The “100 Books the BBC Think Most People Haven’t Read More Than 6 Of” Tag

I haven’t done tags in a while but I came across this one at Hamlette the Dame’s blog The Edge of the Precipice The BBC doesn’t think people have read more than 6 of the books on the list below. I thought it would be fun and interesting to find out just how many of these have been read by those in the book blogosphere. Here are the rules which I’m bending just a little bit:

1. Be honest.
2. Put an asterisk next to the ones you have read all the way through  (I’m highlighting them in red). Put an addition sign next to the ones you have started (I’m highlighting them in green).
3. Tag as many people as there are books on the list that you have read (I’m leaving it open to whoever wants to do this).

Here’s the list:

1. Pride and Prejudice– Jane Austen 
2. Gormenghast Trilogy– Mervyn Peake
3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
4. Temple of the Golden Pavilion – Yukio Mishima
5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6. The Story of the Eye – George Bataille
7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
8. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9. Adrift on the Nile – Naguib Mahfouz
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11. Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14. Rhinoceros – Eugene Ionesco
15. Baron in the Trees – Italo Calvino
16. The Master of Go – Yasunari Kawabata
17. Woman in the Dunes – Abe Kobo
18. The Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19. The Feast of the Goat – Mario Vargas Llosa
20. Middlemarch – George Eliot

21. Gogol’s Wife– Tomasso Landolfi
22. The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
23. Magic Mountain – Thomas Mann
24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25. Ferdydurke – Gombrowicz
26. Narcissus and Goldmund – Herman Hesse
27. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32. The Jungle – Upton Sinclair
33. Tom Sawyer / Huck Finn – Mark Twain
34. Emma – Jane Austen
35. Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe
36. Delta Wedding – Eudora Welty
37. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini 
38. Naomi – Junichiro Tanizaki
39. Cosmicomics – Italo Calvino
40. The Joke – Milan Kundera

41. Animal Farm– George Orwell
42. Labyrinths – Gorge Luis Borges
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving 
45. Under My Skin – Doris Lessing
46. Anne of Green Gables – L. M. Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48. Don Quixote – Miguel Cervantes
49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50. Absalom Absalom – William Faulkner
51. Beloved – Toni Morrison
52. The Flounder – Gunther Grass
53. Dead Souls – Nikolai Gogol
54. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55. My Name is Red – Orhan Pamuk
56. A Dolls House – Henrik Ibsen
57. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59. The Idiot – Fyodor Dostoevesky
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63.Leaves of Grass – Walt Whitman
64. Death on the Installment Plan – Louis-Ferdinand Celine
65. The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68. Pedro Paramo – Juan Rulfo
69. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72. Dracula – Bram Stoker
73. The Metamorphosis – Kafka
74. Epitaph of a Small Winner – Machado De Assis
75. Ulysses – James Joyce
76. The Inferno – Dante
77. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal – Emile Zola
79. To the Light House – Virginia Woolf 
80. Disgrace – John Maxwell Coetzee

81. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82. Zorba the Greek – Nikos Kazantzakis
83. The Color Purple– Alice Walker
84. The Box Man – Abe Kobo
85. Madame Bovary– Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87. The Stranger – Albert Camus
88. Acquainted with the Night – Heinrich Boll
89. Don’t Call It Night – Amos Oz
90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. Gravity’s Rainbow – Thomas Pychon
94. Memoirs of Hadrian – Marguerite Yourcenar
95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96. Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
97. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99. Faust – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
100. Metamorphosis – Ovid

So there you have it! I’ve read 40 (started 3 – I wonder if I will ever go back and finish those?). There are 24 on the list that I’ve never heard of. I would be curious as to how the list was established, also. There is no Hemingway and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are on the list as one book (I counted them as two).

How many have you read? I’m guessing most of the book bloggers I know have read more than 6.

 

A Classics Club Rewind

Back in March of 2014, The Classics Club used a question I submitted for their monthly meme and last month they used it again as a Classics Club Rewind:

What is your favorite “classic” literary period and why?

Here is my original post regarding this question but I thought I would try to add something to it. My favorite literary period is still early Twentieth Century. This year I read the book The Fellowship about The Inklings, a group of Oxford authors which included C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. Writing in the early Twentieth Century, they were confronted with the post-World War I disillusionment that much of the world was facing. The authors of The Fellowship come to the conclusion that Lewis and Tolkien and the others commited the “heresy of the happy ending”. So much of their fiction contains good ultimately triumphing over evil.

On the other hand, the writers on the US side of the Atlantic like Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald were redefining style and providing social commentary that still stands up today. These authors were not quite as keen on the happy ending. I can’t say I have a preference over a happy ending or an unhappy ending. If the story works, it works. In early Twentieth Century novels, the unhappy endings are as cathartic as the happy endings are hopeful.

While I’m on this topic, a new book about Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises came out in 2016 called Everybody Behaves Badly by Lesley M. M. Blume. It’s on my list to read at the beginning of 2017, but I think I’ll reread The Sun Also Rises first.

Speaking of the early Twentieth Century, I’m currently reading Toni Morrison’s novel Jazz. Even thought it wasn’t written in the early Twentieth Century, it’s set during the Harlem Renessiance of the 1920’s. I’m about half way through and I highly recommend it.

 

 

 

Fall Reading

As we head into September, I know that technically we still have a little bit of summer left but I thought I would post about some of my reading plans for the next few months. As always, they are subject to change.

I’m finishing – or rather ‘still reading’ since I have more than half way to go – Anne Bronte’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. This will round out my Bronte sisters reading at least for a while. I will have read one novel each from Emily, Charlotte and Anne. Since Emily only has one, I won’t be reading any more of hers but there are a few more novels from the other two that I might read sometime. But not now.

After that, I’m looking forward to Banned Book Week heading into the end of September. I’ve reviewed a few Banned Book Lists and usually find Toni Morrison’s novel Song of Solomon and Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.  I think I’ll celebrate my freedom to read by reading them.

Then I just found out today that Bruce Springsteen has an autobiography coming out the end of September called – no surprise – Born to Run. Plan on seeing a post about it sometime in October.

How about you? What do you plan on reading during the autumn months?

 

Summer Reading!

With yesterday being the unofficial beginning of summer, I thought I would post a little about my reading plans for the next couple of months. As with any of my reading plans, they are subject to change without notice!

Right now, I have begun John Irving’s latest novel Avenue of Mysteries. Irving’s novel  A Prayer for Owen Meany is on my list of favorites; however, I have not been able to get into his other novels. This one looks like it might be breaking that pattern.

Next is Yann Martel’s latest The High Mountains of Portugal. I’ve been a fan of Martel’s ever since Life of Pi. I’m looking forward to more of his work.

After that, I’m thinking about Junot Diaz’ Pulitzer Prize winner The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Diaz has long been on my radar but so far I’ve only read his great short story “Edison, New Jersey”.

I would also like to read Alan Jacob’s The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction. A great title that I’ve heard some interesting things about.

After that, I plan to resume my adventures with Nineteenth Century Female British authors. George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss has been on my shelf for a few years, now. This is going to be the year I read it. In addition, I would like to round out my Bronte sisters expedition with Anne Bronte’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. I don’t own this one as of now so I’ll have to get a copy somewhere.

So there you have it! My reading plans for the Summer of 2016 – we’ll see how everything plays out. What books are you planning on reading over the next few months? I’d love to know!

 

 

The Final TBR Triple Dog Dare Update

The final TBR Triple Dog Dare is sponsored by James at James Reads Books and here’s my final update. The Dare requires participants to read only books that they already have during January, February and March.

As I’ve said in previous updates, the number of books I’ve read during the Dare has not been staggering; however, I’ve read some books that have been on my shelf for a long time and thoroughly enjoyed them:

1.) Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (on my shelf)

2.) Voices in the Night: Stories by Steven Millhauser (borrowed from the library prior to the beginning of the Dare)

3.)Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (on my shelf)

4.) Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (on my shelf)

I just finished Jane Eyre yesterday so look for a post about Volume the Second in the next couple of days.  In addition, I read the beautiful story “The Turkey Season” for the April edition of The Alice Munro Story of the Month so a post about that will be coming up soon.

Next up is Andy Weir’s The Martian and after that I’ll begin a book I just got in the mail: The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings -J. R. R . Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams by Philip and Carol Zaleski.

So how did you do with the TBR Triple Dog Dare? And what’s up for you post-Dare?

Another TBR Triple Dog Dare Update

The final TBR Triple Dog Dare is sponsored by James at James Reads Books and here’s another update. The Dare requires participants to read only books that they already have during January, February and March. Only a few more weeks to go and while I can’t get too excited about how many books I’ve read during these months, the books I have read have been worth reading. In February, I completed Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, a classic that has been on my shelf for a long time. I’m glad to have added this to my “Books Read” list.

Currently, I’m in the middle of Emily’s sister Charlotte’s novel Jane Eyre.  So far, I’m liking this one better but it’s taking even longer to get through it. Look for a post about “Volume The First” sometime soon. Reading the forewords and afterwords in these novels, has sparked an interest in the Bronte sisters. At some point this year, I might have to read a biography or two about this family of authors.

I received Andy Weir’s novel The Martian for my birthday last month so it will probably be the first book I read in April which at the rate I’m going will also be the book I read after Jane Eyre.  If I, by chance, finish it before the end of March, my plan is to read some more Ray Bradbury short stories that are already on my shelf.

Are you currently taking the dare? If so, how is it going?

The TBR Triple Dog Dare Update

The final TBR Triple Dog Dare is sponsored by James at James Reads Books so I thought I would post an update. The Dare requires participants to read only books that they already have during January, February and March. While I can’t say the number of books I’ve read so far is anything to post about, I will say that I’ve become very inspired to read the books that are already on my shelf.

I’ve read Little Women by Louisa May Alcott and am almost finished with Steven Millhauser’s collection Voices in the Night: Stories. The Millhauser book I am counting even though it’s from the library. I’ve had it since before the beginning of 2016. I planned on reading Jack London’s Martin Eden, also from the library; however, it had to be returned before I got a chance to read it (I couldn’t renew it). So the London novel will have to wait until the spring.

Next up will be the Bronte sisters. I’ve had Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre on my shelf for years. It’s high time I read them.

The TBR Triple Dog Dare

The final TBR Triple Dog Dare is sponsored by James at James Reads Books and I’ve decided to jump in and take the dare. From January 1, 2016 to April 1, 2016, I will only read books that I already own. I’m ordering a couple today and I will count those. Since many of the books I have on my shelf fall into the classic category, I can also count them toward my Classics Club reading.  I’m looking forward to seeing how many books I can knock out during the first three months of 2016.

If you are interested in joining, there’s still time!

Anniversary the Third!

Today is the third anniversary of Mirror with Clouds!  It’s been an interesting, informative and all around great three years and I’m looking forward to year #4.  It’s become my anniversary tradition to post some of my favorite quotations from the past year – so here they are!

These mystic creatures, suddenly translated by night from unutterable solitudes to our peopled deck, affected me in a manner not easy to unfold.  They seemed newly crawled forth from beneath the foundations of the world.  Yea, they seemed the identical tortoises whereon the Hindu plants this total sphere.  With a lantern I inspected them more closely.  Such worshipful venerableness of aspect!  Such furry greenness mantling the rude peelings and healing the fissures of their shattered shells.  I no more saw three tortoises.  They expanded – became transfigured.  I seemed to see three Roman Coliseums in magnificent decay.

– From Herman Melville’s “The Encantadas” (a reference to the tortoises found on the Encantadas, also known as the Galapagos Islands)

 

In the morning there was a big wind blowing and the waves were running high up on the beach and he was awake a long time before he remembered that his heart was broken.

-From Ernest Hemingway’s “Ten Indians”

 

Something quite remote from anything the builders intended has come out of their work, and out of the fierce little human tragedy in which I played; something none of us thought about at the time: a small red flame – a beaten-copper lamp of deplorable design, relit before the beaten-copper doors of a tabernacle; the flame which the old knights saw from their tombs, which they saw put out; that flame burns again for other soldiers, far from home, farther, in heart, than Acre or Jerusalem.  It could not have been lit but for the builders and the tragedians, and there I found it this morning, burning anew among the old stones.

-From Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited

 

He did not believe that he himself was formed in the image of God but that Bishop was he had no doubt.  The little boy was part of a simple equation that required no further solution, except at the moments when with little or no warning he would feel himself overwhelmed by the horrifying love.  Anything he looked at too long could bring it on.  Bishop did not have to be around.  It could be a stick or a stone, the line of a shadow, the absurd old man’s walk of a starling crossing the sidewalk.  If, without thinking, he lent himself to it, he would feel suddenly a morbid surge of the love that terrified him – powerful enough to throw him to the ground in an act of idiot praise.  It was completely irrational and abnormal.

-From Flannery O’Connor’s The Violent Bear It Away

 

“It’s terrible sometimes, inside,” he said, “that’s what’s the trouble.  You walk these streets, black and funky and cold, and there’s not really a living ass to talk to, and there’s nothing shaking, and there’s no way of getting it out – that storm inside.  You can’t talk it and you can’t make love with it, and when you finally try to get with it and play it, you realize nobody’s listening.  So you’ve got to listen.  You got to find a way to listen.”

-From James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues”

 

And then Trout, with his wound dressed, would walk out into the unfamiliar city.  He would meet his Creator, who would explain everything.

-From Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions

 

 

Banned Book Awareness Week 2014

This week is Banned Book Awareness Week and typically during this week each year, I read a banned book in celebration of my freedom to discern for myself what I will read or not read.  I actually have two books that I plan to read; however, due to an extra busy work schedule, I’m fairly certain that neither will get read completely this week.  So look for future posts about these books that have been found on banned book lists during the last few decades:

Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man

Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited

I also have two more wild cards in my Deal Me In 2014 Short Story Project and whenever one of those pops up, I plan to read a short story by Salman Rushdie, one of the more extreme victims of book banning that I can think of in my lifetime.  I would also recommend Rushdie’s literary thriller of a memoir Joseph Anton,  an entertaining thriller if it wasn’t for the fact that it was true.  I posted about it here.

So maybe October will be Banned Book Month for me.  In the meantime, celebrate your freedom to read!