Sunday, February 22, 2009

The Big Read, How Many Have YOU Read?

I was over "meeting" a new follower and I found this post on her blog and was intrigued by it. You know it's the teacher in me coming out. I know I say I only read history books now a days so I thought I'd do pretty poorly, but was still interested to see how well rounded of a reader I am. I did better than I thought, but I do wonder how they came up with this listing, a lot of the books are classics and while I liked reading Da Vinci Code, I don't think anyone would argue that it's in the same category as say Hamlet. This can't be a list of the 100 books written!

The Big Read, an initiative by the National Endowment for the Arts, has estimated that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed. How do you do?

  • Look at the list and color those you have read.
  • Italicize those you intend to read.
  • Remark on the books you LOVE.
    1. The Book List:

      1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
      2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien: LOVE these, on my all time favorites list and was obsessed by the movies
      3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte: another all time favorite book, even enjoy the sometime horrendous movie versions - do like the one with William Hurt by my fave is the Masterpiece Theater one.
      4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling: These were great and as soon as a new one came out I'd have to stop everything and read it through in a day! Are they the world's best literature, probably not but they did get millions of kids reading and I'm all for that!
      5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
      6. The Bible: Have never read it the whole way through but have read major portions of it, I'm counting it, oddly all those shows on the History channel is what got me into it!
      7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
      8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell: assigned in high school
      9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
      10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
      11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott: Hasn't every little girl, read this followed by Little Men?
      12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
      13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
      14. Complete Works of Shakespeare: I've read almost all of them so I am counting this one
      15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier: Discovered this one in high school and it's a frequent reread
      16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien: Read this years before the Lord of the Ring trilogy
      17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
      18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
      19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
      20. Middlemarch - George Eliot .
      21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
      22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
      23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
      24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy: But why did I bother?
      25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
      26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh.
      27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
      28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
      29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll: Really did enjoy this, a lot more sophisticated that people realize
      30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame: Mr. Toad's Wild Ride at Disney was a big hit with me when little because of this book, although it seemed a lot faster and exciting back then than it did when I went back as an adult.
      31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
      32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
      33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis: Not only have I read them, I have the delux illustrated hardbound edition.
      34. Emma - Jane Austen
      35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
      36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis: Actually my least favorite out of the bunch
      37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
      38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres: Wasn't this a movie with Penelope Cruz?
      39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden: facinated by geisha and that whole way of life
      40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne: Oh yes and now rediscovering it with our little one
      41. Animal Farm - George Orwell4
      42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown: Interesting how he tied in bits of history and made it all very convincing, but really it's a FICTION people, a fun read but NOT history! It's a page turner, try the big illustrated version if your library has it, it's great to read it and see pictures of the works of art and places being mentioned at the same time.
      43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
      44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
      45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
      46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery -My favorite children's series, hands down. Loved each and every one, watched the Canadian production, and plan to visit P.E. Island.
      47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
      48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
      49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding: Forced to read in school, really didn't like it
      50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
      51. Life of Pi -Yann Martel
      52. Dune - Frank Herbert
      53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
      54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
      55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
      56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
      57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens: Another high school read, made it through it because of the French Revolution tie in, a period that interest me. Not my favorite 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: maybe I'll get to this one day
      61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
      62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
      63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
      64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold: I could not get past the premise
      65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas: Great
      66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac: How'd I manage to avoid this one
      67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
      68. Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding: Quite fun and light
      69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
      70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville- I can appreciate this book.
      71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
      72. Dracula - Bram Stoker: Stoker was on to something, even though this kind of thing normally creeps me out, it also facinates me and keeps bringing me back to read it again and again
      73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett: Have read and enjoyed many, many, times and still have my childhood copy
      74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
      75. Ulysses - James Joyce
      76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath: I feel like I should have had to read this, how I'd I manage to avoid getting this assigned in high school?
      77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
      78. Germinal - Emile Zola7
      79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
      80. Possession - AS Byatt: Yes go out and read now if you haven't
      81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
      82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
      83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
      84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro: Some find this slow but I really like it, but then again I also like slow British movies like the one based on the book, Howard's End, etc.
      85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert: Read part but didn't finish, can't remember why
      86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
      87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White-
      88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
      89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Yes and my copy is all dog eared!
      90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
      91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
      92. The Little Prince- Antoine De Saint-Exupery
      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
      98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
      99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl: And all his other brilliant books!
      100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

      When I first read over the list quickly at the other blog, I thought I only had forty or so, but upon going over each and everyone, that makes 60 for me and the number's not likely to change any time soon unless the list is updated, so even if you take off the ones that I don't technically have like all of Shakespeare that is still more than half so I'm better read than I thought. I do have to give credit to Mrs. Collins and Mrs. Wagner who are partially responsible as they made me read several back in the day!

      How about you? How many have you read? If I haven't read it and you think I should, convince me!

      11 Friends Said:

      k-e-household said...

      Quick count: I have read 21 of these. I read a LOT and have been picking up oldies recently. My most favorite book of all time: Fall on your knees, by Ann Marie McDonald.

      Cheryl said...

      Wow. That's the most I've seen of the people I know who have done this now. You are a well rounded reader!

      Katie said...

      Wow, I've always considered myself quite a reader. I guess I am not so good with classics. (What am I reading you ask??) Anyway, quick count I've only read 14 of these - crazy! I will admit that I've started several of them and not finished, so I can't count those...

      Tonja said...

      WOW! I wish I had the time to read that much... I love to read!

      Katie said...

      Well this is how many off the list I've read in a lifetime, many I read years ago!

      Tonja said...

      I just wanted to stop by and say thank you for the comments on my page.
      I love to scrapbook! But for some reason I tend to always put it off and then nothing gets done.
      I look forward to getting to know you better and sharing/getting lots of craft ideas with you :-)

      Vickie said...

      The only book on this list you haven't read that I read was "Brave New World" I didn't think it was a must read. Besides it was one of the school books in high school.

      Couldn't get into "Emma". Only read half of it.

      "Jane Eyre" is on my to read list. I saw the PBS movie version last year and loved it. A few months later I saw the William Hurt version. It was okay. Didn't knock my socks off.

      Patty said...

      That is quite a list. There are definitely some books I still want to read. Thanks for posting it.

      I'm new to your blog. I'm also a teacher. I teach second grade.

      Amanda @ www.kiddio.org said...

      Oh, dear, I'm well behind you....so far behind, in fact, that I don't even want to count. I'd better get cracking if I still want to consider myself to be a well-educated/-read person! (It's at least in the double digits, though, and you've totally made me want to go and re-read Grapes of Wrath. Oh, what a book).

      xo, Amanda @ www.kiddio.org / www.housemade.org

      Sheila said...

      I've read 72 of the books on the list, but I have to confess that I have an MA in English. But surprisingly, many of the books weren't read as assignments in college or high school.

      My all-time, all-time favorite is On The Road by Jack Kerouac. I highly recommend it. Also, loved The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom. It's a tear jerker.

      RoS said...

      I have read 27 books and saw quite a few more, either as a film or a PBS Masterpiece Theater presentation. But the book is always better!!!

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