TTT: Books You’ve Probably Read That I Haven’t–Yet!
For this week’s Top Ten Tuesday, The Broke and the Bookish is inviting us to pick a topic from past Top Ten Tuesdays. I have selected: Top Ten Books I Feel As Though Everyone Has Read But Me. I chose this because I’m so far behind on the books I need to read, I can easily make a Top Ten list! Laugh at me if you wish (or take solace that there’s someone else who has yet to read that book), but here they are–as of today, at least:
- PRIDE AND PREJUDICE by Jane Austen
- ENDER’S GAME by Orson Scott Card
- TWILIGHT by Stephenie Meyers (though, to be honest, I’m really not that bothered about this one–sorry TWILIGHT fans!)
- THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE by Stephen Crane
- UNCLE TOM’S CABIN by Harriet Beecher Stowe
- THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- MOBY DICK by Herman Melville
- THE GIVER by Lois Lowry
- CHARLOTTE’S WEB by E. B. White
- A WRINKLE IN TIME by Madeleine L’Engle
And I could continue this list. So, tell me–are there any books you confess to not having read, despite the fact everyone else seems to have read them? Share in the comments; I promise I won’t laugh. After all, I hardly have anything to laugh about! Also, check out the linky list on The Broke and the Bookish to see which Top Tens other people are doing today.
I’ve read Pride and Prejudice which I enjoyed more than I thought I would. And I’ve read Twilight too. You’re not missing out on much there.
I’ll admit that I never read the last Harry Potter book. I read up to 6 but that was it. By the time the last one came out I’d been struggling to get through some of the waffle of the last couple. I just didn’t have the patient to go through 7 and watched the films instead.
Also never read the other Narnia books apart from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. That’s definitely on my list. I’d like to give the whole series a try.
P&P is on my TBR list–I just haven’t got around to it yet. I have a whole Jane Austen anthology, so I’m planning on an Austen-fest at some point. 🙂
The whole Narnia series is cool. THE HORSE AND HIS BOY is especially good.
Wow, Colin! You have some great reading ahead of you. ENDER’S GAME and A WRINKLE IN TIME are especially good, as is PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. I think you’ll like ENDER especially. It’s one of my all-time favourites. 🙂 Half of your list is made up of books that I still haven’t read yet either. Some of them are even on my Conquering the Classics list. 🙂
There were some books I thought of that I remembered seeing on your “Conquering the Classics” list, so I didn’t list them since I knew you hadn’t read them either! I will be reading ENDER’S GAME soon–it’s on my shelf calling my name. My First-Born is currently reading PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, so I feel particularly delinquent over that one. Soon soon soon…
Jane Austen is one of my favorites. I hope you enjoy Pride and Prejudice and that you check out more of her work. Northanger Abbey is a particularly good one because it deals with novel-reading and its effect on the imagination. Confession: I haven’t read the Great Gatsby either, but plan on doing so soon!
I have read EMMA, but it was a while ago–I remember it being an easier read than I expected. I have a Jane Austen anthology, so I really have no excuse for reading her complete works. One day soon… 🙂 Thanks for the encouragement, Julie!
If you’re making a to-read list of these, I go for Charlotte’s Web and A Wrinkle in Time first. But I haven’t read The Red Badge of Courage or Uncle Tom’s Cabin so I can’t compare to those two. Also haven’t read War and Peace!
I know we have a copy of A WRINKLE IN TIME in the house, so, as with Jane Austen (see above reply to Julie), I really have no excuse not to read it soon. I haven’t read WAR AND PEACE either. My hesitation with that is actually a bit odd, and I admit it’s odd: it wasn’t originally written in English, so I would be reading Tolstoy via a translator. To me, this is like hearing a paraphrase of what someone said as opposed to hearing it “from the horse’s mouth.” The voice won’t be purely Tolstoy’s, but Tolstoy via someone else. Will it be like someone singing via auto-tune? Or will it be accurate to the original Russian as no translation really could be? But I don’t have time to learn Russian that well, so I might have to make do. *sigh*. Yeah, I’m a durp (as my kids would say)!
For the third time, congratulations on the book release Stephanie! I’ve added your blog to my RSS. 🙂
The only ones I’ve read on that list are #1, #3, and #9. So you’re not the only one. After watching The Great Gatsby trailer, I’m thinking I might want to edge that one up on my TBR pile.
My wife asked if I was going to read THE GREAT GATSBY anytime soon on account of the new movie. We’ll see… 🙂
I haven’t read Twilight either, and I really don’t plan on it, so you’re not alone 🙂
Thanks for the support, Tanya! 😀
Gatsby, The Giver, and Charlotte’s web would all probably make my top 100 books ever list. Gatsby most definitely falls in my top 10ish.
I’ve never read HAMLET (well, parts, but never all), Red Badge of Courage (welcome to the club!), or DAVID COPPERFIELD – actually, I’ve only read one Dickens: A Christmas Carol.
I could probably count on half of one hand the number of Shakespeare plays I’ve read all the way through. I need to change that. I have THE GIVER on my desk now, thanks to my FirstBorn, waiting for me to read. I’m pretty sure we have GATSBY in the house somewhere. 🙂
*embarassed look*
I’ve only read…
ENDER’S GAME
TWILIGHT by Stephenie Meyers
Ender’s Game is great, a sci-fi classic and a hugely fun read, though I’m not sure if I’ll ever read the others. I like the universe, but the author’s personal politics (homophobia. and lots of it.) have soured the series for me. It’s disappointing.
Twilight isn’t well written, but to be honest it’s not that bad. And the movies are even better, because you don’t have to suffer the rambling purple prose. You just have to suffer lots of longing stares. I enjoyed reading it — even if it got progressively worse as the series went on, it still kept my attention. And without SMeyers our YA genre might not be enjoying such a big boom, so I have to tip my hat to her for that.
Don’t be embarrassed–at least not here. I mean, I have yet to read A WRINKLE IN TIME forcryingoutloud! And I call myself a YA writer?!
As much criticism TWILIGHT has received, I think you’re right to remind us all that it must have some redeemable qualities for it to have resonated with so many people. I’m sure it’s not the first less-than-spectacularly-written novel to have become a phenomenal bestseller. I suppose Harry Potter set the bar so high that we’re even more critical of work that doesn’t reach that level (though JKR has her detractors who might say that Harry Potter set the bar so low kids were wide open for poorly-written fiction like TWILIGHT–not a line I would agree with, of course). But it did keep kids reading novels–especially YA.
I still haven’t made it Ender’s Game or Twilight. There’s a few others missing from my bookish resume, too. There’s way too many books still left to read despite a huge number of pages already behind me.
The good news is that good reading is ahead.