I’m a sucker for lists. This morning the Book Design Review blog included a link to a Guardian article called “1000 Novels Everyone Must Read.” Despite the absurd presumptuousness of the idea of “everyone must” anything, and my annoyance with self-appointed cultural arbiters who declare such things, I still find this kind of list interesting. Still, I’m skeptical of some of their choices. “Bridget Jones’ Diary”? Really? I’ve never read that either, but I had the misfortune of catching part of the movie while flipping through the channels and it looked pretty wretched. Maybe it’s just the usual “movies based on books suck” effect and I need to get over my instinctive revulsion toward the entire “chick-lit” genre in general and books that seem to be about women obsessing about their weight and finding a husband in particular.
I was curious about how many of the 1000 I have already read. 107. I have a lot of catching up to do. I was surprised to find that many of them were things I read in either middle or high school. Many of those I know I read but don’t really remember them. Another surprising thing was that of the books on the list that I read on my own, I pretty much either loved or hated them. (The categories are from the original list of 1000.)
1. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (read this as a child, a beautifully illustrated edition. I don’t know if the text was abridged or not. The don’t remember it being particularly funny.)
2. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (read this in high school, don’t really remember it. Don’t think I liked it much.)
3. The Castle by Franz Kafka (read this in college on my own, part of a big Kafka kick. Don’t remember it though.)
4. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (read this a few years ago, book exchange at work. Really good writing, but I was just really annoyed by the main character and got bored with it.)
5. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut (I know I read this sometime post-college. It is sitting on my bookshelf. I know I liked it but I don’t really remember it. Time to re-read.)
6. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace (I just read this over this past summer. My coworker loaned it to me. Massive book, that I hated at first because it has footnotes, which I thought was unbearably pretentious. But after a while I got hooked. The author hung himself as I was finishing reading it. )
Crime
7. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle (Read as part of a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories sometime last year. Classic)
8. The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton (Read during a Crichton kick during high school. I used to like to bring his books along on long family vacations, easy and entertaining reads for passing long car trips.)
9. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton (See above.)
10. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Read this a few years ago. Probably my favorite of the Big Russian Novels.)
11. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (This was the second Eco book I read. Not an easy read, but really good. It was a long time ago, I’ll have to re-read it soon.)
12. A Time to Kill by John Grisham (Read during high school, another good author to bring on family vacation car trips. Probably couldn’t stand it now.)
13. The King of Torts by John Grisham (See above.)
14. Misery by Stephen King (I remember reading this on a family vacation to Mississippi/New Orleans. Scared the hell out of me. Good read.)
15. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (Read in middle school or early high school.)
16. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (Read in middle school or early high school.)
17. The Secret History by Donna Tartt (Read this book recently at the recommendation of Catherine. Loved it, one of my favorite books now. Something about the writing was just so beautiful.)
18. Native Son by Richard Wright (I know I read this in school but I don’t remember it very well.)
19. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (One of my favorite books circa age 10 or so. Reread it a bunch of times. Have never been able to bring myself to watch the entirety of any movie based on it.)
20. Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood (Loved this book. One of my favorite Atwoods. Beautiful imagery.)
21. The Awakening by Kate Chopin (Read this in high school and liked it better than most of the stuff I read.)
22. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Read this a few years ago, got into a minor trend of reading Russians. This book broke that trend and made me move on to other things. Too long, too dull.)
23. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (Read this through book exchange at work. Loved it.)
24. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (Read this on my own, possibly middle school or high school. I remember being impressed with the language and story, but nothing more specific.)
25. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (Read this through book exchange at work. Liked it but didn’t love it.)
26. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce (Read this in high school. I remember taking an essay test on it and being asked to identify the climax of the story, panicking at first, and then a scene on a beach came to mind so I wrote about that. Apparently that actually was the climax and my teacher was impressed by my answer.)
27. Ulysses by James Joyce (Ok, I probably shouldn’t actually list this one since I never finished it. Started reading it in college and got distracted.)
28. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (Read in high school. Definitely liked it, need to re-read.)
29. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (Read quite recently, maybe six months ago. Loved it. Beautiful imagery and interesting story and characters.)
30. The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger (Read in high school.)
31. East of Eden by John Steinbeck (Read in high school on my own.)
32. The Color Purple by Alice Walker (Read in high school on my own.)
33. Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware (Read a few years ago.)
34. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (Read a few years ago).
35. Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (Read about a year ago. Not blown away.)
36. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (Read in high school. English teacher was an Austen nut.)
37. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (See above)
38. Emma by Jane Austen (See above)
39. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (See above, teacher was also a Bronte nut)
40. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (See above)
41. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (Read this in high school and enjoyed it more than the Austen stuff)
42. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald (Read in high school.)
43. Tender is the Night by F Scott Fitzgerald (Read in high school)
44. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (Read in middle school or early high school)
45. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (Read on my own at some point)
46. The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek (Read a few years ago, book given to D. by a cousin or someone. Didn’t like it, not sure why).
47. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera (Read in college at the behest of a painting professor, encouraged to “think about painting while reading it.” Didn’t see any connection to painting, thought it was boring. Need to reread).
48. Death in Venice by Thomas Mann (Read while studying in Rome.)
49. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Read on my own in college, liked it).
50. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller (Read while studying in Rome.)
51. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (Read in high school on my own.)
52. Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak (Read in high school on my own.)
53. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (Read for the first time maybe 9 years ago. Loved it. Reread a few times after that. It could have gone in the comedy section too. Have read everything written by Adams. It’s a shame he died so early.)
54. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (Read when it came out. Not my favorite Atwood but good)
55. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (Again, not my favorite Atwood, but definitely worth reading. Creepy.)
56. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (Read it at some point during college.)
57. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (Read it sometime post-college.)
58. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
59. Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll
60. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (Read while on vacation a couple of years ago. Really good although perhaps a bit too long)
61. Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco (The first of Eco’s books that I read.)
62. Neuromancer by William Gibson (Interesting)
63. Lord of the Flies by William Golding (Read in middle school)
64. The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne (Read in middle school, don’t remember it at all)
65. Dune by Frank L Herbert (Read after seeing both movies. Always interesting to compare books to movies.)
66. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (Read in high school and re-read a few times after that.)
67. The Trial by Franz Kafka (High school I think)
68. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes (High school.)
69. The Shining by Stephen King (Read on my own in high school. Loved all the post-apocalypse survival stuff, hated the “battle between good and evil” stuff.)
70. The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis (one of my favorite childhood books.)
71. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (Read recently on the recommendation of Catherine. Loved it.)
72. Beloved by Toni Morrison (Read in high school)
73. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (Read maybe a year and a half ago. Not blown away by the writing, but the concept was interesting)
74. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (Have read a bunch of times. Deserves its constant appearance on these “best books” lists.)
75. His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman (Read a couple of years ago. Excellent fantasy trilogy. Maybe even better than Harry Potter but not as famous. Too bad the moview of Golden Compass wasn’t that good.)
76. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by JK Rowling (I have read the whole Harry Potter series and I don’t know how you could pick just one book. I suppose this one since it is the first and does a beautiful job of establishing characters and a whole world.)
77. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (Read a few years ago, after hearing a lot of hype about it. Liked it but didn’t love it. There were some things that were cool and some things that were just annoying.)
78. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (Read in high school)
79. Dracula by Bram Stoker (Read in high school).
80. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien (Read as a child- beautifully illustrated edition, I assume the text was abridged. Tried to read the full text about 5 years ago and had trouble getting into it.)
81. The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien (Read the whole trilogy when the movies came out. Mostly loved it though I had to skip all the ballads and skim rapidly through all the epic battle scenes. I hate reading battle scenes.)
82. Microserfs by Douglas Coupland (Ugh. Really? Read this a few years ago, heard lots of hype, pretty much didn’t like it at all.)
83. Sister Carrie by Theodor Dreiser (Read as part of a recent class on the art & culture of the Progressive Era in America. Enjoyed it.)
84. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (Read on my own in high school during a family vacation. Huge book. I remember liking it. Or at least feeling relieved to get all the way through it.)
85. Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis (High school.)
86. Main Street by Sinclair Lewis (High school.)
87. Animal Farm by George Orwell (Middle school?)
88. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (Read on my own post-college, reinforced my newfound vegetarianism.)
89. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (Read in high school)
90. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain (Read sometime in childhood.)
91. Couples by John Updike (Read a few years ago, someone left it in the laundry room. Thought it was just sort of depressing.)
92. Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh (Read in college after seeing the movie. Very different than movie. Enjoyed it.)
93. The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles (Saw the movie, then read the book without realizing at first that I had already seen the movie. Good book.)
94. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad (Read during high school).
95. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane (Read during middle school, I think.)
96. The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass (Read maybe 8-9 years ago. Really interesting.)
97. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway (ok, I didn’t actually READ this. Listened to an audio book while driving to go camping in Maine. Enjoyed it).
98. On the Road by Jack Kerouac (Ugh. Seriously? Why does everyone love this book?)
99. The Call of the Wild by Jack London (Read in middle school, I think in 7th or 8th grade. Teacher was obsessed with Jack London. I hated it.)
100. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Read in college on my own. Liked it.)
101. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque (Read in high school)
102. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (Read in middle school. Don’t remember liking it.)
103. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (Read on my own as part of the aforementioned trend of reading Big Russian Books. Ugh. Forced myself to get through it. I liked the part that weren’t battle scenes a lot though.)
104. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (Read at some point during childhood, probably right after reading Tom Sawyer.)
105. Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne (Read at some point during middle school, on my own.)
106. Candide by Voltaire (Read at some point post-college.)
107. Slaughter-House Five by Kurt Vonnegut (Read in high school.)