11:33 PM
Books Brits' top 100 books

From a friend's blog, the BBC published its survey list of the Brits' top 100 books. It's based on the results of public survey, not critical choice. In alphabetical order:

Bold = Have read.
Italics = Would like to read.

1984, George Orwell
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll (well of course I've read my namesake's adventures! :))
Animal Farm, George Orwell
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
The BFG, Roald Dahl
Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
Bleak House, Charles Dickens
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh (saw the BBC miniseries years ago tho)
Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
Catch 22, Joseph Heller
The Catcher In The Rye, JD Salinger (did read Franny and Zooey)
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl (saw the movie!)
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens (seen umpteen TV and movie versions tho)
The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M. Auel
Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons (or perhaps just watch the movie...)
The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas (started this at one point years ago but I don't think I ever finished it)
Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
Dune, Frank Herbert
Emma, Jane Austen
Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy (read his A Pair of Blue Eyes)
Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson (who the heck is Jacqueline Wilson??? I've never heard of her or her books)
The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
The Godfather, Mario Puzo
Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell
Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald (and loved the movie with Redford, too)
Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Douglas Adams
The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
Holes, Louis Sachar
I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
Katherine, Anya Seton (oh wow! cool, I read this years ago in HS, I was into historical/romance stuff and her books were terrific)
The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, CS Lewis
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott (didn't like the book as much as the movies, both Kate Hepburn's and Winona Ryder's)
Lord Of The Flies, William Golding (read this in HS, HATED IT)
The Lord Of The Rings, JRR Tolkien
Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
Magician, Raymond E. Feist
The Magus, John Fowles (loved his French Lieutenant's Woman, I should read this one)
Matilda, Roald Dahl
Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
Middlemarch, George Eliot
Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
Mort, Terry Pratchett
Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck (read it in HS, I can't handle animals being hurt or killed, even in books)
On The Road, Jack Kerouac
One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Perfume, Patrick Suskind (read his The Pigeon tho, really good)
Persuasion, Jane Austen
The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving (read his Hotel New Hampshire which I liked but I never liked any of his other books)
Pride And Prejudice, Jane Austen (I cannot wade thru her prose, but the movie by Emma Thompson was excellent)
The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier
The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Secret History, Donna Tartt (one of THE best books around, I keep waiting for them to make a movie it, she has a new book out which I really want to read)
The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
The Stand, Stephen King
The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens (read this in HS, I can still hear the teacher reading the first paragraph out loud, "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times...")
Tess Of The D'urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee (read the book after I'd seen the movie)
A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
The Twits, Roald Dahl
Ulysses, James Joyce
Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
War And Peace, Leo Tolstoy
Watership Down, Richard Adams (another one of my all-time favorites)
The Wind In The Willows, Kenneth Grahame
Winnie-the-Pooh, AA Milne
The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte

Hmmm, 20 out of 100, not too bad, there's some on that list that I don't think really deserve to be there (Harry Potter???, Bridget Jones' Diary??? The Princess Diaries???) and there's several I'd like to read, now that I've got my library card and the neighborhood library is open again, I'm adding them to my list.