Book meme

The ones I’ve read are in bold.
The ones I want to read are in italics.
I've left alone the ones that I'm not interested in.

(Note: I've also - in typical Redneck Diva style - given my own little comments on some, too. Because this is my blog and I can. Nyah.)

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown) - Absofrickinlutley no desire whatsoever to read this one.
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) - One of those I have always wanted to, but never have.
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee) - Read it in high school. Loved it. Own it. Treasure it.
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell) - I tried. Just couldn't do it.
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (J.R.R. Tolkien) - Agh, another one that I simply could not wrap my head around the utter bleh of it. I hear they're all very good if you can get past the first half of the first book. So far I just don't have time for that many words anymore unless I'm being graded on it.
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (J.R.R. Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (J.R.R. Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery) - I own every book that L.M. Montgomery ever wrote. Someday I will visit PEI. I could get lost so easily in the stories! I wanted to BE Anne! Oh how I wanted red hair and freckles......
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (J.K. Rowling) - I *heart* HARRY POTTER!!
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (J.K. Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden) - This book was incredibly interesting to me. I was drawn into it from the first chapter and was disappointed when I finished it. I didn't want it to end! The movie was such a disgrace to the book.
16. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (J.K. Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King) - I started reading SK when I was 13. I think I read The Stand when I was about 16. There were several of us at school reading it at the same time and we were all mesmerized by it. I sold about 25 of my SK books a few years back when I went on a cleaning tangent, but kept this one.
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (J.K. Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien) - Mom bought me the boxed set of LOtR and a copy of The Hobbit for my birthday one year. I got further in The Hobbit than LOtR, but still lost interest before I was halfway through.
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger) - I have lost count as to how many times I have read this book. In my opinion, it is one of the best books ever written. Ever. Stacie said she read it once and couldn't figure out why I liked it so much. I hear that from a lot of people. I don't know why I was so captivated by it as a teen, but it hasn't lost any of its magic for me now that I'm in my 30's. I have passages highlighted. I can sit down and read it in mere hours because I know so much of it by heart.
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott) - I was all of about 10 when I read this. Bawled for days. I mean, seriously - when I finished it I walked up to my mother, threw my arms around her and sobbed into her shoulder for half an hour, calmed myself down only to start up again off and on literally for days.
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
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) - How I managed to miss this one when I was a kid, I'll never know. I read A Wrinkle in Time and you'd think I'd have hit this one too, being all into fantasy and stuff like I was.
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom) - I've read The Five People You Meet in Heaven and For One More Day by Albom and both books touched a part of my soul that I wasn't all that comfortable with at first. I was deeply moved by both. I read For One More Day, at the urging of my mother, right after we found out Papa's cancer was back, about a month before he died. I didn't sleep that night because I was so busy thinking and crying. Tuesdays is on my list for this summer.
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks) - Half a box of Kleenex was involved in the reading of this book. The other half was invested in the reading of The Wedding, which followed.
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (George Orwell) - My Senior year, Mrs. Sharbutt had us do one book review a little less-than-orthodox. There were several options, but I took 1984 and made it into a children's book. Seriously. I still have it in my cedar chest. It even had a clock with moving hands so that children could have a tactile experience while reading one of the scariest books ever written.
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) - I read this in high school and have no recollection of one single aspect of the book other than the title.
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom) - Ah, there it is. This is really one of those books that you simply must read. I'm not going to say that I wholly agree with the book, but it's beautifully written and thought-provoking.
45. Bible - Not in its entirety, but parts here and there. James and Revelations are my favorite books.
46. Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck) - 9th grade. Probably should re-read it. Don't remember much about it.
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Charles Dickens) - I have no desire to read Dickens. I think that might offend some people, but I don't like his writing. I just plain don't.
55. The Great Gatsby (Scott Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (J.K. Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood) - Another one of those that I've read and can't remember a thing about.
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand) - Only because it's referenced in the movie Dirty Dancing.
63. War and Peace (Tolsoy) - I bought a copy of it back in high school. I have no clue what happened to it.
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice) - *shudder*
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davies)
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 (Victor Hugo) - That's another one I bought in high school. Read it, don't remember it. I think I enjoyed carrying around a book the size of my car more than actually reading it.
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Helen Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Gabriel Garcia 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)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (John Steinbeck) - Oh, how I cried. Sobbed, even. I get misty when I think about it still.
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams) - Hands down, one of the best books ever written. I've read it nearly as many times as I've read The Catcher in the Rye. I saw the animated movie when I was probably 5 years old and never knew the title of it. It stuck in my head for years and as a teenager, for whatever reason, I asked my mom about this rabbit movie I remembered seeing as a child. Truly entertaining, sad, chilling and at times, disturbing.
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley) - The foreign exchange student from hell that lived with us my Junior year read this and loved it and for that reason alone, I will never read it because I associate it with her and I well, I kind of hate her.
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In the Skin of a Lion (Michael Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (William Golding) - My ex-aunt was a high school English teacher and was very impressed at my reading abilities as a child. It was on my 10th birthday that she told my mother I needed to read this book and got me a copy. I was haunted by it for years. I've gone back to read it several times and have NO INTENTION of letting my 10 year old read it.
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck) - My mother tried to read this one after I just gushed over how wonderful it was. She said she got about 10 pages in and abandoned it, wondering if she had picked up the wrong book. I never expected it to be such a great read when I grabbed it on a whim one summer day at the public library. I don't buy many books anymore, but I own a copy of this one.
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton) - *sob*
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

There are several that I was surprised to not see on the list- Fahrenheit 451 and A Clockwork Orange are the two that I was most surprised at not seeing. Both of those are must-reads. Seriously. I had never heard of Fahrehnheit until a year or so ago, checked it out of the library last summer and have every intention of buying a copy. I already bought Clockwork. It gets confusing at times, but it is thought-provoking in a 1984 kind of way.



If you want to play along, consider yourself tagged. (Just let me know in the Comments section so I can go see your list!) Also, if you have any recommendations, leave those in the Comments, too. I want to see how many books I can devour this summer.