Thursday, October 25, 2007

Unread books depress me

I got this via Pages Turned... You're supposed to indicate which of the top "unread" books on LibraryThing you have or have not read. I'll do it like she did, and bold the ones I haven't read. God, this is going to depress me.

  1. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (guess I should get to this sometime, I keep thinking about buying it)

  2. Anna Karenina (someday)

  3. Crime and punishment

  4. Catch-22

  5. One hundred years of solitude

  6. Wuthering Heights

  7. Life of Pi : a novel (started it once, but didn't finish, even though I liked where it was going and it was highly recommended. I think I have a copy at my parents' house)

  8. The name of the rose

  9. Don Quixote (assuming that excerpts in Spanish 3 don't count as "reading" this)

  10. Moby Dick

  11. Ulysses

  12. Madame Bovary (LOVE IT)

  13. The Odyssey (again, excerpts. I really want to read the Robert Fagles translation)

  14. Pride and prejudice

  15. Jane Eyre

  16. A tale of two cities

  17. The brothers Karamazov

  18. Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies (own it, haven't read it. Think Lucie borrowed it)

  19. War and peace

  20. Vanity fair

  21. The time traveler's wife

  22. The Iliad (same as the Odyssey)

  23. Emma

  24. The Blind Assassin

  25. The kite runner (have been told I should read a Thousand Splendid Suns. It's apparently better. But I feel like I should read this before that one, but I don't really care to read this.)

  26. Mrs. Dalloway

  27. Great expectations (I'm counting this even though I read an abridged version. I just don't want to ever think about reading it again)

  28. American gods : a novel

  29. A heartbreaking work of staggering genius

  30. Atlas shrugged (NO interest)

  31. Reading Lolita in Tehran

  32. Memoirs of a Geisha (Mike gave this to me for a birthday. Have not read it.)

  33. Middlesex

  34. Quicksilver (what is this?)

  35. Wicked

  36. The Canterbury tales

  37. The historian : a novel

  38. A portrait of the artist as a young man (I didn't finish it. I was like 15 pages from the end. I am a bad person.)

  39. Love in the time of cholera

  40. Brave new world

  41. The Fountainhead

  42. Foucault's pendulum

  43. Middlemarch (I actually want to read this because I listened to Rachel talk about it all the time when she was writing a massive paper on it)

  44. Frankenstein

  45. The Count of Monte Cristo

  46. Dracula

  47. A clockwork orange (borrowed this from Pablo. Did not read it. Returned it.)

  48. Anansi boys : a novel

  49. The once and future king (REALLY need to do this sometime. I've read the Sword and the Stone. Can't believe with Mom as my mom, I haven't read this)

  50. The grapes of wrath

  51. The poisonwood Bible : a novel

  52. 1984

  53. Angels & demons (I would literally have to be tortured into submission to read this book)

  54. The inferno (really want to read the entire Comedy someday, especially after I read a New Yorker review of the latest translation)

  55. The satanic verses (Own it. Started it twice. Really need to get back to it)

  56. Sense and sensibility

  57. The picture of Dorian Gray

  58. Mansfield Park

  59. One flew over the cuckoo's nest (bought it, haven't read it)

  60. To the lighthouse

  61. Tess of the D'Urbervilles (actually want to read this. I liked the movie, and I liked Jude the Obscure a lot)

  62. Oliver Twist (don't much care)

  63. Gulliver's travels (for school! twice! or, like, once and a half!)

  64. Les misérables (started it, put it down. it's fat)

  65. The corrections

  66. The amazing adventures of Kavalier and Clay : a novel

  67. The curious incident of the dog in the night-time (should I care?)

  68. Dune

  69. The prince (Read this on Diane's urging in high school. I find that funny.)

  70. The sound and the fury (still haven't read any Faulker. Bad English major.)

  71. Angela's ashes : a memoir

  72. The god of small things (sadly, still haven't finished this, but started it and read a LOT of it, TWICE)

  73. A people's history of the United States : 1492-present (have wanted to read this for ages, just haven't built up the nerve)

  74. Cryptonomicon (what the hell is this)

  75. Neverwhere (ditto #74)

  76. A confederacy of dunces (my mom hated it, but other people I know loved it. What do I do?)

  77. A short history of nearly everything

  78. Dubliners

  79. The unbearable lightness of being

  80. Beloved : a novel (honestly? no interest. )

  81. Slaughterhouse-five

  82. The scarlet letter

  83. Eats, Shoots & Leaves

  84. The mists of Avalon (boy does this take me back)

  85. Oryx and Crake : a novel

  86. Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed (kinda wanted to pick this up from my boss's bookshelf. resisted. stayed employed)

  87. Cloud atlas : a novel (started it. didn't finish! this is a bad pattern.)

  88. The confusion (?)

  89. Lolita

  90. Persuasion

  91. Northanger abbey

  92. The catcher in the rye

  93. On the road

  94. The hunchback of Notre Dame (don't know if I care)

  95. Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of…

  96. Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance : an inquiry into … (borrowed from Jordi, freshman year)

  97. The Aeneid (same as Odyssey & Iliad. I'm weak on the Greeks, what can I say?)

  98. Watership Down (bought it. have yet to read it)

  99. Gravity's rainbow (bought it used, started, read about a page. will read it someday. sigh)

  100. In cold blood (someday)

  101. White teeth

  102. Treasure Island (I think I was supposed to read this, and did not)

  103. David Copperfield (considered borrowing my sister's copy once)

  104. The three musketeers

  105. Cold mountain

  106. Robinson Crusoe (no, THIS, not Treasure Island, was what I was supposed to read and did not)

  107. The bell jar

  108. The secret life of bees (ugh, unfortunately)

  109. Beowulf : a new verse translation (have had this for years. have still not read it. Really want to. someday.)

  110. The plague

  111. The Master and Margarita

  112. Atonement : a novel

  113. The handmaid's tale

  114. Lady Chatterley's lover
edited: I realized I had read On the Road.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

some comments:
Don quixote is absolutely essential. I think I'm long overdue for a re-read, especially since I've only read it in albanian.

Moby Dick should be at the top of your list. It's entirely captivating, there isn't a book that's as moody. Also, the band Mastodon (which we saw at Pitchfork in Chicago) based one of their albums on the book.

Guns Germs and Steel is by far the biggest piece of overrated shit. They guy may be smart and he may know what he's talking about, and he even has some pretty excellent insights, but he's a lousy writer. Boring, boring, boring prose.

War and peace is actually worth the time it takes to make it through it.

You can pretty safely skip Atlas Shrugged (and probably the fountainhead, too). I always thought she was not that great a writer, and her storylines always rang untrue to me. Like, this shit would never happen. Her philosophy, on the other hand, is something worth investigating.

How can you not have read the canterbury tales? i thought that was mandatory for all high school students. the only thing i can say is that if you do read it, follow along with a guide or something, it's otherwise impossible to make it through.

Frankenstein is awesome!

The Count of Monte Cristo is my favorite book ever. It is spectacular. Make sure you get the unabridged version, it is totally worth it.

A clockwork orange is ok. It's a good book, but hardly essential if you've seen the movie.

Angels & Demons... is that by that guy who wrote DaVinci Code? Blech.

Dune is like, waaaaaay nerdy sci-fi, I dunno that you'd be interested.

A people's History... is pretty damn eye-opening, you should get on that.

Cryptonomicon is good, but for an even better example of Neal Stephenson, read Snow Crash. Funnily enough, he presents this wildly dystopian world, except that it's like a dream for me :-)

What did you think of Freakanomics, btw?

Robinson Crusoe is also an especially awesome book. Definitely check it out.

And finally, lady Chatterley's lover. Oh, what a glorious and miserable book it is. So depressing. So sad! But so good!

-o

Emily said...

Wow, you have apparently read like every single classic novel, especially the ones I've been putting off forever because they are so fat and daunting. some thoughts/responses

-i have no plans to read any ayn rand. ever.
-no one reads canterbury tales in high school anymore, i thought, especially not shitty schools like mine.
-i kind of want to read dune despite the sci-fi-ness. my mom claims i'd like it and she usually knows.
-i've heard of snow crash and it sounded interesting. the other one i'd never heard of.
-freakonomics was pretty entertaining but you get the sense that they left out the facts that didn't fit with their theories

Emily said...

btw, i think it's 76/114 unread. that's shameful.

Anonymous said...

I've read 56 out of 114, not counting all the partly read ones. But I'm old! I've been reading for years! And still will never catch up! Why do I read so many things twice!
L.

Casey said...

I've read 59 of them. Because I am lame and bored, I am now emailing you an item-by-item breakdown of the ones you haven't read (though I've missed many of those as well). I know you wait anxiously for my mail...