As usual, I'm behind the curve, but I saw on the LibraryThing blog that people have been ranking how they stand against the 106 books most often tagged as "unread" by the users of LibraryThing (why 106? 'Cause a plain old top 100 is too 5 years ago?).
The rules are as follows: bold the books you have read, italicize books you’ve started but not finished, strike through the books you read but hated (likely for school), and add an asterisk* to books you’ve read more than once. You're also supposed to underline those you own but still haven’t read yourself, but I don't have any of those. (For the uninitiated, the numbers represent "users listing book as unread"/"users listing book.")
My list, with commentary, is below.
- Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell* by Susanna Clarke (236/9041) -- A fabulous book, one of my favorites
Anna Kareninaby Leo Tolstoy (211/8954) -- Pure soap opera; slap a pink cover on it and stick it in the Romance aisle- One hundred years of solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (183/11973) -- I still don't know what happened
- Crime and punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (176/10687) -- I've read enough Dostoevsky to know I don't want to read this
Wuthering Heightsby Emily Bronte (162/12137) -- One of the worst books ever; how it came to be a classic I'll never know- Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (158/10886)
- The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien (155/8789)
- Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra (152/6654) -- I stumbled through most of this in college, but it wasn't what I was expecting
- The Odyssey by Homer (136/10954) -- I've read bits and pieces over the years but never made it all the way through
The brothers Karamazovby Fyodor Dostoyevsky (136/7174) -- See, this is the Dostoevsky I was talking about- Ulysses* by James Joyce (135/6255) -- The best book ever written in English. Yes, it takes work, but it's so worth it
- Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (132/6267)
- War and peace by Leo Tolstoy (132/5953) -- I've made numerous attempts on this tome; hated the war AND the peace
- Jane Eyre* by Charlotte Bronte (124/13765) -- One of the best heroines in literature, with nothing but her own steely sense of integrity to guide her
- A tale of two cities by Charles Dickens (124/7460) -- Not my favorite Dickens
- The name of the rose* by Umberto Eco (120/7706) -- So much fun!
- Moby Dick by Herman Melville (119/7719) -- Another one I made multiple attempts to read; now I've given myself permission to give up
- The Iliad by Homer (117/8723) -- Again, just read the bits that any literature student needs to read
- Emma* by Jane Austen (117/8949) -- When I was younger, I was all, "oh, how horrible that she should wind up with someone so much older" and now I'm all, "Where is my Mr. Knightley, goddammit?"
- Vanity fair by William Makepeace Thackeray (115/3827)
- Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (114/7115) -- I'm not reading this until I figure out One Hundred Years of Solitude
- The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (110/4806) -- Not a big Atwood fan
- The Canterbury tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (108/6165) -- One of these days I'll tackle the whole thing
- Pride and prejudice* by Jane Austen (108/18293) -- Elizabeth Bennett is one of the most likeable heroines I've ever met. Can I have Mr. Darcy with Mr. Knightley on the side?
- The historian: a novel by Elizabeth Kostova (108/6447)
- Great Expectations* by Charles Dickens (106/8595)
- The kite runner by Khaled Hosseini (106/13572)
- The time traveler's wife by Audrey Niffenegger (105/11414)
- Life of Pi: a novel by Yann Martel (105/12692) -- I don't care how many people tell me they like this book, I'm just not interested
- Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies by Jared Diamond (104/7493) -- Can be dry in places, but a must-read
- Atlas shrugged* by Ayn Rand (102/5984) -- Skip all the speeches about capitalism and it's a great piece of science fiction; the scene where Dagny is flying her little plane chasing her mystery man is nail-biting suspense
- Foucault's pendulum* by Umberto Eco (101/5616) -- By the time I finish it, I'm starting to look for conspiracies everywhere too
- Dracula by Bram Stoker (100/6873) -- Just not that well-written, as far as I'm concerned
- The grapes of wrath by John Steinbeck (99/7812) -- I read most of Steinbeck when I was younger; why didn't I ever get around to this?
- A heartbreaking work of staggering genius by Dave Eggers (97/6451)
- Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (97/9127)
Mrs. Dallowayby Virginia Woolf (97/5565) -- I admire Woolf, but I hate her work- Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books by Azar Nafisi (96/4404)
- Middlemarch* by George Eliot (96/4159) -- I love Dorothea and I wish she had better taste in men
- Sense and sensibility* by Jane Austen (96/8591) -- Just finished reading this one again; I so identify with Elinor
- The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (95/5167)
Memoirs of a Geishaby Arthur Golden (94/11617) -- Gahh, I hated this book! Boring, with an infuriating heroine who won't stand up for herself- The sound and the fury* by William Faulkner (94/5043) -- I used to adore Faulkner although I haven't read him for years
- Brave New World* by Aldous Huxley (93/12421) -- One of the first science fiction books I ever read
- Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle I) by Neal Stephenson (92/3525) -- A great start to the series; I only wish it had ended as well
- American gods: a novel by Neil Gaiman (92/10319) -- Really enjoyed this one; Shadow is a great character
- Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (91/8871) -- One of the best books I read last year
The poisonwood Bible: a novelby Barbara Kingsolver (91/7461) -- I've loved other books by Kingsolver, but this one is a stinkerWickedby Gregory Maguire (90/8905) -- I honestly don't see how this became so popular- A portrait of the artist as a young man* by James Joyce (89/6646) -- Come on, didn't we all imagine we were Stephen Dedalus when we were young?
- The picture of Dorian Gray* by Oscar Wilde (89/7165) -- Still as powerful and creepy as the day it was written
- Dune* by Frank Herbert (89/9222) -- Thrilling, well-envisioned science fiction epic. Too bad all the sequels suck
- The satanic verses by Salman Rushdie (88/3251)
- Gulliver's travels* by Jonathan Swift (88/4857)
- Mansfield Park* by Jane Austen (88/5360) -- Yes, I am anti-Fanny, but it's still a great book
- The three musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (87/4127)
- The corrections by Jonathan Franzen (84/5066)
- The inferno by Dante Alighieri (84/5873)
- Oliver Twist* by Charles Dickens (83/4378) -- I first read this too young. They really shouldn't introduce kids to Dickens this way, even if it is about a kid.
- The Fountainhead* by Ayn Rand (83/5795) -- I'm actually kind of impressed that something with this twisted sexuality could be published in the '30s
To the lighthouseby Virginia Woolf (83/4608)- A clockwork orange* by Anthony Burgess (83/6754) -- Horrorshow!
- Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (83/4735) -- Somehow I ran out of energy for Hardy before I got through this one
- The amazing adventures of Kavalier and Clay: a novel by Michael Chabon (83/5956) -- An amazing book, tender, true, and funny
- Persuasion* by Jane Austen (82/6479) -- It's hard to choose between this and Pride and Prejudice as my favorite Austen
- One flew over the cuckoo's nest by Ken Kesey (82/5908) -- It's on my BookMooch wishlist
- The scarlet letter* by Nathaniel Hawthorne (82/7746)
- Robinson Crusoe* by Daniel Defoe (82/4437) -- An amazing depiction of capitalism and the Protestant work ethic; even in Paradise he can't relax and have fun
- Anansi boys: a novel by Neil Gaiman (81/6534) -- Not as great as American Gods, but still fun
- The once and future king* by T. H. White (81/4293) -- One of my childhood favorites
- Atonement: A Novel by Ian McEwan (80/6966)
- The god of small things by Arundhati Roy (80/5509)
- A short history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson (79/6266)
- Oryx and Crake: a novel by Margaret Atwood (78/3976)
- Dubliners* by James Joyce (78/5530) -- I had a great teacher who turned me on to Joyce
- Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (78/5385) -- He'd be a great writer if he ever learned how to end things
- Angela's ashes: a memoir by Frank McCourt (77/6349)
- Beloved: a novel by Toni Morrison (77/5523)
- Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed by Jared Diamond (76/3822) -- I really have to get around to this
- The hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo (75/2520)
- In cold blood by Truman Capote (75/5473)
- Lady Chatterley's lover by D.H. Lawrence (73/3169) -- Good sex scenes, stupid story
- confederacy of dunces by John Kennedy Toole (73/6061)
- Les misérables by Victor Hugo (73/4694) -- It's Javert I feel sorry for
- Watership Down by Richard Adams (72/6255)
- The prince by Niccolo Machiavelli (72/6363) --Somehow you'd think in my many years of studying the Renaissance I'd have read this, but I never did
- The amber spyglass by Philip Pullman (72/6645) -- Pullman has some Serious Issues, but I liked the trilogy
- Beowulf: a new verse translation* by Anonymous (72/6350) -- I used to have an elaborate theory about why Beowulf wasn't a hero, but I don't remember what it was anymore
- A farewell to arms by Ernest Hemingway (71/5122) -- Hemingway has some Serious Issues too; I admire his prose style, just not his characters
- Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig (71/5554) -- It took me a few attempts to get into this, but I really liked it
- The Aeneid by Virgil (71/5057) -- I read some of it in Latin, does that count?
- Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (69/4625)
- Sons and lovers by D.H. Lawrence (69/2563) -- My sister explained this to me; I still don't quite get it
- The personal history of David Copperfield* by Charles Dickens (69/4311) -- With Jane Eyre, one of the best books about growing up ever written
- The road by Cormac McCarthy (67/5099)
- Possession: a romance* by A.S. Byatt (67/4128) -- I read this twice because I'd forgotten I read it the first time
- The history of Tom Jones, a foundling* by Henry Fielding (67/2131) -- Delightful romp
- The book thief by Markus Zusak (67/3554)
- Gravity's rainbow by Thomas Pynchon (66/3261) -- One of my Dad's projects for years; I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole, although I did like The Crying of Lot 49
- The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells (66/3046)
- Tender is the night by F. Scott Fitzgerald (66/3131) -- I guess I ran out of steam on Fitzgerald before I got to this
- Candide, or, Optimism* by Voltaire (65/5083)
- Never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro (65/4317)
- The plague by Albert Camus (65/4610) -- Too existential for me
- Jude the obscure by Thomas Hardy (65/2944) -- I never understood what he saw in Sue
- Cold mountain by Charles Frazier (64/4160) -- OK, OK, it made me cry
Two observations:
- By my count, I've read 67 of these books. Does that make me a freak?
- I can't believe that all of Jane Austen's books are in this list. Why aren't you people reading them? Go out there and do it immediately!
Edited May 22 because I don't follow directions very well.
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