The common form of these lists seems to be italicise those that X, bold those that Y, and strike through those that Z. Dawn changed that for an italicised comment after each title, and I will follow that format because...well, no reason.
The books listed below are the top 105 books most often tagged as being unread by LibraryThing users (as of October 3rd). I have no idea what LibraryThing is. "Yes," means I've read it. "No," means I have not. Any other comments will, I hope, be self explanatory.
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell (read and enjoyed)
Anna Karenina (no)
Crime and Punishment (no)
Catch-22 (no)
One hundred years of solitude (no)
Wuthering Heights (read)
The Silmarillion (read - honest, all the way through)
Life of Pi (no)
The Name of the Rose (yes)
Don Quixote (yes)
Crime and Punishment (no)
Catch-22 (no)
One hundred years of solitude (no)
Wuthering Heights (read)
The Silmarillion (read - honest, all the way through)
Life of Pi (no)
The Name of the Rose (yes)
Don Quixote (yes)
Moby Dick (no)
Ulysses (no)
Madame Bovary (no)
The Odyssey (parts)
Pride and Prejudice (no)
Jane Eyre (yes)
A Tale of Two Cities (first paragraph, then quit)
The Brothers Karamazov (no)
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates ofhuman societies (no)
War and Peace (no)
Vanity Fair (no)
The Time Traveller’s Wife (no, but has been recommended)
The Iliad (pretty much)
The Blind Assassin (no)
The Kite Runner (no, but my wife raved over it)
Mrs. Dalloway (no)
Great Expectations (no)
American Gods (quite enjoyed it)
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (never heard of it)
Atlas Shrugged (no - not really all that interested)
Reading Lolita in Tehran (no)
Memoirs of a Geisha (saw the movie - was unmoved)
Middlesex (no)
Quicksilver (not yet, but can't imagine going much longer without reading it)
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (no)
The Canterbury Tales (no, but I'm sure Pat has a copy of it around here somewhere - I probably should give it a shot)
The Historian (no)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man <FONTSIZE=2>(no)
Love in the Time of Cholera (no)
Brave New World (yes)
The Fountainhead (see above [Atlas Shrugged])
Foucault’s Pendulum (not yet - if I ever manage to finish The Island of the Day Before, this will be my next choice by Eco)
Middlemarch (no)
Frankenstein (no - was supposed to read it for a university course once - never did)
Ulysses (no)
Madame Bovary (no)
The Odyssey (parts)
Pride and Prejudice (no)
Jane Eyre (yes)
A Tale of Two Cities (first paragraph, then quit)
The Brothers Karamazov (no)
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates ofhuman societies (no)
War and Peace (no)
Vanity Fair (no)
The Time Traveller’s Wife (no, but has been recommended)
The Iliad (pretty much)
The Blind Assassin (no)
The Kite Runner (no, but my wife raved over it)
Mrs. Dalloway (no)
Great Expectations (no)
American Gods (quite enjoyed it)
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (never heard of it)
Atlas Shrugged (no - not really all that interested)
Reading Lolita in Tehran (no)
Memoirs of a Geisha (saw the movie - was unmoved)
Middlesex (no)
Quicksilver (not yet, but can't imagine going much longer without reading it)
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (no)
The Canterbury Tales (no, but I'm sure Pat has a copy of it around here somewhere - I probably should give it a shot)
The Historian (no)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man <FONTSIZE=2>(no)
Love in the Time of Cholera (no)
Brave New World (yes)
The Fountainhead (see above [Atlas Shrugged])
Foucault’s Pendulum (not yet - if I ever manage to finish The Island of the Day Before, this will be my next choice by Eco)
Middlemarch (no)
Frankenstein (no - was supposed to read it for a university course once - never did)
The Count of Monte Cristo (no)
Dracula (no)
A Clockwork Orange (no)
Anansi Boys (liked American Gods better, but yes)
The Once and Future King (yes, but not sure I ever finished it 100%)
The Grapes of Wrath (no)
The Poisonwood Bible (no)
1984 (yes)
Angels & Demons (yes, but regret it)
The Inferno (yes, both Dante's and Niven's version)
The Satanic Verses (no, but I'd like to)
Sense and Sensibility (no)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (no - can you believe it?)
Mansfield Park (no)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (no)
To the Lighthouse (no)
Tess of the Ubervilles (no)
Oliver Twist (no - bad, bad Paul)
Gulliver’s Travels (yes - the complete, unexpurgated version - very good)
Les Miserables (no)
The Corrections (no)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (no)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (no)
Dune (over and over and over again)
The Prince (no)
The Sound and the Fury (no)
Angela’s Ashes (no)
The God of Small Things (no)
Cryptonomicon (not yet, but almost certainly will one day)
Neverwhere (no)
A Confederacy of Dunces (no)
A Short History of Nearly Everything (no)
Dubliners (no)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (no)
Beloved (no)
Slaughterhouse-five (fabulous book - made a huge impression on me)
The Scarlet Letter (no)
Eats, Shoots & Leaves (Ah, yes, the disgruntled woman's book of cokmplaints about her man...)
The Mists of Avalon (yes, but not all that special - chick fantasy lit)
Oryx and Crake:a novel (no - maybe one day - just 'cause I feel obligated)
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed (recommended by a friend, but based on some of the other things he's recommended (homeopathy), probably not)
Cloud Atlas (no)
The Confusion (no)
Lolita (no)
Persuasion (no)
Northanger Abbey (no)
The Catcher in the Rye (yeah, back in high school - never really though it was all that)
On the Road (can't see it)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (no, but I should be reading these old classics, shouldn't I?)
Freakonomics (no)
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance(I'd like to give this one a shot one day - just for fun)
The Aeneid (Again, pretty sure Pat has a copy here somewhere. But probably not ever)
Watership Down (no)
Gravity’s Rainbow (why does this sound so familiar? Google, google, google...ah, Pynchon - nope, not even remotely interested)
The Hobbit (many times - once out loud to my son)
In Cold Blood (no)
White Teeth (no)
Treasure Island (no)
David Copperfield (no)
The Three Musketeers (no)
Dracula (no)
A Clockwork Orange (no)
Anansi Boys (liked American Gods better, but yes)
The Once and Future King (yes, but not sure I ever finished it 100%)
The Grapes of Wrath (no)
The Poisonwood Bible (no)
1984 (yes)
Angels & Demons (yes, but regret it)
The Inferno (yes, both Dante's and Niven's version)
The Satanic Verses (no, but I'd like to)
Sense and Sensibility (no)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (no - can you believe it?)
Mansfield Park (no)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (no)
To the Lighthouse (no)
Tess of the Ubervilles (no)
Oliver Twist (no - bad, bad Paul)
Gulliver’s Travels (yes - the complete, unexpurgated version - very good)
Les Miserables (no)
The Corrections (no)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (no)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (no)
Dune (over and over and over again)
The Prince (no)
The Sound and the Fury (no)
Angela’s Ashes (no)
The God of Small Things (no)
Cryptonomicon (not yet, but almost certainly will one day)
Neverwhere (no)
A Confederacy of Dunces (no)
A Short History of Nearly Everything (no)
Dubliners (no)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (no)
Beloved (no)
Slaughterhouse-five (fabulous book - made a huge impression on me)
The Scarlet Letter (no)
Eats, Shoots & Leaves (Ah, yes, the disgruntled woman's book of cokmplaints about her man...)
The Mists of Avalon (yes, but not all that special - chick fantasy lit)
Oryx and Crake:a novel (no - maybe one day - just 'cause I feel obligated)
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed (recommended by a friend, but based on some of the other things he's recommended (homeopathy), probably not)
Cloud Atlas (no)
The Confusion (no)
Lolita (no)
Persuasion (no)
Northanger Abbey (no)
The Catcher in the Rye (yeah, back in high school - never really though it was all that)
On the Road (can't see it)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (no, but I should be reading these old classics, shouldn't I?)
Freakonomics (no)
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance(I'd like to give this one a shot one day - just for fun)
The Aeneid (Again, pretty sure Pat has a copy here somewhere. But probably not ever)
Watership Down (no)
Gravity’s Rainbow (why does this sound so familiar? Google, google, google...ah, Pynchon - nope, not even remotely interested)
The Hobbit (many times - once out loud to my son)
In Cold Blood (no)
White Teeth (no)
Treasure Island (no)
David Copperfield (no)
The Three Musketeers (no)
7 comments:
Wow... not much into the classics then eh? LOL Thank you for playing along! I am glad you did, what a pleasant surprise for me today! :-)
be well,
Dawn
http://journals.aol.com/princesssaurora/CarpeDiem/
I haven't read a bunch of these. You are the only person I know who started The Silmarillion and finished it.
Recommended: Catch-22 and 100 Years of Solitude and Clockwork Orange and The Scarlet Letter
I really enjoyed Moby Dick and have read it a few times. Oh, try to get the video of Guns, Germs and Steel. My son looooves it and learned a lot from it.
I didn't like Angels & Demons either. Of course, I don't think The DaVinci Code is anything to rave about either. Sorry. Read Dune a few times, too.
Okay, I'll have to do this, too. --Cin
Have also read and finished the Silmarillion, and I'm one of those really crazy few that enjoyed it to boot!
Does anyone know more than the first couple paragraphs of A Tale of Two Cities?
Would recommend both Frankenstein and Dracula...the books have only mildly suffered from Kenneth Branagh's and Keanu Reeves' work, respectively, in the movie versions.
Okay...maybe the Reeve one is ruined for good.
Gulliver's Travels: Long time since I read it but I remember it being really amazing what works become 'reduced' to children's tales.
Quite impressed with the number you've handled. Might have to add Dune to my "get around to it, already!" read pile list.
-Alec
I'm tempted to do this list, but I'm afraid I'd be showing my cultural ignorance. There are a lot of books here that I'd like to read but have never gotten around to.
Get to a library or bookstore posthaste and get a copy of Catch-22. A fantastic book. It's a little hard to get started on. The plot isn't linear - it jumps back and forth and hits the some of the same storylines again and again - but once you get the hang of what's going on, you'll love it.
I guess I'm one of the few people who's read A Tale of Two Cities. I loved that too. Once you get used to the almost archaic language, it's a great story. And I started Great Expectations, got about 100 pages into it, then got sidetracked for a couple of weeks and couldn't figure out what was going on when I picked it back up. I'm going to restart it again soon though.
Gee whiz, fdate. If you've read both Catch 22 and A Tale of Two Cities, you're pointing out my cultural ignorance. Remember, this originated as a list of books tagged as most unread by users of the LibraryThing website. So most people haven't read all of, or even many of them. G'head, do the list.
-Paul
Ah, what the hell...
http://fdtate.blogspot.com/2007/10/my-cultural-ignorance.html
Man, now I feel like a loser. I also feel gyped that <u>Jude the Obscure</u> wasn't on the list because I've actually read that one. Oh, and I also read <u>Catcher in the Rye</u> and I kept waiting for the controversial part. Turns out, there isn't one. The times, they have a'changed.
Good on you for getting through as many as you have.
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