Saturday, August 2, 2008

THE BIG READ (stolen from Morgan Drake)

This fun list came from another blog written by Morgan Drake, and I have to say I found it a fun list of good reading, something for everyone in it.

Big Read Top One Hundred
"The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed." So check the list and 1) Look at the list and bold/colorize those you have read.2) Post the list on your site.(This can also remind you of some great books to read.)
  1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen *
  2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien *
  3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte *
  4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (well, I read the first two books of the series)
  5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee *
  6. The Bible (some, huh?)7
  7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte *
  8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell *
  9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
  10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens *
  11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott *
  12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
  13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller *
  14. Complete Works of Shakespeare*
  15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier*
  16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien *
  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 *
  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 *
  30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame *
  31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy ***
  32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens ***
  33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis ***
  34. Emma - Jane Austen ***
  35. Persuasion - Jane Austen ***
  36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis ***
  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 ***
  44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
  45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
  46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery ***
  47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
  48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood ***
  49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding ***
  50. Atonement - Ian McEwan ***
  51. ife 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*
  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
  61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck*
  62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
  63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt*
  64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold ***
  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*
  70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville*
  71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens ***
  72. Dracula - Bram Stoker ***
  73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett ***
  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 ***
  84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro*
  85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert ***
  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 ***
  90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
  91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad92
  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 ***
  100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Well darn seems I have read less than half of the above list---spending to much time sucking up all the "Who dunits" I guess. (I didn't count the titles above that I hadn't read the book ,but HAD seen the movie---that would be cheating)

7 comments:

  1. I will not be able to post that list. Why you ask? I'm too embarrassed to. I've read just TWO books on that list..the Bible and Charlote's Web. Sad huh? If ya just let me count the MOVIES that were made from some of these books I'd have a much better showing!

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  2. Oh I am definitely going to do this one.
    Probably on Tuesday as I have Monday's blog finished already.
    I will make sure I link back to you.

    Bear((( )))

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  3. WELL there ya go Sue, we got at least acouple books in common, and I would wager to say a big bunch of movies---how about posting your nomination for the Best Movie of all Time----??

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  4. Almost half the list is pretty good Gary. I think I came in around 30%+. Does it count extra if I read some of them more than once?

    Actually I'm a bit surprised that the 'average' adult has read 6 of those books. I think many of them probably just read the Classic Comic version or maybe saw the movie. I'm sure some of them were required reading along the way, but many people probably just got through a few chapters and then went to the Cliff Notes version.

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  5. Baker Watson: Your observations of most readers is pretty much on the money. Kids today (and I use the term kids as defining everybody younger than me, its not meant as a put down), are not into "reading", everything is digital, visual, graphic, 30 second sound bites---the art of reading is fading. Its a sad thing-----in my opinion---and its one of the reasons I am so anti-"reality" tv---programs requiring no writers-----"They" have succeeded in dumbing us down and being content with the pretty colored pictures-----.

    Gary (aka old dude)
    http://threescoreplusten.blogspot.com/

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  6. I'm not sure what that list represents. Some kind of best seller list? At least one is not even a novel. It is a short story. Regardless, I came in at around 33.

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  7. Is this the BBC Big Read carrid out in...I think 2003, by any chance?

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Speak up, don't be a nebish---your opinions do count.