Book Meme

[pen_grunt]

Since about a half-dozen people on my f-list have done this meme, I must now jump on the bandwagon. *Jump!*

These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users (as of Sunday). 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. Bonus: I have commentary! (Maybe that's not a bonus, come to think of it...)

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (149)
Anna Karenina (132) But can I just say that I hated Anna? I did.
Crime and Punishment (121)
Catch-22 (117)
One Hundred Years of Solitude (115)
Wuthering Heights (110)
The Silmarillion (104)
Life of Pi: a Novel (94)
The Name of the Rose (91)
Don Quixote (91)
Moby Dick (86)
Ulysses (84) Can I just say, NO one doing this meme has finished this one yet. Hey Joyce? Fail.
Madame Bovary (83)
The Odyssey (83)
Pride and Prejudice (83)
Jane Eyre (80)
A Tale of Two Cities (80) I didn't finish it because I was in college...and was rapidly assigned some non-pleasure reading that had to take its place.
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)
The Kite Runner (71)
Mrs. Dalloway (70)
Great Expectations (70)
American Gods (68)
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (67)
Atlas Shrugged (67) I honestly don't remember reading this, but Derrick SWEARS that he saw me with it in college. Figures.
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) Oh. My. Yuck.
Love in the Time of Cholera (62)
Brave New World (61)
The Fountainhead (61)
Foucault's Pendulum (61)
Middlemarch (61)
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) Another "supposed to read" for school, and I ran out of time.
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel (57) I kind of hated this...but not enough to strikethrough.
1984 (57) I read this in the same weekend as Brave New World. I have to say, I liked this much better, though that was one freaky distopian weekend.
Angels & Demons (56) Yeah, I'm a sucker for stuff that everyone's talking about. I didn't like this, but not enough hate to strikethrough...just a general unimpressed-ness.
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)
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)
Dune (51) Gotta be honest. For a sci-fi fan? Kinda meh.
The Prince (51) Or maybe I just read excerpts.
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) Looove...though my perception is skewed by memory, I'm sure.
Beloved (49)
Slaughterhouse-Five (49)
The Scarlet Letter (48)
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation (48)
The Mists of Avalon (47) Why haven't I read this yet? I own it for christssake.
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) Couldn't finish. Sorry Jack.
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) Found something more compelling at the time, I think.
The Aeneid (45)
Watership Down (44) Just thinking about reading this book makes me happy.
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)

My learning point? I haven't read NEARLY enough Old English Ladies (Bronte and Austin etc.) and while I OWN most of the books on the list, I really need to get around to reading them (Confederacy of Dunces, Three Musketeers, and many, many more).

Comments

[llythefaerye.livejournal.com]

. . . much the same conclusion on my end. I was just amazed at how many Neil Gaiman books made it to the unread list . . .

[pen-grunt.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about this--the most UNread books also seem to be the most READ books. Naturally, the more popular a book is, the more people will be polarized along the reading line.

I just can't believe that I missed some crucial Old English Ladies (and sorry Thackary, I'll include you in there too) literature class in college. You would think that they wouldn't have let me graduate without it.

[marciamarcia.livejournal.com]

The Mists of Avalon (47) Why haven't I read this yet? I own it for christssake.

Allow me to sum it up for you as best as I remember from when I read it at age 17.

*ahem*

Thinly-veiled wicca
Arthurian legend
Arthurian legend
Thinly-veiled wicca
porn
Action sequence
more porn
And a little more wicca, just for good measure

[pen-grunt.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a bowl full of giggles...and yet, it's lauded as one of the best fantasy novels around.

Not that I'm opposed to porn, but there's a difference between plot porn and gratuitous porn. The latter? Not so engaging.

[sarcasma.livejournal.com]

I enjoy your list. It makes me want to read the things you enjoyed that I haven't read yet. And it makes me want to cuddle your hatred of Joyce. Shut up, Joyce.

[tabby-of-doom.livejournal.com]

WAIT! WHAT? ARE YOU ON LT NOW? AND YOU DIDN'T TELL ME?

Sulk.

[liquid-siftings.livejournal.com]

I'm so with you on Watership Down.

And like you, I have read far too little of the 19th century broads.

[pen-grunt.livejournal.com]

Nooo, I'm not on yet. I just swiped the list from other Live Journals.

I would NOT do that without telling you. Pinkie swear. It will be soon, I just have to get things organized for easy entry.

[pen-grunt.livejournal.com]

I love, love, love reading everyone else's lists and opinions. The more reading recommendations I can get, the better.

Joyce? When people say they like Joyce, I just plain don't believe them. Also, I think there might be something wrong with them. I think they use Joyce to screen people out of the English department in colleges and, also, for hazing.

[pen-grunt.livejournal.com]

I never thought I was the Bronte/Austin type, but I liked Jane Eyre well enough...and I like all the movies based on the books...so maybe I best get my butt in gear and read up.

Love, love, love Watership Down, HATED Plague Dogs (couldn't make it through, even). What gives Adams?

[tabby-of-doom.livejournal.com]

Well, just as long as you pinkie swear.