A Challenge...of sorts...

My friend Sara and I love a good challenge. We've challenged one another to learn all the states and their capitals in order of how they came into the union, to learn the continents and oceans and presidents. We've challenged one another to watch movies and listen to music (above or below our usual taste) and we've challenged one another to read books out of comfort zone by creating long lists of books we think every human should read.

Buzzfeed has helped us with our latest challenge:

1. GREAT EXPECTATIONS Charles Dickens
2. THE HOBBIT JRR Tolkien
3. THE BIBLE
4. MOBY DICK Herman Melville
5. THE FOUNTAINHEAD Ayn Rand
6. THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA Ernest Hemingway
7. LOLITA Vladmire Nabakov
8. CATCH-22 Joseph Heller
9. 1984 George Orwell
10. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD Harper Lee
11. WAR AND PEACE Leo Tolstoy
12. TREASURE ISLAND Robert Louis Stevenson
13. MADAME BOVARY Gustave Flaubert
14. THE ODYSSEY Homer
15. ULYSSEUS James Joyce
16. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE Jane Austen
17. JANE EYRE Charlotte Bronte
18. OF MICE AND MEN John Steinbeck
19. THE BELL JAR Sylvia Plath
20. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE JD Salinger
21. THE SCARLET LETTER Ernest Hemingway
22. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT Fyodor Dostoevsky

I'm not going to talk about the ones that I've read, the ones that I've sorta read, the ones that I should read again because...we're going to make sure THAT WE'VE READ THEM ALL!

Starting with...*drum roll please*

Crime and Punishment (a book that neither of us have even pretended to read)

What Buzzfeed says about it:

What you think it’s about: Law and Order SVU set in the 19th century.

Why you should actually read it: Dostoevsky addresses the concept of morality and causes readers to wonder whether the end really does justify the means.

What Goodreads says about the audio version, narrated by Alex Jennings (my fav!):

The talented Alex Jennings creates an atmosphere of gripping psychological tension and brings a variety of characters to life in this new audio edition of a crime classic. When the student Raskolnikov puts his philosophical theory to the ultimate test of murder, a tragic tale of suffering and redemption unfolds in the dismal setting of the slums of czarist, prerevolutionary St. Petersburg. While Jennings's adept repertoire of British accents works to demonstrate the varying classes of characters, it occasionally distracts the listener from the Russian setting. However, Dostoyevsky's rendering of 18th-century Russia emerges unscathed, bringing the dark pathos (such as wretched poverty and rampant suffering) to life. 

Through the story of the brilliant but conflicted young Raskolnikov and the murder he commits, Fyodor Dostoevsky explores the theme of redemption through suffering. Crime and Punishment put Dostoevsky at the forefront of Russian writers when it appeared in 1866 and is now one of the most famous and influential novels in world literature. 

The poverty-stricken Raskolnikov, a talented student, devises a theory about extraordinary men being above the law, since in their brilliance they think “new thoughts” and so contribute to society. He then sets out to prove his theory by murdering a vile, cynical old pawnbroker and her sister. The act brings Raskolnikov into contact with his own buried conscience and with two characters — the deeply religious Sonia, who has endured great suffering, and Porfiry, the intelligent and discerning official who is charged with investigating the murder — both of whom compel Raskolnikov to feel the split in his nature. Dostoevsky provides readers with a suspenseful, penetrating psychological analysis that goes beyond the crime — which in the course of the novel demands drastic punishment — to reveal something about the human condition: The more we intellectualize, the more imprisoned we become.

Our reading schedule

We're starting today, follow along with us here.

If you'd like to join the read with us, find it online for free here.

Amazon's Top 100

My friend Sara knows that I am fond of lists, all lists, but especially reading lists. She found this list and posted it on my FB page and then she posted how many she'd read. I, of course, had to do the same. Thanks, Sara! 

Read red (54)

*Recommend (46)

Want to read blue (28)

Will never read green (4)

Not read normal (46)

1. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
2. Dune by Frank Herbert*
3. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat by Oliver Sacks
4. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
5. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
6. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
7. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
8. The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
9. The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien*
10. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
11. The World According to Garp by John Irving
12. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
13. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
14. The Year of Magical Thinking Joan Didion
15. The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright
16. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien*
17. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens*
18. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
19. Jimmy Corrigan: Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware
20. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins*
21. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
22. Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared M. Diamond
23. The House at Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne
24. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry*
25. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson*
26. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll*
27. Alice Munro: Selected Stories by Alice Munro*
28. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak*
29. The Shining by Stephen King*
30. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
31. The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
32. A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah
33. Moneyball by Michael Lewis
34. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald*
35. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
36. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
37. Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
38. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
39. Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
40. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
41. The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley*
42. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl*
43. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton*
44. Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
45. Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen*
46. Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder*
47. Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Book 1 by Jeff Kinney
48. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster*
49. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood*
50. Beloved by Toni Morrison*
51. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
52. Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
53. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison*
54. The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle*
55. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
56. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury*
57. Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
58. Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese
59. 1984 by George Orwell*
60. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote*
61. The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1) by Rick Riordan
62. Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
63. The Color of Water by James McBride
64. Charlotte's Web by E. B. White*
65. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle*
66. The Stranger by Albert Camus*
67. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen*
68. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown*
69. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
70. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris*
71. All the President's Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
72. A Series of Unfortunate Events #1: The Bad Beginning: The Short-Lived Edition by Lemony Snicket
73. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
74. Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
75. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
76. Angela's Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt*
77. Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain*
78. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
79. Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein*
80. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
81. The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert A. Caro
82. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
83. The Golden Compass: His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
84. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
85. Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich
86. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger*
87. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
88. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
89. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway*
90. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
91. The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
92. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larsen*
93. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi*
94. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
95. The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank
96. The Liars' Club: A Memoir by Mary Karr
97. The Giver by Lois Lowry*
98. Daring Greatly by Brene Brown
99. Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Dantica
100. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov*

From Zero to Well-Read in 100 Books: Book Riot

From Zero to Well-Read in 100 Books: Book Riot

I'm sure we've all seen this list by now...I thought it might be interesting to see where I stand in this list before I actually talked about it and/or write my own version.

Books I've read and remember are in red.
Books I've started at one time or another are in green.
Books I want to read are in orange.
Books I own have an asterisk (*).
 

1. *The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
2. *The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
3. *The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
4. *All Quiet on the Western Front by Eric Maria Remarque
5. *The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Klay  by Michael Chabon
6. *American Pastoral by Philip Roth
7. *Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
8. *Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
9. *Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
10. *The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
11. *Beloved by Toni Morrison
12. *Beowulf (in an anthology)
13. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
14. *Brave New World by Alduos Huxley
15. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
16. *The Call of the Wild  by Jack London
17. *Candide by Voltaire
18. *The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
19. *Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
20. *Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
21. *The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
22. *Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
23. *Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
24. The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
25. *The Complete Stories of Edgar Allan Poe
26. The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor
27. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
28. Crime & Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
29. *The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
30. *Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
31. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
32. Dream of Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin
33. *Dune by Frank Herbert
34. *Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
35. *Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
36. *The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
37. Faust by Goethe
38. *Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
39. *Game of Thrones by George RR Martin
40. The Golden Bowl by Henry James
41. The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
42. *Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
43. *The Gospels (I actually have them in the Bible...can you buy them as stand-alones?)
44. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
45. *Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
46. *The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
47. *Hamlet by William Shakespeare
48. *The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
49. *Harry Potter & The Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
50. *Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (in an anthology)
51. *The Help by Kathryn Stockett
52. *The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
53. *The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
54. House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
55. Howl by Allen Ginsberg
56. *The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
57. if on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino
58. *The Iliad by Homer
59. *The Inferno by Dante (in an anthology)
60. *Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
61. *Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
62. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
63. The Life of Pi by Yann Martel
64. *The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
65. The Little Prince by Antoine  de Saint-Exepury
66. *Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
67. *Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
68. *Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
69. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
70. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
71. *Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
72. *Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
73. *The Odyssey by Homer
74. *Oedipus, King by Sophocles
75. *On the Road by Jack Kerouac
76. *A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
77. The Pentateuch (again, I ask, can you buy these as stand-alones?)
78. *Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
79. *Rabbit, Run by John Updike
80. *The Road by Cormac McCarthy
81. *Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare
82. *The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
83. *Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
84. *The Sound and The Fury by William Faulkner
85. *The Stand by Stephen King
86. *The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
87. Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
88. *Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
89. *Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
90. *The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
91. *To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
92. Ulysses by James Joyce
93. *The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
94. *A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
95. Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee
96. *Watchmen by Alan Moore
97. *White Teeth by Zadie Smith
98. *Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
99. *1984 by George Orwell
    100. *50 Shades of Grey by E.L. James