Great American Read Book Meme
Oct. 21st, 2018 10:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatSo, been watching bits and pieces of PBS's The Great American Read, which my cousin got me intrigued by while I was in Seattle. (I love books, it is and always will be my first love -- if I had to choose between television, art, movies, theater and books -- I admit it, I'd pick books. Some people watch television shows on their commutes on various electronic devices or listen to podcasts, I read.) I realized that I've read about 85% of the books on the list, give or take, or at least tried to. I also own quite a few that I haven't read. AND many of the novels on the list are not written by Americans. The Great American read is not indicative of works by "American" authors, but rather works that people in the United States have voted on and nominated as their favorite book of all time. So, subjective list, and only represents people who took the time to vote every day until October 18. (I voted three times on books I liked.) The program and events associated with it, including a book club are set up to promote reading across the country. So, this is a great idea -- even if you don't agree with some of the selections. On October 23, we'll learn what America's favorite book is -- I dearly hope it isn't Atlas Shrugged, Twilight, Left Behind Series or Fifty Shades of Grey, because that would just be sad.
Below is a book meme. Bold the books you completed. Italicize the ones you attempted but DID NOT FINISH, and underline the ones you own. Comment if you desire.
1. 1984 by George Orwell -- twice actually, in high school and college. Wrote a paper on it. And saw the movie (with John Hurt and Richard Burton), skippable. I remember the book so vividly that I have no interest in re-reading. It's brilliant. And aspects of it were stolen by the television series La Femme Nikita.
2. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole a classic. But I can't remember a lot of it. Not a lot happens -- it's comedic novel about a man in pain.
3. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving -- my favorite of John Irving's novels and the only I've made it through. College friend thrust it on me, and I fell in love with it. Cried buckets of tears over this book. It's a novel about friendship and faith and war.
4. A Separate Peace by John Knowles read in junior high, no memory of it beyond the fact that I know I read it, and took a test on it, and wrote an essay.
5. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith -- Loved this book, read it when I first moved to NYC in the 1990s.
6. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain -- Huckleberry Finn is the better and more memorable book, I can't remember this one. I'm sure I read it as a kid.
7. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
8. Alex Cross Mysteries (series) by James Patterson
9. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll - multiple times.
10. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
11. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie -- I think I've read every book this author wrote when I was a kid.
12. Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
13. Another Country by James Baldwin
14. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand -- ugh. Read Fountainhead or Anthem instead, it's shorter and says the same things. This is just a long rambling mess. It's also laughable. I gave up over 85% of the way through and skimmed the rest. Rand preaches for pages and pages and pages.
15. Beloved by Toni Morrison - it's a ghost story told from the perspectives of the ghost and the various women affected by the ghost. Told in haunting stream of consciousness prose. Beautiful and gut-wrenching.
16. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
17. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
18. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
19. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
20. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller -- read in college for a course, over the space of a weekend. Vague memories of it.
21. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger - I did not like this book, but vividly remember it.
22. Charlotte's Web by E.B. White Didn't change my phobia of spiders, but I did adore the book. Vivid memories -- even though read ages ago as a kid.
23. The Chronicles of Narnia (series) by C.S. Lewis - vivid memories of it, even though I read it in the fifth grade.
24. The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel - vague memories.
25. The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah
26. The Color Purple by Alice Walker -- LOVE this book. Changed how I saw things when I was in high school.
27. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
28. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
29. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
30. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown - eh...never got the appeal.
31. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
32. Doña Bárbara by Rómulo Gallegos
33. Dune by Frank Herbert -- one of my favorites. Didn't like any of the others in the series.
34. Fifty Shades of Grey (series) by E.L. James -- why this is on the list is beyond me.
35. Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews -- yes, I read it in a book store and in the hospital while sitting in the volunteer lounge, it was on the shelf.
36. Foundation (series) by Isaac Asimov
37.Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
38. Games of Thrones (series) by George R.R. Martin
39. Ghost by Jason Reynolds
40. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
41. The Giver by Lois Lowry
42. The Godfather by Mario Puzo
43. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn - I think I'm boycotting this book and Flynn.
44. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell -- don't get the appeal. Was bored and hated the characters. I saw the movie, the book is worse.
45. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck - loved.
46. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens - me and Dickens are unmixy things.
47. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald -- Love
48. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
49. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood -- I'd liked The Blind Assassin better.
50. Harry Potter(series) by J.K. Rowling - loved, my happy books
51. Hatchet (series) by Gary Paulsen
52. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
53. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
54. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams -- overrated in my opinion, but it probably didn't help that I read the superior Slaughter-House Five first.
55. The Hunger Games (series) by Suzanne Collins -- loved.
56. The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy
57. The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead
58. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
59. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
60. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan - no memory of it, but I know I read it. I think for a book club.
61. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
62. Left Behind (series) by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins
63. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - LOVE
64. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
65. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry - I remember trying
66. Looking for Alaska by John Green
67. The Lord of the Rings (series) by J.R.R. Tolkien
68. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
69. The Martian by Andy Weir
70. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
71. Mind Invaders by Dave Hunt
72. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
73. The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks
74. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez - Loved, read in college, can't remember it.
75. Outlander (series) by Diana Gabaldon -- only the first book.
76. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
77. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
78. The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
79. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
80. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
81. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline -- eh, don't understand the appeal.
82. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier -- I like her short stories better, The Birds and the one about the Ants that was turned into the film Naked Jungle.
83. The Shack by William P. Young
84. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
85. The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut -- Slaughter House Five is better. Just saying. I can't remember this one which I read in college.
86. The Stand by Stephen King -- I like his short stories better.
87. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
88. Swan Song by Robert McCammon
89. Tales of the City (series) by Armistead Maupin
90. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
91. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
92. This Present Darkness by Frank E. Peretti
93. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
94. Twilight Saga (series) by Stephenie Meyer - don't get the appeal, tried to read one of them in the bookstore, did not work for me. And I watched one of the movies...everyone seemed stoned.
95. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
96. The Watchers by Dean Koontz
97. The Wheel of Time (series) by Robert Jordan - I've read it but no memory of it. Just know I've read it.
98. Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls Loved.
99. White Teeth by Zadie Smith
100. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë -- eh, didn't like -- the characters were very whiny and I felt sorry for the children of Heathcliff and Katherine. I hated Heathcliff and Katherine though, wanted to smack them both upside the head. Much prefer Jane Eyre.
See what I mean? A good portion of these are not written by American authors.
Below is a book meme. Bold the books you completed. Italicize the ones you attempted but DID NOT FINISH, and underline the ones you own. Comment if you desire.
1. 1984 by George Orwell -- twice actually, in high school and college. Wrote a paper on it. And saw the movie (with John Hurt and Richard Burton), skippable. I remember the book so vividly that I have no interest in re-reading. It's brilliant. And aspects of it were stolen by the television series La Femme Nikita.
2. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole a classic. But I can't remember a lot of it. Not a lot happens -- it's comedic novel about a man in pain.
3. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving -- my favorite of John Irving's novels and the only I've made it through. College friend thrust it on me, and I fell in love with it. Cried buckets of tears over this book. It's a novel about friendship and faith and war.
4. A Separate Peace by John Knowles read in junior high, no memory of it beyond the fact that I know I read it, and took a test on it, and wrote an essay.
5. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith -- Loved this book, read it when I first moved to NYC in the 1990s.
6. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain -- Huckleberry Finn is the better and more memorable book, I can't remember this one. I'm sure I read it as a kid.
7. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
8. Alex Cross Mysteries (series) by James Patterson
9. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll - multiple times.
10. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
11. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie -- I think I've read every book this author wrote when I was a kid.
12. Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
13. Another Country by James Baldwin
14. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand -- ugh. Read Fountainhead or Anthem instead, it's shorter and says the same things. This is just a long rambling mess. It's also laughable. I gave up over 85% of the way through and skimmed the rest. Rand preaches for pages and pages and pages.
15. Beloved by Toni Morrison - it's a ghost story told from the perspectives of the ghost and the various women affected by the ghost. Told in haunting stream of consciousness prose. Beautiful and gut-wrenching.
16. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
17. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
18. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
19. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
20. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller -- read in college for a course, over the space of a weekend. Vague memories of it.
21. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger - I did not like this book, but vividly remember it.
22. Charlotte's Web by E.B. White Didn't change my phobia of spiders, but I did adore the book. Vivid memories -- even though read ages ago as a kid.
23. The Chronicles of Narnia (series) by C.S. Lewis - vivid memories of it, even though I read it in the fifth grade.
24. The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel - vague memories.
25. The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah
26. The Color Purple by Alice Walker -- LOVE this book. Changed how I saw things when I was in high school.
27. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
28. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
29. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
30. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown - eh...never got the appeal.
31. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
32. Doña Bárbara by Rómulo Gallegos
33. Dune by Frank Herbert -- one of my favorites. Didn't like any of the others in the series.
34. Fifty Shades of Grey (series) by E.L. James -- why this is on the list is beyond me.
35. Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews -- yes, I read it in a book store and in the hospital while sitting in the volunteer lounge, it was on the shelf.
36. Foundation (series) by Isaac Asimov
37.Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
38. Games of Thrones (series) by George R.R. Martin
39. Ghost by Jason Reynolds
40. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
41. The Giver by Lois Lowry
42. The Godfather by Mario Puzo
43. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn - I think I'm boycotting this book and Flynn.
44. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell -- don't get the appeal. Was bored and hated the characters. I saw the movie, the book is worse.
45. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck - loved.
46. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens - me and Dickens are unmixy things.
47. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald -- Love
48. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
49. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood -- I'd liked The Blind Assassin better.
50. Harry Potter(series) by J.K. Rowling - loved, my happy books
51. Hatchet (series) by Gary Paulsen
52. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
53. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
54. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams -- overrated in my opinion, but it probably didn't help that I read the superior Slaughter-House Five first.
55. The Hunger Games (series) by Suzanne Collins -- loved.
56. The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy
57. The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead
58. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
59. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
60. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan - no memory of it, but I know I read it. I think for a book club.
61. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
62. Left Behind (series) by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins
63. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - LOVE
64. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
65. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry - I remember trying
66. Looking for Alaska by John Green
67. The Lord of the Rings (series) by J.R.R. Tolkien
68. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
69. The Martian by Andy Weir
70. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
71. Mind Invaders by Dave Hunt
72. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
73. The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks
74. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez - Loved, read in college, can't remember it.
75. Outlander (series) by Diana Gabaldon -- only the first book.
76. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
77. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
78. The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
79. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
80. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
81. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline -- eh, don't understand the appeal.
82. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier -- I like her short stories better, The Birds and the one about the Ants that was turned into the film Naked Jungle.
83. The Shack by William P. Young
84. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
85. The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut -- Slaughter House Five is better. Just saying. I can't remember this one which I read in college.
86. The Stand by Stephen King -- I like his short stories better.
87. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
88. Swan Song by Robert McCammon
89. Tales of the City (series) by Armistead Maupin
90. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
91. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
92. This Present Darkness by Frank E. Peretti
93. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
94. Twilight Saga (series) by Stephenie Meyer - don't get the appeal, tried to read one of them in the bookstore, did not work for me. And I watched one of the movies...everyone seemed stoned.
95. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
96. The Watchers by Dean Koontz
97. The Wheel of Time (series) by Robert Jordan - I've read it but no memory of it. Just know I've read it.
98. Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls Loved.
99. White Teeth by Zadie Smith
100. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë -- eh, didn't like -- the characters were very whiny and I felt sorry for the children of Heathcliff and Katherine. I hated Heathcliff and Katherine though, wanted to smack them both upside the head. Much prefer Jane Eyre.
See what I mean? A good portion of these are not written by American authors.
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Date: 2018-10-22 07:57 am (UTC)