Martha's progress

[Martha]

Here's my list of the 50 books with completed books marked.
20/50 completed

1 The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J. R. R. Tolkien
2 1984 by George Orwell - read many years ago & again in 2014
3 Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - have read several times
4 The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck - read most recently in 2013
5 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee - have read several times, 2011, 2014
6 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte - have read several times
7 Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte 6/11/14
8 A Passage to India by E. M. Forster
9 The Lord of the Flies by William Golding - read in high school, 2014
10 Hamlet by William Shakespeare
11 A Bend in the River by V. S. Naipaul
12 The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald - I think I read this one, but not really sure
13 The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger - read in high school
14 The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
15 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
16 The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank - read in high school
17 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
18 The Bible by Various - ongoing
19 The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
20 Ulysses by James Joyce
21 The Quiet American by Graham Greene
22 Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
23 Money by Martin Amis
24 Harry Potter Series by J. K. Rowling - have reread the 1st 2 of these recently - #1 5/2012, #2 5/2015
25 Moby Dick by Herman Melville - read in high school
26 The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame - 2016
27 His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman
28 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy ... tried in 2016 & stalled out, will try again
29 Alice´s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll - 2010
30 Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier - have read several times, most recently 11/2011
31 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
32 On the Road by Jack Kerouac
33 Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
34 The Way We Live Now by Antony Trollope
35 The Outsider by Albert Camus
36 The Color Purple by Alice Walker - read a few years ago
37 Life of Pi by Yann Martel - 2016
38 Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - 2011
39 The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
40 Man without Women by Ernest Hemingway
41 Gulliver´s Travels by Jonathan Swift
42 A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens - have read several times
43 Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
44 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Dafoe
45 One flew over the Cuckoo´s Nest by Ken Kesey
46 Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
47 The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
48 Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden - 3/7/14
49 The Divine Comedy by Alighieri Dante
50 The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde - 2011

[Martha]

My plan is to read 3 this year.

Read #48 Memoirs of a Geisha in March 2014.

Next up either
#26 The Wind in the Willows
#7 Wuthering Heights (done) or
one of the #1 LOTR or #2 HP books.

[Martha]

I cannot resist a list so here's the list of 100 other books to read with ones completed in bold.


1. We Need to Talk About Kevin- Lionel Shriver
2. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith - read in high school
3. Mossflower- Brian Jacques
4. The New Jim Crowe Laws by Michelle Alexander
5. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
6. Little Women- Louisa May Alcott - read long ago, reread 2014
7. Middlemarch- George Elliot
8. The Discworld Series- Terry Pratchett
9. The Collected Works- ee cummings
10. The Thirteenth Tale- Dianne Setterfield - read a few yrs ago
11. The Book Thief - read awhile back
12. I am the Messenger- Markus Zusak
13. A Bell for Adano- John Hersey
14. East of Eden- John Steinbeck
15. Of Mice and Men- John Steinbeck - high school
16. A Farewell to Arms- Ernest Hemingway
17. The Art of Racing in the Rain- Garth Stein
18. Tess of the D'urbavilles- Thomas Hardy
19. The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared- Jonas Jonasson
20. Crime and Punishment- Fyodor Dostoyevsky
21. The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
22. The Shining- Steven King - love all the early SK
23. The Shack-W. Young - 2009
24. The Last Man- Mary Shelley
25. Foundation Trilogy- Isaac Asimov
26. My First White Friend- Patricia Raybon
27. Persuasion by Jane Austen 9/3/14
29. Very Bad Men- Harry Dolan
30. Fahrenheit 451- Ray Bradbury 4/18/14
31. Oliver Twist- Charles Dickens
32. Watership Down- Richard Adams
33. Night - Elie Wiesel
34. Things Fall Apart- Chinua Achebe
35. The Stand - Stephen King - love this one
36. A Tale of Two Cities- Charles Dickens - HS, 2015
37. Great Expectations- Charles Dickens -
38. Fight Club- Chuck Palahniuk
39. The Old Man and the Sea- Ernest Hemingway
40. For Whom the Bell Tolls- Ernest Hemingway
41. War and Peace- Leo Tolstoy
42. Atlas Shrugged- Ayn Rand
43. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall- Anne Bronte
44. The Time Traveler's Wife- Audrey Niffeneger
45. Invasion of the Body Snatchers- Jack Finney
46. The Left Hand of Darkness- Ursula K. Le Guin
47. The Hyperion Series- Dan Simmons
48. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress- Robert A. Heinlein
49. Stranger in a Strange Land- Robert A. Heinlein
50. Ender's Game- Orson Scott Card
51. The Sun Also Rises - Hemingway
52. Descartes Bones - Russell Shorto
53. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini 11/26/14
54. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter- Carson McCullers
55. A Separate Peace- John Knowles
56. The Name of the Wind- Patrick Rothfuss
57. Looking for Alaska-John Green
58. 12 Years A Slave-Solomon Northup
59. Dove by Robin Lee Graham
60. Revolutionary Road
61. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie- Muriel Spark
62. Tender is the Night- F. Scott Fitzgerald
63. The Power of One- Bryce Courtney
64. A Testament of Youth- Vera Britain
65. Burr- Gorr Vidal - many yrs ago
66. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down- Anne Fadiman
67. Pet Cemetary- Stephen King - one of the hardest for me to read
68. Jurassic Park- Michael Crichton
69. American Psycho- Brett Easton Ellis
70. The Human Comedy-
71. Winesburg, Ohio-
72. The Cellist of Sarajevo- Steven Galloway
73. The discovery of heaven- Harry Mulisch
74. The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow- Rita Leganski
75. My Sister's Keeper- Jodi Picoult
76. Emma- Jane Austen - 2012 or 13
77. Of Human Bondage- W Somerset Maugham
78. Jude the Obscure- Thomas Hardy
79. The Forgotten Seamstress- Liz Trenow
80. Freedom from the Known- J Krishnamurti
81. Foam of the Daze- Boris Vian
82. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
83. The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen
84. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo- Stieg Larsson - started a love of Nordic Noir
85. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance- Pirsig
86. Moon and Sixpence- W Somerset Maugham
87. Middlesex- Jeffrey Eugenides
88. Johnny got his gun - Dalton Trumbo
89. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
90. How Green was My Valley- Richard Llewellyn
91. Uncle Tom's Cabin- Harriet Beecher Stowe
92. The Jungle- Upton Sinclair
93. Scaramouche- Rafael Sabatini
94. The Age of Reason- Thomas Paine
95. The Faiths of the Founding Fathers- David L. Holmes
96. The Communist Manifesto- Karl Marx
97. The Prisoner of Zenda- Anthony Hope
98. Dhalgren- Samuel R. Delany
99. The Marid Audran Sequence- George Alec Effinger
100. When The Sacred Gin Mill Closes- Lawrence Block

[Paula]

I see Anne Bronte's Tenant of Wildfell Hall is in this list. I enjoyed this far more than those ever written by Charlotte and Emily.

[Lisa]

Paula wrote: "I see Anne Bronte's Tenant of Wildfell Hall is in this list. I enjoyed this far more than those ever written by Charlotte and Emily."
It's sad how she's always last mentioned, love her work.

Martha wrote: "I cannot resist a list so here's the list of 100 other books to read with ones completed in bold.
Good to meet another list fanatic.

[Martha]

Paula wrote: "I see Anne Bronte's Tenant of Wildfell Hall is in this list. I enjoyed this far more than those ever written by Charlotte and Emily."

Glad to hear that, Paula. Jane Eyre is still my favorite, but I've yet to read Tenant. I did really enjoy Anne's Agnes Grey. So much talent in that sad family.

Yes, Lisa, we list fanatics need to stick together. :-)

[Linda]

Martha wrote: "84. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo- Stieg Larsson - started a love of Nordic Noir"

Did you read the entire series? I absolutely loved it, and then watched both movies. I liked the original foreign set of movies the best - 9 hours long! Normally I'm not drawn to these types of books, but I kept noticing everyone else reading it so I had to see what it was all about, and I'm glad I did.

[Martha]

Yes, I read the series & loved it so much. I think he had about 10 planned. Such a shame he died so young. I'm reading Jo Nesbo & Arnaldur Indridason. Both are good. I loved Nesbo's The Redbreast. As for the movies, I haven't watched the American version, but loved the Swedish ones. Very good adaptations of the novels.

[Mary]

Linda wrote: "Martha wrote: "84. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo- Stieg Larsson - started a love of Nordic Noir"

Did you read the entire series? I absolutely loved it, and then watched both movies. I liked th..."

Loved the books. Had a hard time getting into the first one but was so glad I didn't give up because it was terrific. I watched both the American and Swedish films and I too liked the Swedish version better.

[Martha]

I probably should watch the American version. Maybe one of these days. Having too much fun reading lately & catching up on my favorite shows that have collected on the DVR over the winter.

[Mary]

Of course I love Daniel Craig so the American version was worth it for that!

[Martha]

:-) Reason enough!

[Martha]

Currently reading Wuthering Heights, but have gotten sidetracked by other books. Will get back to it soon. :-)

[Martha]

Finished Wuthering Heights & loved it. Don't care much for any of the characters except a couple, but love the writing so very much. The Bronte's were exceptional talents.

[Martha]

Rereading Little Women now. Such a great book.

[Lisa]

O, it's one of my all time favorites.

[Martha]

Mine, too.

[Lisa]

Think I've read it around 10 times. Yearly while in school. Reread it last year. It never gets old.
As a kid, Beth was my favorite; but as an adult,I adore Jo.

[Martha]

I was just posting about this in the group that is reading it now. I wanted to be Jo as a teenager ... I LOVED her, but was entirely too shy to be that outgoing. I was a voracious reader (that hasn't changed!) and love the image of her in the attic eating apples and reading. Not so crazy about the rat though. I love Beth's sweetness & hopefulness.

[Lisa]

I was also too shy
I used to read & write with my pet rat- maybe I was trying too?

[Martha]

Finally read Persuasion this week. It is now tied with Pride and Prejudice as my favorite Austen's. Not sure which I will read next. Maybe Wind in the Willows.

[Lisa]

I love Persuasion. My favorite Austen shifts regularly. I'm currently rereading Persuasion, it's gorgeous (and the Austen that I've convinced my husband to read)

[Martha]

Of all the productions of Austen's works, Persuasion has always been my favorite so I'm not surprised that I like it so much.

I have really disliked all the versions of Emma, but finally read it last year and loved it, too. So I need to go back and watch again. Maybe they just lost something in the translation to film.

I will never convince mine to read Austen. I'm still working on getting him to read To Kill a Mockingbird. LOL

[Lisa]

My husband will read Persuasion because it's not a long book. Have you seen Emma Approved- it's a YouTube Vlog? It was the first time that I liked Emma Woodhouse and didn't want to shake her.

[Martha]

No I haven't ... wanting to shake her is something on which we agree. :-)

But the book was outstanding. A lot like Wuthering Heights ... the excellent writing was what will have me returning to these books ... not the characters.

[Martha]

This week I've finished rereads of To Kill a Mockingbird and Lord of the Flies.

[Lisa]

There's something transcendent about Mockingbird.

[Martha]

Yes, there is. I could read it again right now. Just love the relationships in it.

[Martha]

Finished The Awakening by Kate Chopin this morning. Very selfish main character and not likable at all, but I can see the importance of the book. Surprised that it's not on either list. Very readable for a book written more than 100 years ago. If I didn't know that, I would never have guessed it was written in the 19th century.

[Martha]

Read The Kite Runner last month. Wonderful book. So glad I finally read it and will definitely read more by this author.

Doubt that I get to any others on these lists this year. Hoping to read more of them in the new year.

[Martha]

Haven't posted on here in awhile, but went through my list and have read several books that are not on either list, but I consider classic and worthwhile reads.
Gone with the Wind Love this one. Very good picture of the south before, during and after the Civil War
Housekeeping Interesting picture of unusual characters & mental illness.
Armageddon I enjoy Uris' books. Dated, but good.
A Tale of Two Cities My 2nd read of this. Good, but not my favorite Dickens.
A Summer Place I love the movie and always wanted to read the book. An accurate picture of attitudes & morals of the time. So enjoyed it.
Leaves of Grass I'm not a huge fan of poetry so this was a struggle. Parts were very boring and parts took my breath away.

[Martha]

Well, I am so lax at posting in this group. I did read 2 books from our list in 2016 ... The Wind in the Willows which I loved! & Life of Pi which I did not. The early part of the book was wonderfully written, but I really didn't care for it overall.

I'll try to read one or two more this year. Maybe On the Road & Heart of Darkness from the 50 book list. There are several that jump out at me from the 100 book list so we'll see where that takes me. LOL

[[deleted user]]

Hi Martha,

Why don't you nominate some of the books you have read, that aren't on either list, in the 'Open nominations 2017' topic. Some of the books you mentioned in your 2015 post look interesting.

Christine