How well-read are you? Episode 6

[Ann]

As discussed in Books on the Nightstand Podcast episode 6, this lovely little meme that Michael found and sent to me.

How many have you read? What one do you feel most badly about not having read? Which one would you choose to read next? What book on this list will you likely never read?

Achebe, Chinua — Things Fall Apart
Agee, James — A Death in the Family
Austen, Jane — Pride and Prejudice
Baldwin, James — Go Tell It on the Mountain
Beckett, Samuel — Waiting for Godot
Bellow, Saul — The Adventures of Augie March
Brontë, Charlotte — Jane Eyre
Brontë, Emily — Wuthering Heights
Camus, Albert — The Stranger
Cather, Willa — Death Comes for the Archbishop
Chaucer, Geoffrey — The Canterbury Tales
Chekhov, Anton — The Cherry Orchard
Chopin, Kate — The Awakening
Conrad, Joseph — Heart of Darkness
Cooper, James Fenimore — The Last of the Mohicans
Crane, Stephen — The Red Badge of Courage
Dante — Inferno
de Cervantes, Miguel — Don Quixote
Defoe, Daniel — Robinson Crusoe
Dickens, Charles — A Tale of Two Cities
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor — Crime and Punishment
Douglass, Frederick — Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Dreiser, Theodore — An American Tragedy
Dumas, Alexandre — The Three Musketeers
Eliot, George — The Mill on the Floss
Ellison, Ralph — Invisible Man
Emerson, Ralph Waldo — Selected Essays
Faulkner, William — As I Lay Dying
Faulkner, William — The Sound and the Fury
Fielding, Henry — Tom Jones
Fitzgerald, F. Scott — The Great Gatsby
Flaubert, Gustave — Madame Bovary
Ford, Ford Madox — The Good Soldier
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von — Faust
Golding, William — Lord of the Flies
Hardy, Thomas — Tess of the d’Urbervilles
Hawthorne, Nathaniel — The Scarlet Letter
Heller, Joseph — Catch 22
Hemingway, Ernest — A Farewell to Arms
Homer — The Iliad
Homer — The Odyssey
Hugo, Victor — The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Hurston, Zora Neale — Their Eyes Were Watching God
Huxley, Aldous — Brave New World
Ibsen, Henrik — A Doll’s House
James, Henry — The Portrait of a Lady
James, Henry — The Turn of the Screw
Joyce, James — A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Kafka, Franz — The Metamorphosis
Kingston, Maxine Hong — The Woman Warrior
Lee, Harper — To Kill a Mockingbird
Lewis, Sinclair — Babbitt
London, Jack — The Call of the Wild
Mann, Thomas — The Magic Mountain
Marquez, Gabriel García — One Hundred Years of Solitude
Melville, Herman — Bartleby the Scrivener
Melville, Herman — Moby Dick
Miller, Arthur — The Crucible
Morrison, Toni — Beloved
O’Connor, Flannery — A Good Man is Hard to Find
O’Neill, Eugene — Long Day’s Journey into Night
Orwell, George — Animal Farm
Pasternak, Boris — Doctor Zhivago
Plath, Sylvia — The Bell Jar
Poe, Edgar Allan — Selected Tales
Proust, Marcel — Swann’s Way
Pynchon, Thomas — The Crying of Lot 49
Remarque, Erich Maria — All Quiet on the Western Front
Rostand, Edmond — Cyrano de Bergerac
Roth, Henry — Call It Sleep
Salinger, J.D. — The Catcher in the Rye
Shakespeare, William — Hamlet
Shakespeare, William — Macbeth
Shakespeare, William — A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Shakespeare, William — Romeo and Juliet
Shaw, George Bernard — Pygmalion
Shelley, Mary — Frankenstein
Silko, Leslie Marmon — Ceremony
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander — One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Sophocles — Antigone
Sophocles — Oedipus Rex
Steinbeck, John — The Grapes of Wrath
Stevenson, Robert Louis — Treasure Island
Stowe, Harriet Beecher — Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Swift, Jonathan — Gulliver’s Travels
Thackeray, William — Vanity Fair
Thoreau, Henry David — Walden
Tolstoy, Leo — War and Peace
Turgenev, Ivan — Fathers and Sons
Twain, Mark — The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Voltaire — Candide
Vonnegut, Kurt Jr. — Slaughterhouse—Five
Walker, Alice — The Color Purple
Wharton, Edith — The House of Mirth
Welty, Eudora — Collected Stories
Whitman, Walt — Leaves of Grass
Wilde, Oscar — The Picture of Dorian Gray
Williams, Tennessee — The Glass Menagerie
Woolf, Virginia — To the Lighthouse
Wright, Richard — Native Son

[Ann]

OK, I'll fess up.

I've read 50 in full, and another 2 partially (Canterbury Tales and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man).

I am most ashamed at not having read A Tale of Two Cities.

The book from this list that I want to read next is Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. It's been on my 'to read' list forever.

I doubt that I will ever read anything else by William Faulkner (I read As I Lay Dying and that was enough).

[Michael]

As I mentioned in the podcast, I have, embarrassingly, only read 20. I can't beleive I haven't read Grapes of Wrath, Tale of Two Cities and many others. I will probably never read Proust, but I can't say for sure!

Maybe a bunch of us should read Things Fall Apart?

[Ann]

Nemesis? Wow! That's strong language. Care to share what happened between you two??

I also confess to never having read Pynchon, but I certainly do not feel badly about that. I just don't think my brain works that way ...

[Barbara]

Wow, I've read 42 of them. I'm surprised. Some of them are due to assigned college reading, but the majority are connected to my participation in an online book group. At some point as an adult, I realized how few classics I'd read and set about to correct that. But, I don't think I would have persevered without pairing the effort with great discussions.

I'm guessing that I will never read Mann's The Magic Mountain. The complaints from others discourage me. My real nemesis is not on the list, James Joyce's Ulysses.

Steve, my brother likes Pynchon, but I haven't been able to bring myself to take him on.

[Sarah]

I found this list a couple of months ago and have been actively working on becoming more 'well-read.' I started out having read 49, and am now up to 61.

I'm mostly concentrating on the pre-1900s lists, since those are the books I feel I need more knowledge of.

[Michael]

Sarah

12 classics in a couple months? I'm very impressed! If I didn't read so much for work, I'd try to assign myself a bunch of these.

One at a time, I guess!

Michael

[Jon]

40, if I can count half of Gulliver's Travels and half of The Magic Mountain.

And hey, if Florida's and Michigan's delegates can get half-votes, then I can, too.

-- Jon

[Ann]

Yes, Jon, but then all of your votes must become half votes -- thus leaving you with 20. :)

Oh, OK, 40 it is.

(But I *loved* Gulliver's Travels!)

[Jennifer]

If it wasn't for all the English classes I took in high school and college I would be sadly low on this list but at least I can honestly say I've read 39 of these (and skimmed a few more but I won't try to claim them!)

To Steve's point above, just because I read them, doesn't mean I enjoyed them. I try to catch myself when I'm feeling like I "should" read something and it becomes a chore. So many books - so little time...

That being said, some of these are definitely favorites and perhaps deserve a re-reading now that I'm long out of high school, to see how they strike me as an adult. I recently reread The Good Soldier and realized I missed so much the first time around.

[Stephen]

I've read 44 of them, and want to read another 16. There's another 16 I've never even heard of (The Woman Warrior, Ceremony?), and 22 I don't really care if I ever read (I'm talking to you, Bartleby the Scrivner).

I think there should be another category: "Books you think you should be ashamed of never having read, but secretly aren't." Those on my list: The Canterbury Tales, and War & Peace among others.

[Michael]

Stephen-

It took me 3 assigned readings of Bartleby to finally love it... but it was definitely work!

Love your idea for a category... Proust would probably be mine!

[Ann]

"Books you think you should be ashamed of never having read, but secretly aren't."

Mine would be Kafka. And yes, Proust is in there, too, though I have read about 10 pages.

Ann

[Dottie]

I'm not too bad either -- 52 -- a few of those I'm not clear on whether I read the whole of it but not that many -- I'll count and edit it in later. Many were high school and college reading for classes but I was surprised at how many others were just ones I'd read -- they may have been on reading lists but I didn't read them for the list.

Do I get to add five extra to my number for having finished ALL of Proust? Not only all of it but the first four volumes twice each. No way I'll ever let an opportunity pass to claim that -- I loved it, loved it, loved it and will go back to it I am sure. I can't say how much I would recommend it to anyone who is a language freaky person and can slow one's mind to a languid pace and savor every nuance -- delicious is a good word for it.

Steve -- were you around when we read Stoppard's Arcadia on Constant Reader? Or Angels in America? Those were great fun to read and discuss with a group. The plays on this list were read for classes -- but I've also reread most of them on my own and in a few cases had read them before they were class work.

Interesting list. I'm going to have to explore this podcast thing soon -- everything I've read so far makes me certain I will enjoy it.

[Ann]

Dottie, not only can you claim 5 extra, you can print up a bumper sticker and affix it to the back of your car!! Consider me seriously impressed!!

So if you can read Proust, you can certainly listen to our podcast (shameless promotion here). You don't need anything but your computer and speakers (or headphones if you prefer). It's easy. Just go to our website at http://www.booksonthenightstand.com, click on the 'podcasts' tab at the top. All of the episodes are there in one place. Episode 6 is the genesis for this discussion thread. There should be a player right there, that looks like the 'play' button on a tape recorder. Just click it, and the podcast will play.

(if you don't see the player, come back and we'll figure something else out. But I haven't heard that anyone couldn't see it).

Thanks!
Ann

[Michael]

I bow down before Dottie, reader of Proust!!

[Dottie]

Whoa, whoa, whoa -- I read the first four on my own and babbled on Constant Reader -- talking largely to myself with encouragement from folks -- like our now departed Pres Lancaster -- and when I got bogged down in Vol 5, I was bogged down permanently it seemed until a whole group of folks started from page one and we did it -- we limped, raced, dawdled and talked our way to the end -- Barb was another who read it. I truly think sharing Proust is the way to go.

Okay -- now that I've cleared that up -- thank you, thank you -- takes a slight bow -- the best part would be a bumper sticker -- I really like that thought. (Psst -- Barb, what do you think? Maybe we should see if we can produce a suitable design and get them made for the CRs who read the whole thing.)

And I've listened to the first two podcasts and LOVE them -- I'm in and plan to keep listening -- great job, both Ann and Michael! Interesting ideas and thinking and just plain good content for anyone with serious book habits -- most any CR folks qualify certainly. Glad to meet up with you and your podcasts and this group.

[Ann]

Tee hee, I've just had this vision of someone driving down the highway with said bumper sticker, and passers-by honking and giving the thumbs-up ...

Thanks so much for listening and saying such wonderful things about our podcast. I'm honored.

Ann

[Barbara]

Dottie and I did make that Proust journey together along with some other Constant Reader group members. It took me 2 years, I think, and I veered between marveling at his descriptive powers and wanting to hit him over the head with something. The group process was essential though. I couldn't have done it without them.

[Dottie]

Barb, it wasn't quite that long -- just may have seemed like it. Any ideas on bumper sticker design? That gives me the giggles every time I think of it.

Ann, I loved your vision of the horn-honking, thumbs up folks -- I wonder though, do you think? Maybe one or two at least?

I'm ready for podcast number four tomorrow. Excellent discourse on the short story genre in number three, BTW. I'm sure I'll explore a couple of the collections you mentioned.

[Ann]

Conny, I am very impressed at the number of books from that list you've read, whether you are a native English speaker or not!

Personally, I've found that many of us who read a lot of those titles in high school did not understand what we read, or did not retain it. I know that's the case for me.

I understand your sentiments about the lack of variety here in the US when it comes to literature from other countries. A blog that I would recommend for those interested in works in translation is The Literary Saloon at

[Ann]

Conny,

That's a thoughtful observation. Perhaps he was asking the question to be provocative (and knowing the answer all along).

You need to drop everything right now and go read Mister Pip. It asks exactly the question you just posed. And I know Michael will chime in here and tell you a little bit about a book that will be published very soon called The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society (did I get that right, Michael?). I haven't read it yet, but from what Michael tells me, it also deals with a similar theme.

[Barbara]

I just did a search for Mister Pip at my library and discovered that Recorded Books has done an audiobook of it and my library owns it! This will allow me to get to it sooner. By the way, Ann and Michael, are you going to do a podcast on audiobooks? I noticed that was mentioned earlier and meant to ask about it before. I'm a huge fan of them though I must say that podcasts are eating into my audiobook time!

[Ann]

Barbara,

I'd love to listen to Mister Pip on audio, even though I just read it recently! Let us know how it is!

Yes, we will do an episode on audiobooks sometime. Truthfully, I have been so wrapped up in listening to podcasts lately that I've fallen away from audiobooks. Seems like a common problem ;) Time to get back to them (especially because I have knitting to do and that way I can knit and "read" at the same time.

Thanks for the nudge!

[Ann]

Conny, I'm sorry you didn't love Mister Pip. I really loved the idea that the children took to heart the story that was being read to them, and in fact could escape from the horror around them into this world about which they knew nothing. The fact that their imaginations were still able to "function" (for lack of a better word) and that they could derive a sense of wonder -- and in fact pass it on to the adults -- spoke to me about the power of literature and of storytelling.

The book takes place in an island in the South Pacific near Papua, New Guinea. I know that it was based on a real civil war on a real island, but my Google magic isn't working right now and I can't find more details.

Thank you for looking for the positive, though. Sometimes I get so hung up on things I don't like about a book that I forget to note the good things -- I appreciate the reminder and I will try to follow your lead.

Ann

[Leah]

Well, I feel pretty far behind. I have only read 13 of the above noted. Even worse, I think almost every one was required reading in some course or another (not that I didn't enjoy them). I do tend to be a fan of Orwell, though.

There are a few on here that I have passed over because I didn't have guidance, for example, I found Shakespeare to be a difficult read at first, but reading it with the guidance of peers and a professor aided the 'translation'. This makes me tentative towards reading other Shakespeare works. I have the same anxiety about Dickens.

Do others feel this way? Is this why book clubs are so great?

Anyway, my favorite of my short list is probably the Odyssey. I have re-read this a few times.
My "next" might be Death Comes for the Archbishop, as I have read Cather in the past (Yellow Wallpaper) and enjoyed it.

[Ann]

Leah - I've got similar anxieties about certain authors, and Shakespeare is right up there. In addition, I think I read some of these before I was old enough to really understand them -- I read the words, but probably did not get out of them what I would as an adult or with a teacher. So the interpretation of having 'read' a book is variable. I know we're not alone in this.

But yes, I do think this is why book groups can be a good thing. I've disliked many books and come out of a book group discussion with an appreciation for the book, even if I could never say I "liked" it. And I'm always amazed at what other people pick up in a book that I've missed.

[Ann]

Conny,
AS I noted in my response to Leah, above, I always "miss" things in books that other people see. I think that we all bring our own perspective to the words the author gives us, and so we can't help but have different interpretations.

For instance, I didn't feel that the adults speaking to the class were treated as simpletons, but rather that Mr. Watts was integrating the island culture with his Great Expectations teachings to honor both.

But I appreciate your perspective, and it's making me reanalyze. My book group will be discussing Mister Pip on Thursday night, so I am eager to see what they have to say.

Thanks for your insights!

[Kathrin]

Hmm, like Conny, I'm not an English native speaker, so I think maybe there's a different standard for us?

Anyway, I just checked the list and came up with the following:
I read 11 of the books on the list, I tried another three (among them the infamous Proust, more on that later). 4 are on my TBR stack and about 30 are books I would like to read in the future or will have to read for university (I'm a comparative lit major).

As for Proust, I'm glad Stephen came up with the additional category. I can only second (or is it third?) what Michael and Ann said. I had to read three of his works for class and I wanted to give up after the first, but I held out until page 30 of the first book - but I really had to force myself to get this far.
One thing's for sure, I'll enver again read any of Proust's works.

I also feel I miss things in books other people see quite often. That's why I hate discussing books in a group when the teacher force me to say something about it. Usually, by the time it's my turn everything I noticed has already been mentioned. That makes me feel so stupid sometimes :(
On the other hand, though, I love reading Shakespeare and I'm right now reading Jane Austen's Persuasion. I like reading classic literature (unless the writing really bores me - see Proust ;) ).

[Lisa]

I have only read 24 of these. A lot of them I haven't added to my goodreads Read list because it was so long ago that think I should read them again first. There are a lot that I can't believe I have never read such as "The Catcher in the Rye" or "Pride and Prejudice". I think the gaps came along in high school when I didn't take Advanced Placement English, and then a certain amount of laziness when it came to reading the classics on my own for so long. I would like to read Ibsen's "The Doll's House".It was a chore to read Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" and probably I will never read any from Dostoyevsky.

[Savvy]

Not sure how to do the html...but giving it a shot.

This list gave me pause...are they joking???

Maybe these are the most popular choices from readers?

[Ann]

The fine print at the bottom said, "This list is based on the results of a Harris Poll that asked 2,413 U.S. adults to name their favorite books."

My first thought as I was scrolling through the first few: good books to give to non-readers to make them see how much fun and how approachable reading can be. Then I came to the second half -- had issues with the inclusion of 2 Dan Brown books, and then Ayn Rand???? Holy cow. So I guess it is popularity. I would guess that Catcher in the Rye is there because they either a) asked this question in high schools everywhere, or b) asked people who don't read and this is a book they remember having been great. I liked it OK, but I can't imagine it being a favorite book for that many people to land in the top 10.

[Melissa Wiebe]

I've read about 17 of the books on the list or portions of them.

[Sandi]

I've read 34 of the books on the list and portions of others. In some cases, there is an author on the list that I've read, but have read something other than the listed book. I have read all the Shakespeare on the list, so that upped my count. What's really sad is how much on the list I haven't read considering that my degree is in English Literature.

[Dottie]

I have read 62 of the books - helped by the fact that for several years I led a classics reading group - will probably never read The Canterbury Tales and refuse to feel bad about it. But I do keep meaning to read To The Lighthouse (have read others of hers) so maybe I'll move that one up on the list.
Dottie

[[deleted user]]

I'm surprised that I've read 16 of them -- it took me about 6 tries to get through Jane Eyre but when I did I was thrilled!
I have read different works by some of these authors (Mrs. Dalloway, Les Miserables)and I have a few of these books on my TBR pile (Vanity Fair, A Tale of Two Cities, Swann's Way -- I'm ambitious, no?)
I'm going to Ireland next month and I thought I'd try out Ulysses, but ..... maybe I'll start with "Portrait" and work my way into it.

[Stephanie]

Confession time - I was an English/Spanish major and I can only chalk up 25 of these titles. And I have never read Don Quixote or One Hundred Years of Solitude! I have started several more but never finished. I purchased many of these titles and have them sitting on my shelf, waiting for my attention.

[Thomas]

I was kinda surprised that I'd read 42 of them (I was an English major). The other surprising thing is that I read almost all of those before I hit my 20s (I'm 32), which was when I started reading mostly contemporary fiction. I will say that I read Madame Bovary just last year, and I'm currently reading Pride and Prejudice (yeah, I counted it). I haven't read Moby Dick, which I always feel bad about. It taunts me from the shelf. But I've also been feeling a pull toward War and Peace...

[Louise]

I've read 23 - but I think the list - apart from some classics - is very exclusive to english/american literature.
I'll probably never read Faulkner...

[[deleted user]]

Of that list, I've read the following. There's really no well regarded classic I don't think I'll ever read. It's all part of the quest; part of the game. If I end up not liking a classic work, the fun is in expressing my opinion and saying why I don't care for it.

Austen, Jane — Pride and Prejudice
Baldwin, James — Go Tell It on the Mountain
Brontë, Charlotte — Jane Eyre
Brontë, Emily — Wuthering Heights
Cather, Willa — Death Comes for the Archbishop
Chaucer, Geoffrey — The Canterbury Tales
Chekhov, Anton — The Cherry Orchard
Conrad, Joseph — Heart of Darkness
Dante — Inferno
de Cervantes, Miguel — Don Quixote
Defoe, Daniel — Robinson Crusoe
Dickens, Charles — A Tale of Two Cities
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor — Crime and Punishment
Ellison, Ralph — Invisible Man
Emerson, Ralph Waldo — Selected Essays
Fielding, Henry — Tom Jones
Fitzgerald, F. Scott — The Great Gatsby
Flaubert, Gustave — Madame Bovary
Golding, William — Lord of the Flies
Hawthorne, Nathaniel — The Scarlet Letter
Hemingway, Ernest — A Farewell to Arms
Homer — The Odyssey
Hurston, Zora Neale — Their Eyes Were Watching God
Huxley, Aldous — Brave New World
Ibsen, Henrik — A Doll’s House
Joyce, James — A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Kafka, Franz — The Metamorphosis
Lee, Harper — To Kill a Mockingbird
Lewis, Sinclair — Babbitt
London, Jack — The Call of the Wild
Mann, Thomas — The Magic Mountain
Marquez, Gabriel García — One Hundred Years of Solitude
Melville, Herman — Bartleby the Scrivener
Melville, Herman — Moby Dick
Orwell, George — Animal Farm
Poe, Edgar Allan — Selected Tales
Proust, Marcel — Swann’s Way
Rostand, Edmond — Cyrano de Bergerac
Salinger, J.D. — The Catcher in the Rye
Shakespeare, William — Hamlet
Shakespeare, William — Macbeth
Shakespeare, William — A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Shakespeare, William — Romeo and Juliet
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander — One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Steinbeck, John — The Grapes of Wrath
Stevenson, Robert Louis — Treasure Island
Stowe, Harriet Beecher — Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Swift, Jonathan — Gulliver’s Travels
Thackeray, William — Vanity Fair
Thoreau, Henry David — Walden
Tolstoy, Leo — War and Peace
Turgenev, Ivan — Fathers and Sons
Twain, Mark — The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Voltaire — Candide
Vonnegut, Kurt Jr. — Slaughterhouse—Five
Williams, Tennessee — The Glass Menagerie
Woolf, Virginia — To the Lighthouse
Wright, Richard — Native Son

[[deleted user]]

"Suzanne wrote: I'm going to Ireland next month and I thought I'd try out Ulysses, but ..... maybe I'll start with "Portrait" and work my way into it."

Yes, Suzanne. Read "Portrait" first. It introduces Joyce's alter ego Stephen Daedalus, whose story continues in "Ulysses". Also, read Homer "The Odyssey" as preparation if you haven't already done so. Then you'll get the parallels. Each chapter of "Ulysses" parodies a chapter of "The Odyssey".

You might also want to get a book of footnotes. Not that you necessarily need it, but Joyce throws out a lot of stuff that scholars have caught and the rest of us may not get. I'm going to dovetail my next reading with a book of footnotes I bought. There's a lot there in Joyce. It's not word salad. It's all there for a reason, and well worth your time.

[[deleted user]]

Ann wrote: "and then Ayn Rand???? "

I've noticed this with some internet polls. There's a heavy degree of ballot box stuffing in favor of Rand (by conservative activists) and L. Ron Hubbard (by scientologists).

Rand I can kind of see. I'd recommend reading at least one of her books to see what all the hubbub is about. Certainly I don't see her as a good object for literary worship. I've tried some of Hubbard's SF. It's pretty standard C-grade plot-driven stuff. If you're interested in the history of science fiction, go for it. If you're looking for something literary or enlightening, look elsewhere.

[Jen]

I just discovered the BOTNS podcasts a couple of months ago, and I am addicted. Great job, Ann and Michael!

I've read 39 of these, plus over half of The Sound and the Fury. That's the first book I've ever intentionally not finished. I used to force myself to finish every book I started until that point, but while reading The Sound and the Fury I decided that life's too short and I shouldn't torture myself.

[Linda]

I've read 27, several ("Gatsby", "P&P" "Tale") more than once. There are at least 4 more I have started - including an audio of "Ulysses". Next time (I will not be defeated) I will do it a combination of reading and listening. Thanks, Eric for the tip of reading Homer's first and "Portrait"

[Vanessa]

The list of the ones that I have read is paltry, but not as paltry as I had first feared (and at least for a few of the ones I haven't read, I've read other works by that author):

Conrad, Joseph — Heart of Darkness
Cooper, James Fenimore — The Last of the Mohicans
Dickens, Charles — A Tale of Two Cities
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor — Crime and Punishment
Faulkner, William — As I Lay Dying
Fitzgerald, F. Scott — The Great Gatsby
Golding, William — Lord of the Flies
Hawthorne, Nathaniel — The Scarlet Letter
Heller, Joseph — Catch 22
Homer — The Iliad
Huxley, Aldous — Brave New World
James, Henry — The Turn of the Screw
Lee, Harper — To Kill a Mockingbird
London, Jack — The Call of the Wild
Morrison, Toni — Beloved
O’Connor, Flannery — A Good Man is Hard to Find
O’Neill, Eugene — Long Day’s Journey into Night
Orwell, George — Animal Farm
Plath, Sylvia — The Bell Jar
Remarque, Erich Maria — All Quiet on the Western Front
Rostand, Edmond — Cyrano de Bergerac
Salinger, J.D. — The Catcher in the Rye
Shakespeare, William — Hamlet
Shakespeare, William — Macbeth
Shakespeare, William — Romeo and Juliet
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander — One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Sophocles — Antigone
Steinbeck, John — The Grapes of Wrath
Twain, Mark — The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Walker, Alice — The Color Purple
Whitman, Walt — Leaves of Grass
Williams, Tennessee — The Glass Menagerie

The ones I really want to read are:

Achebe, Chinua — Things Fall Apart
Austen, Jane — Pride and Prejudice
Cather, Willa — Death Comes for the Archbishop
Chekhov, Anton — The Cherry Orchard
Chopin, Kate — The Awakening
Faulkner, William — The Sound and the Fury (unlike Ann, I love Faulkner-it's my gothic Southern roots)
Hemingway, Ernest — A Farewell to Arms
Ibsen, Henrik — A Doll’s House
Welty, Eudora — Collected Stories

I'm really not interested in reading Thomas Pynchon or James Joyce who sound way too abstruse and not fun to me. I'm not clamoring to read Proust but I feel like I should one day.

[Scott]

Suzanne wrote: "I'm surprised that I've read 16 of them -- it took me about 6 tries to get through Jane Eyre but when I did I was thrilled!
I have read different works by some of these authors (Mrs. Dalloway, Le..."

Don't waste your time on Ulysses. If you read the Odyssey you will get a much better story and not have to wade through the steam of consciousness experiment by Joyce. "Artist" will give you all you will want of that.

[nancy]

Boy I'm relieved... when I first looked at the list, I assumed I hadn't read many at all..but when I added them up,I've read 36. Thank goodness for that Shakespeare class in High School and all of the English Lit classes in college. I've recently read a few for book groups and enjoyed them more than I did in college. I went to Berkeley so you know how I feel about Kurt Vonnegut!.

[Elizabeth]

Thomas wrote: "I was kinda surprised that I'd read 42 of them (I was an English major). The other surprising thing is that I read almost all of those before I hit my 20s (I'm 32), which was when I started reading..."

I was an English major undergrad, also, and my count is 42 as well!! Isn't that what they say is the answer to life, the universe and everything in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?

My shame is how few of those I really remember well. I have lots of vague impressions but no real recollection on lots of them about details of style, characters, plot, etc. So maybe even many of the ones I have read once should still be on my "to read" list. *sigh*

I'm in with what seems like the majority of folks -- there are some remaining ones I want to read but a few I don't think I will ever have an interest in taking on.

I would recommend to anyone (and often do) to not bother with Moby Dick. Definitely the most tortuous reading experience of my life so far, and ultimately (I felt) with very little payoff in return.

[Lisa]

Well, I'm surprised that I have read 66, some of them more than once (think Pride and Prejudice). I had the good fortune? of some terrific literature teachers in high school and college, though I confess that some were a struggle! I had to read and present a paper on Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queen my senior year of high school!

[[deleted user]]

Ann wrote: "How many have you read? What one do you feel most badly about not having read? Which one would you choose to read next? What book on this list will you likely never read? "

I think it's kinda funny how this old thread has been resurrected :-)
There are a couple of titles on the list I'm sure I read, but since I can't remember enough about them to answer even three questions about them, I'm not counting them. So, the breakdown: I've read 44 of the titles. Because I majored in Theater Arts and worked in theatre for years, I've read and seen the plays innumerable times. I feel guilty for not having read The Canterbury Tales en toto (I've only read selections) because I also did graduate work in Medieval and Renaissance History and it seems like I should *know* it! I will most likely read Charles Dickens' The Tale of Two Cities next and; the title I will most likely not read is Proust's Swann's Way (though for some strange reason I own two copies of it!)

01 — Austen, Jane — Pride and Prejudice — Twice in print, once in audio, four different film adaptations
02 — Beckett, Samuel — Waiting for Godot — Once in print; one live performance
03 — Brontë, Charlotte — Jane Eyre — Twice in print
04 — Brontë, Emily — Wuthering Heights — Twice in print
05 — Camus, Albert — The Stranger - Twice in print (once in French)
06 — Chekhov, Anton — The Cherry Orchard — At least once in print, a gazillion live performances at Arena Stage because it was Zelda Fichandler's (founder and former artistic director) favorite play. Still, I often confuse this with Uncle Vanya :-/
07 — Chopin, Kate — The Awakening — Twice in print — For the longest time I thought this was written by Faulkner and could never understand why I couldn't find it...
08 — Dante — Inferno — Twice in print (two different translations)
09 — Dumas, Alexandre — The Three Musketeers — Once in print
10 — Faulkner, William — The Sound and the Fury — Print and audio simultaneously (as an audiobook proofer)
11 — Fitzgerald, F. Scott — The Great Gatsby — At least once in print
Flaubert, Gustave — Madame Bovary — Once in print
12 — Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von — Faust — Countless times (while doing graduate work in Medieval History)
13 — Golding, William — Lord of the Flies — At least once in print
14 — Hardy, Thomas — Tess of the d’Urbervilles — Once in print
15 — Hawthorne, Nathaniel — The Scarlet Letter — Once in print
16 — Heller, Joseph — Catch 22 — Once in print; Often confuse this with Slaughterhouse - Five by virtue of the fact that I read them back-to-back and they both have numbers in the title :-/
17 — Hemingway, Ernest — A Farewell to Arms — Once least once in print
18 — Homer — The Iliad — Once in print
19 — Homer — The Odyssey — Once in print
20 — Huxley, Aldous — Brave New World — At least once in print
21 — Ibsen, Henrik — A Doll’s House — At least once in print; saw at least one live performance
22 — Joyce, James — A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man — Once in print. And I lived through it. But barely. Serious depression for weeks afterwards.
23 — Kafka, Franz — The Metamorphosis — Once in print
24 — Lee, Harper — To Kill a Mockingbird — Once in print; Once in audio
25 — London, Jack — The Call of the Wild — Once in print; Once in audio
26 — Orwell, George — Animal Farm — At least once in print
27 — Pasternak, Boris — Doctor Zhivago — Twice in print
28 — Salinger, J.D. — The Catcher in the Rye — Once in print
29 — Shakespeare, William — Hamlet — Countless times in print; Countless live performances
30 — Shakespeare, William — Macbeth — Countless times in print; Countless live performances
31 — Shakespeare, William — A Midsummer Night’s Dream — Countless times in print; Countless live performances
32 — Shakespeare, William — Romeo and Juliet — Countless times in print; Countless live performances
33 — Shaw, George Bernard — Pygmalion — Countless times in print; One live performance at The Gate Theatre in Dublin, Ireland; plus movie adaptation twice
34 — Shelley, Mary — Frankenstein — Twice in print
35 — Sophocles — Antigone — Countless times in print
36 — Sophocles — Oedipus Rex — Countless times in print
37 — Steinbeck, John — The Grapes of Wrath — At least once
38 — Twain, Mark — The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn — At least once in print
39 — Voltaire — Candide — Once in print
40 — Vonnegut, Kurt Jr. — Slaughterhouse—Five — At least once in print; Often confuse this with Catch-22 (see above)
42 — Walker, Alice — The Color Purple — Once in print; Saw the film adaption once
43 — Wilde, Oscar — The Picture of Dorian Gray — Countless times in print
44 — Williams, Tennessee — The Glass Menagerie — At least once in print; not sure about live performance(s) as I often confuse Tennesee Williams' plays