It has been awhile since I participated in a meme like this. I pulled this from 3M at 1MoreChapter.
The below listed books are the top 106 books most often tagged as being unread by LibraryThing users (as of October 3rd).
The instructions are simple: Bold what you have read, and italicize books you have started but couldn’t finish. Add an asterisk* to those you have read more than once. Underline those on your TBR list (in my case this means I own them, but have yet to read them). The ones marked in red are books I am considering reading one day but do not have on hand.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi: A Novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice*
Jane Eyre*
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveller’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales (I read assigned tales of this book for school many moons ago and never read beyond that)
The Historian
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-Present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake: A Novel
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers
Looking over the list, 34 of the books listed I have read, 20 are sitting on my shelves unread, and 9 are books I would like to read but do not have on hand. That isn't too bad. (updated to add totals)
Saturday, October 06, 2007
27 comments:
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I'm not sure why these lists are so much fun, but they are. Maybe it's a combination of list making and the thrill of crossing one off, and the competitiveness of comparing.
ReplyDeleteI'm reading Les Mis in a daily read along at livejournal - it doesn't seem like a sit-down-and read book.
Neverwhere was excellent, as was The Time Traveller's Wife. Go read them.
Ah hahaha, you win against me, too. ;) If there was an award for failing this meme, I would totally win!
ReplyDeleteIt amuses me to watch this make the rounds in all the different places; the text at the top changes depending on which copy it is, and I'm pretty sure one version I saw had all the titles in lowercase.
It's fun and interesting to me what different ways people find these memes fun. Like you counted yours up, which didn't occur to me. Yours has some more things to do to the list (red, asterisks, etc.) than when I saw it, and I didn't think to add anything. Raidergirl says it's fun to compare, which everyone commenting on mine seems to be doing, but also didn't occur to me. What was most fun about it for you? I think for me it was the whole sorting and categorization thing, deciding which category each book goes in.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting, but where can I find this list on LibraryThing?
ReplyDeleteI joined in on this meme. This was fun. Thanks for the suggestion.
ReplyDeleteI've seen a lot of the movies made from these books, but I have to admit, I haven't read many of the actual books.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth - I have fun going through them too. I like to see where I stand next to others but not so much in a competitive way--just out of curiosity sake.
ReplyDeleteI read half of Les Miserables during the summer between college semesters and once school started up again, I had to set it aside for my studies. I've never gone back to it, which is sad because I really was enjoying it. Someday I hope to finish it. I'll probably have to start over since so many years have passed.
Renay - It's an interesting list of books. While diverse in some ways, not so diverse in others. Depending on the types of books you read, I imagine the results would vary for all of us.
The list I copied from did have some lowercase titles which bothered me, and so I took the liberty of correcting them.
Dewey - I actually hadn't counted at first but noticed other people had and so I went back and added that in. It makes for an interesting little statistic. :-)
I do think it's fun to compare, but I think I have the most fun going through the list and putting them into the appropriate categories. I love doing stuff like that. I'm such a nerd. Haha
Booksplease - The list was taken from LibraryThing's "unread" tag list (from October 3rd). If you click on the LibraryThing link in my blog post, it should take you straight to the page (which has changed since it's updated regularly).
Interestingly enough (maybe only to me), I don't use "unread" as a tag for my unread books. I put them under "TBR".
VioletLady - I'm glad you joined in! I'll have to take a peek at your list. :-)
Tristi - Thanks for stopping in. I think my list would be a lot shorter if we went by what movies we'd seen of books on the list. :-) I do try and see the movie after I read a book, but I don't always succeed.
Thank you. I use "tbr" as well - so there must be many more unread books!
ReplyDeleteI noticed that "Life of Pi" isn't marked in any way on your list. I really think you would like that one.
ReplyDeleteBooksPlease - I was thinking the same thing. :-)
ReplyDeleteKookie - That's what people keep telling me. I don't know what it is. It just doesn't sound interesting to me.
I'm impressed that you've read so many of these. I counted 22 that I had read. Some of these seem to be quite popular so I'm surprised to see them on this list.
ReplyDeleteI've read 35 of these, mostly in my younger days. These days I veer towards the fantasy genre more often than not. Although my favourite book of the year is The Book Thief without a doubt.
ReplyDeleteA lot of those are books I really love... but I can completely understand how they may seem daunting before one starts reading them.
ReplyDeleteThis is a fun meme. I might do it too later.
What?! You don't have the Satanic Verses on hand? I thought no library was complete without them!:) Oh and War and Peace is such a bummer to read. I tried just a couple of months ago as a personal challenge. Sigh. I failed. I hope you have better luck if you decide to undergo that monstrosity. I've read alot of the other ones but I think Life of Pi will be on my TBR list pretty soon.
ReplyDeleteThis was a fun meme. I nabbed it for my own blog and marked what I had read, not read, etc. The number of "classics" that I haven't read is pathetic. I need to beef up my library with more substantial novels, lol.
ReplyDeleteFramed - I was surprised that I had read so many of them too. I was familiar with pretty much all the titles though--which also surprised me. I remember a list that had gone around a while ago that had a lot of titles on it I was unfamiliar with.
ReplyDeleteJulie - A good majority of the ones I've actually read I've read in recent years. I haven't yet read The Book Thief, but I hope to one day.
Nymeth - I hope you will do it. :-)
Jaimie - I do have another of Rushdie's books on my shelf, but not that one. Yet.
I loved Anna Karenina, which I read just this year. I've heard War and Peace is a bear to get through, but I'd like to try. Anna was my practice run. LOL
Trisha - With the two classics reading challenges that took place this year, I cam across quite a few titles and authors that were completely new to me so I know how you feel. :-)
I'm going to play! Looks like great fun. Be up in a moment... :D
ReplyDeleteI have read 31 out of it, own 9 that I have not read as yet. Would like to read 16 more!
ReplyDeleteOh, dear, another wonderful list! I'm too far behind to participate, right now, but I loved reading your answers. It's fascinating what people have read (loved, hated) and what they haven't, but plan to . . . or can't get through. :)
ReplyDeleteGreat list!
ReplyDeleteI have only read a few from the list, and there are some I have it in my TBR pile. As for the rest, it looks like I have to check them out, hehe.
I've got this in a draft post to go up next. I have strike throughs though. The italicized ones are the ones are on my TBR shelves.
ReplyDeleteYou couldn't get through Brave New World either? I tried, I even tried to read it online w/my cat in my lap last summer. No good.
I really enjoyed Life of Pi but if it hadn't been a Book Club choice, I would've never picked it up.
Alice - I don't feel so bad about all the books I haven't read looking at others' lists. :-)
ReplyDeleteGautami - So many tempting books out there, aren't there?
Nancy - Thanks. I understand being behind. :-) My problem this week has been lack of time mostly. :-S
Melody - Thank you. I had to look up some of the titles to refresh my memory of what they were about. :-)
Carrie K - I look forward to seeing your list. :-)
I am not sure what it was about Brave New World. I may try again someday, but I'm in no hurry.
I like lists like this too. I've only read 20 of them, but many more are on my TBR list. One of them, Atlas Shrugged, I've wanted to read that for years, and it's so huge I just can't see myself devoting the time to it when there are so many other books I want to read. I was surprised to see you hadn't read the Life of Pi. I haven't either. I thought everyone in the world had read it but me. :-) This is another I keep picking up and putting down. After reading everyone's comments I think I should just go buy a copy and read it. I know I'll like it. I did the same thing with Wicked, but finally read it----and LIKED it!
ReplyDeleteKW - I haven't gotten much thought to reading Atlas Shrugged. I know that it's supposed to to be good. :-) Wicked was a good one. I liked it too.
ReplyDeleteI love Time Traveler's Wife. I read the book, then I listened to the audio afterwards. Both are awesome!
ReplyDeleteI must also say, Poisonwood Bible is not to be missed. I love it even when I am mostly a historical romance fan!
ReplyDeleteMidas - I've had The Time Traveler's Wife in my TBR collection for quite a while now and I really should read it. I've heard it's very good. The Poisonwood Bible is one I almost started a few years ago when my mother loaned me a copy of the book, but I never got to it and so returned it to her unread. Now that I have a copy of my shelf, I feel less guilty about not picking it up right away to read.
ReplyDelete