Sunday, April 08, 2007
The Literature MeMe
I got this from Ambulance Driver. If you want to know where he got it, go over to his site and read HIS version and check out the books he's read while you're there. For an ole country boy dog trainer turned ambo driver, he's pretty well read. I thought this would be fun. Y'all feel free to copy to email if you don't have a blog.
I do take exception to the LoTR trilogy and Harry Potter being on this list with Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, but I didn't make the list, I'm just reproducing it. Call me an elitist or a pedant, I'm used to it.
Anyhoo, the idea is to place in bold type the books you've read from this list of 100. If there are others you've read by the same author, include those under the original, without the author's name in parentheses.
1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
The Hotel New Hampshire
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees(Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
Carrie; Christine; Cujo; Different Seasons; Danse Macabre; Dolores Claiborne; Firestarter; From a Buick8; The Green Mile; It; Needful Things; Pet Sematary; Rose Madder; The Shining; Tommyknockers.
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25 . Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
The Chronicles of Narnia
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
Cannery Row.
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
Children of Dune
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
The Eye of the Needle; On Wings of Eagles
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She's Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
A Christmas Carol
53. Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
An Indecent Obsession
59. The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller's Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
The Brothers Karamazov
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
Merrick; The Vampire Armand; Pandora; Violin; Servant of the Bones; The Vampire Lestat; The Queen of the Damned; The Tale of the Body Thief; The Witching Hour; Lasher; Taltos.
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones' Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
Jamaica Inn; My Cousin Rachel.
84. Wizard's First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
The Mermaid Chair
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
Bourne Supremacy; The Bourne Ultimatum; The Scarlatti Inheritance;
Rhinemann Exchange; Matarese Circle; Aquitane Progression; Holcroft Covenant.
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
Emma's Secret; Her Own Rules; Hold The Dream.
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)
A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man
Now I'm gonna do what AD did, I'm gonna add some of my favorite authors, in no particular order, I think SHOULD have been on the list:
Stephen Hunter; J. Frank Dobie ;John Grisham ;James Patterson ;
Pat Conroy; Robert Spencer; Dorothea Benton Frank; Bill Shakespeare;
Laurell K. Hamilton; Robert B. Parker; J.D. Robb; Nelson DeMille; Kipling; Tom Clancy; At least 1 Kafka
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12 comments:
Elitist!
Personally, I believe the works of Tolkien can be considered lit-ra-chewah (You'll have to imagine the snooty British accent). Add CS Lewis to the list, too.
And I HAVE read all of Stephen Hunter's books. I won't go see Shooter because I just know they've ruined it. Marky Mark is NOT the perfect Bob Lee Swagger.
Barry Pepper is. *grin*
Wait a sec, Holly--
you're gonna get snooty and erudite and elitist about Rowling's and Tolkien's works (which you admit that you've not read), while having no problems with Rice's, Ludlum's, and McCollough's stuff? And I missed The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants in my old survey course in Great Works Of American And World Literature class. Heh.
I will admit that I've not read Dostoyevsky, but I have read some of the other stuff. Heck, I only 3 years ago went through the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, such was my disdain. I realize now that I was primarily disdainful of the geeks who were obsessed with it back in high school. (Ross: "...Gandolf... You know, the wizard in Lord Of The Rings? Didn't you read Tolkien in high school?!?" Joey: "No, Ross, I was busy having sex in high school." --from Friends)
Tolkien wrote an entire history of a world that didn't exist. He envisioned cultural interactions and the evolution of languages that almost touched England. On top of that, he wrote a fine plot and even developed characters, who sang previously unheard songs and spoke previously unheard lays. That manages to bring his writing to something above mere stories, and to put it up in the realm of *literature*.
While I like Parker, and Ludlum, and King, and others on your list, I humbly submit that Tolkien's skills eclipsed theirs.
Now, if I can just find an audiobook of Crime & Punishment to listen to while I drive to and from work and about my patrol area, I could speak with more authority as to Dostoyevsky. (He may be the greatest thing since... well, the greatest thing.)
AD and Matt,
I think my problem with Tolkien is that I've just never really been into the Fantasy genre, with the exception of Laurell Hamilton. But she writes about Vampires and the killing thereof, mostly with firearms; so of course I'm on board with THAT.
And while all the "geeks" in my High School were reading Tolkien, I was taking an Honors Lit class that required me to read Dostoyevsky, Dante, Joyce, Kafka,Golding, de Saint-Exupery, and others I have since forgotten.
I really need to read Ayn Rand one of these days. ABG has read her and I have heard Florence King is another one I need to read, too.
Snobs, all of you. NOBODY mentioned Harlequin Romance. She's my favorite author of all time! :P
You know, I copied this and counted, and I've read 48 books on this list - so why do I feel not well-read when I see these things? I'm pleased to see my favorite book, 100 Years Of Solitude is snugly ensconced in this list, but I refuse to berate myself, too, for not having read Traveling Pants or Shopaholic novels. By the way, The Notebook, on which Oprah waxed orgasmic - I thought was a cloying, obvious piece of crap that even _I_-- lowly little me-- could have written. The thought that they turned it into a movie made my skin crawl. *groan*
Now, Outlander series by Gabaldon - You MUST read - the heroine is like you or me, or the Barbarian Princess - she's a gritty, gorgeous survivor. You'll love it. Drooling all the way.
Oh, and re: what ambulance driver said - Barry Pepper is the perfect anything and everything. Meow.
Holly, I'm not a big fan of fantasy, either. Even as a kid, I got bored quick with the Andre Norton X-Magic series, and Anne McCaffrey does little for me. Even Iasaac Asimov's Lensmen left me unimpressed. Heinlein's "Waldo" was great until he reached some kind of super mind-power.
C.S. Lewis was pretty much my longest experience with the fantasy genre, and that was kind of a nobable exception. But I have to admit that, when I finished his series, I pretty well figured that I was done with fantasy forever. Kids' stuff.
But Tolkien's concept is a lot deeper than dragons and wizards and ogres and crap like that-- he deals well with concepts of humanity, by non-humans. He literally (literature-ally) writes a history of a land that never happened, in such a way as to make the footnotes occasionally more interesting than the main text. (Don't you love fascinating footnotes?)
One of the best recent versions of this that I've read was Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, which gives rather specific examples, in a historical narrative, of how the rebirth of magic changed the course of the history of Great Britain in the Napoleanic period.
Like country music, I've learned not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and to revisit some examples of fantasy for new appreciation.
I don't know who created this MeMe; but I think their point was to create a list with a little something for everybody on it.
Except of course for those of us who LOVE Shakespeare. But then again, it could be argued that Bill never wrote a Novel; he only wrote "plays" and sonnets and such.
ANd my list contains some writers who don't aspire to "Great Literature", they just want to give you a good time. Parker, Hamilton and Robb being among the leaders in that group. I enjoy their work, but don't mean to imply their work should be studied as "The Great American Novel".
Pat Conroy and D.B. Frank, have an amazing grasp, OTOH, of the dysfunctional Southern family. And present it in a loving, though heartbreakingly entertaining way. That's why they made the list.
Ok, so according to this list I'm pretty illiterate, but what's a girl have to do to get some Hemmingway up in here? Dalton Trumbo? Kurt Vonnegut, Jr? Camus? Voltaire? Ok, I'm done name dropping. But seriously, Confessions of a Shopaholic? Always fun to go through those lists though...at least for dorks like me. :)
ABG,
I was gonna question how a gal with an angel's face who plays hockey with a PINK stick could EVER be considered a "Dork" but then I remembered...You are an Orchestra Dork! And your bro's a band geek!
But I would hardly consider YOU illiterate, by this silly list or any other. C'mon, you read Ayn Rand in high school for FUN b/c you thought you ought to expand your horizons, 'member that? That sort of thinkin' takes you off the illiterate list, Darlin'. Sorry to bust yor bubble.
Yeah, I left Old Bill off the list for the same reason-- no books; just plays.
Phlegm and AD,
well I finally gave in and went to IMdB and looked up a pic or 5 of Barry Pepper since I didn't recognize the name. Yeppers, he is a nice enough piece of eye candy. I've only seen him act w/ Tommy Lee Jones in the 3 Burials..., but he was pretty good in that. I don't know that I'd say he was good enough to play Bob Lee. I wansn't completely satisfied w/ Wahlberg, but I didn't HATE him the way "dog did. I actually enjoyed the movie. Guess I'm not the Auteur the 'Dog is.
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