Have you read these books, BBC says you probably haven't.

[Caitilin]

I have read 55 of those listed, and I am 31. So, more than half's not bad, right? But I agree that some of them shouldn't be there, and some are there more than once. :)

[WTMCassandra]

51. I haven't had time to read the other responses.

[Vida Winter]

I've read about half of them but some of those listed are just laughable - Bridget Jones? Davinci Code? and then they just throw in Complete Works of Shakespeare as a single work? LOL. Who came up with this list?

[bbsweetpea]

Odd list. I have read 50 of them. Not sure I want to read the other 50 though.

[BillieBoy]

I just wanted to repost this for those just joining in

 

It was based on a nomination of 100 favorite books:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100.shtml

 

And the next 100, making it the top 200 of popular culture's favorite books:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top200.shtml

[Reya]

I have not completed 14 but have gotten pretty far into them. For example, I've read all of Shakespeare's works but many of the histories, and I've read the first 4 or 5 Harry Potters and had no desire to continue. I alos get repeatedly stuck in Anna Karenina, for instance, about 3/4ths of the way through.

 

I haven't started 45 others. And I have no intention of reading probably 15, ever.

 

I have read about half of the ones I have read--41--more than once.

[Reya]

Well, WTMers blow that "statistic" of 6/100 out the water, like you predicted. :)

 

It was based on a nomination of 100 favorite books:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100.shtml

 

And the next 100, making it the top 200 of popular culture's favorite books:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top200.shtml

 

36 of the first 50 completed, 16 of the next 50, 11 of the next 50, and 14 of the final 50. That's 77.

[Reya]

57 of them. Do I get extra points for reading the French ones in French?

 

Laura

 

Only if I get credit for Garcia Marquez in Spanish!:tongue_smilie:

[Laura Corin]

 

Anyone else read Zola's Germinal?

 

 

My degree is in French, so I read it in at university. I haven't thought about it in the last twenty-five years - maybe I should read it again, but I'm too busy reading other classics before handing them to Calvin. I just finished Frankenstein but I don't think I'd suggest Germinal to C at the moment, even in English.

 

Laura

[Laura Corin]

Only if I get credit for Garcia Marquez in Spanish!:tongue_smilie:

 

Laura

[Dawn in OH]

I've read quite a few of those books. But there's some I'm really wondering why they are on the list. Many of them are clearly classics, and other's are just not in the same league at all.

[WistfulRidge]

Okay Ambitioushousewife, which 11 (or 9) haven't you read?

 

I too will read (almost) anything in a pinch. I once brought Ulysess on a 48 hour train ride across Europe---and never got past the first 100 pages. I found myself trying to puzzle out the meaning in Turkish newspapers instead. And thrilling at the sight of a Danielle Steele in French....

 

Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams -

Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh -

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres -

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez -

A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time - Mark Haddon

Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding - I find it laughable that this one is on the list...honestly. I can see why they would put Da Vinci Code on there...but Bridget Jone's Diary??? Honestly???

Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome -

The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

 

I'll read pretty much anything (and I mean anything!) if I'm bored enough or motivated enough.

 

For example, I don't think I'd ever have read "War and Peace", but I had a cousin that couldn't believe I could read something that long and offered me $100 if I could read it in less than 2 days. There are several other books I've read for similar reasons...

 

I felt kind of like I was "cheating" counting many of them though, because the last time I read many of the books on the list was between the ages of 9 and 12 and I had absolutely no clue what was going on in half of them. But I read them anyway :glare:

[Orthodox6]

You receive full credit !

 

Don Quixote did not appear on the list, as I expected. In high school AP Spanish I had to read the entire book (in Spanish).

 

Only if I get credit for Garcia Marquez in Spanish!:tongue_smilie:

[Mrs Mungo]

Here are my answers although some of these I haven't read since high school or college.

 

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen - y

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien - y

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte - y

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling - y

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee - y

6 The Bible - y

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte - y

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell -y

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman -y (but I didn't care for it and don't recommend it)

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens -y

 

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott - y

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy - y

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller -y

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare –y

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier -y

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien -y

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks -n

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger - y

19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger - y

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot-y

 

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell - y

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald - y

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens -y

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy -y

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams -y

26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh -n

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky -y

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck -y

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll - y

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame -y

 

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy -y

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens -y

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis -y

34 Emma-Jane Austen - y

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen -y

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis -y (well if I read the Chronicles then I read this, right?)

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hossein - n

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres - n

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden -y

40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne -y

 

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell -y

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown -y

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez -n

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving -n

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins -n

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery -y

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy -y

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood -y

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding -y

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan - n

 

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel -y

52 Dune - Frank Herbert -y

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons -n

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen - y

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth -n

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafo -n

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens -y

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley-y

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

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez -n

 

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck -y

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov - y

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt -n

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold -y

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas -y

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac - y

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy -y

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding - y (and I love this book, the second book has one of the most hilarious scenes I've ever read)

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie -n

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville -y

 

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens - y

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker - y

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett - y

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson-n

75 Ulysses - James Joyce - y

76 The Inferno – Dante -y

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome -n

78 Germinal - Emile Zola -n

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray -y

 

80 Possession - AS Byatt-n

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens -y

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell -n

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker -y

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro - n

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert -y

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry -n

87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White - y

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom - n

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle -y

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton -n

 

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad - y

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery - y

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks - n

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams - y

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole - y

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute -n

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas -y

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare - y

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl -y

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo –y

[Shelly in the Country]

I've read 36 of the books on that list in their entirety and parts of a few others (I have a bad habit of reading half a book, putting it down for several months and not picking it up again.) There was a little too much "junk" on that list imho.

[OhM]

but I read everything - even, in a desperate moment in the car, the manual for my new toaster cover to cover (the Spanish too).

 

LOL - I haven't read 81 (only 49) but I can relate - DH hates it when I "help" him paint - I have to stop to read the newspapers that he uses for masking :lol:

[Storm Bay]

I've only finished 45 (ETA 46--I didn't pay attention to Bridget Jones Diary--which is one of those books I really don't think should be on there. I may have missed others I've read, too) of them, but many of them I have absolutely no interest in reading. I've read a number of great classics and literary books that are not on that list, too, and think that this is a rather arbitrary list. And I did manage to slug through all of Don Quixote and it's not even on there!

 

I'd have read the Russian ones when I was younger if my grandmother hadn't told me that they're just not the same in English. I always felt as though I'd miss out by reading the English, so didn't even bother. I finally tried one this summer and hated it (Crime and Punishment). At this point I'm not going to force myself to read it.

Edited August 14, 2009 by Karin

[OhM]

OK, If we are voting on who should read the classics to us can I put in a plug for Matthew Macfadyen? If you want to know why; watch these:

 

 

Lovely,

Amber in SJ

 

 

Oh dear - thank you so much for sharing. Wow. I think I'll go have a nice cool shower now. :001_wub:

[Storm Bay]

I just wanted to repost this for those just joining in

On those lists, I've read 41 of the first and only 20 of the second. However, given how they got the lists, I don't feel badly about that at all. Many are not literature or have absolutely no appeal to me. I was very pleased to see Gormenghast on there. However, I read all three of the books in that trilogy, but have zero desire to read Harry Potter (3 in a row were HP), etc.

[Sparkle]

Some of those books :thumbdown:

 

I've read 45 of them.

[Melissa in Australia]

from both lists, I have read a total of 54.

[Paisley Hedgehog]

nm

[Jean in Wisc]

I've read 58--and several of the rest are sitting in my to-read pile.

 

:) Jean