Paul's posts with tag: pride & prejudice
Nicked from Mary Ann.The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed. Well let's see.1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.2) Italicize those you intend to read.3) Underline the books you LOVE.4) Reprint this list in your own blog so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them ;)
Disclaimer: It's the Great White Canon, I'm afraid.
1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (Read twice within three or four months?)2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (I really should, shouldn't I?)3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (If only to get the references in other works, like The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde.)4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (Only until The Order of the Phoenix. I'll finish the series eventually. Just don't feel compelled to read it now.)5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee6. The Bible - Most of it, at least. Back in school, I had to memorize a verse each day and a chapter each month. And of course it was the King James version, which I still prefer over later translations.7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (This was required in my English 22 class--Survey of English Literature II--but I never got to finish it. So gloomy.)8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (Also required in the aforementioned English 22 class. We were only required to read half the book, but I ended up reading the whole thing. Let's all learn Newspeak!)9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (I might, but not sure. Anyone care to convince me to read the series?)10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (It's one of those I-really-should-read-that-one books.)11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (Maybe not this one.)12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy (I could use some more convincing here.)13. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller (It was funny the first time I read it. I tried reading it again, and I wanted to cry. Why?)14. Complete Works of Shakespeare (Only thirteen out of the thirty-six, so far. Still whittling away at it. Reading old Will reveals some unexpected finds, like early uses of the words 'punk' and 'the dickens'.)15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier (I have Rej to impose Du Maurier on me.)16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (Will read this with the same sense of obligation as with the trilogy.)17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (Read three or four times. Once in my teens, which led to my dropping out of Manila Science High School, and the other two or three times in my twenties with less catastrophic results. Still love it.)19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger (What's this?)20. Middlemarch - George Eliot (Still open to convincing.)21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell (Or should I just watch the movie?)22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (Read this twice. Am a huge Fitzgerald fan, of course.)23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens (Now if you change this to Oliver Twist, at least then I can say I've read one of his works.)24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (Do I have to? Hindi ba puwedeng Nabokov na lang?)25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (I should read this, but it'll probably inspire more enthusiasm than the other should-reads.)26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh (Until I read Adrian Mole, I also thought Waugh was a woman. *blush*)27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Do I have to? Part II.)28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (Do I have to? Part III.)29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll 30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame 31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (Really, these Russians.)32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (Yeah, yeah.)34. Emma - Jane Austen (Read this twice within the same six-month period.)35. Persuasion - Jane Austen (My favorite of the Austen novels. Also read twice within the first half of this year.)36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (Redundandant!)37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres (Mmmaybe.)39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden (Saw the movie. If the book's anything like it, or any James Clavell novel, then it's an orientalist piece of snot.)40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne41. Animal Farm - George Orwell (But maybe not.)42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (Stopped after the first few chapters out of sheer boredom. Might resume it, just to know the extend of how it sucks.)43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Read twice. Might read again a few more times.)44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins (Who?)46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery 47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood (Perhaps, unless there are other Atwood books people think are better.)49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding (Not sure about this one.)50. Atonement - Ian McEwan 51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel (Perhaps.)52. Dune - Frank Herbert (Read the first book four times, the second book twice, and the entire six-book series once. Frank Herbert rocks my socks.)53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons 54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen (Part of my Austen craze this year.)55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth (If this reads like one of those Russian novels, maybe not.)56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens 58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon (Very interested in this one. Joon, how's A Spot of Bother?)60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (I tried. I failed.)61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck (Read twice: once in high school, once in college. OK lang.)62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (Soon.)63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold 65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas (The grandfather of the telenovela. Read this one chapter a day to simulate the experience.)66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac (Eight bleeding months to finish this one. Love snippets of it, but reading this book is like mining. You have to hammer away to find the gems. You'd have better luck with The Subterraneans. It's more compact.)67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy (Saw the movie. Will the book depress me as much? It starred Christopher Eccleston, yes?)68. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding (Hahaha! No one could've written a better homage to Pride and Prejudice.)69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie (I did enjoy The Satanic Verses and Haroun and the Sea of Stories.)70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville (Nah, I'm good. Whales are an endangered species, man. Besides, I get enough Dick references in Star Trek.)71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens (Required reading in high school. Liked it enough to finish it.)72. Dracula - Bram Stoker 73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson 75. Ulysses - James Joyce (For me, this is like the Kilimanjaro of readers. And Finnegans Wake is the Everest.)76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath (Quillfolk, any votes of confidence?)77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome78. Germinal - Emile Zola79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray80. Possession - AS Byatt (Just finished rereading it. Brilliant postmodern shit.)81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro 85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (My mom does love the book.)86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry87. Charlotte's Web - E.B. White (One of my first book-report books, back in elementary! Don't you just love Templeton? And imagine my surprise, in college, at being required to have a copy of Elements of Style by the same author!)88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom (Talaga?)89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Fine. I thought I was OK with Poe's Dupin stories.)90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (Maybe not. I read somewhere that Conrad only believed in using English in a literal sense. As in ayaw niya ng metaphor and other figures of speech. Ang corny, diba?)92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (Required in high school and college. The kind of book you have to read when you're young.)93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks 94. Watership Down - Richard Adams95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole 96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas (Loved the novel, hated the movie. Stupid Disney. Unfortunately, only this Monte Cristo, and The Man in the Iron Mask are available in English translation. Apparently, there were more novels with the musketeers.)98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare (Redundant nanaman. Read it three, four times, though.)99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (The Hunchback of Notre Dame na lang.)
"I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun." - Fitzwilliam Darcy to Elizabeth Bennett, when asked "to account for his having ever fallen in love with her."
" 'I am not now to learn,' replied Mr. Collins, with a formal wave of the hand, 'that it is usual with young ladies to reject the addresses of the man whom they secretly mean to accept, when he first applies for their favour; and that sometimes the refusal is repeated a second or even a third time. I am therefore by no means discouraged by what you have just said, and shall hope to lead you to the altar ere long.' " * * * * " 'When I do myself the honour of speaking to you next on this subject I shall hope to recieve a more favourable answer than you have now given me; though I am far from accusing you of cruelty at present, because I know it to be the established custom of your sex to reject a man on the first application, and perhaps you have even now said as much to encourage my suit as would be consistent with the true delicacy of the female character.' " * * * * " '... and you should take it into farther consideration that in spite of your manifold attractions, it is by no means certain that another offer of marriage may ever be made you. Your portion is unhappily so small that it will in all likelihood undo the effects of your loveliness and amiable qualifications. As I must therefore conclude that you are not serious in your rejection of me, I shall chuse to attribute it to your wish of increasing my love by suspense, according to the usual practice of elegant females.' " * * * * " '...and I am persuaded that when sanctioned by the express authority of both your excellent parents, my proposals will not fail of being acceptable.' " * * * * Barely 80 pages into Pride and Prejudice and Jane Austen has me in stitches. For everyone's delectation in this post-Valentine's season. __________ * Pages 74-75, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen. The unabridged Dover republication of a standard text reprinted from the 1813 edition. Including obsolete English spellings from Ms. Austen's period. Italics and boldface text mine. :D
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