BBC book meme
Jan. 29th, 2004 12:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maribouI stole this from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gfish, but I've been meaning to do it for months anyway. It's just easier now. BBC polled its audience about their 200 favorite books, and the results have been listed behind the lj-cut, bolded if I've read them, with commentary if I felt like it.
1. Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
Approximately once a year since I was eight, yes.
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
Yup. These are really good, I like them better as the series progresses and they get more abstruse and gnostic-y. Even though gnosticism sort of irritates me.
4. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
I liked Long Dark Teatime of the Soul better, I confess.
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
This was a brilliant and powerful book and I don't know of anyone I know who has read it and not liked it. So if you haven't read it, you should. Atticus reminds me of my grandfather.
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
I may have read this as many times as I've read Lord of the Rings. However, it is much shorter, and it's been a lot longer since I've read it.
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
I confess to liking Animal Farm better, but I admire Orwell immensely in general.
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
I like this, butgfish is right, Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Magician's Nephew are the best ones. I have a special fondness for A Horse and His Boy, but I suspect it is idiosyncratic.
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
While this is a very smart, kick-you-in-the-gut kind of book, what I like best about it is that it is sometimes howlingly funny. Sometimes people seem to forget that satire should be funny.
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
I really wasn't terribly excited by this book. In my opinion, Franny and Zooey is both better written and more socially defiant.
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
My favorite part of this book is the part with Pan. And my second favorite is the part with Christmas. They've always been. I guess my religious fascinations started early. (My third favorite is EVERYTHING with the badger in.)
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
I may reread this eventually, I read it as a kid and liked it, but I wasn't reading it very hard, you know?
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
I liked Jo enough to read all the sequels.
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
I can't read this book without switching to reading it aloud. And I adore the smashing song.
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
My favorite John Irving book. Books like this one keep me trying everything he wrote, although I really feel that half of his novels are much better than the other half.
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
I blame my argumentative nature on this book. Unjust, I know.
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
I adored and luxuriated in the horrible fates of the other children.
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
I know I read it, but I barely remember it.
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
In my first year of college, I was once having a Very Bad Night. Not knowing quite what to do with myself as it was early enough on, I flung myself at the metaphorical feet of a sympathetic boy one floor down with whom I'd had a couple of decent conversations, and urgently requested something absorbing to read that would keep me from lying awake staring at the ceiling all night. (This was at about 2 am.) He gave me Dune. I read the whole thing, slept for 14 hours, and woke up in a good mood. He and I never became more than friendly acquaintances, but I'm still grateful as hell for the loan.
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
I have a love/hate relationship with yon Anne. This was the first chapter book my parents and their friends remember me reading, and I've read it a zillion times. And it's a good book. Really. However, I grew up in Prince Edward Island, whose chief industry is tourism (well, after government jobs), and if I see One More Anne Doll, I may tie on some red braids and go on a wild killing spree. Just warning you.
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
Another childhood favorite. I liked how odd all the protagonist bunnies were. I mean, I know they were *bunnies*, but.
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
This book irritated me but I read it three or 4 times anyway. Dickon made me happy.
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
I liked it but East of Eden is so much better.
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
I struggled unpleasantly through this book because, at the age of 9 no less, I'd decided that since Arthur Ransome was such a big deal, I ought to at least read SOMETHING by him and see why people liked him so. Never did quite figure it out.
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I read this in an afternoon because I couldn't put it down. Apparently this is not the usual reaction? I'm sort of strange, as we all know.
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Finally read this last year. Oh, was it fun!
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
This book gave me the creeps because it was so damn plausible.
71. Perfume, Patrick Suskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
Talk about your escapist fantasies.... I do like this book.
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens.
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
I prefered this to 1984 when I read them both, but I remember it less well.
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
As the modern "brave and naive boy gets in over his head only to discover that he has Amazing Super Powers" genre goes, this is a sterling exemplar.
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
I'm glad I read these when I was young enough to not be embarrassed by them.
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
I may've actually read more Pratchett than I'm bolding because I'm terrible at correctly associating titles with plots.
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
One of my favorite Pratchetts.
103. The Beach, Alex Garland
104. Dracula, Bram Stoker
105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz
106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens
107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz
108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy
112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13 and 3/4, Sue Townsend
I used to watch this show on TV.
113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
(I've only read half of this one, because I am stubborn about reading it in French and the French is just so lovely, and I get so little chance to speak French anymore, that I always end up reading it aloud, and it's really LONG, and I don't have that much TIME to read aloud, and then when I get back to it I forget exactly where I left off, and I start over someplace further back, and.... well... the second half languors unstirred. But it's a very shiny book, really.)
115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
119. Shogun, James Clavell
Read this at my grandmother's one day when we were having a family party and I was feeling antisocial. Luckily, I have the sort of family where nobody minded.
120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson
122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
124. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
127. Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison
128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
129. Possession, A. S. Byatt
eeyorerin gave me this book. And it is SO good. It made me want to be Victorian, and may quite possibly be the only thing which has ever accomplished this feat.
130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
This is the vague future terror I envision when I think about the religious right gaining more power.
132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl
133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck
Good lord, this was a good book. I can't even specify what was so enjoyable about it, it was just ... wow.
Excellent title.
134. George's Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
This is a good book, but I first read it when I was eight. I'm not entirely certain that was a good idea.
137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson
141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
The first war novel I ever appreciated.
142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson
143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
144. It, Stephen King
The only clown scarier than the It clown is the porn clown (shudder).
145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
146. The Green Mile, Stephen King
147. Papillon, Henri Charriere
148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett
149. Master And Commander, Patrick O'Brian
150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz
151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
Another of my favorites.
152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett
153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement, Ian McEwan
I liked the first third of this book a lot better than the other two thirds.
155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier
157. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
This book was scary when I read it; I think it would make me sadder than scared, now.
158. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon
Except it was called Outlander when I read it. But it's the same book. As trashy fluff goes, it's fun.
161. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
162. River God, Wilbur Smith
163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
165. The World According To Garp, John Irving
This book straddles the gap between Irving that I Love and Irving That's Pretty Decent, Really.
166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore
167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson
168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye
169. The Witches by Roald Dahl
170. Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
Trumpet of the Swan is less mawkish, but I like this one too.
171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway
174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco
One of my favorite books in the world, for textual and contextual reasons.
175. Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder
Jay gave me this when we were dating and I didn't know much about philosophy. Was good, both for chronologizing philosophers and as a story.
176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr Fox, Roald Dahl
178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
I really like this book but every so often someone tries really hard to convince me that HumbertHumbert isn't supposed to be an obviously unreliable narrator and then I get squicked out.
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
"On ne connait que les choses que l'on apprivoise."
181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner, George Eliot
185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
Yawn.
186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Grossmith
187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine
Er, this is a series. And I have only read, um, 1, maybe 2 books in the series. Sometimes, when you are stuck in a middle school library waiting for your mother, you end up reading the strangest things. Well, I do anyway.
189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera.
Another one I read at my grandmother's when I was feeling antisocial.
192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons
193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
This is my very favorite Pratchett, of the ones I've read.
194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells
195. The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans
196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White
This is one of my very favorite books.
199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews
I was only thirteen when I read this book, but I definitely wasn't young enough to not be embarrassed by reading it. Oy.
So I've read 88 of the 200. Mostly the kid's books, it seems.
gfish, but I've been meaning to do it for months anyway. It's just easier now. BBC polled its audience about their 200 favorite books, and the results have been listed behind the lj-cut, bolded if I've read them, with commentary if I felt like it.1. Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
Approximately once a year since I was eight, yes.
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
Yup. These are really good, I like them better as the series progresses and they get more abstruse and gnostic-y. Even though gnosticism sort of irritates me.
4. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
I liked Long Dark Teatime of the Soul better, I confess.
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
This was a brilliant and powerful book and I don't know of anyone I know who has read it and not liked it. So if you haven't read it, you should. Atticus reminds me of my grandfather.
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
I may have read this as many times as I've read Lord of the Rings. However, it is much shorter, and it's been a lot longer since I've read it.
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
I confess to liking Animal Farm better, but I admire Orwell immensely in general.
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
I like this, but
gfish is right, Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Magician's Nephew are the best ones. I have a special fondness for A Horse and His Boy, but I suspect it is idiosyncratic.10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
While this is a very smart, kick-you-in-the-gut kind of book, what I like best about it is that it is sometimes howlingly funny. Sometimes people seem to forget that satire should be funny.
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
I really wasn't terribly excited by this book. In my opinion, Franny and Zooey is both better written and more socially defiant.
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
My favorite part of this book is the part with Pan. And my second favorite is the part with Christmas. They've always been. I guess my religious fascinations started early. (My third favorite is EVERYTHING with the badger in.)
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
I may reread this eventually, I read it as a kid and liked it, but I wasn't reading it very hard, you know?
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
I liked Jo enough to read all the sequels.
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
I can't read this book without switching to reading it aloud. And I adore the smashing song.
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
My favorite John Irving book. Books like this one keep me trying everything he wrote, although I really feel that half of his novels are much better than the other half.
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
I blame my argumentative nature on this book. Unjust, I know.
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
I adored and luxuriated in the horrible fates of the other children.
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
I know I read it, but I barely remember it.
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
In my first year of college, I was once having a Very Bad Night. Not knowing quite what to do with myself as it was early enough on, I flung myself at the metaphorical feet of a sympathetic boy one floor down with whom I'd had a couple of decent conversations, and urgently requested something absorbing to read that would keep me from lying awake staring at the ceiling all night. (This was at about 2 am.) He gave me Dune. I read the whole thing, slept for 14 hours, and woke up in a good mood. He and I never became more than friendly acquaintances, but I'm still grateful as hell for the loan.
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
I have a love/hate relationship with yon Anne. This was the first chapter book my parents and their friends remember me reading, and I've read it a zillion times. And it's a good book. Really. However, I grew up in Prince Edward Island, whose chief industry is tourism (well, after government jobs), and if I see One More Anne Doll, I may tie on some red braids and go on a wild killing spree. Just warning you.
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
Another childhood favorite. I liked how odd all the protagonist bunnies were. I mean, I know they were *bunnies*, but.
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
This book irritated me but I read it three or 4 times anyway. Dickon made me happy.
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
I liked it but East of Eden is so much better.
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
I struggled unpleasantly through this book because, at the age of 9 no less, I'd decided that since Arthur Ransome was such a big deal, I ought to at least read SOMETHING by him and see why people liked him so. Never did quite figure it out.
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I read this in an afternoon because I couldn't put it down. Apparently this is not the usual reaction? I'm sort of strange, as we all know.
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Finally read this last year. Oh, was it fun!
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
This book gave me the creeps because it was so damn plausible.
71. Perfume, Patrick Suskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
Talk about your escapist fantasies.... I do like this book.
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens.
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
I prefered this to 1984 when I read them both, but I remember it less well.
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
As the modern "brave and naive boy gets in over his head only to discover that he has Amazing Super Powers" genre goes, this is a sterling exemplar.
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
I'm glad I read these when I was young enough to not be embarrassed by them.
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
I may've actually read more Pratchett than I'm bolding because I'm terrible at correctly associating titles with plots.
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
One of my favorite Pratchetts.
103. The Beach, Alex Garland
104. Dracula, Bram Stoker
105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz
106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens
107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz
108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy
112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13 and 3/4, Sue Townsend
I used to watch this show on TV.
113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
(I've only read half of this one, because I am stubborn about reading it in French and the French is just so lovely, and I get so little chance to speak French anymore, that I always end up reading it aloud, and it's really LONG, and I don't have that much TIME to read aloud, and then when I get back to it I forget exactly where I left off, and I start over someplace further back, and.... well... the second half languors unstirred. But it's a very shiny book, really.)
115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
119. Shogun, James Clavell
Read this at my grandmother's one day when we were having a family party and I was feeling antisocial. Luckily, I have the sort of family where nobody minded.
120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson
122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
124. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
127. Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison
128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
129. Possession, A. S. Byatt
eeyorerin gave me this book. And it is SO good. It made me want to be Victorian, and may quite possibly be the only thing which has ever accomplished this feat.130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
This is the vague future terror I envision when I think about the religious right gaining more power.
132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl
133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck
Good lord, this was a good book. I can't even specify what was so enjoyable about it, it was just ... wow.
Excellent title.
134. George's Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
This is a good book, but I first read it when I was eight. I'm not entirely certain that was a good idea.
137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson
141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
The first war novel I ever appreciated.
142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson
143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
144. It, Stephen King
The only clown scarier than the It clown is the porn clown (shudder).
145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
146. The Green Mile, Stephen King
147. Papillon, Henri Charriere
148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett
149. Master And Commander, Patrick O'Brian
150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz
151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
Another of my favorites.
152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett
153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement, Ian McEwan
I liked the first third of this book a lot better than the other two thirds.
155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier
157. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
This book was scary when I read it; I think it would make me sadder than scared, now.
158. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon
Except it was called Outlander when I read it. But it's the same book. As trashy fluff goes, it's fun.
161. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
162. River God, Wilbur Smith
163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
165. The World According To Garp, John Irving
This book straddles the gap between Irving that I Love and Irving That's Pretty Decent, Really.
166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore
167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson
168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye
169. The Witches by Roald Dahl
170. Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
Trumpet of the Swan is less mawkish, but I like this one too.
171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway
174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco
One of my favorite books in the world, for textual and contextual reasons.
175. Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder
Jay gave me this when we were dating and I didn't know much about philosophy. Was good, both for chronologizing philosophers and as a story.
176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr Fox, Roald Dahl
178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
I really like this book but every so often someone tries really hard to convince me that HumbertHumbert isn't supposed to be an obviously unreliable narrator and then I get squicked out.
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
"On ne connait que les choses que l'on apprivoise."
181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner, George Eliot
185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
Yawn.
186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Grossmith
187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine
Er, this is a series. And I have only read, um, 1, maybe 2 books in the series. Sometimes, when you are stuck in a middle school library waiting for your mother, you end up reading the strangest things. Well, I do anyway.
189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera.
Another one I read at my grandmother's when I was feeling antisocial.
192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons
193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
This is my very favorite Pratchett, of the ones I've read.
194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells
195. The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans
196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White
This is one of my very favorite books.
199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews
I was only thirteen when I read this book, but I definitely wasn't young enough to not be embarrassed by reading it. Oy.
So I've read 88 of the 200. Mostly the kid's books, it seems.
