Saturday, February 18, 2006

saturday = meme day

Via the lovely Bev:
Top 50 books from whatshouldireadnext.com - copy it, bold what you've read, italicize what you plan to read. And if I haven't marked something that you think is a great read, let me know!

The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee *First read when I was 10; at least once a year since then. Love the movie too. Cartoon hearts and flowers surround me when I think of Gregory Peck.
The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J.K. Rowling *I am anti-Harry Potter, now and forever*
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story - George Orwell
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen *Total sucker for Austen.
1984 - George Orwell
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J.K. Rowling *Yeah.
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut *I read Cat's Cradle for a philosophy class. I've never rolled my eyes quite so often.
Angels and Demons - Dan Brown
Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk *Most kickass author ever. Sent my friend, who is a huge fan, a beaded necklace that spelled her name.
Neuromancer - William Gibson
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving *see above, "Kurt Vonnegut"
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides *I loved The Virgin Suicides
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Good Omens - Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman
Atonement - Ian McEwan
The Shadow Of The Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway *Hate. Hate. Hate. Hemingway. The Old Misogynist and the Sea is what it should be called. Oh yeah, and A Farewell to Adjectives.
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

So this list makes me out to be not such a big reader. It's partly because I have such strong opinions on several of the authors, and partly because I hate, loathe, despise, and abominate sci-fi/fantasy. (What's that? Our hero is in a predicament? Ah, but he has his magical and/or super-technologically advanced Predicament Eliminator! Ta-da!: problem solved.) Anyway, some favorites who didn't get a mention are Margaret Drabble, Anne Tyler, E. M. Forster, Patrick O'Brien (more hearts and flowers: Russell Crowe!), Tracy Chevalier, and Julia Alvarez. And Elizabeth Peters and Elizabeth George for my good ol' brain-candy, mysteries. Further favorites posted as they occur to me.

2 comments:

The Little (Knitting) Hedgehog said...

I should do this one soon there are a lot more books I've read in this list than I expected.

Beverly said...

I've listened to a few of the Tracy Chevelier books on Audible and enjoyed them. I LOVE John Irving and Kurt Vonnegut...yeah, there are so many good authors not mentioned, but what a great way to hear about new books to read!

BTW, I'd love to borrow Garden State if it's on dvd! Thanks!