What are you reading?

[GoGoGadget]

Also, this has been making the rounds on Facebook. Thought it would be an interesting addition to this thread:


Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.

• Bold those books you've read in their entirety.
• Italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read only an excerpt.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien -- Hate these books. Hate!
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien -- again, hate!
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma -Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown -- Have never, will never. Just on principle.
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
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
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov -- One of my all time favorites.
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding -- Again, principle.
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
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
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables-Victor Hugo

 

[gunks]

Read Chuck Palahniuk's newest, Tell All, on the plane a few days ago. As a fan of his writing I found it enjoyable, though it's certainly not his best. He remains my favorite travel author, however -- at 177 pages long, I was able to cover-to-cover while killing time in airports and planes between New Orleans and St. Louis.

On the way back home, I started Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho. I read it years ago, but had it handy since the aunt who borrowed it gave it back to me over Christmas. Don't know if I'll finish it this time around, just because I have so little time for recreational reading that I don't really want to waste it on something I've already read, but it remains a delightfully twisted novel. Even more so than the film, which is one of my favorites of the last ten years.

Also, I've finally bought the last three volumes of Preacher and will probably finish it by tomorrow. Finally. Sad that I've got my nose so buried in academic reading that it takes me a full year to get through one run of comics, but this one has been worth it.

That's all I've got on tap right now, but I'm hoping to get through at least a couple more books before classes start back up in January.

Gross! Haha, that book is highly disturbing. I felt both dirty and queasy by the time I finished it.

Preacher is awesome though. I keep hearing that they are going to make a movie out of it, would be a pretty entertaining one (also would definately get banned in certain southern states).


As for me... Read Dune finally. It was alright, good story but pretty cliche in the plot/character archetypes. Then cover to cover'd my way through The Stranger. Right now Bukowski short stories. He remains my favorite dirty old man.

 

[kennadog]

Interesting, GGG. Especioally when you see what they included and what they didn't. I wonder what the criteria were?

• Bold those books you've read in their entirety.
• Italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read only an excerpt.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper LeeOne of my all time favorites)
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John SteinbeckAnother all time favorite
29 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma -Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled HosseiniWonderful book
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
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
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles DickensLoved this one-probably my favorite Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
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
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables-Victor Hugo

Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale is on there and I read it long ago. I just finished reading Oryx and Crake and Year of the Flood by Atwood. Related tales about the not too distant future and the possible end of humankind. Both good reads.

I'll have to go back and look at some I've read over the past months that I found especially good to read. Some of the other books on the above list are in the queue. I now have a Kindle so I don't need an addition to my house just for books. My eyes aren't as good as they used to be and I find reading on the Kindle is so much easier that I read much faster.

 

[Emma]

The Handmaid's Tale is next up in my queue - a friend lent it to me and I gotta finish it during break. Warhawk, I do not have the continuation to Smith of Wootton Major, I believe the thing got all moldy before I bought a dehumidifier and I ended up throwing it out.

I can highlight or italicize about 23 titles on that list. That list is a pretty heavy hitter.

 

[Warhawk]

Just a quick scan through the list makes me think I could bold at least 15, possibly 20. Only one would be italicized - Anna Karenina. OK, that and the Bible, but I think AK is the only book I have tried reading a couple times and haven't been able to finish.

I likewise wonder how some books make a list like this and some don't. And some items are basically repeats. Complete works of Shakespeare and Hamlet listed separately? Chronicles of Narnia and LW&W listed separately? While I can understand the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings listed separately (not a "repeat"), they probably should be combined. And I would like to add "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card to this list somewhere. Nothing by Jules Verne (20,000 Leagues under the Sea, perhaps)??? What an omission!

 

[kennadog]

Heck Warhawk, nothing by Hemingway or any Greek or Roman authors/playwrights. Also, I personally would have put Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward on the list. I loved that book when I read it.

One of the books I read in the last several months was Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. That was a great book. I wanted to read again as soon as I got to the last page. I will re-read it someday. It's about the life of a preacher (from a line of preachers) in the middle of a nowhere, dying midwestern town. Wonderful story to me.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

I likewise wonder how some books make a list like this and some don't. And some items are basically repeats. Complete works of Shakespeare and Hamlet listed separately? Chronicles of Narnia and LW&W listed separately? While I can understand the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings listed separately (not a "repeat"), they probably should be combined.

I had this same issue when this made the rounds on FB.

That and 90% of the books I can check off I read 20+ years ago.

 

[Emma]

I have literary ADD, so italicization is the method I most commonly use when pondering that list.

At any rate, I just picked up everything in F. Paul Wilson's arsenal for 30 bucks at a local used book store. SCORE! I have still yet to be scared by anything I've ever read (1984 was a bit harrowing), but The Keep looks promising. Repairman Jack is a badass.

 

[Warhawk]

Just starting "Dinosaurs in the Attic: An Excursion into The American Museum of Natural History" by Douglas Preston. Always enjoy his stuff and found this to be an engaging read so far.

http://www.amazon.com/Dinosaurs-Attic-Excursion-American-Natural/dp/0312104561

Just finished this and really enjoyed it. Goes into some detail on the history of the museum, some of the major characters involved in running it and leading the expeditions gathering information and items, the expeditions themselves, and some of the interesting things they have stored in the museum and why. Highly recommended.

 

[Prophetess]

Just recently finished Pride and Prejudice. To me very dry and dull, not very encouraging for me to read her other works. I am currently reading Great Expectations and enjoying it much more.

 

[Warhawk]

Finished reading "Against All Things Ending" (Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant) over the vacation and liked it - Donaldson still goes into too much detail and with so many characters and motives and seemingly nebulous limits on both Earthpower and white gold magic it seems at times items are bent here and there just to make the story work. But enjoyable nonetheless.

Also read "The Ark" by Boyd Morrison. Picked it up in the airport on the return trip after finishing the Covenant book. Good action romp with a twist on the Ark story of the Bible as a backdrop with just a touch of Jurassic Park and much of James Rollins-type settings thrown in. Somewhat predictable and not as polished a product as some other authors, but an enjoyable light read.

 

[Warhawk]

Just finished reading "Cities of Gold" by Douglas Preston. Pretty interesting book! The following is from the author's official website:

http://www.prestonchild.com/solonovels/preston/gold/

In 1989, Douglas Preston and a friend, Walter Nelson, set out on horseback across one thousand miles of Arizona and New Mexico, retracing the Spanish explorer Coronado’s search for the legendary Seven Cities of Gold.

They rode cross country, not following modern roads or trails, sleeping ‘in the saddle’ and enduring some of the harshest deserts and roughest mountain terrain in the United States. Forced to battle extremes of heat and cold, impenetrable mesquite thickets, bad water, rattlesnakes, flash floods and paralyzing drought, they nonetheless found the country awesome in its scale and beauty, with much of it so untouched that it was still recognizable from descriptions in Coronado’s reports.

At the heart of the book is Preston’s search for a new understanding of that moment when Europeans first fought Indians in the borders of what would become America—and the fatal consequences that resulted. For what Preston finds when he rediscovers the actual ruins of the Seven Cities of Gold—the mud pueblos of the Zuni Indians—is not a tale of the winning of the West, but a frightening story of loss.

Cities of Gold includes unforgettable portraits of such Indian leaders as Geronimo, Cochise, and the Zuni leader Palowahtiwa, along with stories of gun battles and feuds, and old memories of cattle drives, dust, and the open range.

In the end, Cities of Gold leaves the reader with an indelible portrait of the Southwest—as it was when Europeans first saw it and as it is today. Since the book’s publication fifteen years ago, it has become a classic.

http://www.amazon.com/Cities-Gold-Journey-American-Southwest/dp/0826320864

 

[Emma]

Just finished reading "Cities of Gold" by Douglas Preston. Pretty interesting book! The following is from the author's official website:

http://www.prestonchild.com/solonovels/preston/gold/




http://www.amazon.com/Cities-Gold-Journey-American-Southwest/dp/0826320864

4

I'm in the mood for a good historical style yarn

 

[Emma]

I just read "She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders" by Jennifer Finney Boylan, and it was entertaining:

http://www.amazon.com/Shes-Not-Ther...4295/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1314080952&sr=8-3

Normally I keep this kind of suggestion within the community, but this memoir's accessible enough to warrant a read from those who are just bored and need something to read. Good story teller, very funny, reminded me a little bit of a less serious Hemingway, somehow...

 

[kennadog]

Decided to read Sue Grafton from A to Z. I'm up to "I is for Innocent," currently. Yes, I've loved mystery books since I picked up my first Nancy Drew book in elementary school. Grafton's books are pretty good. Not the best in the genre, to me, but very good.

 

[kingsboi]

Currently at a pit stop as far as reading goes. I was reading Stephen King's 'The Shining' but I haven't read it in over a month at least. Guess I'm just not in the mood to read right now. Haven't gotten too deep in to really get a grasp of if the book is going to be good or not but I do hear great things just based on reviews.

 

[Return To Glory]

Lots of great books being mentioned by everyone!

I really dig poetry. I'm reading several poetry collections, and my favorite poets thus far are Langston Hughes, Gary Soto, Pablo Neruda, Walt Whitman, and Will Shakespeare.

 

[Prophetess]

Lots of great books being mentioned by everyone!

I really dig poetry. I'm reading several poetry collections, and my favorite poets thus far are Langston Hughes, Gary Soto, Pablo Neruda, Walt Whitman, and Will Shakespeare.

Try Robert Service.

 

[Return To Glory]

Try Robert Service.

I'll be sure to check him out Prophetess!

 

[kennadog]

Currently at a pit stop as far as reading goes. I was reading Stephen King's 'The Shining' but I haven't read it in over a month at least. Guess I'm just not in the mood to read right now. Haven't gotten too deep in to really get a grasp of if the book is going to be good or not but I do hear great things just based on reviews.

I have read many of Stephen King's books, but not "the Shining" yet. I should read it. (adds to list) Maybe my favorite is "The Stand."

 

[Warhawk]

Just finished The Devil Colony by James Rollins. For the lack of a better reason why, I read his books because they are entertaining. Not as detail oriented as Dan Brown and definitely on the Hollywood side of things, but I just enjoy his stuff. He mixes in enough truth and details to make it interesting and try to tie his story together amid all the action. You just keep turning the pages to see what's next. And the Sigma Force story just gets deeper and deeper.... ;-)

 

[Emma]

Gettin' down on The Help. It shall be Hilarious.

 

[Prophetess]

Just started reading The Phantom of the Opera. Seen the play,have never read the book.

 

[Warhawk]

I am about halfway through "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" by Jared Diamond. I highly recommend it based on what I've read so far. A fascinating look at societies and why some collapse (Easter Island, Vikings in Greenland, etc.) and why some succeed (Iceland, Japan, etc.), focusing on internal and external reasons including a lot of detail on climate, food sources, trade, etc. I am adding "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by the same author to my Amazon wish list now.

 

[Warhawk]

OK, hadn't updated in a while, but here goes!

Read a travel guide to Maui - "Maui Revealed" - as we will be visiting soon. I like how the info is presented. Very enjoyable reading as well, with some good humor and personal stories thrown in. They also have an app (separate purchase) for Apple devices that seems to have everything in the book and more in it that is also GPS-based. Very nice!

Finished reading "Sisterhood of Dune" as well, another book in the ever-expanding Dune series. Like the other recent releases, I find it enjoyable but not as in-depth as the original series.

For work-related reasons, I had to read "Hot - Living Through the Next 50 Years on Earth" - if you don't have to, don't bother. While some of the info he presents is interesting, he comes off as a whiney little b**** who probably cries himself to sleep every night. He ignores some basic background items that should be discussed in every book about climate change and basically assumes that if it wasn't for humans, the earth would be a static system and never change. Whichever side of the aisle you are on regarding this topic, you have to have a basic understanding that this is NOT the case before you can begin to even discuss this topic. There is a lot more here to complain about as well, but why bother.

Oh, I also read "Cold Vengence" by Lincoln and Child a while back. Another Pendergast novel. Not as good as some of their others, but I can't stop myself.

I am just digging into "Inheritance" - book 4 of the Eragon series. I liked the rest, so I am finishing off the series.

 

[Warhawk]

Ah, forgot to mention I am also reading the Bible using an app on the iPhone. Never had read it before so I am tackling it with the 1-year plan where they put the books and chapters in chronological order for you. Using the YouVersion Free Bible App - like it VERY much. Has multiple versions (NIV, KJ, Amplified, etc.) and you can switch between the versions at will if you like. Very neat.

For some bathroom reading, I just started reading a book my wife had laying around - "Tales From the Teacher's Lounge" - a hilarious book by a teacher on some of the students, faculty, and parents he has encountered over the years. Highly recommended for some light reading.

 

[VF21]

I have read many of Stephen King's books, but not "the Shining" yet. I should read it. (adds to list) Maybe my favorite is "The Stand."

If you really want to get the full effect of "The Shining," you have to read it all alone stuck in a snowstorm, preferably with the power out. I did that and it scared the crap out of me!

 

[Dime Dropper]

Ashamedly, I'm currently reading the FIRST Harry Potter book. That's pretty crazy considering how much I read, and that I study English. JK Rowling is a genius.

 

[arwen undomiel]

I'm re-reading the entire Wheel of Time series in anticipation of the final volume. On Book 5 now, hoping to get them all re-read by the time the last book is published. 13 books averaging 700-800 pages each = beaucoup material.

 

[Emma]

Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_Desert

It's a vocabulary playground, written intelligently and without apology.