Discussing books this
Top 100 list was mentioned. Now i'm gonna run through it and comment on them all. I suggest you do likewise in the rest of this thread. I would like to begin by saying that this seems to be a really shitty list with really shitty books. Sadly it seems to be full of "the classics" that people mention all the time. Anyways ...
1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Not read.
2. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Read it. Didn't like it. Read it again to see if i missed something as people kept on going on about how good it was. It was shit second time round too.
3. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Not read. Well not totally true. I read the blurb on the back and kinda zoned out for a minute and then i came too again and decided to put the book back down before i was bored to sleep again.
4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Read in school.
5. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Not read. It's about black people isn't it?
6. Ulysses by James Joyce
Not read. Have absolutely no intention of ever picking up.
7. Beloved by Toni Morrison
Not read.
8. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Not read. Apparantly it's a bit shit. I have a feeling of woe that this is like "The catcher in the rye".
9. 1984 by George Orwell
Read. Good premise. Shite writing.
10. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Not read.
11. Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov
Red. Quite liked.
12. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
I may be confusing this one with "The Grapes of Wrath". I've picked them both up and placed them both back. Not read.
13. Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
Read in school. How in the **** does this make it onto a "literary greats" list? I suspect "Harry Potter" should be here too.
14. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
See my response to 6
15. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
It went on a bit didn't it. Amusing enough.
16. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Read it. It was OK.
17. Animal Farm by George Orwell
Not read.
18. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Not read.
19. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Not read.
20. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
Not read.
21. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Read the first chapter. Heart of Darkness you can **** off!
22. Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne
Still not Harry Potter. Not read.
23. Their Eyes are Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
WOW WHAT A GREAT TITLE [/sarcasm]. Not read.
24. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Not read. Most likely will never read.
25. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Not read. I have a suspicion this might be about black people.
26. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Not read but i've seen the movie. Does that count?
27. Native Son by Richard Wright
Not read.
28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
Not read. Was enjoyable enough (for a book on this list)
29. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Read. How in the **** did this book make the list?
30. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
Not read.
31. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Read. I ****ing hate stream of conciousness. I ****ing hate this book.
32. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Read it in school. This book is shit. It is also one of five books by Hemingway on this list. This list is shit. Hemingway is shit (based on my loathing of this book).
33. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
Read. Was OK (i was like 12 or 13 at the time so i quite enjoyed it)
34. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Not read.
35. Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
Not read.
36. Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
Not read.
37. The World According to Garp by John Irving
Not read.
38. All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
Not read.
39. A Room with a View by E.M. Forster
Not read.
40. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Read it when i was 10 (go me).
41. Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally
Not read.
42. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
Not read.
43. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Not read.
44. Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
See my response to 6.
45. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Not read.
46. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Not read.
47. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
See my response to 26
48. Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
Not read.
49. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Read the first two pages. Anybody who can stand to read this book is a cretin.
50. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Not read.
51. My Antonia by Willa Cather
Not read.
52. Howards End by E.M. Forster
Not read.
53. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Not read.
54. Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
After the debacle that was "The Catcher in the Rye" there is no way i shall read another of his books.
55. The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
Uhhh no.
56. Jazz by Toni Morrison
I think it's NICE that i've not read this book.
57. Sophie's Choice by William Styron
Not read.
58. Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
Not read.
59. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
Not read.
60. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Not read.
61. A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor
And so is a good book. Ohhh zingtastic. Not read.
62. Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Not read.
63. Orlando by Virginia Woolf
Not read.
64. Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence
Not read.
65. Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
I cannot express properly my hate for this book. I kept on giving it "just a little more time" time and time again. I got 160 pages into it and i just couldn't take it any more. DIE WOLFE DIE!!!
66. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
Not read.
67. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Not read.
68. Light in August by William Faulkner
Not read.
69. The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
Not read.
70. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Not read.
71. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Not read.
72. A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Not read.
73. Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
Read the first 20 pages and then decided to stop wasting my life. Woeful.
74. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Not read.
75. Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence
Not read.
76. Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe
Not read.
77. In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway
Not read.
78. The Autobiography of Alice B. Tokias by Gertrude Stein
Not read.
79. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
Not read.
80. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
Got about two thirds the way through it then had to stop as it was so shit. I went back years later and read it all the way through. Why is this book on the list?
81. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Not read.
82. White Noise by Don DeLillo
Not read.
83. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
Not read.
84. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
Not read.
85. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
Seen the films (thankfully not the most recent one) plenty of times. Not read the book.
86. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
Not read.
87. The Bostonians by Henry James
Not read.
88. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Not read.
89. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
Not read.
90. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Read it when i was a kid.
91. This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Not read.
92. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
Not read.
93. The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles
Not read.
94. Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
Not read.
95. Kim by Rudyard Kipling
Not read.
96. The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Not read.
97. Rabbit, Run by John Updike
Not read.
98. Where Angels Fear to Tread by E.M. Forster
Not read.
99. Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
Not read.
100. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
Not read.
So i've read 14 (13 in the top 50) and started to read before discarding another 4. How do you ****ers fare?