random book list meme

i've seen this reading list a number of places and now tangobaby tagged me to do it too (thereby forcing me to learn the html for strikethrough). i have to admit that it has been on my mind, because i find some of the books that made this list to be very strange. it's a mix of classics and contemporaries and i don't really know if it's a "must read" kind of list or just a random list (i lean towards the latter). it's been on my mind, because i was thinking of coming up with a list of my own, but for now, i will do this one. so, here's what you do:

The Big Read (whatever that is) reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed. (does that mean that this is the top 100 books printed? that sounds really weird.)

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.

2) Italicize those you intend to read.

3) Underline the books you love.

4) Strike out the books you have no intention of ever reading, or for whatever reason loathe.

5) Reprint this list in your own blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve only read 6 and force books upon them.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
   
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
   
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
   
4. The Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling
   
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
   
6. The Bible (have read some of it, do not believe i will ever have the desire to read the rest, but i do like the apocrypha)
   
7. Wuthering Heights
   
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
   
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (wish i hadn't read this, what a waste of time.)
   
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
    
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (adore this. read it countless times as a kid.)
    
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles
    
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
    
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare (not that i object to this, i just don't envision myself having time and i've pretty much already read the shakespeare that i have had the desire to read.)
    
15. Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier again, nothing against this, just no desire to read it.
    
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (if i had wanted to read these books, i would have done it when i was 10.)
    
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks (never heard of it.)
    
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
    
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger (totally adored this book, go read it now if you haven't already.)
    
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
    
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
    
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
    
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
    
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (have actually read this one several times!)
    
25. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (have read this one too many times to count. it's witty, erudite and totally hilarious and you must read all five books of the trilogy--yes, you read that correctly.)
    
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh (no interest here.)
    
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (this is a must read!!)
    
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
    
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
    
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
    
31. Anna Karenina (again, have read it multiple times, tho' i wouldn't recommend that.)
    
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
    
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (have read these more times than i can count and didn't get the "god thing" in them until well into my 20s--i just loved the marvelous stories and so wished i'd find such a wardrobe.)
    
34. Emma - Jane Austen (these jane austen blur a bit for me, did i read them or see the movies?)
    
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen (these jane austen blur a bit for me, did i read them or see the movies? i think i did read them.)
    
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (who made this list? this IS one of the chronicles of narnia, so we've already answered this!!!)
    
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini (i started this one and didn't finish it, but would like to give it another go at some point. it's on the shelf.)
    
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis de Bernieres (my copy did not have nicholas cage on the front. :-) )
    
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
    
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
    
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
    
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (i read this while sitting in the back of a dark closet so no one could see me doing so. yes, i had to read it because everyone was talking about it and i hate feeling left out. i wish, in this case, that i'd been comfortable with being left out, but that's because the writing was so hackneyed and awful, the premise is good--all the world's problems blamed on catholicism, ya just gotta like that.)
    
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (i love, love, love this book. it's like in my top 5 of all time. give me magical realism any day.)
    
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving (this too is in my top 5 of all time.)
    
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins (never heard of it.)
    
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (no desire.)
    
47. Far From the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy (no desire.)
    
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
    
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding (deeply disturbing, but i have read it.)
    
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
    
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel (another one that's on the shelf and which i started, but didn't finish. i'll go back at some point.)
    
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 (great book, not in my top 5, but a recommended read nonetheless.)
    
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 (have seen a lot of people talking about this book, must pick it up.)
    
60. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (love this book, if it weren't wrong to have two gabriel garcia marquez in my top 5, it would be there, as it is, it's #6.)
    
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
    
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (another truly great book, tho' pale fire is my favorite nabokov. how many are in my top 5 now?)
    
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 (nothing against it, i just missed my window on thomas hardy. it's too late now.)
    
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
    
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie (good, but not the best rushdie, in my opinion.)
    
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 (he's so hilarious, he's a must-read)
    
75. Ulysses - James Joyce (i had a whole class in grad school devoted to this book and still i'm not sure that i actually read the WHOLE thing. i probably did and blocked it out.)
    
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath (strangely, i have not read this.)
    
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome (never heard of it.)
    
78. Germinal - Emile Zola (again, like with hardy, i've missed the window on 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 (had to read the book after seeing the film. that's kinda in the wrong order, i know.)
    
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (read this book as i was leaving my starter husband. very impactful (such a 90s word, isn't that?) at such a time.)
    
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry (?)
    
87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White (a great book that i will pick up and read again whenever i need a good cry.)
    
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Ablom (this is one of those that you feel you have to read because everyone is talking about it, but i shall resist.)
    
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
    
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton (no desire.)
    
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
    
92. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint Exupery
    
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks (never heard of it.)
    
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams (had a high school teacher who loved this book. it appears to be about rabbits, but it's not really about rabbits.)
    
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole (never heard of it, tho' if it's about bush, i might reconsider.)
    
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 (had to read it after seeing the musical. isn't that a bit sad?)
     

i'm not going to tag anyone for doing this because it was pretty time-consuming and i had to learn some HTML code...please do it if you want to and do let me know in the comments so i can come and see your list. :-)