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Friday, May 12, 2006

So Ashamed: Top 8 Books I Can't Believe I Haven't Read

Thanks, Ryan, for giving me the idea for this week's list.

I've always been a big reader. The first book I ever read by myself (I think I was 7) was Tom Saywer. Granted, it was a Children's Condensed Classics version with a picture on every other page. But I read the unabridged version a year later, so I can still claim it, I think.

I read Pride and Predjudice when I was 10 and Gone With the Wind when I was 12. I spent the summer between 6th and 7th grade reading Shakespeare. I still remember whole sonnets without trying. One day while I was goofing around on Priscilla's charminly Elizabethan balcony, I discovered that I had accidentally memorized whole scenes from Romeo and Juliet.

I once got grounded for a year because I kept getting caught staying up till the wee small hours of the morning reading when I was supposed to be sleeping. And that was the only time I ever got grounded. Did you catch that? The only thing I ever got grounded for was reading too much, people!

I am a big, big book nerd.

So you'd think I was pretty well-read, wouldn't you? I thought that, too. Until I realized how many of the BIG books I haven't read. I'm more than a little embarrassed to admit this, but confession is good for the soul. Maybe the shame will motivate me to read some of these:

1.) To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee

2.) War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy

3.) Moby Dick, Herman Melville

4.) The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand

5.) Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger

6.) The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck

7.) The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

8.) A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway

I know. I can't believe it either. You'd think I would have read at least half of them as required reading for all the jillion English/Lit classes I've taken. If someone had assigned them, I would have read them. But NOOOOOOOO. They were not on the list. So I ignored them.

I'm so ashamed.

15 Comments:

  • I don't feel so bad now :) I thought the same thing, Gina...but I have read all but 3 books on your list!!!

    YEAH FOR ME!!!!!!!!

    Of coarse I am a few years older than you...ya that's it.

    By Blogger dodyb, at 2:16 PM  

  • I make a painful confession, and you come here and gloat? Glad to see you haven't changed, Miss Dody. Hee hee!

    Seriously, yay for Dody! Good job, I'm impressed.

    And we won't talk about the age thing. We're all 25 on the inside. (Or maybe 6, but who's counting?)

    By Blogger Unknown, at 3:29 PM  

  • read catcher in the rye.

    immediately.

    it's unreal good.

    By Blogger rebecca marie, at 4:01 PM  

  • See, I've had an irrational aversion to Catcher in the Rye ever since the biggest posers in my Jr. High decided that the sun shone out of JD Salinger's arse. I rebelled against reading it because those punks liked it--I was afraid I'd like it and have something in common with THEM. But I suppose it's probably time to get over that, since it was 87 years ago and all.

    By Blogger Unknown, at 4:26 PM  

  • So, ive read 4 on the list, but you must read to kill a mockingbird, and catcher in rye. Good stuff, thats why they are classics i guess. I think dodyb has read every single book in the world except the 3 she said she didnt read on you list, but she cheats...she reads like every 3 words, and finishes the book like in 3 minutes, and then she can't remember what she has read and she reads books several times without realizing it. so i don't think that counts.

    By Blogger Lisa, at 4:45 PM  

  • To Kill a Mockingbird is definitely the one I'm most interested in reading. I've seen parts of the movie with Gregory Peck, and his character reminds me of my dad in a lot of ways.

    By Blogger Unknown, at 4:49 PM  

  • don't feel too bad. I haven't read any of those either. Ok... I read To Kill A Mockingbird in the 5th grade. And I read the Fountain Head for English Honors in Highschool... and I think Grapes of Wrath too... but the other ones... why would anyone want to read those (Ayn Rand is a butt pirate)

    By Blogger arwen, at 7:19 PM  

  • Life is too short to read Moby Dick.

    By Blogger Lindsey, at 10:17 PM  

  • Indeed, life is too short to read Moby Dick. My ex-roommate and good friend, Trey, theorizes that no one has actually read MD. He believes that a lot of people like to talk about symbolism and whatnot because it allows them to pretend that the actually read it.

    I confirmed his belief by admiting that, though I read the bulk of the book, I skipped some of the more tedious passages. Let me clarify just how boring Moby Dick is: I wore out the book of Leviticus in my Bible; I couldn't finish Moby Dick.

    By Blogger Unknown, at 2:56 PM  

  • I don't know if I'm feeln' the new look. It runs into your posts and it'a hard to read and all! Not that you asked... but I just thought I'd put it out there!

    By Blogger Kara Deal, at 6:43 PM  

  • call me old and feeble minded... but i honestly don't recall if we were at columbia together. did we just do the church thing? i swear... no one at cchs (when i was there anyway) had read catcher in the rye. so if you were there, and people had read it... you had a MUCH more enlightened class.

    By Blogger rebecca marie, at 10:54 AM  

  • Rebecca,

    Okay, you're old and feeble-minded. I was at CCHS from 1990 till I graduated in 1993. I think you were a senior when I was a sophomore. You were in the same class as Wade and a year ahead of Dan Utter, right?

    I don't think Catcher in the Rye was assigned reading at CCHS, but we had some super-smart types (Nathan Hartman and Jenny Long and their ilk) who probably read it for fun. I went to Gladstone HS before CCHS and I think they may have had it assigned in the normal English class (I was in AP and had to read Black Boy and The Odyssey,.)

    Actually, doesn't CitR have a plethora of swears? So maybe it was too profanity-riddled to be assigned reading. Maybe all my angsty teen friends read it on their own. See, I'm old and feeble-minded, too.

    By Blogger Unknown, at 12:33 PM  

  • Clarification: No one from Columbia turned me against CitR. It was a few select posers from my Gladstone days that made me hate it by association.

    By Blogger Unknown, at 12:35 PM  

  • yes.. it is cursetacular. read it, even still.

    also. yes. you have my year correct. when church/school/camp yamhill mesh so tightly, it is sometimes hard to make separations.

    By Blogger rebecca marie, at 1:36 PM  

  • I hear ya. I used to be really good at remembering names and connections and details like that--even random birthdays. But I'm older now and I'm doing well if I remember my nephews' names.

    By Blogger Unknown, at 5:03 PM  

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