a Book meme

This is going around the blogasphere. How many "classics", as defined by the BBC, have I read? (in blue)


Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen
The Lord of the Rings JRR Tolkien (part)
Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte
Harry Potter series JK Rowling
To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
The Bible (at least most of it to count)
Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte
Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell
His Dark Materials Philip Pullman
Great Expectations Charles Dickens
Little Women Louisa M Alcott
Tess of the D’Urbervilles Thomas Hardy
Catch 22 Joseph Heller
Complete Works of Shakespeare
Rebecca Daphne Du Maurier
The Hobbit JRR Tolkien (part)
Birdsong Sebastian Faulks
Catcher in the Rye JD Salinger
The Time Traveller’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger
Middlemarch George Eliot
Gone With The Wind Margaret Mitchell
The Great Gatsby F Scott Fitzgerald
Bleak House Charles Dickens
War and Peace Leo Tolstoy
The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams
Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh
Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck
Alice in Wonderland Lewis Carroll
The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame
Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy
David Copperfield Charles Dickens
Chronicles of Narnia CS Lewis
Emma Jane Austen
Persuasion Jane Austen
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe CS Lewis
The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin Louis De Bernieres
Memoirs of a Geisha Arthur Golden
Winnie the Pooh AA Milne
Animal Farm George Orwell
The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown
One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A Prayer for Owen Meaney John Irving
The Woman in White Wilkie Collins
Anne of Green Gables LM Montgomery
Far From The Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy
The Handmaid’s Tale Margaret Atwood
Lord of the Flies William Golding
Atonement Ian McEwan
Life of Pi Yann Martel
Dune Frank Herbert
Cold Comfort Farm Stella Gibbons
Sense and Sensibility Jane Austen
A Suitable Boy Vikram Seth
The Shadow of the Wind Carlos Ruiz Zafon
A Tale Of Two Cities Charles Dickens
Brave New World Aldous Huxley
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time Mark Haddon
Love In The Time Of Cholera Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck
Lolita Vladimir Nabokov
The Secret History Donna Tartt
The Lovely Bones Alice Sebold
Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas
On The Road Jack Kerouac
Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy
Bridget Jones’s Diary Helen Fielding
Midnight’s Children Salman Rushdie
Moby Dick Herman Melville
Oliver Twist Charles Dickens
Dracula Bram Stoker
The Secret Garden Frances Hodgson Burnett
Notes From A Small Island Bill Bryson
Ulysses James Joyce
The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath
Swallows and Amazons Arthur Ransome
Germinal Emile Zola
Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray
Possession AS Byatt
A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens
Cloud Atlas David Mitchell
The Color Purple Alice Walker
The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro
Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert
A Fine Balance Rohinton Mistry
Charlotte’s Web EB White
The Five People You Meet In Heaven Mitch Alborn
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Faraway Tree Collection Enid Blyton
Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad
The Little Prince Antoine De Saint-Exupery
The Wasp Factory Iain Banks
Watership Down Richard Adams
A Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy Toole
A Town Like Alice Nevil Shute
The Three Musketeers Alexandre Dumas
Hamlet William Shakespeare
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Les Miserables Victor Hugo

44 out of 100...not to bad. I don't understand why some of these the BBC considered "classics" though. BJD?

I didn't highlight the complete works of Shakespear but I have read more than Hamlet...Romeo & Juliet, Merchant of Venice, Taming of the Shrew, his sonents (do they count?)

I did begin each of the Tolkien's, but I just couldn't get through them.

Where's the rest of Jane Austen? The Bronte's? And Louisa certainly had better than LW (that was good but her dark writing is much better) And Willa Cather?

Not a hit of Nora Roberts?

Here a bit of what I'd add if I made a top 100 list of books:

Out of Africa
A Year in Provence
How to Make an American Quilt
Mutant Message Down Under
These is My Words
The Knitters Book of Yarn