Memage

[truepenny]

It's a books meme. How the heck am I supposed to resist that?
Caught from brisingamen.

I love lists like this; I love matching myself with them. They have no redeeming value, social or otherwise, and I'm fully aware of that. But I still like them. And I don't think the percentage of books on these lists says anything whatsoever about me except that I read fast, read a lot, and read undiscriminately when I was in my teens.


[Boldface indicates books read. Brackets [] will indicate editorial comments by yrs trly.]

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 [No, but how about James and the Giant Peach?]
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 [And I ask myself: why?]
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 [Tried and failed]
Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake [Though see comments on this in the Fantasy list]
The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck [High school English. Hated it.]
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens [Reading list for the M.A. exam]
The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald [High school English]
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 trilogy, Philip Pullman
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Douglas Adams
The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
Holes, Louis Sachar [I've heard of this because of the deeply lame-looking movie, but am otherwise baffled.]
I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith [I stalled out halfway through--I'm gonna go back to it, I swear!]
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 García Marquez
The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton [No, but I read V for Vendetta, in which V reads that to Evie. Does that count?]
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 García Marquez
Perfume, Patrick Suskind
Persuasion, Jane Austen
The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett [Un-freaking-readable.]
A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
Pride And Prejudice, Jane Austen
The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
The Ragged Trousered Philantrhopists, 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 [Both versions. For the record, I do think the Uncut is a better novel.]
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 [Um, maybe?]
The Twits, Roald Dahl
Ulysses, James Joyce [MA list]
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

Writers on this list I have never even heard of: Jaqueline Wilson, Paulo Coelho, Sebastian Faulks, Michelle Magorian, Anya Seton, Malorie Blackman, Robert Tressell.



Science fiction

Dune, Frank Herbert
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert A. Heinlein
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller Jr [Tried; found the prose abysmal; gave up. It's still on our shelves, and I may yet try again.]
Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
Hyperion, Dan Simmons
Gateway, Frederik Pohl [No, but I still remember the creepy-ass short story of his I read in junior high, about the kids being sent to colonize Mars.]
The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny [There must be something wrong with me. Everybody I know RAVES about this one, and I tried it and was bored. Phenomenally bored.]
Neuromancer, William Gibson
Startide Rising, David Brin
The Time Machine, H.G. Wells [Bonus points, please, for having also TAUGHT this book.]
The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin
Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner [Although I'm not sure I ought to count it, because I read it years and years ago, and remember nothing about it except the fact of having read it. I suspect it was over my head. But I have read and own and quite quite like The Compleat Traveller in Black. Does that count?]
Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury
Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
Downbelow Station, C.J. Cherryh [The only book of Cherryh's I've been completely ungripped by.]
Ringworld, Larry Niven [Hated it.]
2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke
The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
The Mote in God's Eye, Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
Way Station, Clifford D. Simak
Star Maker, Olaf Stapledon
Dying Inside, Robert Silverberg
The City and the Stars, Arthur C. Clarke
Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany [Although I like the Neveryon books much better.]
Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
City, Clifford D. Simak
Cyteen, C.J. Cherryh
Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes [Both forms. Short story's MUCH better, IMHO.]
Double Star, Robert A. Heinlein
Earth Abides, George R. Stewart
The Door Into Summer, Robert A. Heinlein
Last and First Men, Olaf Stapledon
Ubik, Philip K. Dick
Norstrilia, Cordwainer Smith
The Witches of Karres, James H. Schmitz
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley [Extra bonus points for having taught this book TWICE.]
Have Space Suit Will Travel, Robert A. Heinlein
Time Enough for Love, Robert A. Heinlein
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
The Gods Themselves, Isaac Asimov
"Riverworld" series, Philip Jose Farmer

[I find myself appalled at the fact that I've read every Heinlein on the list. I devoured him wholesale when I was thirteen and fourteen, when I was still too young and unenlightened to realize how icky and sexist much of his work is. The Cat Who Walks Through Walls was the first Heinlein I ever read; I keep it, even though I can't read it any more, in token of the love I had for him.]

Fantasy Novels

The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
"Earthsea" series, Ursula K. Le Guin
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
"Gormenghast" series, Mervyn Peake [Well, Titus Groan and the first several chapters of Gormenghast. And then I realized I was making myself depressed and miserable to no purpose aside from swank, and gave up.]
The Once and Future King, T.H. White
Little, Big, John Crowley
Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny
"The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant", Stephen R. Donaldson [I agree with Brisingamen; this was clearly penance for something. And then I went on and read the Second Chronicles, but I blame that on the fact I was in high school, and, truly, beating myself in the head with a hammer WAS preferable to my day-to-day life.]
Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
"The Belgariad", David Eddings
The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis
The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers
"The Dying Earth" series, Jack Vance [Someday ... ]
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum [Plus all his other Oz books, plus all of Ruth Plumly Thompson's Oz books, plus ...]
Dracula, Bram Stoker
The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle
The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley [The defendant pleads temporary insanity and the misguidedness of youth. Also, again, I was in high school. See above re: Thomas Covenant.]
The Stand, Stephen King
Watership Down, Richard Adams
The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia A. McKillip
The Worm Ouroboros, E.R. Eddison [I tried and failed. *weeps*]
Glory Road, Robert A. Heinlein
Mythago Wood, Robert Holdstock
"Alvin Maker" series, Orson Scott Card [I read the first one and then gave the fuck up on it.]
A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle [Also A Wind in the Door and A Swiftly Tilting Planet. I could never decide if I wanted to be Meg or Charles Wallace, but I knew I wanted to be one of the two.]
Witch World, Andre Norton
"The Fionavar Tapestry", Guy Gavriel Kay [Tried, was madly bored, gave up.]
Deryni Rising, Katherine Kurtz [I slogged dutifully through the first trilogy, and then had to confess that I think Kurtz is a terrible writer, for many of the same reasons that Ursula K. Le Guin adduces in "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie."]
"Discworld" series, Terry Pratchett [Most of them, anyway. Still missing three or four, I think.]
"Elric" series, Michael Moorcock [Tried and failed.]
Replay, Ken Grimwood
Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury
"Fafhrd & Gray Mouser" series, Fritz Leiber [A couple stories.]
The Incomplete Enchanter, Fletcher Pratt & L. Sprague de Camp