So The Big Read could be a list for me...

[ailbhe]

Stuff I ought to try again:
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
Persuasion, Jane Austen
War And Peace, Leo Tolstoy

Stuff I ought to try for the first time:
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
The Godfather, Mario Puzo
The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
Holes, Louis Sachar
I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
Katherine, Anya Seton
Magician, Raymond E Feist
The Magus, John Fowles
Middlemarch, George Eliot
Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
On The Road, Jack Kerouac
Perfume, Patrick Süskind
The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
The Ragged Trousered Philantrhopists, Robert Tressell
Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier
The Secret History, Donna Tartt
The Stand, Stephen King
A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins

Stuff I'm not going to try:
Bleak House, Charles Dickens
David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson

I don't think there's a Dickens I haven't read the first three pages of, but I really really can't read his stuff. I hate it. Hate it hate it hate it.

Comments

I'm with you on the Dickens hating

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

The problem I had with Anna K was that I hated Kitty and her husband. I found them boring and utterly unengaging. Once I started only reading the Anna chapters I enjoyed it more.

Persuasion is my favourite Austen - it isn't a straight a love story as P&P and I like the touch of bitterness in it.

And I'll stop now and put the rest in my journal so I'm not being obnoxious :)

[liadnan]

I really can't stand Dickens either.

[artela.livejournal.com]

I personally wouldn't bother with "Of Mice and Men", but that's because we were forced to read it at school and I thought it sucked - big time. Of the others, I won't venture much in the way of opinions except to say that I believe "The Alchemist" makes a far better play than it does a book.

I have too little time to devote to my reading these days, so what little I have I'm afraid is used to read stuff I know I'm probably going to like rather than taking a chance (Family Bites being the first "take a chance" novel I've bought in a long time - still haven't managed to find time to read it as it's sitting in the queue behind "The Last Hero", "Maurice....", "Nightwatch", and a few other books.)

[ailbhe]

I don't think I read anything "on spec" - I never buy a book until I've read it, and what I read mostly comes recommended.

[(Anonymous)]

I had to read To Kill A Mockingbird at school, which I still like. Some of the other classes got Of Mice And Men, so I got it out from the library. I tried to read it but found it so utterly boring I gave up. It's one of the few books I've started reading and not finished.

I can really recommend To Kill A Mockingbird though. A book that can survive GCSE English has to be worth a read.
lonecat.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Dickens is a bit of a slog-through; interestingly, I read through everything he wrote when I was about 17, and loved it then. Not sure I'd bother today.

I empathize with those here and elsewhere who talk about having been forced to read, say, Steinbeck, in school and loathing it. Mandatory reading has done harm to some of the most wonderful stories. Me, I love Steinbeck - but we traveled around so much when I was in high school that I managed to avoid the obligatory reading of his stuff.

[(Anonymous)]

Hmmm. It appears that, once again, I am an oddity.

I too attended a school where reading 'Of Mice and Men' was part of the syllabus, however I still enjoy it, partly since I cleansed my head of all the essays I had to write on it. ;)

I also enjoy Dickens although every story of his I have read has been the /heavily/ abridged Penguin editions. I have taken a mighty vow that some day I will sit down with the full texts and plough. But at present I'll stick with the kids versions: all story, no waffle.

Going back to the list I have read a good portion of the list but still not breaking the 50% mark. Still I suspect I'm doing well and better than a good 70 - 80% of the country. I simply happen to know the other 20- 30%

A Nonny Moose (The Reading Moose)

P.S. By the pricking of my thumbs another "Friends Codes" post this way comes. Or is it just me sticking pins into myself again? ;)