(no subject)

[sisabet]

The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed. Well, let's see.

1.) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2.) Italicize those you intend to read.
3.) Underline those you LOVE.
4.) Put an asterisk next to the books you'd rather shove hot pokers in your eyes than read.




01. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen - Probably my greatest book love. "Lost in Austen" gets me and is my personal Mary Sue and I loved Darcy before Colin Firth, but Firth made me lust for Darcy.
*02. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
03. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte - I read this when I was in 7th grade (I had a teacher who would give extra credit if you read a book off her list  and so I basically read sooo much that year and quit turning in homework. It worked out, mathematically, but then I got into trouble and it was a thing, but not nearly as bad as when I was sent to the Vice Principal's office for practicing witchcraft. No, that really happened. I blame Madeline L'Engle. It was her idea. Or something).  Anyway, I have reread this periodically since adulthood and this book? Seriously rapey. RUN JANE! RUN! Rochester is gonna lock you up in the attic, girl! RUN!
04. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling - This series. My heart.
05. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee - I loved this so much I remember getting into a fight at school over it. It was mostly only verbal so it doesn't top getting sent to the office because of the fist fight over "Where the Red Fern Grows" but it was close. Why yes, I did spend a lot of time in junior high getting sent to the principal's office. Why do you ask?
06. The Bible - if you send a kid to church camp every single summer until she is 13 and you don't allow any other reading material but the Bible? It is gonna get read and it will be read repeatedly. Also I am competitive at any trivia game and we had Bible Bowl. Yes, that is a real thing and yes, I am FIERCE at it. Also the Bible is kinda dirty and someone had to mark the relevant passages where ladies were dressing up like hookers and seducing their father-in-laws for the less literate fundie kids. I provided a public service (an aside: When my older sister was asked by the camp counselors, all really super sweet and sheltered Bible College kids, what her favorite story in the Bible was, she would ALWAYS tell them "The Whore of Babylon" and then proceed to describe it in graphic detail).
07. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte - I do not enjoy this book. I appreciate what is does, but I cannot stand how much popular culture romanticizes this story. Seriously? Am I reading the same thing? THIS IS EXACTLY HOW I FELT WHEN EVERYONE WAS ALL SPUFFY 4EVA! I can appreciate the trainwreck and sometimes trainwrecks are hot, but I just... So yeah.  One day I will buy this print and hang it on my wall and giggle every single time I pass it.
08. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
09. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman - never read it. It was probably on some "Do not let your children read this book" fundie list. Or maybe it came out when I was an adult. I keep seeing variations of this in fanfic *shrugs* Should I read it?
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens - This book was FRUSTRATING (the characters  were frustrating, the plot was not)  but has Miss Haversham and I love her. She is just like Delta Dawn!
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott - I get so much shit for not ever reading this book. I was waaay too into Laura Ingalls Wilder at the appropriate time to read Little Women and for some reason I think I somehow thought they were rivals and you had to pick a side. I don't even know, but that kinda primed me to take a side during the Biggie/Tupac beef and look how that turned out!
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy - I tried to read this. It was on the 7th grade list and I tried so hard but omg it was a chore. I was so upset that I stole the book and hid it in my closet and continually tried to read it on and off over the next 6 years. This book is one of my great failures and one of my biggest shames. This book made me commit crime!
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller - I was going to read it after I finished "Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack" in the 7th grade but then the boy who sat behind me said it was his favorite book and I could NOT STAND this kid so I was all "Fuck that shit" and moved on. The end. He also liked "The Crying of Lot 49" so that set up a Pychon prejudice that I am still working to overcome.
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare - the complete works seems like an awful lot of work to me. I feel I've read most of them. Who knows.
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier- attempted to read at several different points over the years but I always get distracted before it gets good. Does it get good? I assume so, since it is on this list.
*16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien - I attempted this book for the first time when I was a young teenager and just...no. I put it down, my brother picked it up and he loved it. My nephew loved it. I...I do not think it is for me. Also, I am having a really hard time with seeing Martin Freeman as a hobbit. It is fucking with my head and my ability to enjoy Sherlock slash.
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger - I wanted to read this when I was ten because I read a story about Mark David Chapman in People Magazine. My mother, bless her heart, for once decided to read something before I did.  She got through the first chapter before she decided it was totally inappropriate and I could not read it until I was 14. She put it up on a bookshelf and I would just stare at it. For 4 years. I have no IDEA why I actually listened to her and waited to read it but I did (I was not exactly an obedient child). I was so pissed after I read it. THIS WAS WHAT I HAD BEEN WAITING FOR? Later, this story would be repeated almost exactly, except instead of a book it would be my virginity. Nah, I'm just joking. Like I waited on my virginity. HA!
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger - yes this book is problematic but... killabeez recommended it to me in an airport bookstore and I got so into it that I almost missed my flight. Also? If a book makes me cry like a little baby, then it has to get full props from me. Yes, I know I cried at the end of "Magic Mike." What is your point? I AM NOT ALWAYS THAT EASY! Also Magic Mike had a tough life, you guys! IT IS REALLY HARD TO HAVE BAD CREDIT AND KILLER ABS.
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell - I was young and this was a sweeping romance with a not so nice lady. It worked for me. But speaking of Gone with the Wind, have you guys noticed that this list so far is really really white?
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens - only Dickens I haven't read. I have no explanation of the oversight. I will load this on my kindle straight away and as soon as there is a break in the Avenger's porn,  it'll be ready to go (but seriously, will there ever be a break in the Avenger's porn? I hope not).
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy - attempted. I've never been able to get through any Tolstoy. I'm like John Sheppard. I even used to be a Team Leader.
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams - awww
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky - I read this when I was feeling bad about not being able to get through Tolstoy. It possibly shaped my brain as I was, like, a young teenager.
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck - I've tried. I really really have tried. I just always give up and read Faulkner instead. Hey, how come there is no Faulkner on this list??? Or London. Not that I think London is the end all and be all, but he usually makes the list at least once.
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy- I tried but goddammit Tolstoy. Do you really need to use ALL the words? This is probably an unfair reaction. I think if I took Concerta or Ritalin I'd be able to get through this. Wait, are there sex scenes? I will read A LOT of stuff just to get to a sex scene. If AO3 history could only talk...
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis - church burned me out on CS Lewis but his essay on grief was so real, I really couldn't deal (read it right after my brother died), so I respect him as a writer.
34. Emma - Jane Austen - If Austen wrote it, I love it. End of story.
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen - see above
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis  - I actually had to read this for church. Religion sometimes takes the magic out of things.
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - oh god.
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving - I went through an Irving period in my early 20s.
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery - omg there was like a year where I read everything ever written or attributed to Montgomery. And then I discovered VC Andrews. So very different.
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood - super fucking disturbing. I read this when I was maybe 16 and I am still freaked out to this day.
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert - yeah, sorry. Watched the movie with my dad and it made me never want to ever read the books.
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen - MARIANNE YOU NEED TO LISTEN TO ELINOR!
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - This book is a fucker.You should read it.
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold - I hate this book. It also has a passage midway through (hint, there is a dog) that made me cry for a solid hour straight and it really tapped into some kind of real grief trigger for me so I feel it earned its underlined status.
65. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas .
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac - I tried, but this bored me to tears.
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy - Okay, so here is an open letter to Thomas Hardy:

      Dear Mr. Hardy,
      Fuck you! I realize that not everyone is as smart as you but seriously, fuck you! I don't wanna read your depressing ass novels                    anyway! There is not enough Celexa in the world that can make this alright.
      Sincerely,
      sisabet
I realize I have Hardy Issues. Luckily, I have no Hardy Boys issues and I just had a realization that there is probably a Hardy Boys Ship. Oh, god.

68. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville - So I tried to read this when I was still in junior high (it was on the list!) but I quickly became frustrated and put it down. My little brother snapped it up and read it and loved it and I realized either I was pretty dumb or my little brother was some kind of genius. Or he just had more patience with endless descriptive passages about whaling.
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens - my very favorite of all Dickens' novels.
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett - I am fairly certain I have not read this book purely out of spite.
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker - seriously this has been the whitest list ever. Wretching book but beautiful.
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro - I prefer "Never Let Me Go" but I really enjoy Ishiguro.
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White - I fucking read this entire book and it is about a spider and OMG I HATE SPIDERS but this was a book and it was in my house and before I was ten and the bookmobile lady started stopping at our home, I would read anything I could get my hands on. Even when it involved spiders. *shudder*
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle  - I really feel the sheer amount of Sherlock slash I have consumed should buy me points towards reading this. Anyway, I did read some ACD recently cause I ran out of Sherlock slash and I was on some downtime from The Avengers and wow. Still pretty slashy.
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad - read for credit and man I had to white-knuckle through it but then everything in the world continutally referenced it and so I was grateful that I slogged through it. My BFF based her Master's thesis on this book so you know... different strokes for different folks.
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks - I can't say I loved it but holy crap that book was disturbing and I actually at one point threw it across the room, so it did elicit an emotional reaction from me...
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams - HINT: if you give this book to a child under ten under the assumption that a book about rabbits is fine for a little kid? They are gonna be all SHOCKED by the rabbit-porn.
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas - I read this for extra credit in junior high.
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl - I probably should underline this, but I can't remember loving it. I enjoyed it.
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo - when I was in 7th grade the musical was coming to Louisville which was about two hours from my hometown and I wanted nothing more than for my mother to take me to see it. I campaigned HARD and part of that campaign was reading the book because I felt it would show my mother I was serious about this. It did not work, but hey - I discovered Hugo! Eventually, almost exactly a decade later, my mother decided my family needed "culture" and this was the play we should all go and see. The day of the show she bailed so it was my father and brother, and me and my sisters. My brother and father sneaked out during intermission and went to King Fish for some crab legs. Dawn and I got into a brawl afterwards in the parking lot and then we went for pizza. So yeah. Classy. Oh, and I kept having to explain to my father that, no, they are not actually singing in French. He has a hearing aid now.

Comments

[tripleransom.livejournal.com]

Hey, Shakespeare is on this list twice. Seriously, If you read 14 the complete works of, you/ve already read 98 Hamlet.

Catcher in the Rye has to be my un-favorite book in. the. whole. universe. Stupid Holden Caulfield and his stupid grey hairs. And I actually liked both Lord of the Rings and Little Women!

I'm impressed with your achievement, but I'm way too lazy to type up my own list.

[jackiekjono.livejournal.com]

Right there with you on Lord of the Rings. hot pokers. YES!

Don't feel too bad about not making it through Tess. The way I see it, Thomas Hardy took possession of Russell Davies around the end of Season two torchwood. If you saw any part of Children of Earth, or the whole Donna arc of Dr. Who, it counts ans having read Tess and Jude the obscure back to back.

[movies-michelle.livejournal.com]

Okay, your comments about Les Miz cracked me up, as I saw the first production in Louisville with my high school French class. No brawls, though.

(Also, I made my family take me to King Fish when I was visiting back there last time, because I wanted some freaking fried catfish!)

[in_excelsis_dea.livejournal.com]

I had to read On the Road and Catcher in the Rye and hated them both. Catcher in the Rye is the type of YA novel that pisses me off SO MUCH, with all the whining and woe-is-me that really is unsubstantiated. And I thought I'd love On the Road because I love road trips and it was supposed to be great, but it was SO BORING.

I loved His Dark Materials as a teen, but it's been ages since I read it (probably a decade to be honest). There just was a post on bookfails about it, and apparently some of the symbolism is a bit troublesome to the adult reader. But it's often considered the anti-Narnia, because it's pretty dang anti-religion. So I guarantee it was on a "don't let your children read this" fundie list.

I actually haven't read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (because to be honest I find the plot boring and never liked the movies so I had no urge to go and read it as a teen/adult) and for some reason, I associate Roahld Dahl with headaches. I mean, I adored The Witches, and yet I remember reading it with a headache. Same with Matilda and Fantastic Mr. Fox and several other books of his -- I enjoyed them, yet I seemingly always had a headache, so it makes me wary to pick up his books. I have no idea why they induced headaches, since I remember reading them in all sorts of places, with copies from the library and copies I owned, and it wasn't the "I hate this book, it gives me a headache" pain, because I adored them. But I just...

[vonniek.livejournal.com]

Fucking Hardy. I decided he was a miserable bastard who must have hated to see anyone happy. Well, OK, I'll give him a break for Far from Madding Crowd -- that one can stay. I didn't get around to reading Jude the Obscure but unfortunately had the chance to see the film adaptation starring Christopher Eccleston and Kate Winslet (because! Winslet and Eccleston! These are actors I enjoy watching!) *without any foreknowledge of what the story was about* and was absolutely traumatized afterward. Gah!

[nestra.livejournal.com]

DO NOT READ JUDE. I realize it's already too late, since you saw the movie, but still.

[vonniek.livejournal.com]

I don't know how Jude the book could be more psychologically scarring than the film (Hardy probably found a way though) because... there were visuals! Seared into my brain! I would have walked out of the theater except it was during a film festival and the theater was full (full of people who were likely reeling in horror as I was!)

I did managed to make my way through Tess. I was an impressionable 17 year-old and had several years of "ALL MEN ARE PIGS" period afterward. I blame Hardy. AND HIS STUPID FACE.

[jackiekjono.livejournal.com]

I did the same thing with jude the obscure. I was expecting something Jane Austeny from the cover and got trauma piled on pain piled on more trauma.

"For we are too many." GAH!

[renenet.livejournal.com]

"Done because we are too menny"

too many, too men-ny (too human)...get it?

Jude the Obscure reveals bourgeois Victorian culture, with its emphasis on tradition and religion, for the soul-crushing, humanity-destroying monster that it was. Thomas Hardy was rad, man!

[klia.livejournal.com]

I was lured into watching the film by Eccleston and Winslet, too, and OMFG, I can still see that scene -- you know the one -- and hear Winslet's distraught screams.

Scarred for life.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

Someone on my DW flist reads Watership Down for the first time (http://whatistigerbalm.dreamwidth.org/118811.html).

[barkley.livejournal.com]

Tess of the D'Urbervilles is my shame too!!! It's the one book I never finished for school and read the cliff notes for and I think my parents even let me watch a movie of it. I just couldn't finish it and I still feel shame to this day. (Not enough to make me go back and read it or engage in a life of crime for it, so perhaps your shame is larger.)

[littleheaven70.livejournal.com]

Well, I made it to 12 - although some of them are 7 book series, so technically that's more.

My parents took me to Watership Down thinking it was a nice cartoon about bunnies. All I can remember is crying so hard they had to remove me from the theatre, and I've been traumatized by it ever since. To this day I refuse to watch or read it. I am with Anya on the whole bunny thing.