Here are the instructions:
Look at the list of books below. Bold the ones you’ve read, italicize the ones you want to read, cross out the ones you wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole, put a cross in front of the ones on your bookshelf, and asterisk* the ones you’ve never heard of.
- +The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
- +Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
- +To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
- Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
- +The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
- +The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
- +The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
- Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
- Outlander* (Diana Gabaldon)
- +A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
- +Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
Angels and Demons(Dan Brown)- +Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
- +A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
- Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
- +Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
- Fall on Your Knees* (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
- The Stand* (Stephen King)
- +Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban(Rowling)
- +Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte9
- +The Hobbit (Tolkien)
- +The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
- Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
- +The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
- +Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
- +The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
- Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
- The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
- East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
- Tuesdays with Morrie* (Mitch Albom)
- Dune (Frank Herbert)
- The Notebook* (Nicholas Sparks)
- Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
- 1984 (Orwell)
- The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
- +The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
- The Power of One* (Bryce Courtenay)
- I Know This Much is True* (Wally Lamb)
- The Red Tent* (Anita Diamant)
- The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
- The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
- The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
- Confessions of a Shopaholic* (Sophie Kinsella)
The Five People You Meet In Heaven(Mitch Albom)- +Bible
- Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
- The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
- +Angelas Ashes (Frank McCourt)
- The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
- She’s Come *(Wally Lamb)
- The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
- +A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
- Ender’s Game* (Orson Scott Card)
- +Great Expectations (Dickens)
- +The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
- The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
- +Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
- The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
- +The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
- +Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
- Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky) [half bold, could never finish it]
- +The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
- +War and Peace (Tolstoy)
- Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
- +Fifth Business (Robertson Davis) [I’ve lost track of how many times]
- One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
- The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants* (Ann Brashares)
- Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
- Les Miserables (Hugo)
- +The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
- +Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
- Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
- Shogun (James Clavell)
- The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
- The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
- The Summer Tree* (Guy Gavriel Kay)
- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
- +The World According To Garp (John Irving)
- The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
- Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
- Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
- Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
- Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
- Wizard’s First Rule* (Terry Goodkind)
- +Emma (Jane Austen)
- Watership Down (Richard Adams)
- Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
- +The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
- Blindness (Jose Saramago)
- Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
- +In The Skin Of A Lion (Michael Ondaatje)
- Lord of the Flies (Golding)
- The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
- The Secret Life of Bees* (Sue Monk Kidd)
- The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
- The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
- +White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
A Woman of Substance(Barbara Taylor Bradford)- The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
- +Ulysses (James Joyce) [well, I’ve read the first 40 pages a few times …]
Found over on Reed’s blog. 
casa azahar 
Does anyone recommend any of the books on the list I haven’t read?
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As you can imagine – I would recommend 42 The Kite Runner.
28 – The Lion the witch . . . I bought the set years ago (having read them as a child) thinking that my kids, if I ever had them, would like them. They don’t but I re-read them regularly. The other books in the series do help to make some sense of it as well.
31 – Dune – I re-read this one regularly as well. It is probably the best in the series, though I haven’t read any of the ones not by FranK Herbert.
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Enders Game is quite good. SF. I hardly read any SF these days, but I remember the original novella when it came out in Analog magazine when I was a teenager.
The Outsiders – SE Hinton is a talented writer for young teens. Frances Ford C made a bit of a hash of the movie of this one – but his ‘Rumblefish’ is one of my all-time favourite movies. (SEH has a cameo as a hooker).
I have to say – I find it a rather uninspiring list. There’s nothing on it that makes me think “I really must…”. But it covers all the greats: Catcher…; Catch-22; Grapes…; …Mockingbird; …Prejudice.
There’s a couple in your and my ‘reddit’ category which I wouldn’t touch with a bargepole. LoTR, obviously. And I don’t know how anyone can stomach seeing not one but two TWO! Ayn Rand titles on one list. Her books should not be tossed aside lightly; they must be thrown with great force.
Dusty Yevsky – maybe try another of his? The Idiot, perhaps. Or Karamazov. Very worthwile.
And, yes…I really must keep trying with Ulysses.
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Oh my goodness, I recommend you read ‘Emma’ immediately!!! You’ll love it, its definitely her best – well, I think so. Ah, Mr Knightley *sigh*
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Well, I reckoned that with those I had already read it was a bit late to say I wouldn’t touch them with a bargepole (for example – The Da Vinci Code).
I’ve read The Brothers Karamazov and quite enjoyed it. I also think I’ve read The Idiot but now can’t remember it at all.
Nog says Dune is best read before you’re 20; I’d say the same about LOTR.
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I’ve just taken down my copy of Emma and there is a bookmark between pages 194-195. I have no idea if I started reading it at some point and only got that far or if someone (well, me) just stuck a bookmark in it. In any case, I’ll read that one next, I think. I’d actually forgotten that I had it.
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Pingback: The “I have read” meme « Archies Archive
Quick, easy reads that are totally satisfying — Little Women and the Secret Garden. Both wonderful girls stories. And everyone needs to read Ender’s Game. Probably perfect SF.
I did this list before I “met” you, my dear Az. Here it is. Not many changes. I went on to read To Kill a Mockingbird, and to finally watch the movie Gone with the Wind. 🙂
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Yeah…LoTR should be read if at all when under 20. If anyone is caught reading it after that age, I recommend Howard Jacobson’s tactic for dealing with adults seen reading Harry Potter in public. Sidle up to somewhere near them and say, soto voce, “They ought to be ashamed!”
I think I read LoTR because one was meant to. Something of a rite of passage, I guess, and marginally preferable to circumcision.
Emma – I can’t really get on with any of the Brontesority, I’m afraid. I much prefer Jane Austen.
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Well, according to this bookcover here, Emma was written by Jane Austen. Gosh, I hope I didn’t actually read 195 pages of it and stick it back on the bookshelf (otherwise it might happen again).
I’ve read LOTR after I was 20 too – a few times. But I think reading it the first time before that age leaves you with feelings and memories of it you might not form as an adult.
And I’d actually pity the poor soul who would dare sidle up to me in public and criticise my reading material. 😉
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Just found your comment 8 in my Askimet file, Lori … aha, so you’ve done the list before! This means I’ll have to tag someone else. Well Nog seemed interested in doing it, and maybe Ivan would too, if he can put his new camera down for awhile.
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My god! I’m mortified! I momentatrily confused it with Jayne Eyre. Blame premature senility. Or just stupidity.
Hmm…this means that I’ve possibly forgotten how good LoTR is…
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Or even Jane Eyre.
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Az, I’ll put my version of the list up later. In the meantime, if anyone suggests that you read any Bryce Courtenay, you might want to consider sticking pins in your eyes as an alternative.
OK, maybe that’s a bit harsh. He’s prolific, and has a devoted following, but he’s also a skilled self-publicist and that’s enough to make me quite keen not to pick up any of his stuff. He’s also said a few things that teeter on the edge of ‘bigoted’.
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For Bryce Courtney — read The Power of One, and stop there!! Do not read the supposed sequel, Tandia. But read the Power of One. Really great book. I’ve tried some of his others…no go. Not interesting.
The Power of One is one of my two favourite books of all time…that and Keri Hulme’s The Bone People.
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Oh boy! Two completely different opinions from people whose opinions I value – this means I’m gonna have to check it out for myself. And to think I’d never even heard of this book or author.
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So…now there are a number of possible outcomes:
a) You read it. You hate it. You go off lori.
b) You read it. You love it. You go off Ivan.
c) You conveniently forget about it…and nobody gets hurt.
Apathy is an underrated virtue! 🙂
You obviously don’t respect my opinion, though…I mean, I don’t even like all that elf shit. Good! I’d be mortified if anyone were to look to me as an arbiter of taste.
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Ah, but Ivan and Lori are both talking about a book I haven’t read yet (or even heard about until the other day). But their two quite opposite opinions have piqued my interest to read it for myself and form my own opinion.
As for you not liking ‘elf shit’, well, I do respect that as being your opinion. But my opinion of the Tolkien books clearly differs from yours. I find them very enjoyable fantasy. Didn’t like the films much though (too much showing off with computer generated fight scenes, not enough emphasis on the story, characters, etc).
Hey, I couldn’t stand Sheri Teppler’s Raising The Stones, but that didn’t make me go off Nog. 🙂
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There’s another option…
d) You read some other book by Bryce Courtney. You hate it. Your opinion of lori and Ivan’s sound literary judgement is reinforced.
😀
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Ooooh … yer basic win/win situation! 😉
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I like to maintain the self-delusion that my opinionation is part of my charm.
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Ah, well you might be interested in opinionating on my next post then (coming up any minute now…).
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