100 books meme
May. 21st, 2003 01:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lobelia321I have just found out what this meme means. It's the BBC's 100 favourite books, voted for by members of the public. Now, I have seen one or two programmes revolving around that book thing and disapprove of them deeply for a variety of reasons (which I will bore you with if you really, really want). Still, being the bookworm that I am, I cannot help but be drawn into this meme.
* means I've read it.
- means I tried
* 1984, George Orwell school; loved it
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
* Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll read as child in German
*Animal Farm, George Orwell school, again - hm, was this a 70s fad or a Sydney thing, getting school girls to trawl through Orwell?
* Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy the best novel ever, ever written
* Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery yup, girly stuff, *g*
Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer well, my son is on at me to read this one so no doubt I will within the next few weeks
The BFG, Roald Dahl many children's books passed me by as I didn't learn English until I was 11 and had some catching up to do - but if they had included "Jim Knopf" on this list.... see icon :-)
Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
Bleak House, Charles Dickens
* Brave New World, Aldous Huxley yup, school again, and 'Love me till you drug me, honey' became a jingle between my friend and me
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
* Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding oh god, I could only skim this it was so awful; like eating too much treacle
* Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres I liked this despite knowing it is pretentious crap
- Catch 22, Joseph Heller I am not a Catch 22 woman. I can't help thinking, that like Monty Python, it is primarily a boys' thing, especially boys who were pubescing in the 1970s
* The Catcher In The Rye, JD Salinger yup, but do I remember it? No.
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel Ack, I've never even *heard* of this one
Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky aha! am on page 45!
* David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson now I have read some of her books but can't remember the titles....
* Dune, Frank Herbert o my gad! I can't believe this is here. But yes, I read, during my sci fi phase which lasted from 1975 to 1978; and hubba, did I have a crush on Paul Atreides and did I want to *be* a Bene Gesserit, or however they were called (I was ideologically very unformed)
* Emma, Jane Austen second-best novel ever written; am abject Austen-fan
* Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy yes, wonderful
Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
* The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy I adore this book; a jewel
The Godfather, Mario Puzo the very idea of this bores me
* Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell I lived for this in my tender teenage years; read it twice in a row and wept at a different point each time; however, have not re-read since.
Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian Michelle who?
* Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake oh gads, another teenage sin -- I liked it then but fear that I would find it pretentious rot now; still that clambering evil thin guy was an interesting and macabrely sexy personage, now what was his name?
The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
* Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
* The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald school again!
Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
* Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling Alas, yes, plouged through all the Potters, reading them aloud to my son; but I don't like them, I object to them on literary and ethical grounds; the later ones are atrociously badly edited and all of them are hollow at their moral centres
* Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, JK Rowling ditto
* Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling ditto
* Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling ditto
* His Dark Materials trilogy, Philip Pullman I adore and love this trilogy. Now here's a moral centre! This is Dante for children. I could bore on and devote an entire post to this.
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Douglas Adams
* The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien well, duh
Holes, Louis Sachar Oooh, I *want* to read this, primarily because the UK cover is so great: that lizard! Yes, I always judge books by their covers, and I think one should. How else to justify the publisher's job?
I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
* Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë Yup, and I love it. Almost as much as I love that one set in Belgium with the wonderful love interest teacher - ack, the title escapes me - no, it's back: "Villette"
Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer Ack!!!!
Katherine, Anya Seton Er, who?
* The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, CS Lewis Yes, yes, yes, comfort reading extraordinaire. I re-read selected Narnia books every other year. More moral centres! My favourites currently are "Silver Chair", followed by "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" and "Horse and His Boy"
* Little Women, Louisa May Alcott in an abridged English-for-foreigners version when I was 11
* Lord Of The Flies, William Golding excellent book
* The Lord Of The Rings, JRR Tolkien obviously -- but only twice
* Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez loved this when I read it; it still has the sand of the beach holiday I read it on in the creases of its Raubdruck pages
The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
Magician, Raymond E Feist
* The Magus, John Fowles What a dumb pretentious arty-farty load of codswallop.
Matilda, Roald Dahl
Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
* Middlemarch, George Eliot
* Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie I loved this at the time. A very 80s po-mo moment.
Mort, Terry Pratchett
Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
On The Road, Jack Kerouac
* One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez Another defining po-mo 80s novel. I loved the Picador cover of my paperback version, a lovely pale watercolour group portrait. Hm, I remember the cover better than I do the novel... No wonder I became an art historian and not a literary critic.
* Perfume, Patrick Süskind
* Persuasion, Jane Austen *falls at feet of Austen*
The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
* A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving La de da. Always readable but leaves little memory trace. Ultimately a yawn.
* Pride And Prejudice, Jane Austen I just re-read this last week! For the 17th or so time, I believe.
The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
The Ragged Trousered Philantrhopists, Robert Tressell
Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier
* The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
* The Secret History, Donna Tartt read this in February; quite good but not fantabulistic; nice slashy moment, though
The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
The Stand, Stephen King
The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
* A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth oh, my third-favourite novel; I love, love, love this book but have only read it twice -- although some chapters more often; and heh, there is a *very* nice slashy moment buried in there at about page 800-something
* Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome adored this when I discovered it on a holiday in Japan, aged 13
A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
* Tess Of The D'urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
* The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough oh my gad, this is on people's favourite lists? Well, I ripped through it at the time, I admit.
* To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee school, again
A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
* Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
The Twits, Roald Dahl
Ulysses, James Joyce I *want* to read this.
Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
* War And Peace, Leo Tolstoy
Watership Down, Richard Adams round about page 3 I had a violent gagging reflex and had to stop
* The Wind In The Willows, Kenneth Grahame
* Winnie-the-Pooh, AA Milne
* The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins I love this book!!
* Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
---------------------------------------------------------------
My very own top ten favourites
* means I've read it.
- means I tried
* 1984, George Orwell school; loved it
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
* Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll read as child in German
*Animal Farm, George Orwell school, again - hm, was this a 70s fad or a Sydney thing, getting school girls to trawl through Orwell?
* Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy the best novel ever, ever written
* Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery yup, girly stuff, *g*
Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer well, my son is on at me to read this one so no doubt I will within the next few weeks
The BFG, Roald Dahl many children's books passed me by as I didn't learn English until I was 11 and had some catching up to do - but if they had included "Jim Knopf" on this list.... see icon :-)
Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
Bleak House, Charles Dickens
* Brave New World, Aldous Huxley yup, school again, and 'Love me till you drug me, honey' became a jingle between my friend and me
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
* Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding oh god, I could only skim this it was so awful; like eating too much treacle
* Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres I liked this despite knowing it is pretentious crap
- Catch 22, Joseph Heller I am not a Catch 22 woman. I can't help thinking, that like Monty Python, it is primarily a boys' thing, especially boys who were pubescing in the 1970s
* The Catcher In The Rye, JD Salinger yup, but do I remember it? No.
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel Ack, I've never even *heard* of this one
Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky aha! am on page 45!
* David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson now I have read some of her books but can't remember the titles....
* Dune, Frank Herbert o my gad! I can't believe this is here. But yes, I read, during my sci fi phase which lasted from 1975 to 1978; and hubba, did I have a crush on Paul Atreides and did I want to *be* a Bene Gesserit, or however they were called (I was ideologically very unformed)
* Emma, Jane Austen second-best novel ever written; am abject Austen-fan
* Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy yes, wonderful
Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
* The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy I adore this book; a jewel
The Godfather, Mario Puzo the very idea of this bores me
* Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell I lived for this in my tender teenage years; read it twice in a row and wept at a different point each time; however, have not re-read since.
Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian Michelle who?
* Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake oh gads, another teenage sin -- I liked it then but fear that I would find it pretentious rot now; still that clambering evil thin guy was an interesting and macabrely sexy personage, now what was his name?
The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
* Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
* The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald school again!
Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
* Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling Alas, yes, plouged through all the Potters, reading them aloud to my son; but I don't like them, I object to them on literary and ethical grounds; the later ones are atrociously badly edited and all of them are hollow at their moral centres
* Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, JK Rowling ditto
* Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling ditto
* Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling ditto
* His Dark Materials trilogy, Philip Pullman I adore and love this trilogy. Now here's a moral centre! This is Dante for children. I could bore on and devote an entire post to this.
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Douglas Adams
* The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien well, duh
Holes, Louis Sachar Oooh, I *want* to read this, primarily because the UK cover is so great: that lizard! Yes, I always judge books by their covers, and I think one should. How else to justify the publisher's job?
I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
* Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë Yup, and I love it. Almost as much as I love that one set in Belgium with the wonderful love interest teacher - ack, the title escapes me - no, it's back: "Villette"
Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer Ack!!!!
Katherine, Anya Seton Er, who?
* The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, CS Lewis Yes, yes, yes, comfort reading extraordinaire. I re-read selected Narnia books every other year. More moral centres! My favourites currently are "Silver Chair", followed by "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" and "Horse and His Boy"
* Little Women, Louisa May Alcott in an abridged English-for-foreigners version when I was 11
* Lord Of The Flies, William Golding excellent book
* The Lord Of The Rings, JRR Tolkien obviously -- but only twice
* Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez loved this when I read it; it still has the sand of the beach holiday I read it on in the creases of its Raubdruck pages
The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
Magician, Raymond E Feist
* The Magus, John Fowles What a dumb pretentious arty-farty load of codswallop.
Matilda, Roald Dahl
Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
* Middlemarch, George Eliot
* Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie I loved this at the time. A very 80s po-mo moment.
Mort, Terry Pratchett
Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
On The Road, Jack Kerouac
* One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez Another defining po-mo 80s novel. I loved the Picador cover of my paperback version, a lovely pale watercolour group portrait. Hm, I remember the cover better than I do the novel... No wonder I became an art historian and not a literary critic.
* Perfume, Patrick Süskind
* Persuasion, Jane Austen *falls at feet of Austen*
The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
* A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving La de da. Always readable but leaves little memory trace. Ultimately a yawn.
* Pride And Prejudice, Jane Austen I just re-read this last week! For the 17th or so time, I believe.
The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
The Ragged Trousered Philantrhopists, Robert Tressell
Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier
* The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
* The Secret History, Donna Tartt read this in February; quite good but not fantabulistic; nice slashy moment, though
The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
The Stand, Stephen King
The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
* A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth oh, my third-favourite novel; I love, love, love this book but have only read it twice -- although some chapters more often; and heh, there is a *very* nice slashy moment buried in there at about page 800-something
* Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome adored this when I discovered it on a holiday in Japan, aged 13
A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
* Tess Of The D'urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
* The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough oh my gad, this is on people's favourite lists? Well, I ripped through it at the time, I admit.
* To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee school, again
A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
* Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
The Twits, Roald Dahl
Ulysses, James Joyce I *want* to read this.
Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
* War And Peace, Leo Tolstoy
Watership Down, Richard Adams round about page 3 I had a violent gagging reflex and had to stop
* The Wind In The Willows, Kenneth Grahame
* Winnie-the-Pooh, AA Milne
* The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins I love this book!!
* Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
---------------------------------------------------------------
My very own top ten favourites
- Leo Tolstoy, 'Anna Karenina'
- Jane Austen, 'Emma'
- Jane Austen, 'Pride and Prejudice'
- Jane Austen, 'Northanger Abbey'
- Jane Austen, 'Mansfield Park'
- Jane Austen, 'Persuasion'
- Vikram Seth, 'A Suitable Boy'
- Italo Calvino, 'If on a Winter's Night a Traveller'
- Andrea di Carlo, 'Cream Train'
- Christine Noestlinger, 'Gretchen Sackmeier' (I needed to have one pure, unadulterated comfort thingy in here, *g* - although for comfort I do tend to go to Austen, mainly because I can virtually mouth the lines along with the script: effort needed is next to nil)
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Date: 2003-05-21 08:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-05-21 08:54 am (UTC)vewy interwestink
Date: 2003-05-21 10:31 am (UTC)Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer well, my son is on at me to read this one so no doubt I will within the next few weeks
Just started on the second book - Artemis Fowl and the Arctic Incident - still not sure what I think of the first one. Enjoyed it, mainly for its heart of darkness!
- Catch 22, Joseph Heller I am not a Catch 22 woman. I can't help thinking, that like Monty Python, it is primarily a boys' thing, especially boys who were pubescing in the 1970s
Read this when i was 15 and find it interesting that you think of it as a boys' thing. I tend to like a lot of boys' things... maybe we should say 'boys and lesbians' thing?
* The Catcher In The Rye, JD Salinger yup, but do I remember it? No.
Loathed this with a passion!
* Emma, Jane Austen second-best novel ever written; am abject Austen-fan
ditto!
Holes, Louis Sachar Oooh, I *want* to read this, primarily because the UK cover is so great: that lizard! Yes, I always judge books by their covers, and I think one should. How else to justify the publisher's job?
Louis Sachar is wonderful. Quirky and off-beat. Do read this! In fact, I may have a copy you can borrow!
* Pride And Prejudice, Jane Austen I just re-read this last week! For the 17th or so time, I believe.
When you are here next week, remind me to show you one of my copies! It's from 1894 and has the most divine illustrations by Hugh Thomson.
Am very interested in your own top ten. My bookgroup read Italo Calvino's, 'Under the Jaguar Sun' which I found hard going. Actually, it bored me to tears. Ho hum...
Re: vewy interwestink
Date: 2003-05-21 11:13 am (UTC)*snort*
Well, two responses to that one.
First: yup, this'll teach me to pigeonhole people... *g*
Second: as am inveterate pigeonholer (on a practical, if not on a principled, level), I have to reject the equivalation (word??) of man = lesbian. Because sex overrides sexual orientation every time (I think). No matter how campy the man: he's still a man and thinks about the length of his shlong a lot. No matter how lesbian the woman: did she ever draw pictures covered in tiny tanks and helicopters shooting ammo at stick figure soldiers? (Hm, maybe you did at that...!)
Resonance re Catch 22? I haven't the faintest idea!
When you are here next week, remind me to show you one of my copies! It's from 1894
Oh yes!!
My bookgroup read Italo Calvino's, 'Under the Jaguar Sun' which I found hard going.
Now, I have read Jaguar Sun but I can't remember it now. Which would appear to corroborate your own opinion. I don't love *all* of Calvino's books but I abjectly worship When on a Winter's Night and love Cosmicomics, The Baron in the Trees, and The Divisible Knight (or whatever that book is called in English -- I read all these in German or Italian). I hate Pnin and the other early Realist stuff, and the Tarot one is so-so. Oh, Mr Palomar is also lovely.
Re: vewy interwestink
Date: 2003-05-21 11:23 am (UTC)heh. Indeed it will!!
Second: as am inveterate pigeonholer (on a practical, if not on a principled, level), I have to reject the equivalation (word??) of man = lesbian. Because sex overrides sexual orientation every time (I think). No matter how campy the man: he's still a man and thinks about the length of his shlong a lot. No matter how lesbian the woman: did she ever draw pictures covered in tiny tanks and helicopters shooting ammo at stick figure soldiers? (Hm, maybe you did at that...!)
I was of course, joking. However, I did play with train sets and when called upon to enter a drawing competition at the age of 7, chose to draw the car of the future rather than the clothes of the future. Needless to say I won! I still have the poetry book I chose to buy with the prize book token.
Resonance re Catch 22? I haven't the faintest idea!
Me neither!!
Will ask Ruthie from my book group (who chose the Calvino for is to read) about some others. Have you ever read any Willa Cather? I thought Death Comes for the Archbishop was absolutely wonderful and really need to read some more of her writing.
Re: vewy interwestink
Date: 2003-05-21 11:42 am (UTC)