And like a lemming....

[shanmonster]

So these are the 100 best books of all time, according to the Brits, or something arbitrary like that. The bolded ones are ones I've read. The italicized ones are ones I've started.

I'm actually unsure about a few of these. There may be several more I've read, back when I was in grade school, but I've just lost track of 'em. In any case, I don't think I'm even halfway done. Doh!

1984, George Orwell
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
Animal Farm, George Orwell
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
The BFG, Roald Dahl
Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
Bleak House, Charles Dickens
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
Catch 22, Joseph Heller
The Catcher In The Rye, JD Salinger
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
Dune, Frank Herbert
Emma, Jane Austen
Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
The Godfather, Mario Puzo
Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell
Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Douglas Adams
The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
Holes, Louis Sachar
I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
Katherine, Anya Seton
The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, CS Lewis
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
The Lord Of The Rings, JRR Tolkien
Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
Magician, Raymond E Feist
The Magus, John Fowles
Matilda, Roald Dahl
Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
Middlemarch, George Eliot
Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
Mort, Terry Pratchett
Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
On The Road, Jack Kerouac
One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Perfume, Patrick Suskind
Persuasion, Jane Austen
The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
Pride And Prejudice, Jane Austen
The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier
The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Secret History, Donna Tartt
The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
The Stand, Stephen King
The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
Tess Of The D'urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee
A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
The Twits, Roald Dahl
Ulysses, James Joyce
Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
War And Peace, Leo Tolstoy
Watership Down, Richard Adams
The Wind In The Willows, Kenneth Grahame
Winnie-the-Pooh, AA Milne
The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte

Comments

[longpig.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there were a bunch on there that I thought maybe I'd read in high school (some of the Austen and Dickens), but I left them alone since if I did read them, I sure didn't retain anything...

[bloobert.livejournal.com]

All you well-read types make me ill. Ok, actually you make me feel stupid. Same thing. I scored five books on that list- twelve if you count movies and television adaptations. Ok, didn't think so.

[fourcorners.livejournal.com]

I've only read 8 of them. Guess I'm not exactly a model citizen

Can't believe that a Stephen King book wound up on there. What's up with that?

While I love Terry Pratchett's work dearly, I would never put him on any list of the best in the West.

Clearly, an opinionated list

[curtana.livejournal.com]

To explain, this was intended as a list of "best-loved" books to read for pleasure, not "best" books. Something on the order of 140,000 people voted.

And what's wrong with Stephen King? The Stand is considerably better than lots of the other crap on that list.

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

I think The Stand is a much better book than Winnie the Pooh or The Wind in the Willows. Both of those are overly saccharine. I didn't like them even when I was a kid, and the cartoons were pretty friggin' boring (except for Tigger. He's still great).

[dixsept.livejournal.com]

Oh, come on. Eeyore is a goth icon.

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but so's the Crow, and I'm not a fan of him, either.

[arwen-elvenfair.livejournal.com]

I don't know *how* you manage to get so much reading done. I'm impressed! :)

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

When I was in junior high and high school, I averaged two books a day.

I've slowed down considerably. I read about a book every week and a half, now. I'm just so busy with other stuff, that my reading has suffered. I need psychically-linked clones!