Booking it

I've seen this meme a couple places, and since I'm pressing for something to write about today (and actually should be writing a review of The Lives of Others and putting the finishing touches on Zodiac), I'm going to take the easy way out today.

I'm taking some liberties with the rules. If the title is in bold, I've read it. If it's in italics, I've seen a film adaptation. If it is in bold and italics, I've read it and seen the film. I'll also comment along the way...

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)

-I have zero interest in reading this, even if just to see what's made this the one book that people who don't read have read. The film was a snooze.

2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)

-The most recent film version made my top ten for the year. A really lovely movie.

3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)

-Hasn't everyone who attended junior high in the US had to read this?

4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (J.R.R. Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)

-I was never much into fantasy books. I suppose if I'm to start anywhere, this would be the place to do it.

8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)

-I saw plenty of Disney Channel shows based on this, for what it's worth.

9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (J.K. Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)

-Irving's book is better and significantly different than Simon Birch.

15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)

-I remember reading this in high school, but I don't think I ever finished it.

19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)

-I probably read this more than any of the books on this list. For my junior year of high school it was such an illicit thrill to write a paper justifying the use of obscenity in the novel and quoting said words. Oooooh.

23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25 . Life of Pi (Yann Martel)

M. Night Shyamalan, meet the next movie you should make. Truthfully, though, I don't think a film can do it proper justice. How can you make it without it seeming totally preposterous?

26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)

-Might have read it when I was younger, but the only reason I say that is I remember what the cover looked like. Inconclusive evidence means I can't count it.

29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)

-Color me crushed to watch the film and find the first several hundred pages of the book cast aside.

30. Tuesdays with Morrie(Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible

-I'm claiming credit here, although I know I haven't read the whole thing. Hey, it's big!

46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)

-Owned but mostly unread.

55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)

I might have read this, but I can't say for sure. And you know what the live-action film did to me.

81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)

-Can't say I remember either all that well, but I know I read some S.E. Hinton as a kid.

97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

By my count that's 22 I've read, an unimpressive number that looks worse if pulling out the Harry Potter books. I've seen films of 37 of these titles.

Then again, this list is all over the place. It's a mishmash of accepted classics and recent bestsellers. My tastes run toward the literary canon and contemporary authors such as Nick Hornby, Douglas Coupland, Jhumpa Lahiri, Michael Chabon, and Dave Eggers.

My mom had me on an Agatha Christie kick when I was in junior high. I read a lot of The Three Investigators titles, so it should be no surprise that I am a Hitchcock fanatic, even if he had the most cursory of ties to the books. Encyclopedia Brown books were favorites too. Hmm, I guess I liked reading mysteries.

I tend to read in bursts. Unfortunately I haven't invested much time in reading novels in the past year. Zadie Smith's On Beauty remains half-read from two Christmases ago. (What I read was really good.) I started Special Topics in Calamity Physics, which is not the textbook it sounds like, but, you know, things got busy.

Not like I need anything else on my plate, but what do you recommend? What are you reading?