book meme

11 comments

1. Only the ones I’ve read, for brevity (bolding omitted):
   ————————————
   * The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
   * Brave New World
   The Canterbury Tales
   * The Catcher in the Rye
   * Catch-22
   ^ Cryptonomicon — I like his other books. Shallow, but fun, good summer reading. This book sucks. To make matters worse, everyone assumes I must like it because I’m a mathematician.
   ^ David Copperfield
   * Dubliners
   ^ Eats, Shoots & Leaves — Aside: Lynne Truss is a blight upon society and a shining example of England’s continued butchery of the English language. I counted 3 grammatical errors on a single 2-page spread from this supposed treatise on grammar. Anyone who believes that having this book on their shelf “makes them look smart” shouldn’t have dropped out of high school before passing 10th grade English. See also the New Yorker’s excellent, scathing review of this book.
   Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
   Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
   A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
   * The Hobbit
   The Iliad
   The Inferno
   Life of Pi — Again, this makes you look smart? What the hell? A mediocre piece of pulp fiction, popular only because Americans can’t decide how they want to feel about religion.
   * Lolita
   * Love in the Time of Cholera
   Middlesex
   The Odyssey
   On the Road
   * A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present — My (marxist) US History teacher made us read this. I am forever grateful.
   * A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man — The most influential book of my adolescence.
   The Prince
   The Satanic Verses
   * Slaughterhouse-five
   A Tale of Two Cities
   * Ulysses
   ****** The Unbearable Lightness of Being — Best novel yet written. Period. I honestly can’t conceive of a universe in which a better novel exists.
   ^ Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance — A girlfriend made me read this book because she thought it was great. I broke up with her because of it.

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   1. HAHAHAHAHHHAH

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   2. Wow Steve, I agree with you 600% on Life of Pi and Zen… Those two books in particular are doubly irritating because of the sheer number of people who are taken aback when you voice your opinion that they suck. What is it about these books that strikes a chord in everyone but us? Zen was worse for me because of the higher level of pretension. What a pathetic piece of pseudo-philosophical putrescence.

      Based on our haterade correlation, I’m putting “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” on my must-read list.

      Link to New Yorker review of “Eats, Shoots, and Leaves?”

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      1. New Yorker if you haven’t found it by now 😉

         Good stuff.

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   3. I think the premise of the meme is flawed. These books are marked as unread but it does not necessarily follow that they are kept on the shelf to make one appear smart. Perhaps they were simply recommended. Or they are part of a cultural cannon despite their lack of quality. I, for one, cannot wrap my head around the fact that so many people want to read Anansi Boys.

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      1. Or often gifted. Anyway I agree with you.

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      2. I thought the same thing about Anansi boys. Even Neverwhere is, in my opinion, too predictable to really be a classic…

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2. I have read these oneses!

   *The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
   American Gods
   Atlas Shrugged
   *Beloved (actually my least favorite of Butler’s books, but still great)
   Brave New World
   The Canterbury Tales
   The Catcher in the Rye
   * Catch-22
   A Clockwork Orange
   *Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
   Crime and Punishment

   For some reason Firefox is not letting me bold or underline today…
   Cryptonomicon
   The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
   Don Quixote
   Dracula
   Dune
   The Fountainhead
   The Grapes of Wrath
   Great Expectations
   Gulliver’s Travels
   *Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
   A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
   *The Hobbit
   In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and its Consequences
   The Inferno
   Jane Eyre
   ****Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
   The Kite Runner
   *Life of Pi
   Lolita
   Love in the Time of Cholera
   Middlesex
   Moby Dick
   Neverwhere
   1984
   The Odyssey
   The Once and Future King
   One Hundred Years of Solitude
   On the Road
   One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
   Oryx and Crake (I preferred Handmaid’s Tale…)
   Pride and Prejudice
   ^The Scarlet Letter
   The Silmarillion
   Slaughterhouse-five
   The Sound and the Fury
   ^Tess of the D’Urbervilles
   *Watership Down
   Wicked : The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
   ^Wuthering Heights
   Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

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3. what, no greek mythology, and no A Brief History of Time?
   Also, I feel dumb for only reading like 15 of these books. Tangentially, do you know what I’m reading right now? Protools: 210m Music Production Techniques. Uuugh.

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   1. Right now I’m re-reading Stranger in a Strange Land. I last read it in HS, and I remembered Heinlein being a little obsessed with the orgies, but this time what’s creeping me out is how incredibly sexist he makes his male characters. I mean I know Jubal Harshaw is supposed to be that kinda dude and all, but does he have to pat them on the ass and ask “go get me a drink that’s a good girl?” Bleh.

      Reply

4. The Aeneid*
   The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
   American Gods
   Anansi Boys
   Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir
   Angels & Demons
   Anna Karenina
   Atlas Shrugged
   Beloved
   The Blind Assassin
   Brave New World
   The Brothers Karamazov
   The Canterbury Tales*
   The Catcher in the Rye
   Catch-22
   A Clockwork Orange
   Cloud Atlas*
   Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
   A Confederacy of Dunces
   The Confusion
   The Corrections^
   The Count of Monte Cristo
   Crime and Punishment
   Cryptonomicon
   The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
   David Copperfield
   Don Quixote
   Dracula*
   Dubliners*
   Dune
   Eats, Shoots & Leaves^ (agree with commentary above)
   Emma*
   Foucault’s Pendulum
   The Fountainhead
   Frankenstein
   Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything*
   The God of Small Things
   The Grapes of Wrath^ (my hatred of being forced to read Steinbeck for 4 years in my California high school knows no bounds)
   Gravity’s Rainbow
   Great Expectations
   Gulliver’s Travels
   Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
   A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius*
   The Historian: a novel^ (drivel)
   The Hobbit
   The Hunchback of Notre Dame
   The Iliad
   In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and its Consequences
   The Inferno*
   Jane Eyre
   Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
   The Kite Runner
   Les Misérables
   Life of Pi
   Lolita*
   Love in the Time of Cholera*
   Madame Bovary
   Mansfield Park*
   Memoirs of a Geisha
   Middlemarch
   Middlesex
   Mrs. Dalloway
   The Mists of Avalon
   Moby Dick (more of a thing that I read just to say I’d read it than something I actually enjoyed)
   The Name of the Rose
   Neverwhere
   1984
   Northanger Abbey*
   The Odyssey
   Oliver Twist
   The Once and Future King
   One Hundred Years of Solitude*
   On the Road
   One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
   Oryx and Crake
   A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present
   Persuasion*
   The Picture of Dorian Gray
   The Poisonwood Bible
   A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man*
   Pride and Prejudice* (read it first on my own, then for school…twice)
   The Prince
   Quicksilver
   Reading Lolita in Tehran
   The Satanic Verses
   The Scarlet Letter*
   Sense and Sensibility
   A Short History of Nearly Everything
   The Silmarillion
   Slaughterhouse-five
   The Sound and the Fury^ (HATE Faulkner. HATE)
   A Tale of Two Cities*
   Tess of the D’Urbervilles^ (Hated it at the time; found it stupid and found Tess to not stand up to the lofty ideals of an Austen heroine, which was kind of an unfair thing to hold her to; I might like it if I re-read it)
   The Time Traveler’s Wife
   To the Lighthouse
   Treasure Island
   The Three Musketeers
   Ulysses (someday I will read it all)
   The Unbearable Lightness of Being
   Vanity Fair
   War and Peace
   Watership Down
   White Teeth^
   Wicked : The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
   Wuthering Heights* (love it for its pulpiness)
   Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

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