In high school, I was really into the "best of" lists that were coming out around the turn of the millennium. I remember sitting in Wigg with Jeffrey Jackson checking out the Modern Library's list, before they got a little carried away and started making, like, the 100 best self-help books ever and stuff. Stealing a trick from J-bird, I am going to discuss what I have read of the Strand 80 (what order is this in???):
1. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
YES. I cried.
2.Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen
Lit Hum, what up? Thanks for helping me to see those hidden capitalist themes.
3. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
I love the part with the shirts, and saying "the middle west", as some of you have no doubt noticed.
4. The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
Phonies! Great one.
5. Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
Aw, hell no.
6. Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
Aw, hell no, take
7. The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
Nope. No interest.
8. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Ok, I have read this, but I did not love it like everyone else. I think magical realism disturbs me.
9. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Yes, I am a good little budding librarian.
10. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Was this the first one? Baby Harry!
11. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Love the book, love the movie, love the trip of the tongue part
12. 1984 - George Orwell
This one is pretty good, despite my hatred of scifi.
13. On the Road - Jack Kerouac
Ack, do I have to? Ok, maybe.
14. Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
This shit is racist. But really entertaining, admittedly.
15. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
One of my top five faves of all time.
16. The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Meh. I don't like Dostoevsky that much... too hysterical. Laura Bush's fave!
17. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky
See above, although this one is marginally more enjoyable.
18. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith
Nope. Is this for kids?
19. Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
Never read Vonnegut. Maybe I will give this one a whirl.
20. Ulysses - James Joyce
Yes, indeed. Thanks, Mr. Fricke!
21. Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
ACK, no way.
22. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
Hm, no.
23. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
I think so? Maybe I just saw the movie.
24. East of Eden - John Steinbeck
Nope, although I have an ex-boyfriend who once narrated me the whole plot. Does that count?
25. The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway
Alcoholism never seemed so sexy.
26. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
SO GOOD. And does not deserve its weird pop culture status as hardest book ever. It's pretty enjoyable!
27. The Hobbit: Or There and Back Again - J.R.R. Tolkien
No interest.
28. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling
Mmmm-hmm.
29. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Michael Chabon
I have tried to read this book like a million times (or twice), and just can't get through it, even though I love Mysteries of Pittsburgh.
30. A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
Yes. A nice read.
31. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
No! I was just talking about this one. I would read this.
32. Alice's Adventure in Wonderful and Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll
Yes indeed!
33. The Stranger - Albert Camus
Yep, in English and en francais.
34. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
Yes. Freaked me out good.
35. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
AHHHHHHH. I just reread part of this this morning!! So great.
36. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Nope. I should, though.
37. The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
Are you fucking kidding me?
38. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
No...I think the musical aspect turned me off.
39. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
Nope, I've only read a little Dickens.
40. Anthem - Ayn RandAw, hell no, take three.
41. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami
Started, but never finished.
42. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
Yay! A great one. I cried.
43. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
Mmm no interest.
44. Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
I should read Vonnegut, I guess...
45. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
See above magical realism discussion. This one, I liked better.
46. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
High school yearbook quote, what up?
47. The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
Meh. Really?
48. Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
A great one.
49. The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera
I should read this... I heard it's dirty.
50. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
I love this book. Is that cliched? I don't care.
51. The World According to Garp - John Irving
Two Irving? Really? I think I liked this one better.
52. Middlemarch - George Eliot
SO MUCH SHAME. I never finished it.
53 .To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
Once again, thanks Lit Hum! This book also made me cry.
54. The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
One of my old faves from high school... I should reread and see if it holds up.
55. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J.K. Rowling
OK.
56. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - J.K. Rowling
Sure.
57. The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
BO-RING.
58. Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
Um, is this sci-fi? Do I have to?
59. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
I could never get past the title... sounds boring. And bleak.
60. Beloved - Toni Morrison
BE-LO-VED. I read this thrice for school.
61. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
Yes, a Dickens I have actually read!!
62. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - Dave Eggers
I liked this a lot in high school--I'm not sure how I would feel about it now. Twee?
63 .Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk
Um, no thanks.
64. The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner
Aw, what a great one. Caddy smells like... grass? Green?
65. Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
said she would buy the flowers herself. My cat is named after Clarissa Dalloway.
66. The Giver - Lois Lowry
This book disturbed me greatly in the fifth grade.
67. The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
Ooh, I should read this.
68. Blindness - Jose Saramago
I vetoed this for book club. I don't like parables.
69. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
This was a sweet book, but one of the best 80 of all time? Really?
70. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
Did I finish this? I should.
71. Where the Wild Things Are - Maurice Sendak
Yay! Let the wild rumpus start.
72. The Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
I could never get past the Christian allegory thing.
73. The Odyssey - Homer
Yes indeed. Where is the Iliad?
74. The DaVinci Code - Dan Brown
This was seriously one of the worst-written books ever, but I def turned those pages.
75. Franny and Zooey - J.D. Salinger
Yay! Where is Nine Stories?
76. Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
I just got this from the library!
77. A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle
These books also freaked me out. I was an impressionable child, all right?
78, Everything is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer
Cried.
79. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
No! Should I?
80.The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
This used to be my favorite book.
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5 comments:
Hi Lizzie,
I thought you might be interested in another “Tale of Two Cities Musical” that is wending its way to Broadway (Perhaps via Boston). This one has a distinctively low budget so far but a very singable score and an engaging book. You might want to check out some of the songs. See if you can get into any of these.
All the best!
Bob Littlefield http://www.taleoftwocitiesmusical.com/
A) Hilarious comment above mine.
B) I think we went over the list in Wordsworth, in Cambridge.
C) Your Gone with the Wind comment doesn't imply at all how many times you've read it, which, if I recall, is a ton of times.
D)Audrey Niggenegger lives in Evanston, aka E-Town.
U2 wrote a song about Dorian Gray: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odNcBTtavtw&feature=related
I'll lend you the book if you like. It's pocket sized! What's up with three Rand titles on that list?
btw, i'm gonna start including the verification word as my signature because they're always great.
signing off
PRINGSTI
it's okay that you blatantly stole my idea. REALLY IT IS.
ha, actually though: you and i have similar what-we-dont-want-to-read lists.
2. LOVE hidden capitalist themes.
5. Even Dirty Dancing knows better.
Also, I thought you might be interested in a Catcher in the Rye musical I'm working on. Here's the website
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