I promise a post about the wedding, with pictures and all that good stuff — by Monday, when I get a chance to breathe over the weekend. I’m home sick today, so you just get this meme:

Newsweek’s Top 100 Books of All Time (Orly?)

Bold the ones you’ve read, italicize the ones you tried to read & couldn’t finish, and underline those you’d recommend (plus comment freely in parentheses).

1. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, 1869
(You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding.)

2. 1984 by George Orwell, 1949
(The drudgery of finishing this book stuck with me for a long, long, loooong time.)

3. Ulysses by James Joyce, 1922

4. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, 1955
(I read it because it’s supposed to be naughty. It’s not naughty, it’s ridiculously stupid.)

5. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, 1929
(Is this about a ship? Did I maybe see the movie? Or was that Master and Commander?)

6. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, 1952
(This wasn’t science fiction, was it? If it was, I may hunt it down and read it.)

7. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, 1927
(Didn’t she kill herself? I know nothing else about this.)

8. The Illiad and The Odyssey by Homer, 8th century B.C.E.
(Oh, the boredom. I couldn’t even finish the Cliff Notes, it was so boring.)

9. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, 1813
(19th-century chick lit, right? I don’t even like modern chick lit, why would I read this?!)

10. Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, 1321
(I hear it’s snarky. Maybe someday I’ll try reading it.)

11. Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, 15th century
(Wasn’t this a bunch of medieval soap opera stuff? I don’t like modern soap opera stuff, for crying out loud.)

12. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, 1726
(Hated the movie. At least I think it was a movie based on this book. There was teensy people tying the guy down with ropes, right? Boring.)

13. Middlemarch by George Eliot, 1874
(Wasn’t George Eliot a chick? That’s all I know about this.)

14. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, 1958
(Never heard of this book. Or this author.)

15. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, 1951
(Aren’t crazed shooting-spree murderers supposed to like this book?)

16. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, 1936
(I read it because Lyse loves it. It actually wasn’t bad. Pretty sure it wouldn’t make my personal Top 100, though!)

17. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1967
(Never heard of this book. Or this author.)

18. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925
(Wasn’t this about a reporter? I can’t imagine any book about a reporter being interesting.)

19. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, 1961
(Not a clue.)

20. Beloved by Toni Morrison, 1987
(Figures, the only book in the top 20 written after my birth, and I’ve never heard of it. Or the author.)

21. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, 1939
(I read the synopsis of the movie and decided it sounded too depressing to bother.)

22. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie, 1981
(The author that someone put a hit out on because he pissed off some Muslims, right?)

23. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, 1932
(I tried, honestly. It’s a “sci fi classic” and I really love science fiction…but I couldn’t do it. Boooring.)

24. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, 1925
(Never heard of this book.)

25. Native Son by Richard Wright, 1940
(Never heard of this book. Or this author.)

26. Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville, 1835
(I might read this some day just because it sounds like it would make a good documentary. But a French guy writing about the USA, when the USA was less than 60 years old and the rest of the world thought democracy was pure nonsense? I have my doubts about it…)

27. On the Origins of Species by Charles Darwin, 1859
(I bet that 99.9% of the people who are against the theory of evolution have not read this. I bet that 99.5% of people who are for the theory of evolution have not read this. I know I haven’t.)

28. The Histories by Herodotus, 440 B.C.E.
(I’ve heard of this guy in documentaries, and he sounded cool, so I might read this someday.)

29. The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1762
(Never heard of this book. Or this author.)

30. Das Kapital by Karl Marx, 1867
(I bet that 99.9% of the people who are against Marxism have not read this. I bet that 99.5% of people who are for Marxism have not read this. I know I haven’t.)

31. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli, 1532
(One of the few books I tried to read & couldn’t finish that I might actually try to read again someday.)

32. Confessions by St. Augustine, 4th century
(Sounds naughty. But I bet it isn’t. I bet it’s boring.)

33. Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes, 1651
(Never heard of this book. Or this author.)

34. The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, 431 B.C.E.
(Sounds like a documentary on the History Channel. This means I might actually try reading it someday.)

35. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, 1954
(Oh, the boredom! The shrieking boredom! I didn’t see the movies, either.)

36. Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne, 1926
(The first 6 or 7 years of my life revolved around Pooh, but eventually I GREW UP. Utterly ridiculous that this book — or any other book that only requires a third-grade reading level — is on the list.)

37. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis, 1950
(Read it in childhood, and I remember almost nothing about it. Didn’t see the movie either.)

38. A Passage to India by E. M. Forster, 1924
(Wasn’t this made into a movie with Meryl Streep? Or was that Out of Africa? Anyway, never read either one.)

39. On the Road by Jack Kerouac, 1957
(Wasn’t this guy the original poseur? That whole beatnik thing was all about being poseurs, right?)

40. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, 1960
(I read this because my kid was forced to read it for school, and I couldn’t believe it was as bad as she made it out to be. But it WAS. Absolutely THE most boring piece of crap I’ve forced myself through. I watched the movie, hoping it would somehow redeem this tedious waste of time. Nope. It was simply atrocious.)

41. The Holy Bible by ?
(I’ve actually read most of it. And despite being very much not a Christian — in fact, I’m a witch/pagan/heathen type — I highly recommend it. Some of it’s just morbid fascination about the oddities of beliefs of certain cultures in history, and some of it’s flat-out prurient entertainment. However, some of it really IS incredibly good stuff. I’m personally shocked and dismayed that it didn’t make the Top 10 on this list. <--not sarcasm!)

42. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, 1962
(I tried, and really wanted to finish it. Couldn’t do it…it just made no sense. Watched the movie and was mildly creeped out. Not by the story so much as by the horrible acting of Malcolm McDowell.)

43. Light in August by William Faulkner, 1932
(Never heard of the book. Vaguely heard of the author. Did he write Thorn Birds?)

44. The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois, 1903
(Sounds like a winner. I’m only being a smidgen sarcastic in saying that. It really does sound like it could be fascinating. It also sounds like the kind of book a bunch of white people would claim was amazing because it’s politically correct of them to do so.)

45. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, 1966
(Never heard of book or author. Sounds like a bad romance.)

46. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, 1857
(Really sounds like a bad romance.)

47. Paradise Lost by John Milton, 1667
(Poetry? Really?)

48. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, 1877
(From the guy who brought you War & Peace? Please.)

49. Hamlet by William Shakespeare, 1603
(Forced to read it in school. Hated it. Really tried to like it when I dated a guy who was a theatre major and wild about Shakespeare. Still hated it. Tried watching the movie, figured anything with Mel Gibson couldn’t suck too bad, right? Wrong. Still hated it. My 16-year-old really likes Shakespeare, though — she bought the “complete works of” at a used bookstore completely on her own initiative. Go figure.)

50. King Lear by William Shakespeare, 1608

51. Othello by William Shakespeare, 1622

52. Sonnets by William Shakespeare, 1609

53. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, 1855
(Poetry sucks. Unless it’s by Shel Silverstein or Rudyard Kipling, thanks.)

54. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, 1885
(Another “forced to read in school” book. Another author that I can’t, for the life of me, understand how he gets such rave reviews.)

55. Kim by Rudyard Kipling, 1901
(Based on the multiple recommendations of science fiction authors that I respect and admire, I am determined to read everything by Rudyard Kipling sooner or later. What I’ve read so far is pretty impressive.)

56. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, 1818
(Possibly the first “science fiction” novel ever. I kinda have to read it, yes? Someday I will.)

57. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, 1977
(Never heard of the book or author. I must admit being prejudiced against it simply by learning it was featured by Oprah’s book club.)

58. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, 1962
(Honestly can’t remember if I read it, or just was really, really impressed by the movie.)

59. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway, 1940
(Meh. Doesn’t sound interesting.)

60. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, 1969
(Wasn’t the author some whiny peacenik with a chip on his shoulder who couldn’t write decent science fiction so he wrote this?)

61. Animal Farm by George Orwell, 1945
(I think they tried to make me read this in school, but by then I was so disgusted with the required reading list that I cheerfully took an F.)

62. Lord of the Flies by William Golding, 1954
(I may actually read this someday because I hear it’s gory and creepy. Sweet.)

63. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, 1965
(Didn’t they make a movie about this guy writing this book? How good could it be if they made a movie about him writing the book, rather than a movie about the subject matter of the book?)

64. The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing, 1962
(Never heard of the book or author.)

65. Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust, 1913
(Never heard of the book.)

66. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, 1939
(Okay, wait a minute. A detective novel? Are you fuq’ing joking?!)

67. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, 1930
(Never heard of the book.)

68. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, 1926
(So this is chick lit for tough guys? Stupid.)

69. I, Claudius by Robert Graves, 1934
(Sounds like Gladiator meets My Left Foot. Interesting apart, not so much together.)

70. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers, 1940
(Never heard of the book or author.)

71. Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence, 1913
(Sounds kinky. However, there’s no way kinky would make this list. Therefore it must be dull as dishwater.)

72. All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren, 1946
(Politics? Yawn.)

73. Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin, 1953
(Never heard of the book or author.)

74. Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White, 1952
(Okay, this is a great book. However, it’s not THAT great. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett was tremendously better.)

75. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, 1902
(Never heard of the book or author.)

76. Night by Elie Wiesel, 1958
(Isn’t this the Diary of Anne Frank revisited?)

77. Rabbit, Run by John Updike, 1960
(Never heard of the book. Not real clear on why Updike is considered a great writer.)

78. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, 1920
(Never heard of the book or author.)

79. Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth, 1969
(Never heard of the book or author.)

80. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser, 1925
(Never heard of the book or author.)

81. The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West, 1939
(A cheesy horror flick. Oh, wait, that movie probably wasn’t about this book. Okay, I’ve never heard of this book or author.)

82. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller, 1934
(I hear this is a naughty book. I doubt it’s all that. Didn’t this guy get famous for being in a three-way?)

83. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett, 1930
(Another private dick novel? Clearly someone who likes fedoras stacked the deck on this list.)

84. His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, 1995
(Fantasy, and quite yawn-inducing fantasy at that. I lost interest two chapters into The Golden Compass.)

85. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather, 1927
(Never heard of the book or author.)

86. The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud, 1900
(The dude was seriously twisted in some ways and a total whack-job in others. I can’t imagine wanting to read this, other than for the sheer amazement of how much he got wrong.)

87. The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams, 1918
(Never heard of the book or author.)

88. Quotations from Chairman Mao by Mao Zedong, 1964
(Brainwashing, anyone? Hey, wasn’t this the guy who made our nation’s “nanny government” look like a utopia of civil freedoms? Ew.)

89. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature by William James, 1902
(This may possibly be the only book on this list that I’m extremely eager to read. Apparently it’s about “spirituality” in the sense of “nature religion/paganism without the deities”. Sounds intruiging.)

90. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh, 1945
(Isn’t this a PBS soap opera for old fogeys? Yawn.)

91. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, 1962
(So ridiculously overblown and overrated, it’s not funny. Twisted into a manifesto by the eco-terrorist wing nuts. She died in 1964, and probably would be appalled at how people have used her work.)

92. The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money by John Maynard Keynes, 1936
(The only thing more boring than politics? Economics! Not to mention there’s far more fortune-telling in economics than anything resembling science or sensibility.)

93. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad, 1900
(Never heard of the book or author.)

94. Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves, 1929
(You know what they call people who find reading autobiographies fun & interesting? Fanboys/girls, that’s what!)

95. The Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith, 1958
(Never heard of the book or author.)

96. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, 1908
(I may have read a page or two of this. I can’t recall and it looks drearily dull anyway.)

97. The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley and Malcolm X, 1965
(See my note above about autobiographies. Besides, militantly angry stuff is just stupidly annoying.)

98. Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey, 1918
(Never heard of the book or author.)

99. The Color Purple by Alice Walker, 1982
(Looked angry and depressing. So not my cuppa.)

100. The Second World War by Winston Churchill, 1948
(Politicians writing about history that they just got done making strikes me as absurdly short-sighted, not to mention way too biased to be anything other than fan service.)

` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `

I rather enjoyed reading the comments on the Newsweek article. Here are excerpts from my favorite comments:

“An absolutely ridiculous list…you might as well have just given us Oprah’s word. Way too American in fiction, way too leftist and pseudo-scientific in other fiction.”

The Golden Compass? Are you smoking crack?

Yeah, that about sums it up.