A Supposed BBC Reading List
I saw this list on a friend's facebook page and thought I'd do it too. Evidently, the BBC figures that most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books (or series) listed. So you are supposed to go through the list and mark which books you've read. I don't know where the list came from or why they picked these books or why Hamlet is listed by itself while the rest of the Shakespeare is lumped together under "Complete Works."
I put an (x) next to books that I have read and a (-) next to books that I read way more than half of but never finished, or books that I know I read all of but don't remember at all so I really shouldn't claim to have read them.
At the end there are some pictures of Alton, so if that's the only reason you check this blog, I've got you covered.
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (x)
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (x)
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (x)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (x)
6 The Bible (x)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (-) two of three
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (x)
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (x)
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (-)
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
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 (x)
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (x)
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (-)four of 7
34 Emma - Jane Austen (x)
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen (x)
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (x)
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
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell (x)
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 (x)
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding (x)
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel (x)
52 Dune - Frank Herbert (x)
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen (x)
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (x)
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog inthe Night-time -Mark Haddon (x)
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck (x)
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 (x)
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville (x)
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker (x)
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce (x)
76 The Inferno - Dante
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 (x)
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 (x)
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
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Bank
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 Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (x)
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
I think that's 28 that I've read and about six more if we were playing horseshoes. There are a few in there that I've never heard of like The Faraway Tree Collection. What is that? And what's up with my baby-food cookbook Super Baby Food telling me to mix tahini with yogurt? Sounds gross.
There's an awful lot of Dickens on this BBC list, but I guess they're British, so....
The two books on the list that I'm most proud of reading are Ulysses and Moby Dick.
Brideshead Revisited is in my stack of books to read this year. And I'd like to read Winnie the Pooh to Alton in the next couple of years. We'll see if I read any others.
What are your favorites from the list? What book are you most proud of reading (or most ashamed that you haven't read)? Let me know in the comments. You can also comment on these pictures of my adorable son.
Here's Dad and Alton reading a book — No, David! — and playing a maraca:
This week we took Alton to a playground for the first time. In Golden Gate Park, he had his first ride on a swing, his first slide down a slide, and he got to play in the big boat with Dad.
Alton won't take a bottle. He thinks they are dumb. So we've decided to try and teach him how to drink milk from a sippy cup instead so dad can have a chance to feed him once in a while. Nobody's screaming, so that's an improvement. Of course he's spilling most of it down his front. But that's what bibs are for.
To avoid being pinched on St. Patrick's Day, Alton wore this little leprechaun number. Thanks for the new clothes, Aunt Sarah!
This week we tried the Johnny Jump Up seat for the first time. I'm so jealous. If they had adult-sized ones of these at gyms, I would totally exercise. Alton doesn't quite get it yet. So he kind of stands and swings and twists a little while he watches me cook.
I put an (x) next to books that I have read and a (-) next to books that I read way more than half of but never finished, or books that I know I read all of but don't remember at all so I really shouldn't claim to have read them.
At the end there are some pictures of Alton, so if that's the only reason you check this blog, I've got you covered.
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (x)
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (x)
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (x)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (x)
6 The Bible (x)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (-) two of three
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (x)
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (x)
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (-)
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
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 (x)
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (x)
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (-)four of 7
34 Emma - Jane Austen (x)
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen (x)
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (x)
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
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell (x)
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 (x)
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding (x)
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel (x)
52 Dune - Frank Herbert (x)
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen (x)
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (x)
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog inthe Night-time -Mark Haddon (x)
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck (x)
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 (x)
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville (x)
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker (x)
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce (x)
76 The Inferno - Dante
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 (x)
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 (x)
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
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Bank
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 Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (x)
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
I think that's 28 that I've read and about six more if we were playing horseshoes. There are a few in there that I've never heard of like The Faraway Tree Collection. What is that? And what's up with my baby-food cookbook Super Baby Food telling me to mix tahini with yogurt? Sounds gross.
There's an awful lot of Dickens on this BBC list, but I guess they're British, so....
The two books on the list that I'm most proud of reading are Ulysses and Moby Dick.
Brideshead Revisited is in my stack of books to read this year. And I'd like to read Winnie the Pooh to Alton in the next couple of years. We'll see if I read any others.
What are your favorites from the list? What book are you most proud of reading (or most ashamed that you haven't read)? Let me know in the comments. You can also comment on these pictures of my adorable son.
Here's Dad and Alton reading a book — No, David! — and playing a maraca:
This week we took Alton to a playground for the first time. In Golden Gate Park, he had his first ride on a swing, his first slide down a slide, and he got to play in the big boat with Dad.
Alton won't take a bottle. He thinks they are dumb. So we've decided to try and teach him how to drink milk from a sippy cup instead so dad can have a chance to feed him once in a while. Nobody's screaming, so that's an improvement. Of course he's spilling most of it down his front. But that's what bibs are for.
To avoid being pinched on St. Patrick's Day, Alton wore this little leprechaun number. Thanks for the new clothes, Aunt Sarah!
This week we tried the Johnny Jump Up seat for the first time. I'm so jealous. If they had adult-sized ones of these at gyms, I would totally exercise. Alton doesn't quite get it yet. So he kind of stands and swings and twists a little while he watches me cook.
posted by The Wifest at 10:11 AM
12 Comments:
I'm very proud to say that I've read 27 of the books (if you count each of the Chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter series), which is way more that I expected. Plus I'm in the middle of one right now. I hope we get to count books on CD? (They were unabridged.) I'm also surprised that there are a few that I've read that you haven't! I've got nothing to brag about, though, because shouldn't Ulysses count for about 10?
Favorites: Lord of the Rings, Pride & Prejudice, Harry Potter, & Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Least Favorite: Catcher In The Rye
Most proud of: Grapes of Wrath
Embarrassed that I haven't read: Bible(all of it). You know how hard the Old Testement is!!
And what about that Bill Bryson book? (#74) I think it's only on the list because it's about England and they needed to have a few funny ones.
Favorite Alton picture: sippy cup, followed closely by leprechaun. The outfit looks even cuter than I pictured.
You can't count the individual books in a series if they didn't. All seven Harry Potters count as one. All three Lord of the Rings - one. All seven Chronicles of Narnia - one.
Now I agree it's a crock, but does that mean you have 14 or 15 by their count? I was supposed to have read Grapes of Wrath and Catcher in the Rye in high school, but I didn't read more than a few chapters of each.
I think you're right about the Bill Bryson book. Come on! What's so great about England?
Yeah... something tells me you're correct to call it a "supposed" list.
Tahini in yogurt sound delicious actually! Like on a baked potato maybe...
cute kid
Alton next to Bri on the boat is the awesomest... looks like a little dude, just hangin.
Tahini OR yogurt, Jimmy... make up your mind.
Jen... Bri? really? do you call him that to his face?
Why is the beauty of tahini flavored yogurt escaping everyone?
I don't know what came over me... BriAN! BriAN!
(Was probably disorientation brought on by the stomach churning thought of tahini+yogurt)
I like to be called Bri.
I call shenanigans on this list. The Da Vinci Code? Bridget Jones' Diary? While I've read both these books, they aren't exactly high art.
I counted 25 books that I've read, but I was being VERY generous, probably more like 17 or 18 that stuck. I own another 5-10 from the list that I've been meaning to read.
Favorites: Pretty much same as Sis.
Least favorite: The Kite Runner.
Most proud of: Not having read that Mitch Albom book.
Why is the Bible the only non-novel on this kind of list?
I count 35, and I also seem to avoid Dickens like it's the bubonic plague. Also, it helps that I am a Jane Austen nut. There's my six right there. I didn't count Hitchhiker's guide because I've only read the first two books of the series, nor Chronicles of Narnia for the same reason. Why is there not even one Kurt Vonnegut on here? Several of the one's I've read are ones that I would NOT recommend, such as Vanity Fair, The Count of Monte Cristo and The Great Gatsby. These stand out in my memory as books that I forced myself to finish so that the time I had already wasted on them would not be in vain and because I thought they would have to redeem themselves at some point. Oh yeah, add Wuthering Heights to that list. Why does anyone like that book? Dracula and The Three Musketeers are probably both in my all-time top five. And I am proud of reading Anna Karenina (even though I only did it to impress my now husband).
I love book lists. I used to look them up at work when I didn't have anything to do. I have them saved in various places and every once in a while I run across one and dream of a time when I will have time to read again...
Hi Katie - I have read 31, counting series as 1 - not fair! - tihs is a very eclectic (sp?) list. I noticed that some of my favorites are ones you have not yet read... so if you have time I HIGHLY reccomend:
- Watership Down
- The Time Traveler's Wife
- The Lovely Bones
All easy quick reads. Love in the time of Cholera is worth the read also, but not as easy and quick.
This was fun! Thanks. Call me sometime so we can catch up about motherhood. I am at 303-345-5472. It looks like Alton is doing great! Sitting at 5 mos! Crazy.
Miss you guys!
Annie
I got stuck on the books we read aloud as a family when I was a kid, vs. books I'd actually, myself, read page-by-page. It's not like they were abridged readings, so does the hearing count??
As to pictures: love the pop-and-son pic in the boat. Speaking of, though, any chance you've posted or taken a shot of him in his fab 'I Heart Brooklyn' sweater? ;)
Ive read 15, a lot of these are in my stacks that I want to read but haven’t had time to recently.
Top 3 would be Dune, Rebecca, and Gone with the wind.
I’m also thrilled to see someone else dislikes Catcher in the rye. Every English class I’ve taken the professor and students rave about it and I couldn’t stand it
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