nouveau library
So I heard this story on NPR today. I think it would be good for the nouveau riche who want to create an instant library. I although thought it would be fun if we looked at this list and made the embarassing realization that we are all drastically underread (except maybe liz the english major). I'll start by saying how many of these books I've read: 47. How many of them have you read? The oddest book on the list that I've read: Piers the Ploughman (one of my favorites, actually). Best title on the list "Gentlement prefer blondes but gentlemen marry brunettes."
posted by Jen @ 3:12 PM
8 comments
8 Comments:
I made it half way through the B section of the page and gave up. I'm going to guess about 20-30 of the books. That's a complete shot in the dark.
And I took honors and AP english all through high school. Maybe my school was too liberal. I read a lot of excerpts, short stories and articles. These wouldn't be a book collection (most likely).
one oh eight. gah.
I suck. I've only read 18 of these. The strangest being "The Epic of Gilgamesh," which we read in tenth grade as part of our unit on Mesopotamia.
I've read exceprts from a lot of these books, but they were part of bigger English textbooks with names like "Broadening Your Horizons."
I'm a literary failure.
Welcome to the literary failure club; we have jackets.
I actually have one of my high school text books. I talked one of my high school teachers into letting me have it because I was a teacher's pet. The book is called (hold on) "Literature" with the subtitle "Structure, Sound, and Sense".
My english teachers were really big on themes. They put together sorta course packs so that our discussions always seemed to follow this logic: "This theme is about the journey that a man must follow and the role of free will versus destiny. We'll start by reading this one act from Shakespeare, followed by these four chapters from Huck Fin, the first half of "Lord of the Flies" and two short stories from Poe."
At the time, I felt like my reading was really broad and meaningful. Now I just feel like I missed out. Of course, I hope that part of my analytical abilities derived from those kinds of analyses. Who knows.
108?? holy crap, yo. I haven't counted yet, but this will give me something useless to do tomorrow... :)
I aim to help all those interested (except mr. dirty) to waste as much time as possible.
Holy crap liz, 108!! The old lady from NPR who interviewed the penguin people said she'd only read 75 of them. You are our literary queen!!!
The Inferno is on there twice... does that count as 2?
Also, am I the only one amused that the list contains Far From The Maddening Crowd ?
My final count is 46 (missed it by that much). There are definitely some classic-type books I read in high school that aren't on the list, though.
Having seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail a few hundred times doesn't qualify as having read Le Morte d'Arthur, does it?
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