{"id":207,"date":"2008-06-20T01:33:00","date_gmt":"2008-06-20T01:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/2008\/06\/20\/books-meme\/"},"modified":"2008-06-20T01:33:00","modified_gmt":"2008-06-20T01:33:00","slug":"books-meme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/2008\/06\/20\/books-meme\/","title":{"rendered":"Books meme"},"content":{"rendered":"

As seen at Unbalanced Reaction <\/a>and elsewhere<\/p>\n

“What we have here is the top 106 books most often marked as \u201cunread\u201d by LibraryThing\u2019s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded.<\/p>\n

Bold the ones you\u2019ve read, italicize the ones you read for school”. (I also added commentary in blue).<\/p>\n

I’ve always been a voracious reader, and I grew up in a house full of books with nothing deemed off-limits or age-inappropriate, so I’m not surprised to see a fair amount of bold text!<\/p>\n

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22<\/strong> During high shool, but not for school. Loved it at the time<\/span>
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights <\/em>Didn’t really ever get into it. Maybe I should try again<\/span>
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi: A novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote <\/strong>Hated it, but made myself finish it<\/span>
Moby Dick<\/strong> Ditto<\/span>
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice<\/strong> A favourite<\/span>
Jane Eyre<\/em> Meh<\/span>
The Tale of Two Cities<\/strong> Awesome. I only got into Dickens quite recently<\/span>
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel
War and Peace
Vanity Fair <\/strong>I have no idea why this is a classic: it’s messy, boring and internally inconsistent<\/span>
The Time Traveler\u2019s Wife <\/strong>Laughed at the genetics, but otherwise loved it<\/span>
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner <\/strong>Review <\/span>here<\/span><\/a>
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations<\/strong> Not as good as Tale of Two Cities, but still great<\/span>
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha<\/strong> Not sure why this is on this list, I thought it was a fun and frothy book!<\/span>
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<\/strong> During high shool, but not for school. Loved it at the time<\/span>
The Fountainhead
Foucault\u2019s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula<\/strong> I was surprised at how good it actually is!<\/span>
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath<\/strong> Love, love, love Steinbeck, although this is not among my favourites<\/span>
The Poisonwood Bible<\/strong> Awesome<\/span>
1984<\/strong> Lives up to the hype<\/span>
Angels & Demons<\/strong> Review here<\/a><\/span>
Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility<\/strong> Not as good as Pride and Prejudice, obviously!<\/span>
The Picture of Dorian Gray <\/strong>I’m pretty sure I’ve read it, although I don’t remember much about it<\/span>
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest <\/strong>Quite recently. It’s unbelievable that the main character wasn’t written specifically for Jack Nicholson, it’s just spot-on!<\/span>
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D\u2019Urbervilles <\/strong>My sister is a huge Hardy fan and made me read this. I hated it<\/span>
Oliver Twist<\/strong> Good stuff!<\/span>
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time<\/strong> Just amazing<\/span>
Dune <\/strong>Not sure I’d like it as much now as I did as a teenager<\/span>
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela\u2019s Ashes: A memoir<\/strong> Absorbing, but not very satisfying somehow<\/span>
The God of Small Things<\/strong> I liked it, but didn’t love <\/em>it<\/span>
A People\u2019s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners <\/strong>Erm, challenging!<\/span>
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves<\/strong> Not cover to cover though<\/span>
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake
Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud
Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye<\/strong> I think I read it too young<\/span>
On the Road I could never get past the first few pages<\/span>
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics: A rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything<\/strong> I got a bit bogged down in the middle, but overall I thought it was great<\/span>
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down<\/strong> Repeatedly. Awesome<\/span>
Gravity\u2019s Rainbow
The Hobbit<\/strong> See Watership Down…<\/span>
In Cold Blood: A true account of a multiple murder and its consequences<\/strong> Years ago. Not to be repeated – too grisly<\/span>
White Teeth<\/strong> Loved it!<\/span>
Treasure Island<\/strong> See Watership Down…<\/span>
David Copperfield<\/p>\n

I tag… anyone who thinks this looks fun!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As seen at Unbalanced Reaction and elsewhere “What we have here is the top 106 books most often marked as \u201cunread\u201d by LibraryThing\u2019s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","category-meme"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}