Boards

We had to read it for school, using the method I'm pretty sure the government made up purely to make children hate books: You sit in silence in the classroom, and the teacher designates one of your peers to read a passage of the book in their FUCKING RETARDED DIV VOICE as you read along. Then after a while, the teacher stops them and commands another one of your classmates to read - in their STUPID MONGOLOID STUTTER as you read along. Then eventually, you are the one who is assigned to read, but you can't because you've been reading at the speed of someone who is READING as opposed to TALKING and are therefore 12 pages ahead of anyone who has been doing what they're told; so now you look like a fucking idiot asking the teacher what page you're on.

I still look back in anger at all the books this has ruined.

really which bits? how much? which bible?

Well... they mean the Bible, don't they? It being literally a selection of texts that varies according to the edition - of which the KJV is one.

Of which the only real variation is whether the Apocrypha (some "inter-testemental" Jewish writings) are included (Catholics say yes, Protestants say no). So it isn't really accurate to say the list varies according to the edition - whatever Dan Brown would have you believe.

are

in

the

slow

ree

ding

group

.

aren't

.

you

?

.

.

thicko

didn't see roald dahl or charlotte's web

pride and prejudice
jane eyre
harry potter
to kill a mockingbird
wuthering heights
1984
tess of the durbervilles
catch 22
catcher in the rye
alice in wonderland
lion witch and the wardrobe (chronicles of narnia?!)
winnie the pooh
brave new world
of mice and men
bridget jones's diary
the bell jar
charlotte's web
charlie and the chocolate factory

19 rite

the 0/5 is because I didn't finish War and Peace due to it being the dullest collection of words ever assembled.

GK: Eyre
LB: Potter
CB: Mockingbird
RCB: Hitchhikers
RB: Wonderland
LM: Willows
CM: Narnia
RM:Wardrobe
LF: Pooh
CF: Farm
RF: Web

On the subs bench:
Hamlet, Factory and Ulysses.

with some of Shakespeare

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
4 The Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

I've got a load of them sat on my shelf in a 'keep meaning to read' context.

The Secret History? Bleh.

26

Um, yeah, 38.

There are some horridly middlebrow books in there (Captain Correlli etc), aren’t there?

I haven't read all of the Bible, or the complete works of Shakespeare. Maybe if I ever get stranded on a desert island.

Although it's not exactly 46 books, because His Dark Materials = three books and the Chronicles of Narnia = seven. One of which is also on the list. So maybe I could legitimately bump the figure up to 54. If I cared that much. Which I don't, obvs.

Is is bad that I'm almost pleased with myself?

and is is the only one i'd read (and have read) again.

but as a librarian I probably know about 80 well enough to recommend them to borrowers who might be interested in that kind of thing

you know if they're boring or not?

i'm a cultured motherfucker

But an embarrassing number of those are children's books...

Tried to read but never finished 9

I'm surprised and pleased by that figure

read bits of about 6 or 7 others (I mean come on... even most religious people haven't read the bible cover to cover) and own a few others with the intention of reading them at some point in the not to distant future.

although i think at least three of those i started, read a substantial amount of, and then never completely finished

1 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
2 The Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling
3 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
4 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
5 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
6 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
7 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
8 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
9 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
10 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
11 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
12 Animal Farm - George Orwell
13 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
14 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
15 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
16 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
17 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
18 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
19 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
20 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
21 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
22 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
23 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
24 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

In my defence I am 30 so I've probably had a few years on the rest of you. I also spent 3 years doing an Eng Lit degree, so reading books was something of an occupational hazzard.

Do I get bonus points for having read Ulysses?

I'm a little disappointed Jurassic Park isn't on the list.

i only read books I know i'm going to be interested in

quite a few of these books have been recommended to me recently though so I should probably get on and read some of them.

but kept losing track, and then forgot what number I got at the end. About 30 I think, although that seems surprisingly high given the amount of difficulty I had reading just the list of books.

And why are people getting annoyed with what is and isn't on there when they don't know?

Or do they?

Is it just me?

4 The Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

which is way more than I expected.

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

books.

then nearly all of them.

to be generous to myself. ive read a lot of sherlock holmes and a lot of shakespeare so think i can include both of them

And to be honest I don't really want to read most of the others listed.

6, 8, 13, 19, some of 33, 36, 40, 48, 49, 59, 66, 88, 99

of that list.

but the Bible.....the whole thing....the complete works of shakespear....all of it

I just abandoned a lengthy reply that seemed amusing to me, but was a bit preachy and made me sound like I'm having a nervous breakdown.

I've never really been particularly into "English Literature" (as in the kind of books people read when studying it - like that list) so I can't be arsed with most of that stuff. I'm sure if I'd gone to a decent school where you actually have an English lesson rather than a riot where the English lesson's supposed to take place I might have read a few more.

lame.

only 19, but there are a fair few on the list that i want to read but haven't gotten to yet

There are some that I've been meaning to read for a while, and some that I've started and not finished...

a quarter

who the fuck has read the complete works of shakespeare?! SRSLY being forced to read several at school put me off for life!

2
4
5
8
9
13
18
25
31
36
38
41
42
43
51
59
60
61
62
66
67
81
87
99

meh

which is coincidentally my age. Maybe if I live to be 100, I'll have read them all. Well, maybe 99. I'm not reading The Da Vinci Code on pure principle.