Comments on: Does This List Make You Feel Stupid?

By: Paulette

Paulette — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 02:17:21 +0000

Well, I’ve read over half of them and still feel stupid! Recalling some that I bluffed my way through and others that I cannot believe that I still have not read! Anyone who says they have read Ulysses is lying. :=)

By: popculturenerd

popculturenerd — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:48:37 +0000

I think Steinbeck's The Pearl has been criminally underrated as well. That book was only a slim volume but socked me in the solar plexus emotionally. Talk about maximum impact from minimum words.

By: yeti9000

yeti9000 — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:30:36 +0000

Oh man…I do feel stupid…I’ve only read twelve of the books on this list! Urgh…

Funny how they always overlook my favorite Steinbeck novel, EAST OF EDEN, in favor of THE GRAPES OF WRATH. Don’t know why the do that, and then give SHAKESPEARE three slots? Um, hello, my boy Steinbeck deserves at least two spots on the countdown!

Glad to see BRIDESHEAD REVISITED on there though, that is another of my all-time favorite books! So, yay for Evelyn Waugh! 🙂

By: Shelley P

Shelley P — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:50:52 +0000

Neither of those was on my high school curriculum or maybe I’d have learned about CliffsNotes a long time ago! But I’m happy to add an extra honorary seven books to my total like Poncho, having also read the entire Narnia series and The Hobbit. 😉

By: Poncho

Poncho — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:09:40 +0000

In my defense, the only Russian book that I recall having read The Brothers Karamazov and it was hard (it definitely helped that I read it in spanish!). About Marquez's El amor en los tiempos del colera, 'though it's a great book, One Hundred Years of Solitude's very own Macondo is by far a much better book, IMHO. And the other books I wrote have a bigger place in my heart. Rayuela is just amazing... two books in one (I recommend you to read it, even if you find it in english, because it's huge, and you HAVE to read it twice). Ohhhh.... and you've got to read Mario Vargas Llosa's Pantaleon y las visitadoras (Captain Pantoja and the Special Service), one of his classics, and just funny as hell.

By: popculturenerd

popculturenerd — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:48:50 +0000

I count His Dark Materials as 3 books, too (see my response to Poncho).

I think I’ll be behind you in the checkout line at the library!

By: popculturenerd

popculturenerd — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:46:55 +0000

Shelley P, I hate to admit it but I relied on Cliffs Notes a couple times in school. The required reading was so excruciatingly dry that I just couldn't finish it but had to write book reports. This happened with Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie (I really had a block when it came to him) and James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans. Interestingly enough, when the latter was made into a movie, I loved it. Maybe if I'd imagined Hawkeye to be as hot as Daniel Day-Lewis, I would've been able to finish the book! I'm extremely flattered you keep a PCN reading list of contemporary titles.

By: popculturenerd

popculturenerd — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:29:44 +0000

Poncho, you bring up a good point. Though this list contains a few titles translated from other languages, it probably qualifies as a "top books" list only in English-speaking countries. I read these books in school but schoolchildren in, oh, Yemen are likely subjected to different curriculum. I agree that Le Petit Prince should be on the list but haven't read the others you mentioned. What about Marquez's El Amor en los Tiempos del Colera? I'm impressed you've read The Brothers Karamazov. Russian Lit is definitely not one of my strengths. By the way, I think your number is much higher than 6.5. You read all those Lord of the Rings books (how are you supposed to stop at just one?) so that increases your number by 3 right there. His Dark Materials should count as 3 entries so that's another 2 for you. And there are 7 Narnia books so if you've read them all, you can add 6 more to your total. That comes out to 17.5! It's higher than my number and you're from a non-native-English-speaking country!

By: Shelley P

Shelley P — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 01:11:58 +0000

LOL! No, actually I had to google to find out what CliffsNotes are. If I’m going to read the book, I’m going to read the book. All eleven of the books on the list that I had read, I read while at school. In entirety. 😉 It doesn’t make me feel stupid, but reminds me that I could read a book a week for the rest of my life and there would still be countless amazing ones I’d never get to. So I’d better get a wriggle on.

Now I have two reading lists to work through: Newsweek’s Top 100 for classics, and PCN’s for contemporary!

By: EIREGO

EIREGO — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 23:48:15 +0000

OMG! I’ve only read 5 of them! Unless you count His Dark Materials as 3 books (which they are, BTW).

I feel not as well read as I thought I was. I’m off to the library as I write this. (LOL!)