Tuesday, July 1, 2008

49

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

I've read almost half - that's pretty sweet. Many of these are on my list, I just haven't gotten to them yet, for one reason or another. This is definitely the nerdy bookworm side of Brie that doesn't come out all that often!

Look at the list and bold those you have read.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austin
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkein
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible - New Testament - I have read much of it, but not all
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 - my all time favorite book
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. Life of Pi - Yann Martel - on my bookshelf
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' 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 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
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Grapes of Wrath is your favorite book of all time?! Wow. I struggled with that one. In fact, I think I struggled so much with that one that I was using Clif notes and resorted to watching the movie once, too. I've barely read any of those books, but Catcher in the Rye is one of my all-time favorites.

Heather Lindquist said...

You've surpassed even me...you're rival bookworm! I counted 39 that I've read. However, I tend to read a lot of weird stuff....stuff not many have heard of. Anyway, I'm currently reading

"Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert and it's amazing. It's now one of my top 10 books of all time!

I just got back from Borders and got some other books that Grief Lady suggested. They look quite good, but not even close to a "fun" kinda read, ya know?

I just got done re-reading Anne Frank's Diary....I had forgotten so much. An incredible writer! Makes me sad though.

Laura said...

Taped on the inside of our computer armoir, just to my right, is a clipping from The New York Times, of the 100 best English Language Novels! Now, I will admit, this was not MY doing..but rather, my husbands...and looks like he has read about 20 from the list.

I, on the other hand, would do FABULOUS if you posted the top 100 magazines. Better yet, the top 20 reality shows....yeah...my true colors are showing now...pathetic!

Tanya said...

Wow...I got 35 out of that...so surpassed yes. The saddest part about my 33 though is that most were read in my middle and high school years. Yes I was in the nerdy english class. Add strange books such as Beloved and some other weird ones that I fail to remember the name of right now, but if put in front of me I could say...lol. Then there are the ones that I read for fun...and yes some from the list I really did read for fun...

Brie...when is the best time to call you? I wanted to call you but my hours are screwy and I am so scared to call you when you are sleeping or busy...so yea...can you tell me when to call?

Abby said...

Brie, you are amazing. Wow.

I agree that Grapes of Wrath is pretty much amazing. But I don't want to improve myself by checking more things off the list! I basically can't imagine ever wanting to read any work of fiction again for any reason. I'm not sure what's up with this; it seems to have developed in the last year or so. I've read twenty-five from this list--and I'm so, so ready to stop there! But I did buy a book today... I'll blog about that later, though.

Arielle Bair, MSW, LSW said...

I have to admit I've read 56. :) I LOVE to read. No, I adore it. And own a TON of books. Like hundreds.

Well, rival bookworm, it's good to know you! And pleasant to know you love to read as much as I do. :)

Thanks for sharing this!

Much love,
Arielle

Unknown said...

I've read 19 of them, so I'm well above average but well bellow bookworm standards :( Anyway, I'm happy to see The Time Traveller's Wife up there at #19. It's one of my favourite books of all time, I can't tell how many times I've read it, either in full or a few random pages at a time... and every time I'm amazed at the way the storyline and characters are crafted. However, I have noticed it's not an instant hit with everyone: everytime I have given this book as a gift or enthusiastically recommended it to a friend, I've noticed that a couple of weeks later it was up on the bookshelf, with the telltale creasing indicating they never got past page 20.

kathy with a k said...

I barely have time to read the damn list! Does the list count as one of the books?

Keely said...

Yikes! I am really behind on my reading!! Does the harry potter series count as 7 books? he he he
I must shamefully admit I am terribly behind in reading.

brie said...

KwithaK, you made me laugh. I'll agree, the list is a bit long, isn't it?? ;)

Arielle - wow! Somebody beat me! Congrats you literary genius you!

Paige said...

Thanks for posting that list...I'm going to make it my goal to read all of them! I haven't counted yet how many I've already read, but I'm sure it's less than you ;-)

Paige said...

just counted; 39