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That "top 50 books" meme, mostly because I've actually read a bunch of these:


Here are the current top 50 books from www.whatshouldireadnext.com. Bold the books you have read. Italicise the books you might read. Cross out the books you probably won't read. Pass it on:

The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown Complete waste of time, but I read it!
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams
The Great Gatsby - F.Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger A friend of mine just recommended this to me!
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter 6) - J.K. Rowling
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story - George Orwell
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
1984 - George Orwell
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Book 3) - J.K. Rowling
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
Angels and Demons - Dan Brown I read 5 chapters--even worse than DaVinci code, which I didn't think possible!
Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk
Neuromancer - William Gibson
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Ender's Game (The Ender Saga) - Orson Scott Card
Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Good Omens - Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman
Atonement - Ian McEwan
The Shadow Of The Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Dune - Frank Herbert


Not part of the actual meme, but I would say my top 5 books on this list are Lord of the Rings, A Prayer for Owen Meany, To Kill a Mockingbird, Pride and Prejudice, and Ender's Game. The book on my "will someday read" list I'm most embarassed about not reading yet is Brave New World. And the book that was a complete waste of brain cells was The DaVinci Code, but that's mainly the historian in me speaking.

Comments

( 4 comments — Leave a comment )
bop_radar
Jan. 24th, 2006 11:05 am (UTC)
Hey! *waves* Great meme! I think I may join you.

Of the books you said you might read, I recommend:
The Time Traveller's Wife:it's very romantic but beautifully original and I confess it tear-jerked me massively (it's my crying-into-my-icecream book!)
Life of Pi: fascinating, magical, chilling. And some really interesting religious themes as well!
Atonement: I adore Ian McEwan's writing and this is one of his best. The emotional intensity is incredible.
The Shadow of the Wind: A lovely curl-up-on-a-winters-day-by-the-fire book. Not that memorable for me, but an enjoyable read.
Cloud Atlas: Really original piece. I loved it, though I liked some parts more than others. There's a great centrepiece at the heart of it that made the journey worthwhile for me.
Middlesex: This was a fascinating gender study. Loved it!
The Kite Runner: Great book but it made me feel like I'd read too much slash. My reaction was... uncomfortable. You'll understand when you read it! ;)
norwich36
Jan. 24th, 2006 04:46 pm (UTC)
Thanks for the recs! Clearly The Time Traveller's Wife has to be the next book I read, since you and my best friend both recommend it. And I actually own Life of Pi--someone gave it to me for my birthday a couple years ago--so I suppose I should get around to reading it.

But thanks for the other recs, because I hadn't heard of some of those books before!
bop_radar
Jan. 24th, 2006 11:06 am (UTC)
PS
Oh yeah - Da Vinci Code? Don't get me started!
norwich36
Jan. 24th, 2006 04:51 pm (UTC)
Re: PS
I've actually given presentations on the historical inaccuracies of this book! (And that's not even getting to the horribly flat characterization, or the forced cliffhangers at the end of every chapter, or the idea that "the divine feminine"="sleeping with Jesus, who by the way wasn't divine.")

And someone who knew my interest in religion gave me a copy of Angels and Demons for Christmas and swore it was better than DaVinci Code. I will confess I'm tempted to finish it just to mock it--just about every sentence in the first four chapters that I did read made me laugh or cringe, or both.
( 4 comments — Leave a comment )

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