106 books of pretension meme

Like Lynch, here is "the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users." So what I’ve read is in italics, what I never finished is struck through:

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Anna Karenina

Crime and Punishment

Catch-22

One Hundred Years of Solitude

Wuthering Heights

The Silmarillion

Life of Pi: a novel

The Name of the Rose

Don Quixote

Moby Dick

Ulysses

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

War and Peace

Vanity Fair

The Time Traveler’s Wife

The Iliad

Emma

The Blind Assassin

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

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

1984

Angels & Demons

The Inferno

The Satanic Verses

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

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

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

The Hobbit

In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences

White Teeth

Treasure Island

David Copperfield

The Three Musketeers

I never could read Dickens or Tolstoy. 53 read. I must be very pretentious.

More like this

Via BikeMonkey I see that DrugMonkey had a "106 Books of Pretension" meme going last October. Namely, "the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users." So here we go - what I’ve read is in italics, what I never finished is struck through: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell…
Since PZ got it from Wilkins, I might as well chime in. I bold those I’ve read and italicize those I’ve partially read. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell Anna Karenina Crime and Punishment Catch-22 One Hundred Years of Solitude Wuthering Heights The Silmarillion Life of Pi : a novel The Name of…
I do these things to (a) impress you all (if I can), (b) get a crossbearing on whether I'm actually part of this culture I find myself inside of, and (c) see if there are any other books I ought to have read. Like my source, Live Granades, I bold those I've read and italicise those I've partially…
Wilkins has submitted to some silly book meme, and anything John does I have to do better. The ones in bold I've read, we're supposed to italicize the ones we've partially read. I haven't italicized any, because if it's a book I pick up and despise and put back down again, I want to forget I even…

John,

You put the tension into pretension.

Eh. Yeah. Whatever.

By John Lynch (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Completely off topic for all those who have played Mornington Crescent here; the train has finally reach its destination, Humph has died. The world has definitely become a poorer and sadder place.

Hey, I truly recommend "A confederacy of Dunces", just for the protagonist's bizarre world-view. Oh yeah, and for Burma Jones.

Odd, like you I've read most of these (not all the same ones though); though never managed to finish War and Peace.

I'll have to have a look at the ones I haven't read.
Of the ones you've read which would you rate as worth a peruse?

I've read all the Dicken's, actually enjoyed some of them.
------------

Middlemarch is dire, though the TV adaptation is bearable.

The Silmarillion I really liked. It is, I suspect, only for die-hard LOTR fans.

Don Quixote, I'm suprised you haven't read this. Takes a while to get into.

The Satanic Verses, no no no. An poorly constructed tale by an overrated scribbler.

By Chris' Wills (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Anything by Umberto Eco that is fiction is worth a read. Anything by Neil Gaiman. Neal Stephenson's trilogy is great (to a philosopher and historian of science).

Chris'Wills wrote:

The Satanic Verses, no no no. An (sic) poorly constructed tale by an overrated scribbler.

How tastes differ, a superb book by an excellent author!

The Erudite Ape wrote:

Anything by Umberto Eco that is fiction is worth a read

Almost anything! I found Baudolino boring and didn't finish it, a first for a novel by Eco.

I have read forty of the list and finished all but one, halfway through the Molly Bloom soliloquy at the end of Ulysses I changed into skim modus just to finish it.

What interests me as somebody who considers himself widely read and well informed is how many of these books I have never heard of.

Thony C.
How tastes differ, a superb book by an excellent author!

Well "Haroun and the Sea of Stories" is pleasant/interesting so perhaps calling him a scribbler is a bit strong. "Midnight's Children" was also worth reading and I have "The Enchantress of Florence" in the pile of unread books, perhaps on the next visit home I'll read it.

So many books, so little time.

By Chris' Wills (not verified) on 26 Apr 2008 #permalink

I'm so glad you labeled this "106 books of pretension meme" rather than the "106 Great Books meme" which it was originally labeled. Pretension is right word here. I have to point out the appalling lack of multicultural representation in this list.

I remember trying to read The Corrections. I took it on vacation, read 300 pages, gave up and used it as a foot rest on the plane ride home.

I remember reading James Joyce as well Homer in high school (a lifetime ago). I've read 43 books and many of the ones I have not read are sitting on my bookshelf. Someday I will be in the mood to read them.

I highly recommend Kavalier and Clay. Michael Chabon certainly has a way with words.

I've recently finished "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" by Chabon. Different from anything else I've ever read. It's a mystery, it's speculative fiction (I won't call it science fiction), it's alternative history. It's what if, what is, what could have been.

Now I'm reading "Your Inner Fish". Science - much neater, straightforward and easier to understand.

By Susan Silberstein (not verified) on 26 Apr 2008 #permalink

I whole-heartedly agree with #3: "A Confederacy of Dunces" is a must-read. Bizarre, twisted, hilarious, disturbing, and much more (and much less).

Wow! Having blogger's block or something. Too Bad! And to segue to my comment:

I have one of those things, too.

What am I talking about? No, that's ONE wrong: it isn't an opinion. Nope, not an excuse, either.

One more guess to go! I'll give you a hint: I HAVE one, but you are acting like one.

Ta!

By Sioux Laris (not verified) on 26 Apr 2008 #permalink

Almost anything! I found Baudolino boring and didn't finish it, a first for a novel by Eco.

How tastes differ indeed. I loved Baudolino. I was rather intrigued half way through as how they were going to translate it into English. His use and abuse of the Italian language is most deftly done.

By ShemAndShaun (not verified) on 26 Apr 2008 #permalink

I knew my favorite novel (Gravity's Rainbow) would be on the list. Besides Gravity's Rainbow, I'd recommend (those with asterisks particularly):

Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude*
The Name of the Rose
Moby Dick
Ulysses
American Gods
The Canterbury Tales
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man*
A Clockwork Orange
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest*
Dune
Angela's Ashes : a memoir
Dubliners
Slaughterhouse-five*
On the Road*

I was very disappointed in A Confederacy of Dunces, and don't see what all the fuss is about regarding A Catcher in the Rye.

Why is Guns, Germs, and Steel on this list? I was an avid reader of Natrural History magazine in the mid-80s through late 90s. The entire book had already been published in Natural History, and Marvin Harris's Cannibals and Kings is a better read. I never finished GG&S because I had already read it in a bunch of short articles.

By that logic, Bacopa, you would never read Dickens or Twain, because they serialised most of their stories too, before they became books.

By John S. Wilkins (not verified) on 26 Apr 2008 #permalink

Dittos on "Confederacy of Dunces" -

But... Oh! The Poisonwood Bible! I highly recommend, also "Prodigal's Summer" (not on the list, but same author).

RE: #12

I just finished "your inner fish" by Shubin. Great book and it truly is science made easy.

By Michael Spear (not verified) on 30 Apr 2008 #permalink

What! Lord of the Rings isn't on the list? I admire you for not even attempting Angels and Demons; it was exactly like the Da Vinci Code but even more so. Two people at work are reading the Time Traveller's Wife and both are complaining about how little happens in it (but they are still reading). Loved the Inferno but never really got into Purgatory. I suppose it is because hell is more fun?

By Wayne Robinson (not verified) on 07 May 2008 #permalink