Books
Ok, a long one for you to chew on. Not leaving town until Tuesday, but I'm going off line for my sanity, adjustment, to get everything done. And a simple exercise in self restraint. Oh, I'll still read comics, do the crossword, read email, but no blogging, reading or writing, no long sessions online for a week. Will do me good.
So, The Beeb listed Big Reads, which is a list of 100 books. No idea of the criteria, and it does have a British slant - which is fine by me. Most I have not read, some I will not read under any circumstances.
The presence of four Terr.... Sir Terry Pratchett books may seem excessive, but only if you only think of him as a funny fantasy writer. Night Watch, for instance, is nothing of the sort. The humour distracts those looking for serious novels, which they are, at heart. And well plotted, with rich language, and a handful of ungodly puns. He tackles death and finances, parent child relationships, the function of police in society, tyranny, and the persistence of human stupidity, greed and depravity. While turning phrases amusingly.
Huge swathes of the list are children's books. The ones I read as a kid, and have an affection for, with few exceptions, I will not read again. I will never read The Lord of the Rings again, despite having devoured the series perhaps seven or eight times in my youth. Likewise the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, and Roald Dahl's The BFG, Maltida and so on. Several in young adult series, which degrades the list for me. Winnie the Pooh is another story, I think it really IS for adults, I didn't like the original book as a child. Ditto Alice in Wonderland.
I tried, honestly I tried to read Harry Potter. Nothing really changes, nothing really matters, the prose is simplistic, I don't care about any of the characters, I will never read another word written by JK. And you can't make me.
Glad to see To Kill a Mockingbird, though, such an enduring gem. Likewise anything by Austen - even when the plots fall a bit, I love her characters. Less affection for the Bronte sister's melodrama, but I'm sure nostalgia plays a huge part in these lists. Grapes of Wrath is still readable. And I love Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
I don't think Catch 22 was Heller's best novel, and I read it in a war zone. No one actually reads War and Peace, any more than they actually read James Joyce.
No one should admit to reading Gone With the Wind. Clan of the Cave Bear I hated past all reasoning. D read The Godfather, and was disgusted by the turgid prose, and he loves the movies.
Many, I suspect, are on there simply because successful movies were made of them, Cold Comfort Farm, Bridget Jones' Diary, The Thorn Birds, Memoirs of a Geisha, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, and see a few above. (Gone With the WInd is a racist bodice ripper, trash, but worse.)
Very few off the list are books I would like to read. I know the vast majority, and have either read them, rejected them, or tried to read and threw the book across the room. I suspect this comes from having worked in libraries, I may not read them, but I know them, and know why I haven't.
You want the list? Masochists. Here Marked, Read, Won't, Threw, May, and Ignorant (me that is.) The Read pile is at 44. I looked up all the ones I marked Ignorant, and only want to read one of those.
1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien Read
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen Read
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman May
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams Read
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling Won't
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee Read
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne Read
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell Read
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis Read
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë Read
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller Read
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë Read
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks Ignorant
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier Read
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger Threw
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame Read
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens Threw
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott Read
19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres Won't
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy Threw (carefully, don't want to hurt anyone)
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell Won't
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone, JK Rowling Won't
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling Won't
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling Won't
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien Read
26. Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy May
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot Threw
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving Read
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck Read
30. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll Read
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson Ignorant
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez Read
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett Won't 34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens Threw
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl Read
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson Read
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute Read
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen Read
39. Dune, Frank Herbert Won't, and Threw (hate Herbert for another book)
40. Emma, Jane Austen Read
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery Read
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams Read
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald Read
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas Read
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh Read
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell Read
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens Won't
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy Won't
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian Ignorant
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher Ignorant
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett Read
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck Read
53. The Stand, Stephen King Read
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy Won't
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth Ignorant
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl Read
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome Ignorant
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell Read
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer Ignorant
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky Won't
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman Won't
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden Won't
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens Won't
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough Won't
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett Read
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton Won't
67. The Magus, John Fowles Won't
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman Read
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett Read
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding Threw
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind Won't
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell Won't
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett Read
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl Read
75. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding Won't
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt Won't
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins Won't
78. Ulysses, James Joyce Threw
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens Read
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson Won't
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl Read
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith Won't
83. Holes, Louis Sachar Read
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake Threw (really tried to read, honestly)
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy Won't
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson Won't
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley Read (gods help me)
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons Threw
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist Ignorant
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac Read
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo D Read, I Threw
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel Read (hate, hate, hate)
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett Read
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho Threw
95. Katherine, Anya Seton Ignorant (want to read, now)
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer Won't
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez Read
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson Won't
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot Won't
100. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie Won't. Will Throw.
So, The Beeb listed Big Reads, which is a list of 100 books. No idea of the criteria, and it does have a British slant - which is fine by me. Most I have not read, some I will not read under any circumstances.
The presence of four Terr.... Sir Terry Pratchett books may seem excessive, but only if you only think of him as a funny fantasy writer. Night Watch, for instance, is nothing of the sort. The humour distracts those looking for serious novels, which they are, at heart. And well plotted, with rich language, and a handful of ungodly puns. He tackles death and finances, parent child relationships, the function of police in society, tyranny, and the persistence of human stupidity, greed and depravity. While turning phrases amusingly.
Huge swathes of the list are children's books. The ones I read as a kid, and have an affection for, with few exceptions, I will not read again. I will never read The Lord of the Rings again, despite having devoured the series perhaps seven or eight times in my youth. Likewise the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, and Roald Dahl's The BFG, Maltida and so on. Several in young adult series, which degrades the list for me. Winnie the Pooh is another story, I think it really IS for adults, I didn't like the original book as a child. Ditto Alice in Wonderland.
I tried, honestly I tried to read Harry Potter. Nothing really changes, nothing really matters, the prose is simplistic, I don't care about any of the characters, I will never read another word written by JK. And you can't make me.
Glad to see To Kill a Mockingbird, though, such an enduring gem. Likewise anything by Austen - even when the plots fall a bit, I love her characters. Less affection for the Bronte sister's melodrama, but I'm sure nostalgia plays a huge part in these lists. Grapes of Wrath is still readable. And I love Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
I don't think Catch 22 was Heller's best novel, and I read it in a war zone. No one actually reads War and Peace, any more than they actually read James Joyce.
No one should admit to reading Gone With the Wind. Clan of the Cave Bear I hated past all reasoning. D read The Godfather, and was disgusted by the turgid prose, and he loves the movies.
Many, I suspect, are on there simply because successful movies were made of them, Cold Comfort Farm, Bridget Jones' Diary, The Thorn Birds, Memoirs of a Geisha, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, and see a few above. (Gone With the WInd is a racist bodice ripper, trash, but worse.)
Very few off the list are books I would like to read. I know the vast majority, and have either read them, rejected them, or tried to read and threw the book across the room. I suspect this comes from having worked in libraries, I may not read them, but I know them, and know why I haven't.
You want the list? Masochists. Here Marked, Read, Won't, Threw, May, and Ignorant (me that is.) The Read pile is at 44. I looked up all the ones I marked Ignorant, and only want to read one of those.
1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien Read
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen Read
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman May
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams Read
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling Won't
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee Read
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne Read
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell Read
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis Read
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë Read
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller Read
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë Read
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks Ignorant
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier Read
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger Threw
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame Read
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens Threw
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott Read
19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres Won't
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy Threw (carefully, don't want to hurt anyone)
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell Won't
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone, JK Rowling Won't
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling Won't
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling Won't
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien Read
26. Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy May
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot Threw
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving Read
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck Read
30. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll Read
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson Ignorant
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez Read
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett Won't 34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens Threw
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl Read
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson Read
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute Read
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen Read
39. Dune, Frank Herbert Won't, and Threw (hate Herbert for another book)
40. Emma, Jane Austen Read
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery Read
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams Read
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald Read
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas Read
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh Read
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell Read
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens Won't
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy Won't
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian Ignorant
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher Ignorant
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett Read
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck Read
53. The Stand, Stephen King Read
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy Won't
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth Ignorant
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl Read
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome Ignorant
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell Read
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer Ignorant
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky Won't
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman Won't
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden Won't
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens Won't
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough Won't
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett Read
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton Won't
67. The Magus, John Fowles Won't
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman Read
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett Read
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding Threw
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind Won't
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell Won't
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett Read
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl Read
75. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding Won't
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt Won't
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins Won't
78. Ulysses, James Joyce Threw
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens Read
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson Won't
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl Read
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith Won't
83. Holes, Louis Sachar Read
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake Threw (really tried to read, honestly)
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy Won't
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson Won't
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley Read (gods help me)
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons Threw
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist Ignorant
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac Read
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo D Read, I Threw
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel Read (hate, hate, hate)
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett Read
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho Threw
95. Katherine, Anya Seton Ignorant (want to read, now)
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer Won't
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez Read
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson Won't
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot Won't
100. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie Won't. Will Throw.
Labels: Meme
Posted by Zhoen on Saturday, February 21, 2009
8 comments:
"The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell Won't"
Surprised at that one. I keep meaning to read it myself. Seemed like it might be up your alley.
Definitely, definitely read His Dark Materials. It's grade A imaginative fantasy, and quite an emotional wrangler once you get to the end.
Though I really hate all these kind of lists. For example, there's no way I could think of 100 books I liked and not include anything by Virginia Woolf.
see what you mean about the surprising amount of children's fiction.
I have to confess to a great weakness for cold comfort farm which I loved before I ever moved into its pages living in the middle of Brittany.
No science fiction either... what about the genius of Ian M Bank's Culture, a society I hope to live in if I can hang on long enough
From whence springs the Herbert hate? I'm a huge fan and I realize it's not for everybody, but rarely have I encountered "Herbert" and "hate" in the same sentence, if ever. Just curious.
This comment has been removed by the author.
I had posted a link in my deleted comment above,had second thoughts on its inclusion,and removed the comment as one cannot edit comments.
There is a similar meme going around amongst us at Facebook, though it has a few different titles.
Have a good break, Z.
(o)
Pacian,
Looked up the book, the era of writing tends to put me off, especially a male author of that time, and the theme. As for His Dark Materials, still a bit hard to get hands on here, working on it.
Rosie,
No Le Carre either. I think these lists need to be a bit more directed, focused to audience, era, something.
Sandusky,
The other writer conspicuously missing from the Book list is John Le Carre.
Frank Herbert wrote Soul Catcher. I loved the writing, got completely caught up in the story, but the ending felt like a violent betrayal, of the reader, of the characters. That book was hurled at the wall, and I vowed to never read that author again. Not because a character died, but because I was not convinced that he had to die. Characters are sometimes murdered, but they should be killed by another character, not by the author for the sake of shock or just something to do. In Cujo, for instance, the kid really had to die at the end, the whole plot was set up to explain why he had to die. In Soul Catcher, the kid earned his life, but Frank murdered him at the last minute. A bad ending is the surest way for an author to stop me ever reading any other of their books ever.
RR,
Yeah, these lists are a cheat posting. But I'm not above that, so.
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