Meme: Book List

Look at the list of books below:

• Bold the ones you’ve read
• Italicize the ones you want to read
• If you are reading this (and haven't participated yet), tag, you’re it! (But only if you want to be it!)
  
• If there are any books on this list that I didn't italicize and you think I should read, let me know in comments.
  (FYI, I cleaned this list up a LOT -- alphabetized it and added the entire author's name for all the books)
  

1. 1984 (George Orwell)
   I hated and despised this book. I was forced to read it in high school and other than a great ad for a new computer and some great anti-government catch phrases, I see little good that came out of it.
   
2. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
3. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
4. A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)
   Reading Literature (capital L intended to connote a fancy upper crust snobby accent) is one of my "before I die" goals
   
5. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
6. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
   I'm fairly sure I read this one but I'm not positive
   
7. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
   I may have already read it -- I know I've heard McCourt interviewed on NPR so I have heard alot about the book.
   
8. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
9. Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)
   No, thank you. Depressing and too long. I'll pass.
   
10. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
11. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
    The Fountainhead was enough Rand for me.
    
12. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
13. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
14. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Helen Fielding)
    Read it and the sequels.
    
15. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
16. Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)
    Read it about 400,000 times. Still cry at the end.
    
17. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
18. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
    (See note above on Anna Karenina)
    
19. Dune (Frank Herbert)
    Read it, read the sequels, saw all the movies. Snore. I really didn't like these but read them because my husband did and loved them. I kept waiting for them to get better! :)
    
20. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
21. Emma (Jane Austen)
    Love all the Austen, Bronte Sisters stuff!
    
22. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
23. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
24. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
25. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
    Read it about 100,000 times. Great book. Loved it so much I tried to read the Mitchell Family approved sequel but quit in the middle (if I even made it that far) and decided that the Mitchell Family were greedy and needed a good slappping.
    
26. Great Expectations (Charles Dickens)
27. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (J.K. Rowling)
    Love Harry Potty and all the other books in the series. I'm a series fan. I love reading series books. But, why is this series here in all its glory and other series authors only have one book listed. Strange list to be sure!
    
28. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (J.K. Rowling)
29. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (J.K. Rowling)
30. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (J.K. Rowling)
31. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (J.K. Rowling)
32. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
33. In The Skin Of A Lion (Michael Ondaatje)
34. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
    Read it because it was the thing to do. Anne Rice is interesting and quite honestly I prefer her erotica to her vampire/creepy things that go bump/ books.
    
35. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
36. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
37. Les Miserables (Victor Hugo)
38. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
39. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
    All time favorite book. I'm waiting anxiously for Ruthie to be old enough to read this book and share the glory and tissue box with me.
    
40. Lord of the Flies (William Golding)
    See note on 1984 and multiply by 1,000 to come close to my hatred for this book.
    
41. Love in the Time of Cholera (Gabriel García Márquez)
42. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
43. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
44. Of Mice And Men (John Steinbeck)
45. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
    I would like to read some Marquez and this one seems a good one to start with.
    
46. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
    Now, see, this is what I'm talking about. All the Rowlings book but only one Gabaldon book. Her books are amazing -- everyone I've ever recommended them to loves them -- including my father-in-law who is notoriously difficult to please in terms of books and movies and couldn't be more different from my personal aesthetic in terms of reading material.
    
47. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
48. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
    I loved this book so much that I even read the ridiculous sequel that came out about 10 years ago.
    
49. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
50. Shogun (James Clavell)
    I may have read this one but I'm not sure.
    
51. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
52. The Bible
    Well, I've read parts of it.
    
53. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
    Pretty sure I read this one prior to seeing the movie.
    
54. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
    See early notes on The Lord of the Flies and reduce loathing by about 80%.
    
55. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
56. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
    Yes. Read it, loved it, read all the sequels. Own them in hard back.
    
57. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
    Haven't read it, don't intend to, but must say, I love the sandwich!
    
58. The DaVinci Code (Dan Brown)
    Yes. Read it and loved it. Unashamed of my love for the ideas behind this book.
    
59. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
60. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
    Want to read it and see the movie.
    
61. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
    My husband is an architect and therefore this book is required reading. It's good and I'm glad I read it but I was so done with it that I've never read another Rand book and don't intend to -- some authors can only be taken in small doses!
    
63. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
64. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
    Another small doses author. We live near Steinbeck country but I'm not a fan.
    
65. The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
    Loved Gatsby.
    
66. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
    Hated this book. Oh, don't get me wrong -- it was excellent but so dark and depressing that I found it hard to get through and it left a black cloud over me for a long time.
    
67. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
    Loved it and all the series. Totally fun.
    
68. The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien)
    Fantastic book. Plan to read it to the kids this summer.
    
69. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
70. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
    Loved it and all the series. Have read most of the series to the kids.
    
71. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
    Great book. Loved it. Have read it multiple times. Totally don't get it.
    
72. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (J.R.R. Tolkien)
    Loved it and the entire series.
    
73. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (J.R.R. Tolkien)
    
74. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (J.R.R. Tolkien)
75. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
76. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
77. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
    Haven't read this one but I did read Message in a Bottle. Thought it was predictable and boring and didn't bother to see the movie.
    
78. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
    Required high school reading (not by the teachers, by classmates)
    
79. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
    Loved this book. Read it because of Greg's career again but it was awesome.
    
80. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
81. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
82. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
83. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
    I've read everything I could by her. It's awesome. She's reputed to be an ancestress of mine. But, as my mother says, my grandmother (whose maiden name is Burnett) would like to think that every famous Burnett is a relative -- Hi Cousin Carol!
    
84. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
85. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Ann Brashares)
86. The Stand (Stephen King)
    Why is this the book for King on this list? Why not Carrie or The Shining? I think I read this book because my sister liked it and told me too. But, I'm pretty sure I didn't like it.
    
87. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
90. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
    It was good and I saw the entire mini-series but didn't like it enough to read anything else by McCullough.
    
91. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
    Loved this book. Will re-read at some point.
    
92. The World According to Garp (John Irving)
    Read it. Liked it. Saw the movie. Decided the whole thing was just too weird for me. :)
    
93. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
    Loved it. Awesome.
    
94. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
95. Ulysses (James Joyce)
    My stepfather's favorite book. I don't get Joyce and don't really want to. Probably a held-over teenage rebellion of some sort.
    
96. War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy)
97. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
    Read it. Liked it.
    
98. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
99. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
    Read it. Loved it. Read most of the series. But I was also reading Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series and they had so many similarities that I decided I didn't need to read both of them. Wheel of Time required such an investment of time and energy that I decided to stick with that one. To be honest though, Jordan really ought to offer someone a degree of some sort for reading the entire series and sticking it out. :)
    
100. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
     See earlier note about Bronte sisters and my adoration for their works.

Now, books I think should be added to this list:

I think some genre books should be added to make the list more complete:

1. what about anything by Agatha Christie? Or some other great mystery writers?
2. what about some great romance works? Think that's an oxymoron well I disagree! I enjoy many romances -- some are truly drek but some are wonderful. If someone wants to read something that is well written as well as being romantic and sexy, then I'd start with Nora Roberts and LaVryle Spencer. The classic bodice ripper book that really took Romances to where they are now is Kathleen Woodiwiss' The Flame and the Flower. I also highly recommend J.D. Robb's crossover scifi/mystery/romance In Death series. (J.D. Robb is really Nora Roberts writing under a nom de plume).
   
3. We've got fantasy in there but what about Science Fiction? There are some amazing Sci Fi authors out there. Heinlein, McCaffrey's Ship Series or Planet Pirates series are some of my favs but there are hardcore SciFi authors that I don't enjoy who are critically acclaimed.
4. Heck, if you are going to do a comprehensive list of books, don't you think a western should be on the list? How about Louis L'Amour or Larry McMurtry?
   

Is it BAFAB yet?

This is a cause I can get behind! Buy a friend a book. Even better . . . buy an unsuspecting friend a book. That's fabulous!


I recommend buying a friend a book written by a friend. Here's a great book to buy . . . Letters From Eden by Julie Zickefoose. I also recommend anything by Katya Reimann. Diana Gabaldon is another online friend whose books I can heartily recommend.

I have met these women through the Internet and my life has been better for it. So, buy a friend one of THESE books! Enjoy!

I sent my sister a book from her Amazon Wish List -- a slightly sneaky way to know they'll get a book they really want!

Oh yes, you'll notice that I've changed things over on the right . . . see that book list? I found a great new tool called Library Thing. WOW! What a great way to catalog my books, share my opinions, and just have a cool thing about books. I highly recommend it. I took the Reading Raven blog down because it was so awkward compared to Library Thing. It rocks!