Right Wing Nation

Yes, yes, I hate memes. But I saw this one at Tense Teacher, and thought it was interesting — though I changed it a little and I might add that it’s a strange list (why do I get the impression much of this list was compiled by somebody who chooses reading material off the supermarket shelf or the Oprah book club?), so I added some of the missing classics at the end. Yes, there are more I didn’t add. Feel free.

Look at the list of books below.
Bold the ones you’ve read.
Italicize the ones you want to read.
Strike out the ones that you aren’t interested in (or have never heard of).
If you are reading this, tag, you’re it!

• The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
  I tried, but I couldn’t get into it. Sorry.

• Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
• To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
• Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
• The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
• The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
• The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
• Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
• Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
• A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
  I have never read a Harry Potter book. To be honest, though I am glad kids are reading them, I don’t feel much impulse to pick up a Harry Potter book, though perhaps I will one of these days.

• Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
• A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
• Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
• Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
• The Stand (Stephen King)
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
• Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
• The Hobbit (Tolkien)
• The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
• Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
• The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
• Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
  I read it. Utter tripe. Possibly one of the ten most overrated books of the last fifty years, along with Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, again, utter crap.

• Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
• The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
• East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
• Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
• Dune (Frank Herbert)
• The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
  Who?

• Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
• 1984 (Orwell)
• The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
  Another highly overrated book, partly because Bradley is at best a mediocre author. If you’re interested in the Arthurian saga, T. H. White’s Once and Future King is a masterpiece. If you’re interested in alternative Arthurian sagas, Gillian Bradshaw’s trilogy Hawk of May, Kingdom of Summer, and In Winter’s Shadow is well worth your time. But Bradley? It’s horse manure.

• The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
• The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
• I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
• The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
• The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
• The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
  Speaking of utter tripe . . .

• The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
• Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
  Somebody actually published a book with this stupid title?

• The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
• Bible
• Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
• The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
• Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
• The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
• She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
• The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
• A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
• Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
• Great Expectations (Dickens)
• The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
• The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
• The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
• The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
• The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
• Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
• The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
• War and Peace (Tolsoy)
• Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
• Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
• One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
• The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
• Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
• Les Miserables (Hugo)
• The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
• Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
• Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
• Shogun (James Clavell)
• The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
  I get all horrified just thinking about reading this — I couldn’t stand fifteen minutes of the movie.

• The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
• The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
• The World According To Garp (John Irving)
• The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
• Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
• Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
• Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
• Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
• Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
  I did read a couple of his books, and threw them away. Goodkind is one of the worst of the Tolkien-wannabes.

• Emma (Jane Austen)
• Watership Down (Richard Adams)
  If you’ve never read this book, you should.

• Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
• The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
• Blindness (Jose Saramago)
• Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
• In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
• Lord of the Flies (Golding)
• The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
• The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
• The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
  I’m not a spy novel fan.

• The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
• White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
• A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
• The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
• Ulysses (James Joyce)
• The Sound and the Fury (William Faulkner)
• Absolom! Absolom! (William Faulkner)
• Light in August (William Faulkner)
• The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway)
• The Sun Also Rises (Ernest Hemingway)
• Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov)
• Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad)
• The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne)
• House of the Seven Gables (Nathaniel Hawthorne)
• Moby Dick (Herman Melville)
• Animal Farm (George Orwell)