I've been memed again

[aelfgyfu_mead]

And it's aurora_novarum's fault again. I must say, as soon as I saw the list, before I even read what she wrote, I thought, "Crud, can't do the tv one and not the book one!"

I will take a shortcut this time, however, and reorder the list.

The instructions go:
"The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed.
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you started but did not finish.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them."

I'm putting them in categories instead.

HAVE READ
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (have taught, too)
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 (yes, I've read the whole thing--the Catholic Bible. I haven't read what Catholics consider Apocrypha, but some of what Protestants do)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (read but didn't like it)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger (not so impressed)
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (soooo depressing--yes, I am that shallow)
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (depressing!)
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (Why is this separate from #33?)
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (and a couple of the sequels)
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding (srsly depressing!)
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
52 Dune - Frank Herbert (the whole series--read the Herbert ones, but not his son's)
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen (now I can't remember if I've read it or just seen it!)
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (not certain I read them all)
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (have taught, too)
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (Another repeat!) (have taught, too)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

STARTED BUT NOT FINISHED
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (have read at least 2/3 of them, and seen a few performed that I haven't read. Have taught several plays plus the Sonnets)
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (found it annoying. Really, really annoying.)
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
75 Ulysses - James Joyce (actually, I didn't start at the beginning; I've read excerpts)
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

READ AN ABRIDGED VERSION (in French)
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

HAVEN'T READ
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen (seen 34 & 35 but not read. Yes, I'm embarrassed. They're on the To Read list--and have been for years. But hey, I've read Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park!)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
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 (I think it's somewhere in the house, which means it's sort of on the To Read list. I've read Satanic Verses and Ground Beneath Her Feet)
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
80 Possession - AS Byatt
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
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

NEVER HEARD OF
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

LOVE
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (loved as a teen, not so much anymore)
6 The Bible (Do I "love" the Bible? I read it daily, but I'm not sure it's the same thing)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (loved as a teen, not so much anymore)
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (loved as a kid, shouldn't revisit)
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (and a couple of the sequels)
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons (and I liked the movie with Kate Beckinsale and the ever-wonderful Rufus Sewell)
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen (now I can't remember if I've read it or just seen it!)
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

Yep--this way is faster, even with all the parenthetical comments.

Of course, the Top 100 don't include such must-reads as:
Beowulf-Beowulf-poet
Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde-Geoffrey Chaucer
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight-Pearl-poet, AKA Gawain-poet
Morte Darthur-Thomas Malory
They seem to have an anti-medieval bias!

Comments

[delphia2000.livejournal.com]

I came up with having read 52 of those. However...JMHO...lots of those were 'popular' not 'great' and I don't read 'popular'. I did spend one summer in my teens reading thru a list of what were considered the classics or great books, so I've read a lot of classic (well-written) books that weren't on that list.

Besides, no Conrad Richter or Pearl Buck? Blasphemy!

[aelfgyfu_mead]

Yeah, I think it's a popular titles list, so an odd mix of classics that students must read and recent, popular items. (I have no desire to read The Da Vinci Code; I'm sure I'd gnash my teeth, and I don't need that right now.)

It does seem pretty eccentric to me--especially since the Chronicles of Narnia is one item and TLTWATW (LWW? There's an abbreviation for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe but it escapes me!) another, and Complete Works of Shakespeare is one and Hamlet another.

[aurora-novarum.livejournal.com]

Oh! I've read your Medieval list!

Well, I've read a version of Trolius, I'm not sure if it was Chaucer's or not. But yes to the others.

I've read all seven of the Green Gables sequels. Someday, I'm getting up to Prince Edward Island too. I swear I am!

And btw, sure...blame me for everything! :-p Heh.

[aelfgyfu_mead]

If you didn't read Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, I think you must have read Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde; I don't believe there are too many others out there (unless it was in Italian or Latin). That's my short list of the Greatest Hits of the Middle Ages that Everyone Should

I could never get one or two of the Anne books, and now I've forgotten what I have read.

sure...blame me for everything!
Yes! In fact it's your fault I'm on LJ right now instead of doing the Old Norse I sat down to do! Eh, it's been around several centuries; it will wait two more minutes.

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

Must read Wind in the Willows - SC would love it! and his Dark Materials is slightly anti-religious, but it reminds me of a more 'updated' CS Lewis type of whimsy...

Of course, we see where my priorites lie...

*Laughs*

*hugs*

[aelfgyfu_mead]

Yes, I don't know how I missed Wind in the Willows in the first place. His Dark Materials is on the "probably read sometime" list, but it's a very long list.

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

It will be worth the wait - but it IS more of a 'mood' type of book...

*hugs*

[loriel-eris.livejournal.com]

See, this list I'm pretty close to doing. *g*

I love The Faraway Tree! In fact, if Enid Blyton wrote, you pretty much don't have to do any convincing to get me to read it. (There is a lot I haven't read, but mostly because there's a lot and as a child I kinda had to priorities the spending and now my priorities are elsewhere and bookshelf space is at a premium. *g*)

Anne - There's part of me that went, when I read this (or a comment above?), "Oh god, I have to get copies of the whole series and send to aelfgyfu_mead!" Yes, that is how much I love them and am convinced others should read them. *headdesk*

It's really cool to see what other people have read. This lis kinda depressing tho. There's a ton of books (classics) on here that I keep meaning to read, but have never got around to.

[aelfgyfu_mead]

I haven't read Enid Blyton--I should look for her (when I get through the rest of the have to read/want to read list, so sometime in the next century).

There's a ton of books (classics) on here that I keep meaning to read, but have never got around to.
Ah, but the great thing is that there's still plenty of time!

[loriel-eris.livejournal.com]

I loved Enid Blyton as a kid, and I thoroughly enjoy it now. But I don't know how much is because I loved as a kid, and how much of it survives to adulthood.

What I will say is that you have to switch off your 20th Century Woman Inner Voice. I never noticed this, either as a kid (too naive/oblivious) nor as an adult (I get back into kid frame of mind/read them as I read them as a kid), but EB can be quite... sexist? stereotypical? most of the time. I don't think that's quite the right word, but given that I'm completely oblivious to it, I'm not the best judge. I don't do anything EB related on the web, but in looking for book lists, I have seen some commentary by fans, and they can be very critical, mostly of the way she treats the girls.

I honestly don't see it, or perhaps it'd be more correct to say that it doesn't bother me. Mostly because I read these as taking part in a bygone era (and I was completely oblivious as a kid) and for me, that's part of the time. However, I realise that if your first reading is as an adult, it might come as a bit of a (unpleasant) surprise.

All that being said, EB writes adventures, and yes, her attitudes aren't the most enlightened, but I think that sometimes people forget that she wrote about girls having adventures. (And god, I don't care how unenlightened she was, her characters, boys and girls, get to do stuff that kids nowadays would never get the chance to do.)

[I honestly didn't mean to get so wordy...]

[aelfgyfu_mead]

What writers before the twentieth century are not prejudiced in one or more ways? I try to be careful holding earlier writers to later standards.

people forget that she wrote about girls having adventures. (And god, I don't care how unenlightened she was, her characters, boys and girls, get to do stuff that kids nowadays would never get the chance to do.)
I may have to look into her!

[loriel-eris.livejournal.com]

Oh! I completely forget that not everyone knows (in a general way) what EB writes! Seriously, it's adventures! And ok, there's an element of implausibility - kids always seem to come across Bad Guys and then Beat The Bad Guys (but then, it's like Harry Potter - if he wasn't having all these adventures, we wouldn't be writing about him!) However, at the same time it is strangely plausible, the scenarios are not stupidly outrageous, especially when you take into account the time.

The children are all very independent - they make decisions, the do the right thing (morally), adults aren't involved with their adventures. One scene I remember is the Famous Five going on holiday by themselves - they packed up their bikes and cycled and found places to camp, and then obviously had An Adventure Involving Bad Guys, but I always remember that they went away on their own, and not just on a train from A to B with someone looking out for them, but entirely on their own. (I think the oldest is 14/15 and the youngest 10/11. Or at least, that's always been the impression I got.)

The other one I adore is The Secret Island. The 4 kids run away together and live on an island a la Robinson Crusoe. And the girls have to learn to sew to patch their clothes, and they have to catch rabbits and skin them, gut them and cook them. They have to figure out how to survive winter on the island. They have to figure out how to get the stuff from shore that they need. It's just awesome. Most of my love of this book comes from the skills that these kids have that today's kids wouldn't even be aware of much less know.

Obviously, not all her books are adventures like this, but even the school series (Malory Towers and St Claire's) are still adventures, just of a different sort, and the kids in all over the books are independent. For me, EB hits the same buttons for me as post apocalyptic fic - for the most part, apocafic isn't about the disaster, but how people survive after. And while there isn't the same 'fight for survival' aspect in the books, the characters have that independence, and skill sets that I would kill for (and that you usually only see in apocafic. *g*).

One last hint - if you can, try and find old editions. Partly because, oh god, at least in this country the news covers make me want to throw up), but mostly because I think they've been PC'ified. Not majorly, but kinda like the first HP books were Americanised. And in some cases, the kids names changed (see the updates section on the wiki entry for The Magic Faraway Tree for an example. I'm pretty sure they changed others.).

Oh god, I really need to haul out all my EB books and stop waffling on in your comments.

[redbyrd-sgfic.livejournal.com]

I quite liked both His Dark Materials and The Davinci Code, but you might find them objectionable on religious (Pullman) and historical (Brown) grounds.

The plot of the Davinci Code is ridiculous, of course, but it's well-structured and has puzzles, and generally is designed to be too fast-paced to let you think about it a lot. It appeals to people who like thrillers, principally.

And the first of the Pullman trilogy is both by far the best and the one with the least overt religious content (I didn't know there was any religious aspect to the story when I read it, in fact.)

[aelfgyfu_mead]

Yes, Pullman has been recommended to me by a few people, and I do mean to get around to him--when I get around to him....

I probably ought to read The DaVinci Code if only because so many of my students have, but I have three reasons why I don't:
1) as I understand it, from my brother and others, the book is heavily anti-Catholic. I am just sick to death of hearing that Catholics are either conspirators hiding The Real Truth from the world and even their co-religionists or idiots unaware that The Real Truth is being hidden from them. I have been accused of the latter personally. (Yes, I know far worse things are said about Jews and Muslims. When they are, many non-Jews and non-Muslims respond appropriately! I know I have--and been personally attacked for that. When somebody says that Catholics are evil or stooges of the pope, I don't see others coming to our defense very often.)
2) the history. Oh, yes, the history. And some students will prefer Dan Brown's version no matter what evidence is amassed against it. But hey, I shouldn't be surprised. I once taught a class where we read an entire book about The Gettysburg Address, mostly debunking myths about it, and I had a student who argued loud and long that all the documentation in the world would never convince him that the Address was NOT hastily scrawled out on the back of an envelope with no other thinking or planning. I had to give up on him. It was a waste of time to argue, and the other students didn't want to hear it.
3) the Grail. In a way, this grinds me most of all! Here we have this wonderful myth with a fascinating history: it starts as a Celtic (non-Christian) myth, probably about a stone, then seems to evolve into a basin. It gradually gets Christianized. A lot of fascinating work has been done in the area, there are people who have built careers on this study--and Dan Brown ignores it totally. Okay, he has an axe to grind against Catholics; I don't like that, but I'm used to it. Okay, he takes liberties with history; all historical novelists do. But wrecking one of the best myths to emerge from the Middle Ages? Now that's criminal. I sometimes teach Chrétien de Troyes's Perceval, one of those liminal Grail stories that shows pagan hitting Christian. There's a part that virtually all scholars agree is interpolated where a monk appears virtually out of nowhere and tells Perceval exactly what the Grail means in Christian terms. I used to be able to have fun with this: students almost invariably skip the endnotes and don't realize it's an interpolation, so I start out with, "Anyone notice anything odd about this bit? Let's read it out loud." Even in (Old French verse to Modern English prose) translation, it has a whole different tone. Fascinating discussions ensued, once upon a time.

Now I get students conditioned to think that the later interpolation was the original meaning of the Grail. Some read the first appearance of the basin(?) and the bleeding lance as related to the Crucifixion, so they see nothing different or interesting about the interpolation, and it's an uphill battle to get them to see that there are really two very different versions in the same text, and to think about how texts change when there's no copyright and a very different understanding of authorship and everything is hand-copied so there is no one authoritative version of the text.

So I ought to read it if only to have a really good grasp of what to expect from some of my students. I resent him mucking about with so many things that I care about, though--and insisting half or more of the time that it's all scrupulously researched and not fiction. Students often believe him, and I suppose I should welcome the teachable moment of pointing out that his insistence it's not fiction is part of the fiction and contradicts some of his other statements, but obviously he has really gotten my goat.