The Next Best Book Club discussion
Bookish Lists...
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100 best reads of all time - how many have you read?
I've read more than half of these books, but I'm curious about the list -- it seems kind of eccentric. For instance, much as I enjoyed The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I'm not sure it belongs with the complete works of Shakespeare. Does anyone know how the list was compiled?
From post #1: There's a list circulating the web of the top 100 reads of all time posted by the The Big Read, claiming that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books on this list.
Copied from The Big Read website:
3. How do you select the books?
For the pilot phase of The Big Read, we studied the programs and reading lists of successful "city reads" programs around the country. Focusing on American literary classics, we selected books that would appeal to diverse audiences.
We now have a Readers Circle-a distinguished group of 22 writers, scholars, librarians, critics, artists, and publishing professionals-who suggest the next books for American communities to share.
Part of what makes The Big Read appealing to communities is the availability of large quantities of high quality supplementary materials such as reader's guides. In order to produce these materials, we build the list of titles incrementally.
Liz wrote: "From post #1: There's a list circulating the web of the top 100 reads of all time posted by the The Big Read, claiming that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books on this list.
Co..."
Interesting. Thanks Liz!
I've read 17. I was doing really well right at the beginning--I've read 7 of the first 10. Some of them, I have zero interest in reading (or ever reading again). I'm not too big on lists like this, though. I read for escape, not for literary stimulation, if you know what I mean. I'm a reader, but I'm not a "great reader"... Literature is not my forte. I'm a math person.
I've read 30. I guess that's not too shabby considering that the average adult has only read 6. But a large percentage of that 30 were read in my high school and college years. I need to get back on the horse!
I have read 24 1/2. I have a few that I want to read on that list as well, which makes me feel better, as the originator of this list also stated. ^_^
I've only read 18. I feel like I fail at reading...lol!
I've read 33 on this list but am currently reading my 34th and may possibly read 35 next week.
I've read 26...but about 12 of them are on my immediate TBR list.
I read 37 of this list, but I think several of these books shouldn't be on a list called 100 Best reads of all time..
i've read 40 of them, alot of the others are on my tbr list
I have read just over 6 of the books. Great Expectations
Little Women
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Winnie-the-Pooh
Charlotte's Web
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Parts of The Bible including Devarim, Shoftim, and Ruth.
I plan to start Anne of Green Gables soon, as well as reading through the whole list. I am only in elementary school.
I have read 19, but some of them so long ago I remember only that I read them. Some I know I'll never read, but I see at least one I might re-read. (And I'm not one to do much re-reading.)
Lorena wrote: "Ok, I copied the Big Read (all 200), and the PEN's list, I would love to be able to sit down and cross reference these list with others that I have. Actually that is one of the biggest challenges I..."Lorena, I haven't sifted through the other messages in this thread, so don't know if anyone responded. You could easily put the titles/authors in columns A & B, for instance. In columns C thtrough whatever would be the name of the list. You could color that cell or put in a check mark or some other symbol in the row that the book is entered. You could easily see then when a book appears on more than one list. The books could be alphabetized. You could even sort by author.
I've read 22, but there are lots more that have been on my TBR list for ages. I think that I might hang on the this list.
I count 36. And now see some To Be Read additions. :)
I've only read 3, but then again, I am only 14. But one is on my currently reading shelf and at least 8 are on my TBR shelf. Including some for the Spring Challenge, so I'll be reading more soon.
I've read 20 but have a few on my shelf to be read. Guess I better get busy!
I've read 58, but I thought the number would be higher. There are two or three I've actually never heard of!
Sadly, only 39. However, at least ten of the titles I haven't read are books I do plan to read.
I've read 59 of these books over the course of my life. Strange that Harry Potter series is listed as one isn't? Taken that way, it's one looonnnggg book! :)
Yikes- I've read 7 or 8 although I do have a few more on my to-read list. I have to admit, the majority are just not interesting to me.
I'm at 25. Not too bad. I looked at another list and I think I had 2 or something like that.
I've read 48 of them, but some of them I hated.
I've read 42, but don't ask me to remember them all. Read them over the years.
I have read 10. Wow! I need to get on it! I am missing out on some great reads.
1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen 2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie-the-Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby-Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - A. S. Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Whats in BOLD is what I have read. Whats in ITALIC is what I have on my TBR pile.
I've read 52 and may be the only person who read the unabridged version of Les Miserables! Anyone else? http://www.cynthiasattic.blogspot.com
http://www.marycunninghambooks.com
Mary wrote: "I've read 52 and may be the only person who read the unabridged version of Les Miserables! Anyone else? http://www.cynthiasattic.blogspot.com
http://www.marycunninghambooks.com"
Mary, I read the unabridged version too! I can't bring myself to read abridgements for anything.
I've only read 11 but I'm planning on reading a lot of those and I know I will be reading a few of those for school soon (the Little Prince, Tale of Two Cities etc.). I'm not sure if a few of them count though, I've only read the Fellowship of the Ring and I don't remember much of the Narnia Series except for the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. So I guess it's really only 9. Man that's pretty sad. I need to get reading. I was surprised not to see the Princess Bride on here, or was it?
Only 15....unfortunately, I am ashamed of myself. Does it count the fact that i have studied almost have of the entire list in school, without being able to read them? :)
I am surprised to find that I have read 39 of them. Definately going to copy it so I can get to the ones I missed-eventually!
I'm really surprised to find out that I read 23 books of the list...Most of them in Dutch (I'm Flemish) but also a part of them in English!
Great list to have indeed...
Great list to have indeed...
I've read 44 but the list is weird. First of all, there are a couple of repeats- like the Chronicles of Narnia and the Lion Witch and the Wardrobe listed separately? Other choices are questionable such as the Five People You Meet in Heaven or Bridget Jones Diary? If you were going to pick a Mitch Albom book I would do Tuesdays with Morrie but perhaps that doesn't count because it is non-fiction.
Joanna wrote: "I also read the unabridged version. I wanted to look cool in high school. Hmmm.. do you think I was? Lol"I have it but have yet to read it.
El wrote: "Mary wrote: "I've read 52 and may be the only person who read the unabridged version of Les Miserables! Anyone else? http://www.cynthiasattic.blogspot.com
http://www.marycunninghambooks.com"
..."
Me too! I love Les Miserables and it just would not be the same if I had read an abridged version. Also, I feel like abridged books aren't real books, if the author had felt some pages weren't important, wouldn't they have just gotten rid of the pages before publishing?
April wrote: "Also, I feel like abridged books aren't real books, if the author had felt some pages weren't important, wouldn't they have just gotten rid of the pages before publishing?"Amen!
Totally agree. When I bought Dracula for the first time I didn' know it was abridged. I also have The Count of Monte Cristo but it's abridged and adapted so I'm waiting to get the real version before I read it. The only reason I keep it is because it's old.
I have read about 47 of them and some I don't believe should be on this list, however, some I will add to my "to read" box. Thanks for this list. It is intresting to see all the different lists and what people say is a must read. 
Wow, I've only read 18 (although there are about half a dozen listed that I do have at home, but have not read yet. Guess I better try to get through a few of them!
I've read 49!Great list. Reminded me of a few I need to add to my list. . .
I've read 36 of the List. There's a few others just sitting on my bookshelf, which I hope to get to one day.
I've read about 49-50 of them. Ian McEwan is on my list to do, plus some of the newer authors. I no longer read the old Classics - been there, done that. Looking for new material.
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There's a list circulating the web of the top 100 reads of all time posted by the The Big Read..."
I have read 42 of the books on that list, I am surprised, Kim