I have read A Brief History of Time. I have no idea of what it said or how it ended, though. I'm waiting for the movie to come out.

I have read 9. Two in their original (non English) languages.

meh

Why isn't the Bible on that list? Most people who claim things based on its contents do not seem to have actually read it.

I've read fairly large sections of it just to know what's what when trying to counter idiocy.

I started to read Satanic Verses when it was first released, and just couldn't get past the first chapter without getting too bored to continue. I tried again several years later and a few years after that, and the same thing happened.

I assume that the Ayatollah called for a Fatwa on Rushdie just because he was such a shiatty writer.

I've read 2 2/7ths: Canterbury and Brief History of Time in full and parts of Democracy in America. The only other book in that slideshow I have any interest in reading is Don Quixote.

I've read 4 of them.

I've read one. I prefer picture books.

No Pynchon? Unpossible!

FredaDeStilleto: coco ebert: No Pynchon? Unpossible!

I expected to see Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago on the list.

I have that waiting on my shelf. Is it unbearable?

There are.....14 books....

Never read any of them. Why would I lie about reading any one of these? I read contemporary non-fiction. None of this makes me better or worse than anyone else.

Read 4, only one by choice as an adult (Hawking). Bonus, was also forced to read "Finnegan's Wake" (mentioned under Ulysses) in high school. It sucked. Canterbury Tales was the biggest waste of educational resource ever consumed. We spent nearly 3 months on that piece of crap.

I've read two of those, both for school. Christmas Carol and Moby Dick.

The Fourth Karamazov: Outtaphase: Read 4, only one by choice as an adult (Hawking). Bonus, was also forced to read "Finnegan's Wake" (mentioned under Ulysses) in high school. It sucked. Canterbury Tales was the biggest waste of educational resource ever consumed. We spent nearly 3 months on that piece of crap.

What high school teacher would assign Finnegan's Wake?


One who hadn't actually read it, but claimed to and wanted the kids to write essays so that s/he knew what it was about in case anyone asked.

The Fourth Karamazov: What high school teacher would assign Finnegan's Wake?

It wasn't a teacher, it was part of the generic summer reading list dictated by some board of future HOA administrators or something I think.

The Fourth Karamazov: Maybe Ulysses for an AP English class

AP? That was standard basic required English Lit at my high school, as was Canterbury Tales. It was a private school, but not really a notch above the local public fare at the time.

My van is named The Pequod. Melville did the first soft core T&A for American magazines. He also did a number of excellent short stories of which I suggest "The Lightning-Rod Man" as outstanding.

The Fourth Karamazov: Canterbury Tales is much easier than Ulysses. I can't really see high school students getting that much out of Ulysses without it taking a LONG time.

I don't remember which year was which, but we did spend a long time on Ulysses, and I found it quite accessible and enjoyable at the time. I don't recall it being overly complex, but it did take time.

"Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages"

/Middle English motherfarker, do you speak it?

Kublai Khan: But Finnegan's Wake? No no no.

I'm going to have to go back and check that one out again. There was no classroom instruction on it, it was just part of a "did you read the summer list" test we had to take when we came back. Maybe it was part of some psychotic experiment or something.

The Fourth Karamazov: 2wolves: My van is named The Pequod. Melville did the first soft core T&A for American magazines. He also did a number of excellent short stories of which I suggest "The Lightning-Rod Man" as outstanding.

"Bartleby, the Scrivener" is a favorite of mine.

Bartleby is fairly well known. There is a ton of Melville that most folks are woefully ignorant of.

I totally read that entire slideshow.

Why isn't Steinbeck on this list? Or Stephen King? Or Mark Twain?

People claim to have read Steinbeck and haven't. No reason to read King...just wait for the movie or the SciFi special. And Mark Twain wrote Huckleberry Finn the great American novel...and it was just meh but at least it wasn't 1000 pages.

I've read one of the books on the list, and some of the Canterbury Tales. Really don't have much desire to read the others.

This is a late parrot: So I haven't read any of them.

You think you better than me?

I'm not. You got a problem with that?

/SAN DIMAS HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL RULES!!!

I've read A Brief History of Time and War and Peace. Started some of the others.

SouthernManDunWrong: It took me weeks of 15 hour days to get through War and Peace (not a bad read).

Too much Peace and not enough War. Found it interesting when they were going off about the the war but as soon as it switched back and we had three pages dealing with a stupid ball gown or something I wanted to throw it against a wall. Also remember being aggravated when it seemed to come to a logical ending point and you realize there's something like 200 pages left in the book.

Salman Rusdie is a very capable writer, but The Satanic Verses is, like The Moor's Last Sigh, quite dense and ponderous. Midnight's Children is really his masterpiece.