Jan 09 2012
Book lists of the internet, unite!
There’s a book list that does the rounds on the internet, whose provenance I forget now (BBC viewers? Guardian readers?) — either way I’ve been working my way through it for a couple of years. Not with any great conviction, but if I’m not sure where to turn next for a book I’m open to selecting something from the list.
I thought I’d list my currently completed for now, to provide some kind of status update. I’m currently working on Wuthering Heights, which is proving much more enjoyable than I thought it might. Frankenstein on the other hand, which isn’t actually on the list anyway, was really boring and I gave up.
- Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
- The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
- Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte — Really great, and now The Eyre Affair (Jasper Fforde) makes more sense
- Harry Potter series, JK Rowling
- To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee — Not as good as I thought it might be
- Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
- His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
- Catch-22, Joseph Heller — Fantastic and endlessly fertile source of cultural references
- The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien — Looking forward to the film!
- The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
- Chronicles of Narnia, CS Lewis
- The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, CS Lewis — Yeah, I don’t know who compiled this list. This is cheating!
- Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernières
- Animal Farm, George Orwell
- The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown — I’m ashamed; but it was awful
- Lord of the Flies, William Golding — Forced to hate it at school? Yes
- Atonement, Ian McEwan — Brilliant, and the film’s not bad either
- Life of Pi, Yann Martel — Don’t bother
- Dune, Frank Herbert — Weird. For some reason I even read one of the sequels, though I didn’t even particularly enjoy the first book.
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Mark Haddon
- Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
- Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas — A huge, creeping inexorable powerhouse of a book.
- Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding
- Dracula, Bram Stoker — Great fun and surprisingly creepy at times.
- Notes From A Small Island, Bill Bryson
- Swallows and Amazons, Arthur Ransome
- The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro — Quiet, reserved, evocative and restrained. Emotionally draining too.
- Charlotte’s Web, EB White
- Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
- The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas — More whimsical than Monte Cristo, and a good sight shorter too!
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
