106 books of pretension
I haven't posted in a while. To remedy this, I've decided to use some memetically generated content, rather than bothering to actually write something original. I noticed this particular meme on some of the science blogs I read. It's a bit stale now, but it's my kind of fun.
Below are "106 books of pretension," compiled from the books most frequently marked unread by Library Thing users.
Books I've read are in bold; books I've stared but haven't finished are in italics; books I own but haven't read are marked with an dagger (†). I was tempted to annotate all the books, but you can probably read about books I love elsewhere on this blog. So I'll only annotate (ahem make excuses about) the books I haven't finished or the books I own but haven't read yet†.
Here is the executive summary for those of you who don't want to slog through all of the titles:
Read: 55
Haven't finished: 5
Own, but haven't read†: 9
And here's the list:
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell† - Joanne started reading this, but she found it pretty boring. If anyone out there read this and enjoyed it, let me know. If you're convincing enough, I'll give it a go.
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion - I could never really get into this. I've read Lord of the Rings three times, but I've never managed to finish this
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick - I got most of the way through this book, then I got to an incredibly vivid description of whale carcasses floating abandoned in the sea. It made me sick to my stomach. I put the book down, and I've never picked it up again. This is a book I really need to finish.
Ulysses - I started this one summer when I was in University. I had at least two books of annotations, and I was ready for anything. I got close to halfway through, then the fall semester started. I never quite had the time to finish it.
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies† - I bought this a while ago in at the used book stall on the beach in Brighton. I keep coming across references to this and other books by Jared M. Diamond in a number of books I'm readying (usually biology related), so it's quite likely I'll actually read this soon.
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife† - Joanne read this and liked it a lot. I think it's currently on loan to someone. If we ever get it back, I'll read it.
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin† - I need to read this. I like Margaret Atwood a lot, but I just haven't gotten around to reading this one. Actually, this one may be on loan, too. I couldn't find it on our shelves, but I'm pretty sure it was at one point.
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha† - Another one that Joanne has read (twice). She says that it's a much better book than the movie they made out of it. I'd like to read it to find out if that's true.
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New world
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel† - This was in a £1 book bin at Eridge station, which means it's been sitting unread on my shelf for about three years. The shame.
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses† - Of all the Rushdie I've read, how have I not read this one? One day, very soon, I'm going to read this.
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury - I may have actually finished this. I was a bit preoccupied at the time. Most of it was read on a plane between the France and the U.S. In any case, I need to reread this.
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces† - I think we own this, though I couldn't find it on our shelves. I know Joanne has read it. I guess I should probably read it, but I really don't want to. I think I just got sick of hearing about it in the early '90s. In fact, I feel like I've read it already. If you've read this one, and think I should read it, let me know.
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow† - I picked this up at the gift shop at Herstmonceux Castle. That was almost a year ago. It's probably time to actually read the book.
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers - Technically, this one is unfinished, but I'm reading it right now.
If you've made it this far, you are obviously at least as pretentious as I am, and are hereby tagged. Which of these books have you read? Which didn't you finished? Which do you own, but have yet to read?
Update: I've closed comments on this post due to excessive spam, but if you have something to say, you can always send me a message directly.