Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Copycat Book List

I saw this on Lara's blog which she had copied from someone else's. So, I'm doing it, too. No judging.

Bold - I have read it
Italics - I want or intend to read it (there IS a difference)
Underline - I LOVE IT!

1. Pride and Prejudice - Not my favorite Jane Austen, but an excellent one. a Must Read

2. The Lord of the Rings - I've only read this twice because it's so long (usually if I love a book I will read it at least 5 times), but these are great.

3. Jane Eyre - I like this book, but I always skip the part where she runs away and lives with St. John & Co. It's like that part in Scarlett where she goes to Ireland. Ridiculous.

4. Harry Potter series - These are fabulous, but I'm not going to read them over and over.

5. To Kill a Mockingbird - I need to read this again. I read it when I was like 12, and I've never re-read it. I bet I would get a lot more out of it now.

6. The Bible - I won't lie and say I've read the whole thing, although I probably have read the whole thing in chunks. I also won't lie and say I love it. I think it's an interesting and wise book, but it's hard to understand and even harder at times to believe.

7. Wuthering Heights - I am a total sucker for angst, and this is the Queen of angst-y novels.

8. Nineteen Eighty Four - I didn't particularly like this one, but I understand why they make you read it in 9th grade. It's important if only for understanding all the references subsequent art has made to it.

9. His Dark Materials - I was loaned these books as an alternative to the devil-worshipping Harry Potter books. Ha! They were OK, but the stories were too disjointed, and I ended up not caring about the characters at all.

10. Great Expectations - This one is also OK. Probably also a good one to make 9th graders read. But it's just not A Tale of Two Cities which is probably my favorite book of all time.

11. Little Women - I didn't like this book. None of the girls ended up with who I thought they should have ended up with. And I never could get over Jo's professor having a huge nasty beard.

12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - I hated this the first time I read it, then after I read it again, I liked it better. I also think it's a good book for teenagers to read. Although, Far From the Madding Crowd is my favorite Hardy book.

13. Catch 22 - I read this in high school on my own. It was weird, but I liked it. I probably didn't get most of it at the time.

14. Complete Works of Shakespeare - I think I've read everything but the really boring histories and maybe one or two of the tragedies like "Titus Andronicus." And maybe I've missed a sonnet or two. I like Shakespeare, but I think studying medieval lit has ruined him for me a little bit since I've now read most of the works that he plagiarized from. Ha! It's one of my lifetime goals to see every one of his plays performed live.

15. Rebecca - I started this book like 4 times before I actually made it the whole way through. I liked it once I got into it, but it took a while.

16. The Hobbit - I liked this one. But I'm realizing that as I age I enjoy longer stories where the characters really develop and change which is probably why I like the Lord of the Rings trilogy better.

17. Birdsong - Jonathan gave me this book for my birthday last year. I started it, but I haven't finished it yet.

18. Catcher in the Rye - I keep saying I'm going to read this, and I actually at one time owned a copy that I gave away to Shannon. Maybe I will ask for it back. I mean, I'm getting a PhD in English, and I haven't read The Catcher in the Rye, for goodness' sake!

19. The Time Traveller's Wife - a great book. I really liked it. I want to read more books by this lady.

20. Middlemarch - I read parts of this when I was in college for a class (I was supposed to read the whole thing, but hey, I had other classes, and I didn't really like it). I finally read the whole thing a few years ago, and it was OK. It was one of those where it's telling like 6 different stories, and I really was only interested in two of them, so I wanted to just skip to the parts involving the characters I liked.

21. Gone With The Wind - I. Love. This. Book.

22. The Great Gatsby - I should read this one again, too. I barely remember it. I bet I would like it more now that I'm older.

23. Bleak House - What? I will never read this. Why is this on the list? Where is A Tale of Two Cities?

24. War and Peace - I don't think I will ever read this either, although it is apparently very good. I think it will be like Middlemarch, where I find a character I like and want to just skip around to read their storyline and not the whole book.

25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - I loved this book. I read the sequels, too, but the humor got a little old after a while. This one's a classic, though. Fantastic.

26. Brideshead Revisited - I should probably read this, too. I bet it's good. I hear it's kind of racy.

27. Crime and Punishment - I don't think I'm interested in Russian literature.

28. Grapes of Wrath - I read this and decided I really didn't like John Steinbeck. But then I read East of Eden and found out he did his own version of Malory, so it kind of redeemed him. Someone told me he did a sort of allegory of the Knights of the Round Table, so I think I'll read that one. Cannery Row? Tortilla Flats? I'll have to do some research

29. Alice in Wonderland - I did my undergraduate thesis on this book. It's fantastic. I love it. If I ever have a little girl, I want to do an Alice nursery. Even though that might be kind of scary. Ha!

30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31. Anna Karenina - Boo! More Russian authors. Blech.

32. David Copperfield - AAAAAAAAAAAAH! Where is A Tale of Two Cities????

33. Chronicles of Narnia - So good. I think my favorite is Prince Caspian, but I strangely also really like A Horse and His Boy. My least favorite is probably the Silver Chair.

34. Emma - I have never made it through the whole book. I have seen both versions of the movie, though, plus Clueless. Ha! I really like the story.

35. Persuasion - Heartbreaking and wonderful. Full of angst. I loved it! My favorite Austen story, I think, although maybe not the most well-written.

36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis Don't know why this is on list when it's already a part of the Chronicles of Narnia. Ditto Lara's comment.

37. The Kite Runner - I have no interest in this. I'm a terrible English student.

38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Saw the movie. Does that count? Hated it, too.

39. Memoirs of a Geisha - This book was sooooooo good until the last chapter when it fell completely to pieces. Weirdly, the movie managed to pull it off - something I have never seen before. The movie is actually much more emotionally satisfying than the book.

40. Winnie the Pooh - Pooh pulls my little heartstrings.

41. Animal Farm - Blech. Too political.

42. The Da Vinci Code - I liked it. It wasn't fantastic, but it was very, very entertaining.

43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - I'd rather read Love in the Time of Cholera, I think.

44. A Prayer for Owen Meany - Seriously my favorite book of all time, and a shining jewel in the pile of crap written by John Irving. I cry every single time.

45. The Woman in White - I have never heard of this!

46. Anne of Green Gables - I didn't read this until I was in high school or college. My whole childhood everyone was like, "Oh, Anne of Green Gables is so great!" and it turned me off completely from it. I finally read them, and they were OK. Nothing to write home about. Probably good for little girls.

47. Far From The Madding Crowd - I loved this book. I fell totally in love with Gabriel Oak. And it actually has a happy ending! Go figure.

48. The Handmaid's Tale - Hated it, hated it, hated it. Although I think about how she describes her leg hair growing back in practically every time I shave my legs. It definitely had an impact on me whether I appreciated it or not, so it's probably a good book.

49. Lord of the Flies - I didn't really like it, but I think they should make high schoolers read this. It's an important book exploring important themes.

50. Atonement - Maybe I want to read this. I don't know. I loved the movie.

51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52. Dune - I like the movie better because the book just goes too deep into the politics and cultural minutiae. I still like it, though. I wish I had an imagination like Frank Herbert.

53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons I seriously did not know this was a book. I must read it, because the movie is HILARIOUS!!!! I might just go buy it for myself today.

54. Sense and Sensibility - Another good Jane Austen story. Marianne totally gets on my nerves, though.

55. A Suitable Boy - I have never heard of this one either.

56. The Shadow of the Wind - Or this one!

57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Finally! My favorite book (it is tied with Owen Meany and Gone With the Wind - I can't choose between them). I cry every single time. It's fantastic.

58. Brave New World - I really like this book. I think about it a lot, and I want to re-read it every time I read an article or see a news story on cloning or stem cell research. That Aldous Huxley was really forward thinking! We are still wrestling with the issues he brings up in his book. Amazing.

59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - I sort of want to read this. We'll see if I get around to it.

61. Of Mice and Men - All I can think about is that lady's "sausage curls." Ugh. I hate Steinbeck.

62. Lolita - I hear this is good. I don't want to read it.

63. The Secret History - Never heard of it.

64. The Lovely Bones - I don't want to read a book narrated by a dead little girl who was murdered. Call me crazy, but that sounds really depressing.

65. Count of Monte Cristo - I have tried to read this multiple times. It's just so boring. I like the idea of this book, but the execution leaves something to be desired.

66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68. Bridget Jones' Diary - Hilarious. And the sequel was actually really good, too.

69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie

70. Moby Dick - I've only read parts of this, and that was quite sufficient, thank you.

71. Oliver Twist - Seriously, people, not everything Dickens wrote was a masterpiece. I think he's got too big a showing on this list. Let's show a little more discrimination, shall we?

72. Dracula - I should read it again now that I've read The Historian. I liked it. I remember it being scary!

73. The Secret Garden - Pretty good. I'll read it to my kids.

74. Notes From A Small Island - Never heard of it.

75. Ulysses - I've tried to read this one several times, too. Blech.

76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78. Germinal - Emile Zola

79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80. Possession - Not as great as everyone makes it sound, but OK

81. A Christmas Carol - I like it. It's good.

82. Cloud Atlas - Never heard of it

83. The Color Purple - Good, but very sad.

84. The Remains of the Day - I'd like to say that I will read this some day, but I probably never will.

85. Madame Bovary - Ditto this one

86. A Fine Balance - Never heard of it.

87. Charlotte's Web - a classic. I think it's important because it deals with death. Like The Bridge to Terabithia. Kids should read this.

88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - So not interested.

89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - I hate Sherlock Holmes. He's such a know-it-all.

90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Never heard of it.

91. Heart of Darkness - I have tried to read this so many times. Can't do it. B.O.R.I.N.G.

92. The Little Prince - Cute, but really overrated.

93. The Wasp Factory - Never heard of it.

94. Watership Down - I never read this because people told me the rabbits die and it was sad. It scared me away from it forever.

95. A Confederacy of Dunces - I hate this book. Worse than Steinbeck. Seriously.

96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97. The Three Musketeers - I tried to read this one, too. So boring. I wish Alexandre Dumas wasn't so long-winded. I should try the abridged version. Ha!

98. Hamlet - I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate it. There. I said it. You can kick me out of my PhD program now.

Books missing from this list: anything by Victor Hugo, The Tales of King Arthur by Thomas Malory, The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, anything by Edgar Allan Poe, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Beloved by Toni Morrison, The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer, Heidi by Johanna Spyri, The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, anything by Kafka, No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartres, anything by Cormac McCarthy, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, The Metamorphoses by Ovid, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, and Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. And that's just off the top of my head!

Broken Air Conditioner

We came home from a lovely weekend visiting J's siblings and meeting our brand new nephew (who is very cute, by the way) to discover that our air conditioner is broken!!!!!!!!!! I have now called the emergency maintenance folks three times. They say they are working on it. Hmph. I would do what we used to do in France which is take off to the movies and watch a triple feature (the movie theater was one of the few air conditioned buildings in France), but I have a migraine today so I think the noise would bother me, plus my mom and my uncle are coming over for lunch at an undetermined time. Argh. I WANT TO MOVE!