Reading List

If you know me at all, you know that I am an extremely avid reader. And that might be an understatement. So when I got an email with one of those "100 Books Everyone Should Read" lists from my mom the other day, I was intrigued. The reason that this list in particular interested me was because it listed my top five favorite books as it's top five. So I thought, "hey, maybe I should give this a try." After comparing it with a list of Top 100 Novels from the BBC (almost identical) and making a few alterations, I have decided that I am going to read through this whole thing. To be fair, by "whole thing" I mean about seventy books since I have already read some. I also don't plan on going in exact order, in case you were wondering. There is a time and a place for "War and Peace" and the middle of the semester is not going to be it. If you are interested or would care to join in my endeavor, here is the list...

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien 

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte 

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling 

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee 

6 The Bible

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott 

12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy 

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller 

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien  

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks 

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot 

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell 

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy 

25 The Prince- Nicco Machiavelli

26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh 

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky 

28 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 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis 

34 Emma - Jane Austen 

35 The Shell Seekers- Rosamunde Pitcher

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis  

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Berniere 

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden 

40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell 

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown 

43 The Picture of Dorian Gray- Oscar Wilde

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving 

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins 

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy 

48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood 

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan 

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Goodnight Mister Tom- Michelle Magorian

54 The Pillars of The Earth- Ken Follet

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth 

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley 

59 Treasure Island- Rober Louis Stevenson

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov 

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt 

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac 

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy 

68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding 

69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie 

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville  

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens 

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker 

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson 

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath 

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome 

78 Germinal - Emile Zola 

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray 

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens 

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell 

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro 

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert  

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte's Web - EB White 

88 Black Beauty- Anna Sewell

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton 

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad 

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks 

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute 

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Call of the Wild- Jack London

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl 

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Square Stanza by Lewis Carroll

People I Would Invite to Dinner

My first blog entry was inspired by a conversation I had with Cate yesterday. In order to put off my massive amounts of homework I helped her fill out a questionnaire that asked "If you could invite three guests to dinner who would they be and why?" While helping Cate I found myself mentally compiling my own list. There was no way I could limit it to just three though. Here (in no particular order) is what I came up with...

1. C.S. Lewis
I'm going to have a lot of literary figures at my dinner, so brace yourself. Good old C.S. is definitely my number one though. First off, he is a phenomenal writer. I mean have you read The Chronicles of Narnia? He is also an amazing speaker and thinker. There is a quote by The New Yorker on the back of my copy of Mere Christianity that claims "If wit and wisdom, style and scholarship are requisites to passage through the pearly gates, Mr.Lewis will be among the angels." Enough said. Plus, we share the same birthday.

2. Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell
I figured that they would come to the dinner together even though things didn't work out so well between them at the end with that whole beheading misunderstanding. I'll start with Henry. Arguably history's most famous ruler, Henry was an educated and accomplished absolute monarch who ruled England from 1509 until his death. His political genius is usually overshadowed by the drama of his personal life which has inspired a plethora of books, movies, and HBO series. Besides having six wives, two of whom he beheaded, and dozens of mistresses, Henry is most well known for his break with the Roman Catholic Church. And that is where Thomas Cromwell comes in. If you have read Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel then Cromwell is probably on your guest list too. If not, you should read it. Basically, he was this brilliant nobody who rose from nothing to become Henry's closest advisor and it was Cromwell who helped make the whole Church of England thing happen.

3. Jesus
Pretty much no explanation is required. I know this is like the biggest cop out answer ever. It is a legitimate answer though; I mean who doesn't want to hang out with Jesus? Plus, he would turn the water into wine. And I bet he's not as creepy as he looks in the picture.

4. Elizabeth Tudor

Clearly, I have a thing for the Tudors. As well as European monarchs in general. Plus, Elizabeth was one of the most powerful women in history. She was also a serious feminist; she never married but flirted with everyone to get what she wanted. Her reign over England is often referred to as the Golden Age and she may be best known for heading England's shocking defeat of the Spanish Armada. The only real black spot on her record is that whole incident where she had to behead Mary Queen of Scots. But I guess being England's greatest ruler was all about making the tough decisions.

5. Jane Austen
I just love this woman. Austen's works were known for their social commentary especially concerning marriage as a means of securing money and a place in society in the 19th Century. She was totally a romantic though. I mean have you read Pride and Prejudice? (I have, 5 times. Plus I own the audiobook.)

6. Leonardo DiCaprio
Well you can't have a fantasy dinner without inviting at least one incredibly attractive guy. But really, Leo is incredibly intelligent and his movie choices are superb. I never regret seeing anything that he's in. My personal favorites are Blood Diamond, Catch Me If You Can, and The Titanic. Shutter Island and Inception were really good too (although very similar) but you have to stand the test of time to make it on my favorites list.

7. Harper Lee
This woman is phenomenal. She wrote To Kill A Mockingbird based on incidents of racism that she witnessed in her hometown in Mississippi. It was the only book she ever wrote. She's won about a million honors and awards but always declined to make a speech. I feel like if I invited her to dinner she'd feel obligated to speak.

8. Albus Dumbledore
Ok so I am fully aware that Dumledore is a fictional character. But if dead people can come to my dinner then so can fictional characters. Anyways, according to J.K. Rowling Dumbledore is the "epitome of goodness" and I have to agree. Dumbledore judged people by their character rather than the purity of their blood. Plus, he made really, really good speeches to Harry at the end of the first couple of books when they still followed the formulaic Privet Drive+Hogwarts+trials for Harry+Dumbledore's office+ride home where Harry suddenly feels better about everything sequence. I'm pretty sure J.K Rowling stole Dumbledore from J.R.R Tolkien (Gandalf anyone?) but I mean Dumbledore is way cooler anyways. I totally didn't see the gay thing coming though...

9. Fareed Zakaria
I'm pretty sure that Fareed is the first  live person on this list so he should be totally honored. If you have never watched GPS with Fareed Zakaria you need to go set your Tivo right now. Fareed also writes a column for Time Magazine. He is an expert on international politics and his show is basically a compilation of fascinating interviews plus his insightful bipartisan commentary. He's like a more legit Anderson Cooper because after seeing his performance on Jeopardy we all know that Anderson is not half as intelligent as he makes himself out to be. Fareed on the other hand is a total genius.

10. Stephan Jenkins and Dave Grohl
I'm not sure how much these two would really contribute to our dinner conversation. Basically I'm just inviting them to provide the music. I mean I would like to ask Dave Grohl about Nirvana. Stephan Jenkins would probably be too drugged up to say much but maybe I could convince him that Third Eye Blind needs to play a show in Texas that I can actually attend.