Book meme

[girlyswot]

 From dogstar101  I love this kind of list!


These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users (as of today). Bold what you have read, italicize what you started but couldn't finish, and strike through what you couldn't stand. The numbers after each one are the number of LT users who used the tag of that book.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (149)
Anna Karenina (132)
Crime and punishment (121)
Catch-22 (117)
One Hundred Years of Solitude (115)
Wuthering Heights (110)  Somebody really needs to tell them to get over themselves and stop wailing and whining.
The Silmarillion (104)  In my defence, I was about 12 and just needing to read a lot of words.
Life of Pi: a novel (94)
The Name of the Rose (91) I haven't actually given up on this yet.  It's just that it's been open at page 24 for about three years.  But I think I'm going to like it one day!
Don Quixote (91)
Moby Dick (86)
Ulysses (84)
Madame Bovary (83)
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice (83)  I'm shocked that people didn't finish this!  It's easy and lovely and hilarious.
Jane Eyre (80) I can completely understand this.  I had to have a friend explain to me that you only have to get through the miserable school stuff once and then you can enjoy the rest of it.  Ah, Mr Rochester.  *sigh*
A Tale of Two Cities (80) Only started because I was made to at school.  And actually I have read the end.  Just not most of the middle.
The Brothers Karamazov (80)
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies (79)
War and Peace (78)
Vanity Fair (74)
The Time Traveler's Wife (73)
The Iliad (73)
Emma (73)
The Blind Assassin (73) This is one I keep meaning to read.
The Kite Runner (71)
Mrs. Dalloway (70)  I watched The Hours, does that count?  Nope, didn't think so!
Great Expectations (70)  Now, this was another school one.  I think I read most of this.  Enough to have intelligent conversations about it anyway.
American Gods (68)
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (67)  I liked this a lot at the beginning but only finished it through sheer will power.
Atlas Shrugged (67)
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books (66)
Memoirs of a Geisha (66)
Middlesex (66)
Quicksilver (66)
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West (65)
The Canterbury Tales (64)
The Historian : a novel (63)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (63)
Love in the Time of Cholera (62)
Brave New World (61)
The Fountainhead (61)
Foucault's Pendulum (61)
Middlemarch (61) This is, I think, (one of) my all time top favourite novels.
Frankenstein (59)
The Count of Monte Cristo (59)
Dracula (59)
A Clockwork Orange (59)
Anansi Boys (58)
The Once and Future King (57)
The Grapes of Wrath (57)
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel (57)
1984 (57)
Angels & Demons (56)
The Inferno (56)
The Satanic Verses (55)
Sense and Sensibility (55)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (55)
Mansfield Park (55)
One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest (54)
To the Lighthouse (54)
Tess of the D'Urbervilles (54)  I did finish this and then vowed never to read another Hardy novel.  Too utterly depressing for words.  A friend of mine wrote a wonderful parody of Hardy called 'The Man Who Dies At The End'.  Says it all really.
Oliver Twist (54)
Gulliver's Travels (53)
Les Misérables (53)
The Corrections (53)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (52)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (52) Love this.
Dune (51)
The Prince (51)
The Sound and the Fury (51)
Angela's Ashes : a memoir (51)
The God of Small Things (51)
A People's History of the United States : 1492-present (51)
Cryptonomicon (50)
Neverwhere (50)
A Confederacy of Dunces (50)
A Short History of Nearly Everything (50)
Dubliners (50)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (49)
Beloved (49)
Slaughterhouse-five (49)
The Scarlet Letter (48)
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation (48)
The Mists of Avalon (47)
Oryx and Crake : a novel (47)
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed (47)
Cloud Atlas (47)
The Confusion (46)
Lolita (46)
Persuasion (46)
Northanger Abbey (46)
The Catcher in the Rye (46)
On the Road (46)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (45)
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything (45)
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values (45)
The Aeneid (45)
Watership Down (44) You know, I feel like I ought to have read this, but I think I really have only seen the film.
Gravity's Rainbow (44)
The Hobbit (44)
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences (44)
White Teeth (44)
Treasure Island (44)
David Copperfield (44)
The Three Musketeers (44) I cannot tell you how many times I've started this.  I feel like I ought to like it but really I don't.

19 read;
7 started but unfinished;
1 I absolutely couldn't stand.

What do I conclude?  I know my limits as a reader and don't even try difficult books.  I was surprised how many of these I'd never heard of, actually.  And a lot that I've decided I never want to read.  Surprisingly few trashy romantic novels on the list.  ;)

Comments

[tdu000.livejournal.com]

Surprisingly few trashy romantic novels on the list.

That's because people actually finish reading trashy romantic novels (either that or wouldn't touch them with a barge pole so don't take them out in the first place!).

Like I said on Jo's list, as a scientist I get to read heavy literature for fun (plus I've got 11 years head start on you!)

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

Yes, but all the heavy literature I've read happened at least 10 years ago. I don't think there's much chance of me catching you up. I've decided life's too short to read things I feel I ought to so I'm only going to read things that are fun.

[tdu000.livejournal.com]

I don't read as much "heavy" stuff as I used to. I can't imagine I'd tackle The Prince now (I was about 23 when I read it). I'm not sure whether I should class myself as agreat intellectual because I've read so much, or I'm like the Kevin Kline character in A Fish Called Wanda: just because I've read it doesn't mean i understand it. I think I'm inclined to think it's the latter!