100 Books Meme

AKA more about Charli's reading tastes than you ever wanted to know.

I'm not sure which hundred books these are (they can't surely be the hundred everybody should read, or even the hundred most read), but I've seen the meme in a few places and thought it might be fun to fill in.

Bold for what I've read, italics for what I'd like to, and both for those I'm in the process of reading.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (A few times.)
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (Many, many times.)
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (Just once, I think. A reread wouldn't hurt.)
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (Some books more than others.)
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible (By the end of November, I'll have just some of the minor prophets and some of the poetic books left.)
7. Wuthering Heights -Emily Bronte (I know reading this will be developing, but I started it once, and am not convinced I'll enjoy it.)
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Phillip Pullman (I wouldn't recommend it, though.)
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (I haven't got the hang of reading Dickens yet.)
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (So many times.)
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy (More 'think I ought to' than want to, so I doubt I'll get there any time soon.)
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (I've vaguely heard of this. When I'm more educated I'll probably want to read it.)
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare (My penchant for rereading does not serve me well in getting through complete works that I need to take in smallish bites.)
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier (I've heard of it. Maybe one day.)
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (One of my favouritest books. I read it for the first time when I was five, and still adore it.)
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks (Haven't even heard of this one.)
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger (I enjoyed it, but didn't think it was astounding.)
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot (One day when I have lots of time.)
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (Not sure I've fully appreciated it, though.)
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (The trouble is that the book's too heavy to put in my backpack.)
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (A couple of times.)
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (Although it's pretty low on my to-read list at the moment.)
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll ('Alice' is my least favourite Lewis Carroll, though I do like it.)
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens (I got about three-quarters of the way through when I was elevenish-ish, and then the hero got enough older than me that I was bored and never finished it.)
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (You can tell 'most everything you need to know about my relationship to this series from the fact that I once worked out how to read all seven books in two school days.)
34. Emma - Jane Austen (Started it a couple of times, and skimmed the whole thing at least once, but Emma makes me cringe.)
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen (My favourite Austen novel.)
36. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
37. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres (Haven't heard of this one.)
38. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden (I think this is probably a good book, but doesn't rate quite high enough to get italiced.)
39. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne (The originals seemed odd after the Disney version, but I definitely prefer them now.)
40. Animal Farm - George Orwell (I read half of this and discovered that I don't like dystopia-type novels. I need to have a more determined go at this and then at 1984.)
41. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (I've read enough of his other work to have a good idea of what happens, though.)
42. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Haven't heard of it.)
43. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving (Haven't heard of it.)
44. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins (Haven't heard of it.)
45. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (Many times. I also love the 'Emily' books.)
46. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy (As for Tess of the d'Urbervilles.)
47. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood (I expect this to be mildly enjoyable, but fairly educating in terms of pop culture - or something like that.)
48. Lord of the Flies - William Golding (I ought to italicise this but it just seems so depressing.)
49. Atonement - Ian McEwan (I enjoyed 'Saturday'.)
50. Life of Pi - Yann Martel (It was clever and well written, but I didn't really like it. Might improve with a reread.)
51. Dune - Frank Herbert (Exactly once.)
52. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons (Never heard of it.)
53. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
54. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth (Nhoi)
55. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Nhoi)
56. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
57. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (Twice. It's well done, although hardly mindblowing, and quite an easy read.)
58. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon (I think this might be worth owning. Read it once from the library in Jo'burg.)
59. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Who is Marquez? This is the second time he's appeared.)
60. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
61. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (Reluctantly italicised, because it'd be good for me.)
62. The Secret History - Donna Tartt (nhoi)
63. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold (Seems more depressing than actually improving, at east for me.)
64. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
65. On The Road - Jack Kerouac (I've heard people rave about this.)
66. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy (Okay I might as well admit that I am scared of Thomas Hardy. Why can't I just read the nice, pretty books?)
67. Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
68. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
69. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
70. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
71. Dracula - Bram Stoker (I don't do horror. At nineteen years old, I still occasionally refuse to turn out the light before bed. Reading 'Dracula' would be stupid.)
72. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (Love this!)
73. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson (But I will read 'A Short History of Nearly everything' first.)
74. Ulysses - James Joyce (But I want to read 'Finnegan's Wake' first, to find out about quarks.)
75. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath (I think this is something I ought to read?)
76. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome (Our copy of this book is falling apart. We 'gallumph' down hills and remind each other of favourite scenes when we visit large bodies of water. (We do this with other books too. From this list, Lewis and Tolkien.))
77. Germinal - Emile Zola (nhoi)
78. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
79. Possession - AS Byatt (nhoi)
80. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (Wait, I have read some Dickens! And shocked some people by giving it to my ten year old brother, who simply couldn't be old enough to read Dickens. Pfft. (He enjoyed it. Now he is twelve, and puts me to shame when it comes to reading things like history, although I think I'm still better read than he in terms of literature. (This year he decided to read 'The Silmarillion', and enjoyed it. At twelve.)))
81. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell (nhoi)
82. The Color Purple - Alice Walker (It sounds vaguely familiar.)
83. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro (nhoi)
84. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
85. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry (nhoi)
86. Charlotte's Web - EB White ('Hi, I'm Charlotte. As in Charlotte's Web.' At least people (might) remember your name after that. I am torn between enjoying the story and thinking that it has a rather confused message.)
87. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom (Sounds familiarish.)
88. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (I've read what we own, but never got around to finding the rest.)
89. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton (Awesome stories. Read several times.)
90. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (I've heard the author's name and suspect I'm ignorant for not knowing more.)
91. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (In both English and Afrikaans - the latter for a school reading project. I think I enjoy it more in hindsight, whatever that means.)
92. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks (nhoi)
93. Watership Down - Richard Adams (Lovely book, read twice, I think, but not an absolute favourite.)
94. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole (nhoi, but it sounds interesting.)
95. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute (I would read this if someone recommended it and I had a copy handy, I think.)
96. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas (I've read the horribly abridged and unmemorable version for kids, I think.)
97. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (Nearly as good as Matilda! I don't like all of Roald Dahl, but Charlie and Matilda are lovely.)
98. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (My cordial dislike of translations and knowledge that Hugo had lovely prose will likely slow this down.)
99. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain (I think I need to reread it though.)
100.The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton (I've read a few of her novels, and thought she was quite good, but she doesn't seem to have left much impression on me. 'The Outsiders' was not my favourite.)

Conclusion: So many books, so little time.

I caved

I was supposed to be checking something for Sunday School, but the nice people from the Office of Letters and Light had also emailed me and this somehow happened:

Seven Quick Takes

Hosted by Jen at Conversion Diary

1.
There's a saying that goes "be careful what you wish for, because you might just get it" (or something along those lines, anyway. I've heard it altered to be careful what you pray for"--in the same vein as "when you pray for patience, God give you opportunities to practise." Somehow, these sayings have actually made me a little nervous about praying to hard in some directions. Recently, though, I've realised that those observations are occluded by 1 Corinthians 10:13. H will not test you beyond what you can bear. So it's not actually foolish to pray for, say, patience. God will give you opportunities to practise, but he'll hold your hand while you do.

2.
I think things like that are kind of like splinters. Sticking the needle in is very much not fun, but getting the splinter out is more than worth it. At least, most of the time.

3.
Twitter gave me the option to enable their #newtwitter, which I did. It's quite cool and streamlined, but seems to be still in beta. I'm torn between liking the new features and layout and the old buglessness.

4.
I came home and crashed this afternoon. In the process, I matched a couple of hundred synonyms on Free Rice. It's relatively educational (although I doubt I'll ever have much cause to use words like 'opprobrium'. I mean, I already have to make an effort not to confuse people by using big words). It's very addictive. It's weird the kind of words that end up on the same level.

5.
I think I confused the librarian today by making a point of paying my R4.00 ($0.50) fine. The whole concept of breaking the due-back rule and needing to be fined=punished is not cool in my book . . . but a R4 fine didn't seem to be something she expects people to care about. I think that's a little sad.

6.
While I was at the library, I saw they have a new book in about fanfiction, and the psychology and culture around it. That looked fascinating, but I couldn't justify taking out a book I don't have time to read when I was there to pay an overdue fine! I think it'll still be on display next week and maybe I'll have more time.

7.
It's really weird that all the British/American/other people with weird calendars are starting the school year now, just as we're starting to think ours is drawing to a close. I've begun to get used to people discussing autumn (um, fall?) fashions at the beginning of spring, but the school year thing still throws me. Clearly, our calendar is much better organised, because our summer holiday falls over year's end which makes everything align neatly. Those Northerners just have things backwards.