What Book Are You Reading That You Think Might Impress People?

[mudwhistle]

I'm not sure who it was that helped make Harry Potter books popular in America. Oprah or Rosie O'Donnell. Just having the right person talk about your book can bring huge popularity. It doesn't hurt that J.K.Rowling is a great author and the story she created was so imaginative. I've read every one of her books in the series, but I didn't read the first one "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" till after I saw the movie. Good books are really difficult to find.

Most of the really good ones I've read I stumbled upon. Some really bad ones were used in school as examples of society.


I noticed that some people like to talk about some really deep novel that they're reading in hopes that it will impress people. I don't know where they find these things. Perhaps they were at a dinner party discussing important topics and the subject comes up and somebody tells everyone about this great book that they just have to read.

Personally I've found that unless you know a bunch of people that like to flaunt their intelligence, it's hard to find these things. Books that will put you to sleep or will make you sound intelligent.

Here's a list of famous books:

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Feminine Mystique
64 Atlas Shrugged





The last one (Atlas Shrugged) really put me to sleep. So did the movie.

Do any of you know of any that are currently being talked about?

 

[hjmick]

I've read a few of those books, but not to impress anyone. I don't read to impress others, I read because I love to read.

Thank you Dad...

 

[Sunni Man]

^^^^ I have read just about every book on the list..........using Cliffs Notes ..

 

[Sunshine]

I like anything by Tom Robbins. He wrote my all time favorite book Jitterbug Perfume. I reread it when I was diagnosed with the PH and realized how it had such a profound impact on my life. He also wrote Another Roadside Attraction - most boring book I've ever read.

I like Bobbie Ann Mason, a KY author. She really captures the people who live here. Shiloh and Other Stories is a good place to start.

I liked Asylum by Patrick McGrath. He captured the old asylum atmosphere, up to an including the dances on Saturday night as well as the patients.

I like Kahlil Gibran, in particular The Prophet.

I went through my C S Lewis and Pearl Buck years, as most do.

I've read a lot of the Rosicrucian books. Their stuff, particularly visualization has found its way into the holistic nursing world. You can pick those up used on Amazon.

The Gift of Fear by Gavin De Becker is a worthwhile read. I assigned it to my students one year.

KY author Bill Cunningham is another I like. He wrote a book called On Bended Knees about the black patch tobacco wars. That is a VERY interesting read. He has fabulous command of the language.

I like WH Auden, mostly his 'memorable quotes.'

Death, Grief, and Caring Relationships by Richard Kalish is a worthwhile read.

After getting 3 degrees, these days I mostly prefer coffee table books. I think I'm about done with any heavy reading. But here of late I've picked up W. Somerset Maugham. Good story teller.

 

[boedicca]

I've read 40 of the books on the list.

And am delighted to see Cold Comfort Farm included...tis a delightful read.

 

[Moonglow]

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