How Could I Resist?

I have seen this meme in a few corners of Blogville and at some of my regular haunts (4andcounting, SFO Mom), and as a card-carrying (diploma-carrying?) English major and bibliophile, I had to do this. It's a little like Whisper Down the Alley - every list I see is just a smidge different than the one I saw before it, as I'm sure it will be with my list.

KEY:
Bold type = a book I've read
Italics = a book I want to read
Strike Through = a book I don't want to read or one I really disliked
Underline = books in my personal library
* = books I've never heard of
! = I loved it! I laughed, I cried, it was better than Cats! I heartily recommend this book!
(Any colored text is just some added editorializing, because you know my two cents are burning a hole in my pocket!)

The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) ! Elizabeth, Darcy - I can never get enough.
To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee) ! Who doesn't love this?
Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien) I have never read these, but I feel like seeing the movies is the next best thing. Somewhere, my husband hangs his head and weeps. I'm sure I will get to them eventually
The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery) ! My ALL-TIME favorite fiction book (and series of books) EVER. I have loved Anne since the moment I read the first page, and my copies are worn and tattered from so much re-reading.
Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Rowling) !
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling) !
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban(Rowling) !
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire(Rowling) !
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling) !
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Rowling) !
Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
The Stand (Stephen King)
Ulysses (James Joyce) Oh yeah, baby. Read this in college and struggled through every.single.page. You know it's going to be hard when your professor tells you "Good Luck with understanding this." Amy feels my pain.
Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) ! Sometimes I feel like the first Mrs. Rochester . . .
The Hobbit (Tolkien) I read almost all of this, so I am taking credit for it. And the tears of my husband keep flowing . . .
The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger) !
Little Women (Louisa May Alcott) ! I cried when Jo cut off her hair.
The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte) ! "I am Heathcliff!"
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)
Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
1984 (Orwell) !
The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett) *
The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)*
Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister (Gregory Maguire)
The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
Bible ! I italicized the Bible because I always want to read more.
Anna Karenina (Tolstoy) !
The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt) !
The Blue Sword (Robin Mckinley)*
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)*
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 (Leo Tolstoy) !
Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
The Hiding Place (Corrie Tin Boon)
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 (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
Shogun (James Clavell)
The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett) !
Redeeming Love (Francine Rivers)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith) !
The World According To Garp (John Irving)
The Giver (Lois Lowry)
Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White) !
Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)*
Of Mice And Men (John Steinbeck) !
Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)*
Emma (Jane Austen)
Watership Down (Richard Adams)
Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)*
Blindness (Jose Saramago)
Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer) *
Any works by Shakespeare ! How can you not include old Bill on this list?
The Talisman (Stephen King)
Lord of the Flies (Golding) !
The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
Paradise Lost (John Milton) This one's a toughie, but worth it. I had an entire class in college on this one poem, and we probably could have had an entire class on just one quarter of what we covered. Lots of brainwork.
The Canterbury Tales (Chaucer) I had a prof. in college who made us memorize the prologue and recite it to her - in medieval English! She was hard-core, but an awesome teacher. I am ashamed to admit that, while I was her student, I didn't give her the credit where credit was SO due. At least hindsight is 20/20.
The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
Lightning (Dean Koontz)*
The Diary of Anne Frank (Anne Frank) ! Love, love, love this book. Makes me feel so small, but in a good "get over yourself" kind of way.


Whoa -this took me much longer than I expected! As you can see, we own quite a few books named on this list, but not all of them are in bold print. That's because Rob is like a reading robot Renaissance man who reads stuff like Bleak House (another Dickens gem) just for laughs. He kicks my butt at reading the classics! When I had my Shakespeare course in college, Rob, who was in med school up in NY, decided to buy himself a copy of Shakespeare's complete works and read along with my coursework. You know, in case he had some time in between seeing patients, going to class, and staying up all night while he was on call. Do you see why I married him?
I'm not going to specifically tag anyone for this, because it is long and all my peeps are uber-busy women, but I know Amy would get a kick out of it. If anyone decides to tackle it, let me know in the comments.