The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

Thank you for joining me for Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

The first ray of light which illumines the gloom, and converts into a dazzling brilliancy that obscurity in which the earlier history of the public career of the immortal Pickwick would appear to be involved, is derived from the perusal of the following entry in the Transactions of the Pickwick Club, which the editor of these papers feels the highest pleasure in laying before his readers, as a proof of the careful attention, indefatigable assiduity, and nice discrimination, with which his search among the multifarious documents confided to him has been conducted.

-- from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens. That is the kind of long, shaggy opening sentence I love and anticipate from Charles Dickens. 

It's October, which means it is time to read Victorian literature in celebration of Victober! Victober is the best thing I ever picked up from Instagram. Do you participate?

This year, The Pickwick Papers is my Victober choice. I'm a big fan of Dickens and, while there are a few of his books I've read multiple times, there are still a few I've never read. The Pickwick Papers is one of them. I don't know much about it, other than that it is one of his funnier books. I am only a few chapters in and I agree. So far, I love it. 

The Pickwick Papers is a long book! You can see in the above picture that my edition fills three volumes. I decided to read it with my ears and the audiobook is 31 hours long!

Have you read it? 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 is a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings. The idea is to share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of your featured book. If you are reading an ebook or audiobook, find your teaser from the 56% mark.

Freda at Freda's Voice started and hosted The Friday 56 for a long, long time. She is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. Please visit Anne's blog and link to your Friday 56 post.

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from The Pickwick Papers:

Fastened up behind the barouche was a hamper of spacious dimensions--one of those hampers which always awakens in a contemplative mind associations connected with cold fowls, tongues, and bottles of wine--and on the box sat a fat and red-faced boy, in a state of somnolency, whom no speculative observer could have regarded for an instant without setting down as the official dispenser of the contents of the before-mentioned hamper, when the proper time for their consumption should arrive.

Mr. Pickwick had bestowed a hasty glance on these interesting objects, when he was again greeted by his faithful disciple.

Here, members of the Pickwick Club are embarking on a journey. I love the description of their picnic basket. It reminds me of scenes in The Wind in the Willows.  

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

Journey through the English countryside with the inimitable Mr. Samuel Pickwick in Charles Dickens' first novel, a delightful tapestry of episodic misadventures, colorful characters, and sparkling wit. As founder of the Pickwick Club, Mr. Pickwick, accompanied by his loyal friends, embarks on a series of whimsical excursions. From the bustling streets of London to quiet country inns, their travels are punctuated by chance encounters, misunderstandings, and comic predicaments, all narrated with Dickens' signature blend of satire, humor, and keen observation of human nature.

Book List: Books Read in 2023

BOOKS READ IN 2023

Every year, usually in January, I post a list of the books I read the prior year. My master list of the books I read on LibraryThing.

Here's the list of the 139 books I read in 2023, in the order I read them. Usually, I read 100 - 110 books in a year. I don't know how I finished 30+ more in 2023.

Notes about my rating system are below the list.

1. Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
2. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens (abridged*) 
3. Mystical Paths by Susan Howatch 🌹🌹🌹🌹
4. Know Your Style: Mix It, Match It, Love It by Alyson Walsh 🌹🌹🌹
5. The Big Four by Agatha Christie 🌹🌹🌹🌹
6. The Parasites by Daphne du Maurier 🌹🌹🌹
7. Slightly Foxed: String is My Foible, Vol. 76 by Gail Pirkis (Ed.) 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
8. Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
9. Playing for the Ashes by Elizabeth George 🌹🌹🌹🌹
10. A German Requiem by Philip Kerr 🌹🌹🌹🌹
11. The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy 🌹🌹🌹🌹
12. Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
13. Waverley by Sir Walter Scott 🌹🌹🌹
14. The King's General by Daphne du Maurier 🌹🌹🌹🌹
15. Resurrection Men by Ian Rankin 🌹🌹🌹🌹
16. The Waste Land & Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
17. The Maid by Nita Prose 🌹🌹🌹🌹
18. The Twist of a Knife by Anthony Horowitz 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
19. Hill House Living: The Art of Creating a Joyful Life by Paula Sutton 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
20. The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark 🌹🌹🌹1/2
21. The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Grof 🌹🌹🌹🌹
22. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
23. Oregon Confetti by Lee Oser 🌹🌹🌹
24. The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister 🌹🌹🌹1/2
25. The Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny 🌹🌹🌹🌹
26. Mrs. Ted Bliss by Stanley Elkin 🌹🌹🌹🌹1/2
27. Rule Britannia by Daphne du Maurier 🌹🌹🌹🌹
28. The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
29. Even the Dead by Benjamin Black 🌹🌹🌹🌹
30. The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
31. The Snowman by Jo Nesbo 🌹🌹
32. Winston Churchill: Painting on the French Riviera by Paul Rafferty 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
33. A Question of Blood by Ian Rankin 🌹🌹🌹🌹
34. Slightly Foxed, A Date With Iris, Vol. 25 by Gail Pirkis (Ed.) 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
35. A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne 🌹🌹🌹1/2
36. Trailing: A Memoir by Kristin Louise Duncombe 🌹🌹🌹🌹
37. April in Spain by John Banville 🌹🌹🌹1/2
38. Five Flights Up: Sex, Love, and Family, from Paris to Lyon by Kristin Louise Duncombe 🌹🌹🌹🌹
39. The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade 🌹🌹🌹1/2
40. A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny 🌹🌹🌹🌹
41. Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents by Rod Dreher 🌹🌹🌹1/2
42. The Flight of the Falcon by Daphne du Maurier 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
43. The Holy Bible, King James Version 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹 (duh)
44. On Cussing: Bad Words and Creative Cursing by Katherine Dunn 🌹🌹🌹
45. In the Presence of the Enemy by Elizabeth George 🌹🌹🌹🌹
46. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
47. Dragons & Pagodas: A Celebration of Chinoiserie by Aldous Bertram 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
48. Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen by Laurie Colwin 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
49. So Big by Edna Ferber 🌹🌹🌹🌹
50. The Magic Barrel by Bernard Malamud 🌹🌹🌹🌹
51. A Cordiall Water: A Garland of Odd and Old Receipts to Assuage the Ills of Man and Beast by M.F.K. Fisher 🌹🌹🌹1/2
52. Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz 🌹🌹🌹
53. Glass Houses by Louise Penny 🌹🌹🌹🌹
54. Fleshmarket Close by Ian Rankin 🌹🌹🌹🌹
55. People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry 🌹🌹🌹🌹
56. Mapp & Lucia by E. F. Benson 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
57. The Birds and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier 🌹🌹🌹🌹
58. Black Dogs by Ian McEwan 🌹🌹🌹1/2
59. Mystic River by Dennis Lehane 🌹🌹🌹🌹
60. Slightly Foxed: Beside the Seaside, Vol. 75 by Gail Perkis (Ed.) 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
61. More Home Cooking: A Writer Returns to the Kitchen by Laurie Colwin 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
62. Deception on His Mind by Elizabeth George 🌹🌹🌹🌹
63. Horse by Geraldine Brooks 🌹🌹🌹🌹1/2
64. Frenchman's Creek by Daphne du Maurier 🌹🌹🌹🌹1/2
65. Lucia's Progress by E. F. Benson 🌹🌹🌹🌹
66. Kingdom of the Blind by Louise Penny 🌹🌹🌹🌹
67. Trouble for Lucia by E. F. Benson 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
68. The Red Notebook by Antoine Laurain 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
69. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
70. Ms. Demeanor by Elinor Lipman 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
71. The Grave Gourmet by Alexander Campion 🌹🌹
72. Assignment in Brittany by Helen MacInnes 🌹🌹🌹🌹
73. A Simple Country Murder by Blythe Baker 🌹🌹🌹🌹
74. In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner by Elizabeth George 🌹🌹🌹🌹
75. Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There by David Brooks 🌹🌹🌹🌹
76. Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh  🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
77. The Sellout by Paul Beatty 🌹🌹🌹
78. A Better Man by Louise Penny 🌹🌹🌹🌹
79. French Ways and Their Meaning by Edith Wharton 🌹🌹🌹
80. Slightly Foxed: Laughter in the Library, Vol. 77 by Gail Pirkis (Ed.) 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
81. Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu 🌹🌹🌹🌹
82. The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham 🌹🌹🌹🌹1/2
83. S. by John Updike 🌹🌹🌹🌹1/2
84. Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
85. The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel 🌹🌹🌹
86. Three Fires by Denise Mina 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
87. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹 
88. Dusk and Other Stories by James Salter 🌹🌹
89. The Naming of the Dead by Ian Rankin 🌹🌹🌹🌹
90. Prisoner of Brenda: Curses, Nurses, and a Ticket to Bedlam by Colin Bateman 🌹🌹🌹🌹 
91. Snow by John Banville 🌹🌹🌹🌹1/2
92. Blood From a Stone: A Memoir of How Wine Brought Me Back from the Dead by Adam S. McHugh 🌹🌹🌹🌹
93. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders 🌹🌹🌹🌹
94. After Many a Summer Dies the Swan by Aldous Huxley 🌹🌹🌹🌹
95. All the Devils are Here by Louise Penny 🌹🌹🌹🌹1/2
96. My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
97. The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron 🌹🌹🌹🌹
98. The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
99. Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham 🌹🌹
100. He Said He Would Be Late by Justine Sullivan 🌹🌹🌹1/2
101. A Traitor to Memory by Elizabeth George 🌹🌹🌹🌹
102. Tom Lake by Ann Patchet 🌹🌹🌹🌹1/2
103. Scandinavian Noir: In Pursuit of a Mystery by Wendy Lesser 🌹🌹🌹
104. Venice Observed by Mary McCarthy 🌹🌹🌹1/2
105. Exit Music by Ian Rankin 🌹🌹🌹🌹
106. Liza of Lambeth by W. Somerset Mugham 🌹🌹🌹
107. One More Seat at the Rounds Table by Susan Dormady Eisenberg 🌹🌹🌹1/2
108. Mating by Norman Rush 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
109. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
110. The Chosen by Chaim Potok 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
111. The Bullet That Missed by Richard Osman 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
112. The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
113. Hungry Hill by Daphne du Maurier 🌹🌹🌹🌹
114. The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens 🌹🌹🌹🌹
115. The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession by Susan Orlean 🌹🌹🌹🌹
116. The Collected Poems by W. B. Yeats 🌹🌹🌹🌹
117. Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
118. The Long Good-Bye by Raymond Chandler 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
119. The Man with Two Left Feet by P. G. Wodehouse 🌹🌹🌹🌹
120. Black Mischief by Evelyn Waugh 🌹🌹🌹🌹
121. Lost for Words by Edward St. Aubyn 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
122. In Search of a Character: Two African Journals by Graham Greene 🌹🌹🌹
123. A Place of Hiding by Elizabeth George 🌹🌹🌹🌹
124. A World of Curiosities by Louise Penny 🌹🌹🌹🌹
125. The Prince and Betty by P. G. Wodehouse 🌹🌹🌹1/2
126. Innocent Blood by P. D. James 🌹🌹🌹🌹
127. Saints of the Shadow Bible by Ian Rankin 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
128. Yellowface by R. F. Kuang 🌹🌹🌹🌹
129. The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman 🌹🌹🌹🌹
130. The Bear Comes Home by Rafi Zabor 🌹🌹🌹
131. Straight Man by Richard Russo 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
132. Piccadilly Jim by P. G. Wodehouse 🌹🌹🌹1/2
133. The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham 🌹🌹🌹🌹
134. Even Dogs in the Wild by Ian Rankin 🌹🌹🌹🌹
135. The Complete Lord Peter Wimsey Stories by Dorothy L. Sayers 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
136. Aqua Alta by Donna Leon 🌹🌹🌹🌹
137. The Spring by Megan Weiler 🌹🌹🌹1/2
138. The Tuscan Year: Life and Food in an Italian Valley by Elizabeth Romer 🌹🌹🌹🌹
139. War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

* I didn't realize that my very old (like 1890) edition of Our Mutual Friend was abridged until I got to the end of it. I loved the story, but thought it was herky jerky and that I had missed big parts. It was herky jerky and I did miss big -- and little -- parts. So I can't rate it now. I plan to read the complete version again and know I will love it.  

MY RATING SYSTEM

I switched to using roses for my rating system, since this is Rose City Reader. My rating system is my own and evolving. Whatever five stars might mean on amazon, goodreads, or Netflix, a five-rose rating probably doesn't mean that here. My system is a mix of how a book subjectively appeals to me, its technical merits, and whether I would recommend it to other people.

🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹 Five roses for books I loved, or would recommend to anyone, or I think are worthy of classic "must read" status." Examples would be Lucky Jim (personal favorite), A Gentleman in Moscow (universal recommendation), and Great Expectations (must read).

🌹🌹🌹🌹 Four roses for books I really enjoyed and/or would recommend to people who enjoy that type of book. So I give a lot of four roses because I might really like a book, but it didn't knock my socks off. And while I'd recommend it to someone who likes that genre -- mystery, historical fiction, food writing, whatever -- I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who asked me for a "good book."

🌹🌹🌹 Three roses for books I was lukewarm on or maybe was glad I read but wouldn't recommend.

🌹🌹 Two roses if I didn't like it. Lessons in Chemistry is an example, which proves how subjective my system is because lots of people loved that book. I found it cartoonish and intolerant.

🌹 One rose if I really didn't like it. I don't know if I've ever rated a book this low. The Magus might be my only example and I read it before I started keeping my lists.

I use half roses if a book falls between categories. I can't explain what that half rose might mean, it's just a feeling.

Here is a link to the star rating system I used for years. I include it because the stars I used in years past meant something different than these roses, so if you look at my lists from past years, the ratings won't mean quite the same thing.

Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Wait! I'm here! See my big face? 

I was missing in action last week, I know. Sorry! In all the years of hosting Book Beginnings on Fridays, I've never before completely forgotten to post. But I did last week. I didn't remember until Saturday, and then figured it was completely too late. It was a combination of Christmas prep, work deadlines, and a funeral for a friend's husband last Thursday afternoon that erased my brain of anything extra, including that I was supposed to post Book Beginnings, like I do every Thursday afternoon. 

So please join me now to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week, or just a book you want to share. If you want to leave two links, one for this week and one with your post from last week, please do! 

MY BOOK BEGINNING

In these times of ours, though concerning the exact year there is no need to be precise, a boat of dirty and disreputable appearance, with two figures in it, floated on the Thames, between Southwark bridge which is of iron, and London Bridge which is of stone, as an autumn evening was closing in.

-- Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens. I meant to read this one for Victober but didn't get to it. Now I am happy to be reading Dickens in December because it is such a rich and funny book, perfect for cozy reading by the Christmas tree. I love it. 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add a link to your Book Beginnings post in the Linky box below. Like I said, if you want to add an extra link to your post from last week, please go ahead. Again, I'm sorry I forgot to post! As always, if you share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings. 

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice is a natural tie in with this event and there is a lot of cross over, so many people combine the two. The idea is to post a teaser from page 56 of the book you are reading and share a link to your post. Find details and the Linky for your Friday 56 post on Freda’s Voice.

MY FRIDAY 56

From Our Mutual Friend:

It struck eleven, and he made believe to compose himself patiently. But gradually he took the fidgets in one leg, and then in the other leg, and then in one arm, and then in the other arm, and then in his chin, and then in his back, and then in his forehead, and then in his hair, and then in his nose; and then he stretched himself recumbent on two chairs, and groaned; and then he started up.

What are you reading this Christmas week? I hope it is festive and fun and doesn't give you the fidgets!

Easton Press List of the list of The 100 Greatest Books Ever -- BOOK LIST

THE EASTON PRESS LIST OF 100 GREATEST BOOKS EVER

A while back, Easton Pres put together its list of the 100 Greatest Books Ever and described the collection as the "most renowned works of literature by history’s greatest authors." It was an interesting mix that includes books going back to ancient times, from around the world, and includes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. 

Easton Press used to sell the whole set in its fancy, leather-bound editions. The list is no longer on the Easton Press website and it no longer sells the books as a set, although they are available individually. They are also all available elsewhere in other formats and editions.

Here is the list, with notes about whether I've read a book, it is on my TBR shelf, or it is available as an audiobook from my library. So far, I've read of the 71 of the 100, but don't know if I will ever read them all. How about you?

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea by Jules Verne ON OVERDRIVE

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne FINISHED

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson FINISHED

Walden by Henry David Thoreau FINISHED

Gulliver's Travels by Johnathan Swift FINISHED

Moby Dick by Herman Melville (reviewed here)* FINISHED

A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway FINISHED

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane FINISHED

The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling* TBR SHELF

The Odyssey by Homer FINISHED

The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan FINISHED

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce (reviewed here) FINISHED

Paradise Lost by John Milton FINISHED

Tales From The Arabian Nights by Richard Burton ON OVERDRIVE

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (reviewed here) FINISHED

Candide by Voltaire FINISHED

Oedipus the King by Sophocles FINISHED

The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo ON OVERDRIVE

The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper* TBR SHELF

The Sea Wolf by Jack London TBR SHELF

Cyrano De Bergerac by Edmund Rostand

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer FINISHED

Collected Poems by Robert Browning

Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson TBR SHELF

The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James FINISHED

Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (reviewed here) FINISHED

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson FINISHED

Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle FINISHED

Collected Poems by John Keats TBR SHELF

On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin ON OVERDRIVE

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra TBR SHELF

Collected Poems by Robert Frost TBR SHELF

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories by Washington Irving FINISHED

Animal Farm by George Orwell FINISHED

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë FINISHED

She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith FINISHED

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck FINISHED

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen FINISHED

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky FINISHED

Les Misérables by Victor Hugo ON OVERDRIVE

The Iliad by Homer FINISHED

Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence FINISHED

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas* FINISHED

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley FINISHED

Aesop's Fables by Aesop FINISHED

Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad FINISHED

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin ON OVERDRIVE

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas* FINISHED

Politics and Poetics by Aristotle TBR SHELF

The Aeneid by Virgil FINISHED

Madam Bovary by Gustave Flaubert FINISHED

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli FINISHED

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë FINISHED

Hamlet by William Shakespeare FINISHED

Pygmalion and Candida by George Bernard Shaw TBR SHELF and FINISHED

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe* FINISHED

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare FINISHED

The Cherry Orchard and The Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov TBR SHELF

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri FINISHED

The Analects of Confucius by Confucius

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare FINISHED

Collected Poems by William Butler Yeats (reading now)

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde FINISHED

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray TBR SHELF

The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio FINISHED

Beowulf FINISHED

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy TBR SHELF

The Necklace and Other Tales by Guy de Maupassant TBR SHELF

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells FINISHED

Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev FINISHED

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad FINISHED

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy FINISHED

The History of Early Rome by Livy TBR SHELF

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott FINISHED

The Talisman by Sir Walter Scott TBR SHELF

Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy FINISHED

Alice's Adventure in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll FINISHED

Dracula by Bram Stoker (reviewed here) FINISHED

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám by Omar Khayyám  FINISHED

The Red and the Black by Stendhal FINISHED

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens FINISHED

The Republic by Plato TBR SHELF

Collected Poems by Emily Dickinson TBR SHELF

Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe FINISHED

Tom Jones by Henry Fielding* FINISHED

The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay FINISHED

Silas Marner by George Eliot FINISHED

The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine ON OVERDRIVE

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman TBR SHELF (reading now)

Billy Budd by Herman Melville TBR SHELF

The Confessions by St. Augustine FINISHED

Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe FINISHED

Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott FINISHED

The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler* FINISHED

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (reviewed here)* FINISHED

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky FINISHED

Grimm's Fairy Tales by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm FINISHED

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain* FINISHED

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley FINISHED

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens FINISHED

NOTES

This is a repost of the list I first posted in 2009. The links needed refreshing. 

The original list is no longer available on the Easton Press website, so I don't know why the books are listed in this order. The aren't listed in alphabetical order by title or author, nor are they listed by publication date. They must be listed by Easton Press catalog number or publication date, but I don't remember. 

* Marks those that I have in the fancy Easton Press edition, thanks to a lovely Christmas gift from Hubby.

The College Board's List of 101 Great Books Recommended for College-Bound Readers -- BOOK LIST

THE COLLEGE BOARD'S LIST OF 101 GREAT BOOKS RECOMMENDED FOR COLLEGE-BOUND READERS

Back around the turn of the Millennium, when Top 100 book lists were all the rage, thanks in large part to the popularity of the Modern Library's Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century List, the College Board came up with a list of "101 Great Books Recommended for College-Bound Readers." 

Leave it to the creator of the PSAT, the SAT, etc. to come up with a list of books guaranteed to make  every reader feel humble. I'm a fan of classics and do not have a problem with the idea of a "canon" to provide a solid grounding in Western literature. But to suggest that students should read all "101 Great Books Recommended for College-Bound Readers" while they are still in high school is setting some pretty high standards! Maybe that's why the list has completely disappeared from the College Board's website. 

I can now, in my 50s, look at this list and say that I've read most of them, 86 of the 101. But I read 66 of those when I was in college -- as an English Lit major -- or after college. I only read 20 of these when I was in high school, and I was a complete nerd. The idea that I would have read all of them in high school is enough to trigger that nightmare where I am back in school as an adult, trying to take an exam for a class I never attended!

Here is the list, with notes about whether I have read the book and when, if it is still on my TBR shelf, or if it is available as an audiobook from my library. 

Beowulf  FINISHED (college and adult)

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe FINISHED (adult)

A Death in the Family by James Agee FINISHED (adult)

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen FINISHED (college)

Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin FINISHED (adult)

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett FINISHED (college)

The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow FINISHED (adult) (reviewed here)

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte FINISHED (high school)

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte FINISHED (high school)

The Stranger by Albert Camus FINISHED (adult)

Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather FINISHED (adult)

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes TBR SHELF

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer FINISHED (college)

The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov TBR SHELF

The Awakening by Kate Chopin FINISHED (college)

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad FINISHED (high school)

The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper ON OVERDRIVE

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane FINISHED (adult)

Inferno by Dante FINISHED (college)

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe FINISHED (adult)

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens FINISHED (high school and adult)

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky FINISHED (adult)

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass FINISHED (college)

An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser FINISHED (adult)

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas FINISHED (adult)

The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot FINISHED (adult)

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison FINISHED (adult)

Selected Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson FINISHED (high school)

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner FINISHED (college)

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner FINISHED (adult) (reviewed here)

Tom Jones by Henry Fielding FINISHED (adult)

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald FINISHED (high school and adult)

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert FINISHED (adult)

The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford FINISHED (adult)

Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe FINISHED (college)

Lord of the Flies by William Golding FINISHED (adult)

Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy FINISHED (college)

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne FINISHED (high school)

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller FINISHED (adult)

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway FINISHED (adult)

The Iliad by Homer FINISHED (college)

The Odyssey by Homer FINISHED (college)

The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo TBR SHELF

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston FINISHED (college and adult)

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley FINISHED (high school)

A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen TBR SHELF

The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James FINISHED (adult)

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James FINISHED (adult)

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce FINISHED (adult) (reviewed here)

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka FINISHED (high school)

The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston TBR SHELF

To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee FINISHED (adult)

Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis FINISHED (adult)

The Call of the Wild by Jack London FINISHED (adult)

The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann TBR SHELF

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez FINISHED (adult)

Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville FINISHED (high school)

Moby Dick by Herman Melville FINISHED (adult) (reviewed here)

The Crucible by Arthur Miller FINISHED (high school)

Beloved by Toni Morrison FINISHED (college)

A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor FINISHED (adult)

Long Day's Journey into Night by Eugene O'Neill TBR SHELF

Animal Farm by George Orwell FINISHED (adult)

Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak FINISHED (adult) (reviewed here)

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath FINISHED (adult)

Selected Tales by Edgar Allen Poe FINISHED (high school)

Swann's Way by Marcel Proust TBR SHELF

The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon FINISHED (college)

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque FINISHED (adult)

Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand

Call it Sleep by Henry Roth FINISHED

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger FINISHED (high school)

Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw TBR SHELF

Hamlet by William Shakespeare FINISHED (high school)

Macbeth by William Shakespeare FINISHED (college)

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare FINISHED (college)

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare FINISHED (high school)

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley FINISHED (college)

Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko TBR SHELF

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn TBR SHELF

Antigone by Sophocles FINISHED (high school)

Oedipus Rex by Sophocles FINISHED (high school)

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck FINISHED (high school)

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson FINISHED (adult)

Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe FINISHED (adult) (reviewed here)

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift FINISHED (college)

Vanity Fair by William Thackeray FINISHED (adult)

Walden by Henry David Thoreau FINISHED (adult)

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy FINISHED (adult)

Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev FINISHED (high school)

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain FINISHED (high school and adult)

Candide by Voltaire FINISHED (adult)

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut FINISHED (adult) (reviewed here)

The Color Purple by Alice Walker FINISHED (college)

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton FINISHED (adult)

Collected Stories by Eudora Welty TBR SHELF

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman TBR SHELF (reading now)

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde FINISHED (high school)

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams FINISHED (high school)

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf FINISHED (college)

Native Son by Richard Wright FINISHED (adult)

NOTES

Updated July 3, 2025. 

This is a reposting of a list I first posted in 2009. The links needed refreshing, particularly the link to the College Board because the book list itself is no longer available on the College Board's website. 

The wonderful book blogger and book reviewer, Rebecca Reid at Rebecca Reads, is also working on this list. 

If anyone else adopts this list, please let me know in a comment and I will add your link.

The BBC's Big Read -- BOOK LIST

THE BBC'S BIG READ

Starting in April 2003, BBC began a search for Britain’s best-loved novel. Viewers voted for their favorite book and the top 100 books were compiled in a list called the BBC's Big Read. The books ranked 101 - 200 are sometimes referred to as the Bigger Read. 

The Top 100 list is below. This is definitely a people’s choice list. There are some excellent books here, but the list reflects the popular tastes of the early 2000s as much as literary merit.

So far, I've read 68 of the 100. I doubt I will finish all these because I don't see myself reading Harry Potter (with apologies to fans) and I am not a fan of sci-fi or fantasy. Now that I have grandkids, I may read some of the kids' books I didn't originally think I would. So never say never. 

See any of your own favorites on here? What about personal clunkers, books you didn't like?

Here's the list, with notes about whether I've read it, it's on my TBR shelf, or it is available as an audiobook from my library. Not many of these are on my TBR shelves because if I haven't read it it is most likely not my cup of tea. But I might give it a go as an audiobook.  

1. The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien FINISHED

2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen FINISHED

3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman ON OVERDRIVE

4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams (reviewed here) FINISHED

5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J. K. Rowling ON OVERDRIVE

6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee FINISHED

7. Winnie the Pooh, A. A. Milne FINISHED

8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell FINISHED

9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis FINISHED

10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë FINISHED

11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller FINISHED

12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë FINISHED

13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks FINISHED

14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier (reviewed here) FINISHED

15. The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger FINISHED

16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame (reviewed here) FINISHED

17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens (reviewed here) FINISHED

18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott FINISHED

19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres FINISHED

20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy FINISHED

21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell FINISHED

22. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J. K. Rowling ON OVERDRIVE

23. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J. K. Rowling ON OVERDRIVE

24. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J. K. Rowling ON OVERDRIVE

25. The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien FINISHED

26. Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy FINISHED

27. Middlemarch, George Eliot FINISHED

28. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving FINISHED

29. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck FINISHED

30. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll FINISHED

31. The Story of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson

32. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez FINISHED

33. The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett FINISHED

34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens FINISHED

35. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl FINISHED

36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson FINISHED

37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute FINISHED

38. Persuasion, Jane Austen FINISHED

39. Dune, Frank Herbert ON OVERDRIVE

40. Emma, Jane Austen FINISHED

41. Anne of Green Gables, L. M. Montgomery FINISHED

42. Watership Down, Richard Adams ON OVERDRIVE

43. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald FINISHED

44. The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas FINISHED

45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh FINISHED

46. Animal Farm, George Orwell FINISHED

47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens FINISHED

48. Far From the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy FINISHED

49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian

50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher (reviewed here) FINISHED

51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett FINISHED

52. Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck FINISHED

53. The Stand, Stephen King ON OVERDRIVE

54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy FINISHED

55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth ON OVERDRIVE

56. The BFG, Roald Dahl ON OVERDRIVE

57. Swallows and Amazons, Arthur Ransome

58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell FINISHED

59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer ON OVERDRIVE

60. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky FINISHED

61. Noughts and Crosses, Malorie Blackman ON OVERDRIVE

62. Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden FINISHED

63. A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens FINISHED

64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough FINISHED

65. Mort, Terry Pratchett

66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton

67. The Magus, John Fowles FINISHED

68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman ON OVERDRIVE

69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett

70. Lord of the Flies, William Golding FINISHED

71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind ON OVERDRIVE

72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell ON OVERDRIVE

73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett

74. Matilda, Roald Dahl ON OVERDRIVE

75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding FINISHED

76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt FINISHED

77. The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins FINISHED

78. Ulysses, James Joyce FINISHED

79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens FINISHED

80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson

81. The Twits, Roald Dahl ON OVERDRIVE

82. I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith FINISHED

83. Holes, Louis Sachar ON OVERDRIVE

84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake (reviewed here) FINISHED

85. The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy FINISHED

86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson

87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley FINISHED

88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons (reviewed here) FINISHED

89. Magician, Raymond E Feist ON OVERDRIVE

90. On the Road, Jack Kerouac FINISHED

91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo FINISHED

92. The Clan of the Cave Bear, Jean M Auel

93. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett

94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho FINISHED

95. Katherine, Anya Seton FINISHED

96. Kane and Abel, Jeffrey Archer FINISHED

97. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez FINISHED

98. Girls in Love, Jacqueline Wilson

99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot ON OVERDRIVE

100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie (reviewed here) FINISHED


NOTES

Updated on July 3, 2025. 

The Old Curiosity Shop on BOOK BEGINNINGS for Victober

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Time to get cozy with a Victorian novel! I’ve been looking forward to Victober since last October! Who else? 

Until I got into bookstagram more, I didn't know Victober was a thing, but it makes so much sense. The idea is to read books in October written during the Victorian Period (Queen Victoria reigned from June 1837 to January 1901). Chilly, windy, rainy, spooky October is the perfect time to switch from summery beach reads to hefty, moody melodramas. And nobody did hefty, moody melodramas better than the Victorians! 

If you need inspiration, the Daily Telegraph's 1899 List of “100 Best Novels in the World” (that’s right, from 1899) has plenty. The list is not limited to the Victorian era, or even to the 19th Century. But you will find lots of Victorian books on it. 

Are you participating in Victober this year? What are you reading? I’m reading The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens. If I finish, I hope also to read Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell.

Please share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading or featuring this week. Add a link to your post below. If you share on social media, please use the #bookbeginnigns hashtag so we can find each other. 

If you don't have a blog, feel free to play along by leaving a comment with the opening sentence from you book, along with the title and author. 

MY BOOK BEGINNING

Night is generally my time for walking.

That's a pretty short opening sentence for a book that's over 600 pages long! 

The Old Curiosity Shop is one of the 50 classic books I picked for my Classic Club list. Anyone can join the Classics Club and pick 50 classic books to read over the next five years.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

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THE FRIDAY 56

Freda at Freda's Voice hosts another teaser event on Fridays. Participants share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of the book they are reading -- or from 56% of the way through the audiobook or ebook. Please visit Freda's Voice for details and to leave a link to your post.

MY FRIDAY 56

Near the door sat Miss Sophy, still fluttered and confused by the attentions of Mr. Cheggs, and by her side Richard Swiveller lingered for a moment to exchange a few parting words.

"My boat is on the shore and my bark is on the sea, but before I pass this door I will say farewell to thee," murmured Dick, looking gloomily up on her.

That's more Dickensonian! I'm halfway through and find the main story of Little Nell and her grandfather tedious. But the side characters like Dick Swiveller, whether villains or angels, make it worthwhile.