Books!!

[zana16]

The presentation didn't suck, at least. Though I was only halfway through my notes when they gave me the one-minute warning. Immediately panicked and it all went downhill from there.


BBC 100 top books meme.... with comments! Gacked from queerasjohn. Italics if I've read them.

*1984, George Orwell I understand that this was a very influential book in the course of cold war history. Now get over it.
*The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
*Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
*Animal Farm, George Orwell My above comment applies for all Orwell books.
*Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy - I really liked War and Peace but can't see devoting that much time to a book again in the near future.
*Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery I tried to read all her books after I finished with the eight in the Anne series. The eighth is the best, of course.
*Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer Are you kidding? I actually bought the third one in the series the other day--in hardback!
*The BFG, Roald Dahl
*Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
*Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
*Bleak House, Charles Dickens Not one of Dickens's best, but not half as bad as Great Expectations. David Copperfield will always be my favorite novel by Dickens.
*Brave New World, Aldous Huxley Always considered the afternoon I spent reading this a total waste until I read Les Particules Elementaires, which made fun of it.
*Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
*Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding - Saw the movie, but who hasn't?
*Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres - Who has seen this movie?
*Catch 22, Joseph Heller
*The Catcher In The Rye, JD Salinger Twas disappointing, but I think I simply missed the entire point.
*Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
*A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
*The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel - Oh dear Lord. That's on the list? Is our entire society made up of voyeuristic perverts? Don't answer that.
*Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
*The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
*The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas Dumas! Love the man! I didn't sleep for four days til I'd finished this book, even if I was disappointed that he didn't exactly do the soulsearching I wanted him to. Even love bad Dumas-based movies. Every single one of them.
*Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Annabel says it's wonderful. Of course, Annabel also didn't like War and Peace.
*David Copperfield, Charles Dickens Yes!!! Best Dickens book ever!!
*Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
*Dune, Frank Herbert - I'm told I have to read this and see the lame-ass movie. Hasn't happened yet.
*Emma, Jane Austen - I saw Clueless; does that count?
*Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy - After Jude the Obscure, I knew I couldn't take Hardy any more, no matter how wellwritten. I was depressed for days.
*Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
*The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
*The Godfather, Mario Puzo - Haven't even seen the films.
*Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell - Another classic movie I've never seen. I tried to tape it off TV once but I ended up with bad sitcoms instead.
*Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman - Have never yet read a Terry Pratchett. Not closed to the idea, just hasn't happened yet.
*Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian This book haunted me. Continues to haunt me.
*Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
*The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck - Love Steinbeck, but I've never read this one.
*Great Expectations, Charles Dickens Dude! So overrated.
*The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald Again, I think I completely failed to get the point.
*Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
*Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
*Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, JK Rowling
*Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
*Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling I'd probably be one of those "I'm not gonna read it just cause everyone else does and thus it must suck" but fortunately I moved beyond this and it is well worth it.
*His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman I continue to be amazed that it sells so well in America; I'd have thought it would be banned immediately. God dies.
*The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Douglas Adams And every one that comes after it...
*The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien His best story.
*Holes, Louis Sachar
*I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
*Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
*Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
*Katherine, Anya Seton
*The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, CS Lewis The religious stuff bothered me when I first found out that's what it was, but now I just look at it as a nice mythology--much as I look at Bible stories.
*Little Women, Louisa May Alcott Beth doesn't like it, but I think it's sweet. Though really, Laurie and Amy? So doesn't work. Jo and Laurie wouldn't have worked either but still.
*Lord Of The Flies, William Golding - Haven't read it and have no desire to do so, thankyouverymuch.
*The Lord Of The Rings, JRR Tolkien Hells yeah.
*Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez - I've read much GGM but never his novels.
*The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
*Magician, Raymond E Feist
*The Magus, John Fowles
*Matilda, Roald Dahl I love this man.
*Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
*Middlemarch, George Eliot
*Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
*Mort, Terry Pratchett
*Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
*Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
*Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck Not my favorite Steinbeck, but decent. Clement is very bitter about having to read it for school.
*On The Road, Jack Kerouac
*One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
*Perfume, Patrick Suskind
*Persuasion, Jane Austen
*The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
*A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
*Pride And Prejudice, Jane Austen This book rocks. Love the snarkiness.
*The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
*The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
*Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier
*The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett Childhood favorite, and probably a large part of the reason I'm a Romantic at heart.
*The Secret History, Donna Tartt
*The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
*The Stand, Stephen King - Not planning on reading a Stephen King. Ever. I don't care how good they are.
*The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
*A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
*Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
*A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens - Only read parts of it.
*Tess Of The D'urbervilles, Thomas Hardy I had no idea what I was getting into when I read this. Good but knocks you out.
*The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough - Sitting on my shelf, got it at Shakespeare and Co. next to Notre Dame for a euro, because Lisa said it was good. Lisa no longer speaks to me and I need to get over that before I can read the book.
*To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee Read it for class.
*A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
*Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson I haven't yet found a movie rendition of this that isn't good. Absolutely loved Treasure Planet. Half the people in the audience were French so didn't get most of the jokes. The rest of the people in the audience (my friends) didn't get the references. So I was left laughing my head off while everyone else stared. Good times.
*The Twits, Roald Dahl
*Ulysses, James Joyce - Can't even contemplate spending the time when I know I wouldn't get as much out of it as one should.
*Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
*War And Peace, Leo Tolstoy Love it. Just don't read the two epilogues cause they absolutely destroyed the novel for me. I am still bitter. Tolstoy is a prick.
*Watership Down, Richard Adams
*The Wind In The Willows, Kenneth Grahame - I think I've read it but I don't really remember it.
*Winnie-the-Pooh, AA Milne - My dad read it to me when I was little and I only remember the page-and-a-half-long sentence.
*The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins - No, but I'm reading The Moonstone and it's wonderful.
*Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte Touches the Goth in all of us.

By all rights, Ender's Game should be on this list. And every Tamora Pierce book known to man. And Lemony Snicket. And Sophie's World. And Diana Wynne Jones....
Shutting up now.

Comments

[beefive.livejournal.com]

I haven't actually read War and Peace. I'm just an irrational anti-Tolstoy bigot, out of my intense love for Dostoevsky. I am gradually attempting to surmount this weird prejudice, although Fyodor will always be first in my heart.

Honestly, The Idiot and especially The Brothers Karamazov are better than C&P, although the latter is still pretty great. (Some people would also put Demons on there, but I think it's patchy.) But Brothers Karamazov is the best novel ever written, so.