Books, Books and more Books to Read!

There is a reading list floating around Facebook that purports to be connected to the BBC. The idea is that you copy and paste the book list to your notes and then bold the ones you have read and use italics for the ones you started but never finished. I decided I wanted to do more with the list so I’m making a it a blog post instead of an FB note.

Some of these are collections.  I don’t think a person should be forced to read a collection to get credit for reading “a book.”  No, those are multiple books. For collections that I have read or started to read some but not all of the books, I am going to list out the individual titles. Except Shakespeare. That’s too many! Also for me I think I’ll use pretty purple font to denote those books that I want to read or have started but intend to finish.  So purple is “I want to read,” and purple and italicized is “I started reading and someday I intend to finish.”  Regular boring italicized is started and never finished. I’m not sure if I have any of those.

“Stacked Books Isolated" Image courtesy of Supertrooper at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 So here is the list of 100 Books and some comments from me:

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

• Fellowship of the Ring
• The Two Towers
• Return of the Kind

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte ~ Boobear loved this book.  I struggled with it. I started reading it and had to stop and then I finally finished it. Not one of my favorites.

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible ~ There are 66 books in the protestant version.  27 in the New Testament. I’ve read all of those multiple times.  I’ve read most of the OT but not all of the prophets and only one of the books that is included in the deuterocanonical books. (Tobit, in case you are curious.)  I have every intention of reading all the books.  2015 might be the year!

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte ~ I know I’ve read this but it’s been so long I don’t remember it at all. I’m leaving it bold and black but I did just download a free copy to my Kindle in case I decide to read it again to refresh my memory.

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell ~  I keep thinking I have to read this one but then I realized I haven’t. I own it. Maybe someday I’ll put it on my to-read list.

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman ~ I have never heard of this one.

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hard ~ Everyone keeps telling me that I should read this because my name is Tess.  Is that really a good reason to read a book?

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare ~ Seriously, the complete works? I can’t swear that I’ve read every single play. I have read all the sonnets and many (if not most) of the plays.  But Shakespeare plays were not meant to be read; they were meant to be watched. I’ve not come close to seeing them all. Maybe I’ll get around to reading the plays I haven’t read yet.

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell ~ I have seen the movie so many times. I think I started this years ago (like in high school) and never finished but I’m leaving it like this.  Maybe I’ll read it but it’s not a high priority.

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy ~ I think this is one that I should read.

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams ~ I might have to try reading this one just to see what all the fuss is about.  I think it is important for cultural literacy.

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy ~ I just added this to my Kindle Fire.  Free version. Maybe I will tackle it someday.

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34 Emma -Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis ~ Of course I’ve read this if I’ve read the Chronicles of Narnia! It’s part of the collection!

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding ~ I wish I had not read this book. I found it so disturbing when I read it. Maybe I was too young? It was 9th or 10th grade I think. Maybe? I have not made my girls read this one.

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens ~ I read this because my 9th grade teacher introduced us to Charles Dickens and I wanted to read the book since I had learned the quote.

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley ~ Two of my girls have read this one. Turtlegirl says it was “kind of disturbing.” Since I made them read it, I guess I should read it.

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fieldin

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville ~ I have no desire whatsoever to read this book. None.

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Inferno – Dante ~ It is possible I read this but I don’t remember.

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad ~ I own this and at least one of my daughters have read it. Maybe I will read it someday.

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas ~ Turtlegirl has read this and we’ve watched a couple of different movie versions. Someday I will finish reading it.

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare ~

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl  ~ The movie with Gene Wilder scared me. I haven’t seen the Johnny Depp version. I’m not sure I can get past the movie to read the book.

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

For another list of Books that Everyone Should read you can check out GoodReads.  How many of these have you read? If you have posted about how many you’ve read please leave me a link in the comments. I’d love to check it out!