least one Marquez book or at least one of the South American magic realism authors. I think there is a quality to them that is worth checking out.
I have to confess that I never read Watership Down but loved the animated movie--which is not really for children. It is quite harsh but an amazing story.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn has a great story but I don't know how the writing holds up after several decades.
I liked Mists of Avalon but wouldn't have put it on the top 100 list. Well, there are quite a few that I wouldn't put on the list. Barbara Taylor Bradford? Um.. NO!
I get why Ayn Rand is there although I detested The Fountainhead. It is quite well written but her philosophy is not palatable to me at all.
I love that you asterisked the Bible as having started and not finished. I've been working on it for years and still haven't finished it. ;)
I'm with Mary-lue on the Marquez/South American magic realism thing. 100 Years of Solitude is in my TOP 5, which also includes In the Skin of a Lion... I haven't read it in a long time but I LOVED it.
Wow you and Bub&Pie blow me away. This would take me hours to do.
Mary-Lue and CG: I'll give Marquez a try. Thanks!
Sandra: Perfect rainy day thing to do.
B&P and MT: Okay, I'll check it out.
Lisa: I don't know who these fools are!
The first thing that strikes me about this list is that there's three Steinbecks and NO Hemmingway. It's not like they discounted mid 20th century American Lit, so why no Ernest?
I've read alot of your "no thanks" list. I'd highly recommend The Fountainhead, it's easier than Atlas Shrugged as it is more character and less philosophically driven.
Interesting that Garp and Owen Meany are all that Irving has on that list... I would have expected Cider House Rules to be up there as well.
Disappointing omissions:
A Farewell To Arms (Hemmingway)
The Satanic Verses (Salman Rushdie)
Frannie And Zooey (Salinger)
Ape And Essence (Huxley)
Animal Farm (Orwell)
You can't read Tolstoy without reading Dostoevsky - and go for the short stories of both of these geniuses of literature before worrying about the quote-unquote great books like W&P.
And Dumas? Best rip-roaring page-turners of Western Lit. Why anyone would read Dan Brown instead of Dumas makes me weep for the demise of western civilization.
if i stand you up this weekend, it's because i'm on this.
and hbm - i respectfully disagree - it's very very easy to read tolstoy without ever turning a page of dostoevsky.
So much to say!
East of Eden: One of my favourite books. Ever.
The Mists of Avalon: On my top ten list for a desert island bookshelf, but I have a thing for the Arthurian legend.
Kite Runner: Shocked that I loved it. Highly recommend.
Tigana: Amazing Toronto writer, and this is one of my faves. If you're doing Canadian lit, then you should definitely check it out.
Is this too much info?
time traveller's wife and kite runner were both fabulous reads. i recommend these.
and Love in the time of Cholera was one of my most favorite books of all time. it touched me.
you've never heard of a tree grows in brooklyn? i can't believe it! AMAZING!
friend..i'll send you the alchemist if you want it.
this is freaking brilliant.
Another vote for reading Rebecca - it's a TERRIFIC book. I love pretty much everything DuMaurier wrote - she's very exciting.
The Time Traveller's Wife is one of my favorite books ever, and was it an Oprah book? I don't think it was, but even if, WELL worth reading.
sci-fi - so many glaring ommissions!
no mother: I'll check out Tigano and everything else on the red-faced list.
ali and beck - OK, I'll reconsider time traveller. I thought it was an Oprah book.
jen: I'll check it out! I can get it from the library, but thanks!
It's going to be a busy summer dudes.
That sure is a long list!!!
Oh geez. I've got some reading to do.
I'm so impressed. I must have been reading Harlequin romance novels or something. (something!)
I love this take on the book meme. It's fun to see what books people really love.
Hmph. I saw a list of "100 books you can't live without" (sorry, don't remember where) and "Pride and Prejudice" was number 1. (Of course.) "Can't live without" trumps "favourite book" anytime.
I am just jumping in to say - read the Time Traveler's Wife. Even though the whole book depends upon time travel, it is not really about time travel. It is one of those books that breaks your heart simply because you have finished reading it.
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