Adele posted a Book Meme, the other day, which was promptly picked up by Buffy, in her Theft! posting. Rather than re-do the whole thing, I choose to merely list the books on their listing that I have read. If I transferred the titles, correctly (and it took a lot of HTML work), there should be 49 titles, below. (Note to Adele: I deleted one of the titles that I had previously counted, deciding that I had probably not remembered correctly.) I urge you to visit either of the cited blogs if you wish to pick up the meme.
1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
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
18. Catcher in the Rye - J D Salinger
19. The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffeneger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73.The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
I did a similar one from the National Endowment for the Arts' Big Read program a while back. This looks like someone took it and added some rules.
We have a lot of books in common!!!
Why am I soooo not surprised? LOL
Posted by: Kay Dennison | January 18, 2009 at 01:31 PM
I have read many of the books on your list and could add many more, but my memory is failing me and I won't even try.
It's amazing how many really good books have been written.
Posted by: Darlene | January 19, 2009 at 11:30 AM
Kay--There are several book-based meme's floating about, I'm sure. Some better than others. This one isn't bad...but...
Kay & Darlene--In my opinion, there are books on this listing that were not worth the time to read. For instance, Ulysses. Come to think of it, it probably should not be on the list because I don't believe that I finished it. I know that scholars have said otherwise, but I found the book to be ill written and without redeeming social value. (Hunky Husband bought it as one title in a "best books" series of 100. The series failed to impress me--especially when I noted that it included but one title by a woman, Jane Eyre.)
Posted by: Cop Car | January 19, 2009 at 03:36 PM
Cop Car, as usual, we have a lot in common. I come up short on books like Anna Karenina, Count of Monte Cristo, Ulysses, Madam Bovary, Heart of Darkness and The Little Prince. I most likely won't read those books, but of the others I had not read, I made a list to keep nearby as I order from Amazon. When my order is not quite enough to make the cut off for free shipping, I'll add one of the books. I'd rather spend my money on books than shipping any day!
As for lists, I can remember when the American Film Institute began airing their "100 Best...." series. Dear Husband and I watched the first one, which was 100 Best Films of the 20th century, and we had a lot of discussion as to what we would have left off the list, and what would have been moved up in place, or demoted. I'm sure that we all feel the same about these book lists. Frankie wondered who had chosen the books for this meme because the genres had been so oddly represented. I was delighted to see that some science fiction had been included.
Posted by: buffy | January 20, 2009 at 08:53 AM
CopCar,
The list of the books you have read while not identical to mine bears many similarities. Not sure I fancy reading Lolita - I understand it's an uncomfortable read but perhaps that's why I should try it. You've definitely read more Shakespear that me, I've read some but personally I much prefer listening to a great actor reading his works, whether a play or one of his sonnets. I find I get so much more out of the work and it's easier to concentrate on the beauty when you haven't got to read every word. Oh well, there speaks someone who never made it to college but left school at 16.
Posted by: Adele Humphreys | January 20, 2009 at 04:07 PM
Looks pretty similar to my list. I add a lot of Germans, like Thomas Mann and Kafka.
Posted by: Hattie | January 22, 2009 at 09:45 AM
Happy Edith Wharton's birthday!
Posted by: Cop Car | January 24, 2009 at 07:10 AM
Today? I didn't realise.
Posted by: Adele Humphreys | January 24, 2009 at 12:40 PM