How many of these books have you read? The BBC published this list of books that they say, most people have only read 6. How many have you read? 2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien 4 Harry Potter series – 5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee 6 The Bible 8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell 16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien 18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger 22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald 25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams 29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll 33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis 36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis 37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini 41 Animal Farm – George Orwell 49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding 57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens 65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas 72 Dracula – Bram Stoker 89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare I got 20
24. Heavy British lit bias in this list, but that makes sense considering who they polled. The Modern Library lists are more fun.
Not all, but a lot of it, and done in high school or college (3 or 4 works in 9th grade alone took a break then 12th focused on English lit and we did quite a few more that year). I haven't read any since college though. Maybe I should pick up some more. My count is 33. There are a few I wish I could count b/c I saw the movies, but I don't think it works that way. Some are on my bucket list, but more books come out every day so I don't know if I'll get to them.
I've read 51 - do I get a prize? Most of them were on my parents' enormous wall to wall bookcase when i was growing up and I read them when I was too young to understand (esp. Jane Austen)- we had no internet then and I lived in the sticks so I had a choice of reading or watching the lambs frolicking. Technically, the Narnia Chronicles and The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe shouldn't count as two choices. Also, I should probably say 50 1/2 as I didn't get to the end of the Harry Potters. Favourites are Orwell (life changing); Douglas Adams (still makes me giggle like a hysterical teenager: 'What's it like to be drunk?' 'Ask a glass of water.'); Mark Haddon's Curious Incident. Worst reads: Hardy and Dickens - like eating an endless bowl of porridge - forced to read these for school.
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien 4 Harry Potter series – 5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee 7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte 11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott 12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy 15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier 16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien 18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger 20 Middlemarch – George Eliot 25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams 26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh 29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll 30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame 31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy 33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis = 36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis (!!) 40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne 41 Animal Farm – George Orwell 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 55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth 62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov 66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac 67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy 71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens 72 Dracula – Bram Stoker 73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett 76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath 77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome 78 Germinal – Emile Zola 79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray 80 Possession – AS Byatt 81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens 83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker 85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert 87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White 90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton 92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery 94 Watership Down – Richard Adams 96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute 98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare 99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl 45
I have read 36 of those books. But I have at least HEARD of almost all of those books, even if I haven't read them all yet. My favorite was Of Mice and Men. Yours??
I've read 4... Brave New World Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Count of Monte Cristo Charlotte's Web I have however spraknoted more than half of these books. I don't read for the details, I do it for the main ideas.
I have read 37 of them. Though admittedly, some of the classics were from school and are a bit fuzzy in my memory.
My favourite was The Catcher in the Rye (People always leave "The" out of the title, but it does belong there.) (Admittedly I leave it out myself half the time.)
Nice to see Swallows and Amazon up there. I have an old collection of all Arthur Ransome's books. Why no Chaucer? And if you're going to have the Bible (which version?) maybe they should include the King James prayerbook (for literary rather than religious importance to culture). I've read 63 of those, and I'm (mostly) English--I agree there is a very slight British bias. There are several books there I started, like The Kite Runner, but was too bored to finish so I didn't count them, and I didn't click on Harry Potter as I have only read the first in the series. Most were required reading at school from the age of 12--in the days before the internet we read a lot. Yes, we read all of Shakespeare's works at school, both sonnets and plays, with great enjoyment as our teachers were fantastic and took us to see a lot of the plays as well. Also, I went to boarding school and hardly watched TV until I was about 14 because it wasn't available for the juniors, and we didn't have a TV at home (my parents eventually got one about 20 years ago). I am 53 before you think I'm an octogenarian.
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien 5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee 6 The Bible 16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy 25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams 27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky 33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis 36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis 37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini 51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel 52 Dune – Frank Herbert 61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck 70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville 73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett 89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle I'm planning to read alot if the others listed. Still working on my Literary base!
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien 4 Harry Potter Series 6 The Bible (Read it because I'm Catholic.) 16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien 21 Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell (School) 29 - Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Caroll (It was free on my iPod) 39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden 40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne (I'm Canadian) 41 Animal Farm - George Orwell (Read it in history class) 42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (Was given to me.) 46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (I'm a Canadian from the maritimes) 49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding (School) 51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel (Bought it in a thrift store one day) 59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon (Was a suggested read by a friend of a friend) 72 Dracula - Bram Stoker (Found it in my bedroom) 87 Charlott's Web - EB White (Did a book report on it when I was 8) 88 The Five People you Meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom (Bought it in a thrift store) 98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (School) 99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (Did a book report on it for school as a child.)
I'm in the process of reading Catcher in the Rye, The Lovely Bones, and To Kill a Mockingbird. Tried to get through the Color Purple
I'm sad to say.. I've only started 1. LOL. I spent most of my childhood dealing with a disease called Sleep Apnea that wasn't caught until a couple years ago. Until that point I had read maybe 10 novels. I got back into a reading kick after I was diagnosed and treated. My biggest problem was that I would start to read and feel like I was going to fall asleep. I couldn't make it through a single page. In the last 3 months I've read something to the tune of 18-20 books. Half of them books on writing half of them fiction books.
Currently sitting at 42, I think I will use this list as a reference of future books as many of those are acclaimed classics! - Matt
I have read 47 of them and in the process of reading 4 more on the list (yes, I like to read multiple books at a time)
I have read only 13 of the books on the list, but there are 7 or 8 books that are on my to due list, or that I am in the middle of reading currently. I'f only I had more time.
