I love/hate book lists. For a person who �loves to read� I always find I�ve read precious few of the books other people think of as classic. I used to always bookmark such lists when I�d run across one on the �net, foolishly thinking that someday I�d use it to work my way through and thus become �well read.� Hasn�t happened yet, but it doesn�t stop me from thinking that it just might, any minute now! I�m just happy that this one has a few I�ve actually read.

Stolen from Lady M, a list of books, whether I�ve read or not and my comments.

1. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell: This book was given to me when I was about ten and visiting my paternal grandparents in Georgia. I loved it madly, have reread it many times, and for a long time I even had passages of it memorized. I�ve seen the movie countless times as well.

2. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee: I bought it and had all good intentions of reading it when Chicago had that city-wide reading thing, but somehow never got around to it.

3. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon: No. But it�s one of those I pick up and consider buying every time I see it because it looks good. I just don�t have a good track record with fiction.

4. Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley: No.

5. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving: Looks good but sad. I have to be careful with sad, cuz I don�t need a kickstart in the old depression.

6. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien: Every now and again, I think I�m going to tackle this one. And then I come to my senses and laugh and laugh, because I know I have no patience for lengthy, difficult fiction books. But the movies are amazing.

7. I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb: Not yet, but I will.

8. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver: No, but I read a book of her short stories I really liked, and bought a book of her essays about a year ago and then never read it.

9. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden: Loved the book, hated the ending.

10. The Stand by Stephen King: My favorite Stephen King book ever.

11. The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Auel: An early favorite jerk-off book.

12. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith: No.

13. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte: Love this book. LOVE.

14. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott: Yep. And Little Men, and Jo�s Boys, and Eight Cousins, and Rose in Bloom, and An Old Fashioned Girl, and Under the Lilacs. Ok, I thought I had read Under the Lilacs, but I just looked up the synopsis because I couldn�t remember what it was about, and it doesn�t sound very familiar. I could have sworn I had read the entire set my mother owned.

15. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: I read the first half, loved it, set it aside for some reason, and it�s been on my To Read pile ever since. I did read �Love and Other Demons� though.

16. Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery: Oh yes. Love me some Lucy Maud. I�ve read many of her books, but my very favorite is �The Blue Castle.�

17. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger: No, and even though it�s on my �someday.. haha� list, I�ve been afraid to buy it ever since I saw that Mel Gibson movie.

18. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: Yep. And saw the movie with Mira Sorvino, which I didn�t care for.

19. Left Behind by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins: Only a couple of chapters to see what all the hoopla was about. It gagged me.

20. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas: Saw the movie, liked it.

21. The Color Purple by Alice Walker: LONG time ago. Liked it.

22. Dune by Frank Herbert: Nope.

23. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton: I think maybe I did. Saw the movie a time or two.

24. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand: Nope, and not gonna. Many smart people have told me she�s much better at philosophy than writing. And not particularly good at philosophy.

25. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: No.

26. A Woman of Substance by Barbara Taylor Bradford: No.

27. Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts: Saw the movie, liked it ok.

28. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein: Nope. I don�t do a lot of sci-fi, much to the horror of the Prince who owns in paperback probably every science fiction book ever written.

29. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis: Yep, the whole series. Love.

30. Exodus by Leon Uris: No.

31. She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb: �Read� it on tape when I was commuting to work, and loved it so much I was sneaking my headphones on and listening while working. Strange, disturbing, but good.

32. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle: Long time ago, but I remember I liked it alot.

33. The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough: Long time ago, LOVED it, came away with a serious priest fetish which lasted me until that whole �priest as child molester� thing hit the papers.

34. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry: No.

35. Beloved by Toni Morrison: No.

36. The Witching Hour by Anne Rice: I loved this book passionately. Read Lasher, Taltos, waited for YEARS for A.R. to pick the story back up. Snapped up Blackwood Farm in hardback the day I heard it was a continuation of the Mayfair saga, read the first two chapters and then somehow it drifted to my To Read pile.

37. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: No.

38. The Game of Kings: The Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett: No.

39. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck: Long long ago. Liked it, though Steinbeck�s quite the downer.

40. The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery: Bought it because someone raved. Liked it, but didn�t quite get what the raving was about.

41. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer�s Stone by J.K. Rowling: Yep, liked it ok, but just haven�t been able to get into the others even though my family reads her voraciously. I like the movies, though.

42. The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks: Nope.

43. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison: Nope.

44. The Awakening by Kate Chopin: Nope.

45. Insomnia by Stephen King: Nope.

46. Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton: Nope. And never been interested since I saw the previews for the movie... looks dull.

47. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett: No.

48. The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx: No.

49. Katherine by Anya Seton: No.

50. Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson: No. Looks depressing.

51. 1984 by George Orwell: I read the first half, put it on the To Read pile. Are you sensing a pattern here?

52. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov: Nope. But saw a very old version of the movie a long time ago.

53. Beach Music by Pat Conroy: No.

54. Portnoy's Complaint by Phillip Roth: No.

55. The World According to Garp by John Irving: A long time ago. Like, childhood. I recall finding it after my mom read it and stuck it in the hall closet.

56. The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury: No.

57. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: Yes.

58. Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice: Liked the book ok, but LOVED the movie. Never really got into her vampire stuff all that much.

59. Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel: Yes! One of my favorite books ever.

60. The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher: No.

61. The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells: Yes! And Little Altars Everywhere. And saw the movie twice (so far.) Very love.

62. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams: Yep!

63. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll: I think I read it as a kid. Or at least parts of it.

64. East of Eden by John Steinbeck: Don�t think so, but it�s possible.

65. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy O'Toole: No.

66. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: Plan to, if I ever get the time and an attention span.

67. The Red Tent by Anita Diamant: Yep, very good book.

68. The Plague Dogs by Richard Adams: No.

69. Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier: Nope, looks depressing. Don�t plan on seeing the movie either.

70. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier: No.

71. Memnoch the Devil by Anne Rice: Yep. Not her finest work, in my opinion.

72. My Antonia by Willa Cather: No.

73. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison: No.

74. The Bone People by Keri Hulme: No.

75. The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: No.

76. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky: Uh, no.

77. The Call of the Wild by Jack London: Maybe a long time ago.

78. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: No.

79. Talk Before Sleep by Elizabeth Berg: No.

80. Time and Again by Jack Finney: No.

81. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain: Yep!

82. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: Yep.

83. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende: I read half of it, never got around to finishing up. But I loved Eva Luna, The Stories of Eva Luna, and Aphrodite.

84. Watership Down by Richard Adams: No. Somehow the title made me think it was a war novel. Well, what in that title would lead you to think it was about RABBITS?

85. Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky: No. This is the example the Prince always uses when he wants to rant about how much the Russian classics suck.

86. The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck: No.

87. ...And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hooven Santmyer: The title turns me completely off.

88. Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns: I think so. No, actually I�m thinking of something else.

89. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen: On my To Read list. I LOVED the movie, though I�m not sure how I ever got around to watching it because I thought the title sounded �stuffy.� That seems to be a real problem for me (see #�s 25 & 87.)

90. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie: No.

91. Dracula by Bram Stoker: Yes.

92. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan: No.

93. The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve: No.

94. Sophie's Choice by William Styron: God, no. Just the long-ago memory of the movie makes me want to throw myself in front of a train.

95. Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner: No.

96. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston: No.

97. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy: No.

98. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett: Maybe. It sounds like the sort of thing I would have read as a kid. I loved �A Little Princess.�

99. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: Seems to me like I�ve read about half of this one.

100. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens: Yes, a long time ago.

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Crappy job crap, weird neighbor, and someone whose baby I apparently want to have - 2006-05-08
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