Are you well read? Apparently I’m not (never thought I was really).

My life, Random Stuff

I stole this from another blog who stole it from someone else and so the cycle goes.  Feel free to steal it from me.  I guess “steal” is a harsh word……Copy?  Use?  Borrow?  Yea, let’s go with borrow.

Below are a list of 100 suggested titles that a “well read” person in their life have picked up and actually read.  I have “picked up” almost all of these, thumbed through them and imagined myself in a burgandy leather chair sipping brandy in my private library next to a brass desk light with a green shade on it.  My fantasy library shelves are lined with these and many other classic novels as well as my trophy from my appearance on Jeopardy.  I have no idea if Jeopardy gives trophies but it’s my vision so leave alone.

In the below list the books I have actually picked up and read are in bold.  Those I began to read but never finish (promising myself I would some day) are in RED and my favorites are underlined.

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

2. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien  (just don’t think this is my style)

3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte

4. Harry Potter series – JK Rowling (Listened to the whole series while commuting to work).

5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

6. The BibleI have read a good portion, but not all.

7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte

8. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell

9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman

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 (haven’t read the ENTIRE thing enough in college!)

15. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier

16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien

17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks

18. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger  (My best friend in high school did a book report on this book 3 times in 4 years.  I feel like I’ve read it!)

19. The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger

20. Middlemarch – George Eliot

21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell

22. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald

23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens

24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy

25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

26. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh

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

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

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 – AA Milne  (I don’t know of anyone with kids who has not read this to their kids)

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 Meany – 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

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

58. A Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

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 Fielding

69. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie

70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville

71. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens

72. Dracula – Bram Stoker

73. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett  (I’ve read “MY Secret Garden” does that count?)

74. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson

75. Ulysses – James Joyce

76. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath

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 – EB White

88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom

89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90. In Cold Blood – Truman Capote

91. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

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

98. Hamlet - William Shakespear

99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl

100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Wow!  I feel this self investigation did nothing to boost my ego.  I really am a hill billy ain’t I?

11 Comments

11 Comments

  1. charms  •  Jul 23, 2008 @10:27 am

    that is a long list!

  2. Martha  •  Jul 23, 2008 @1:37 pm

    Thanks for sharing, visiting from ILCW. Love your photos and your choices for favorite books. Best to you and yours.

  3. Alicia  •  Jul 23, 2008 @6:19 pm

    I have seen this on a few blogs!!! I would recommend Time Travelers Wife, best book EVER!

    here from ICLW

  4. michellew  •  Jul 23, 2008 @7:27 pm

    That is some list. Shockingly I have read more than I would have thought. I am for some reason disturbed that the Harry Potter series made the ‘well read’ list.
    I am visiting from ICLW! I’ll be back!

  5. michellew  •  Jul 23, 2008 @7:35 pm

    So, to add to my last comment, I’ve actually read #.s 1,2,3,
    4,5, some of 6, 7(one of my all time faves), 8,10, 11 (another fave), 14,16,18,21,22, 24 (though who can finish it?), 25,27,28,29,30-36, reading 39, 40, 41,46,49,50,54,57,58,61,62,66 (another all time fave),68,70,71,72,73,76,81,83,87,88, started 90 and 94 but never finished, 97-100
    Better than I’d have thought.

  6. Katie  •  Jul 24, 2008 @6:27 am

    My one recomendation, which I also made to the original blogger was to read His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman. A book that everyone should read imo!

  7. liddy  •  Jul 24, 2008 @10:31 am

    Visiting for ICLW.

    Nope I am not well read either. I am not one for classics or fiction for that matter, give me a business book and I am good to go!

  8. M  •  Jul 24, 2008 @9:47 pm

    That is such a long list. I saw it somewhere else and was thinking of doing it as well, so I’ve saved it for a rainy day when I need something to blog about!

    You’ve read quite a good number of those, so you should be proud of yourself! And, in my opinion, quite a good number of those books are not even worth reading.

    ICLW

  9. Kim  •  Jul 26, 2008 @12:36 am

    I love this one – will have to steal, I mean borrow too when I get the vacation pics finished!

  10. Nic  •  Jul 26, 2008 @6:15 pm

    Love love love the booklist! Going to catch up properly with where you are (and indeed what I have read!) in the next couple of days.

    Hugs to you all xxxx

  11. Rebecca (Ramblings by Reba)  •  Jul 27, 2008 @7:45 pm

    I LOVE to read, but I wouldn’t say I’m well read. This list would agree. :)

    I just ADORED The Time Traveller’s Wife.

    I cannot put into words just how much I loved this book. To give you an idea, though, I listened to the abridged book on CD because I wanted to experience the book again. I don’t usually listen to abridged books. That may seem like a weak “defense,” but the book is SO GOOD!

    Ahhhhhhhhh!

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