layout: post title: Boris' Big Book List, Oh Boy! created: 1077689760 categories:

• books
• Armed Bear J
• BBC
• Personal

Whoa! 200 books -- have you read them? Would like to read them? Likely never to read them? Make your own list.

As an aside, I copied this list from someone else, and all the numbers were not an ordered list, but actually hand-entered. As well, there were line breaks and other formatting interspersed. It took me all of a minute or two and several well-placed regular expressions to clean it up and format it nicely: Armed Bear J, take a bow.

And now, the books. Bold for read. Others had "started but didn't finish", but I'm hard pressed to think of books I never finished reading, unless I never really started.

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling

   I read all the Harry Potter's in one go some Christmas' past, at Kate's aunt and uncle's place in Nanaimo.

6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis

   The whole series of course, not just this book.

10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett

    My dad just finished reading this, translated into German.

34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams

    Rabbits!

43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
<li<strong>>The BFG, Roald Dahl
56. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome

    The cover had kids in sailing dinghies, which is sort of what this is about.

57. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
58. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
59. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
60. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
61. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
62. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
63. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
64. Mort, Terry Pratchett
65. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
66. The Magus, John Fowles
67. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
68. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
69. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
70. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
71. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
72. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
73. Matilda, Roald Dahl
74. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
75. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
76. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
77. Ulysses, James Joyce
78. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
79. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
80. The Twits, Roald Dahl
81. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
82. Holes, Louis Sachar
83. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
84. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
85. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
86. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
87. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
88. Magician, Raymond E Feist

    This is one book I can visually remember reading. Actually, many of the read names on this list evoke a picture of the cover or a certain feel of the book. This book I distinctly remember reading on the way to my parents' cabin at Deka Lake, in the car, and it was the hard cover version with the black cover, from the West Van Library. Pretty much all the Feist books are good, but the earlier ones in the Magician series are particularly worthwhile.

89. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
90. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
91. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
92. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
93. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
94. Katherine, Anya Seton
95. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
96. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
97. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
98. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
99. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
100. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
101. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
102. The Beach, Alex Garland
103. Dracula, Bram Stoker
104. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz
105. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens
106. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz
107. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
108. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
109. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
110. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy
111. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾, Sue Townsend
112. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
113. Les Misérables, Victor Hugo
114. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
115. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
116. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson
117. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
118. Shogun, James Clavell
119. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
120. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson
121. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
122. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
123. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
124. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
125. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
126. Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison
127. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
128. Possession, A. S. Byatt
129. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
130. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
131. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl

     This is a sad but good book. I remember the pheasant poaching by soaking raisins in gin, then stuffing them in powdered aspirin.

132. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck
133. George's Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl
134. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
135. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
136. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
137. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
138. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson
139. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson
140. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
141. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson
142. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
143. It, Stephen King

     The movie for this (a made for TV one that was 6 hours long when shown with commercials) was filled on Bowen Island. Well, the part where the lake is, anyway. Gave me nightmares for a long time, and is why I don't like clowns.

144. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
145. The Green Mile, Stephen King
146. Papillon, Henri Charriere
147. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett
148. Master And Commander, Patrick O'Brian
149. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz
150. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
151. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett
152. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
153. Atonement, Ian McEwan
154. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
155. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier
156. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
157. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
158. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
159. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon
160. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
161. River God, Wilbur Smith
162. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
163. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
164. The World According To Garp, John Irving

     There's a movie starring a young Robin Williams based on this book.

165. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore
166. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson
167. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye
168. The Witches, Roald Dahl
169. Charlotte's Web, E. B. White
170. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
171. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
172. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway
173. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco
174. Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder
175. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson
176. Fantastic Mr Fox, Roald Dahl
177. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
178. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
179. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
180. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson
181. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
182. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay

     I recently read another book by Bryce Courtenay -- Matthew Flinder's Cat. Another really great book that talks actually about alcoholism and redemption.

183. Silas Marner, George Eliot
184. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
185. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Grossmith
186. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
187. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine
188. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
189. Sons And Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
190. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
191. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons
192. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
193. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells
194. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans
195. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
196. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
197. The Once And Future King, T. H. White
198. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
199. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews

Via Kyle, breebop, arwen, Robin, Tinka, and the source is apparently the BBCi Big Read. The ordering/ranking were apparently all votes from the British public. Why can't the CBC do something like this?