Monday, 26 April 2004 - 2:31 AM BST

Very impressive list of accomplished reads, my opinion. As a woman of the American south, I urge you to read Eudora Welty's collection. Not because it reminds me of me, or of you, but because she reminds me of women everywhere who just get it. Her writing is masterful, her POV exquisite. I'd be interested in seeing what you think of her.

Monday, 26 April 2004 - 2:58 AM BST

Will do - am studying a lot of stuff about the South at the moment. Thanks for the tip.
It's not that impressive once you remember I have a degree in Eng Lit - most of it was first year required reading.

Monday, 26 April 2004 - 5:40 AM BST

I know that peculiarly free feeling of having one's books invisible. My own collection only recently reappeared after having spent more then ten years boxed and hidden in the attic. I remember thinking how odd it was that so much of me went unseen, yet was literally only a couple of feet above my head the whole time.

You mentioned that you're reading some southern literature, so I wonder if you've stumbled across Lewis Nordan. A little bit of southern silliness. I won't claim his name should be on the list with all of the above, but he can be a little fun.

Monday, 26 April 2004 - 9:35 AM BST

ooh, I like this list.

Especially that Tom Jones is on it. Anyone who's read that deserves some goddam n credit. People assume since I was an English major that I've read everything.

"What???? You haven't read Rosencranz and Guildenstern are dead??????"

No, f uckwit, I was busy reading all 725 pages of Tom Jones. The Penguin edition. With the tiny print.

Could have gotten away with skimming through, but after the first 200 or so pages, I felt that I had gotten so far, I couldn't give up now! Must not let the book win! Will finish it if it kills me!

Monday, 26 April 2004 - 10:43 AM BST

Lucky Jim.

We're missing Lucky Jim.

Monday, 26 April 2004 - 11:07 AM BST

You're right. I failed to get through more than forty pages during English S level, A level, and the first year of the degree. In fact for ages, I thought that book was cursed with Page Forty Two syndrome.
I eventually did read the damn thing, and then felt compelled to interrupt with snotty remarks about the reliability of the plot when the BBC did an amazingly funny interpretation of it. (Dunno if you can get stuff like that in the States, but it was a brilliant version of it.)

Having said that, I loved Richardson's Pamela / Fielding's Shamela. Took me a week. Bizarre. They're much worsely written (bit like my tortured grammar, there).

Monday, 26 April 2004 - 11:17 AM BST

I'm very depressed. I've always identified with the deluded autodidact in Satre's Nausea, reading hungrily but not fully digesting anything -- but I've hardly read *any* of the books on your list, only 9 out of 100!

(I've read all the Harry Potters though -- does that count?)

Monday, 26 April 2004 - 12:06 PM BST

Oh God you have to read Catch 22-very funny, but mind i was 15 at the time.

We did Tom Jones at school, and I still remember that huge section about a man on a hill..

Oh and Homer's Iliad for Latin..!

Monday, 26 April 2004 - 1:37 PM BST

Oh god, I got a hundred pages through Nausea, then gave up and decided it would count just the same if I went to see his church mural in Leicester Square instead.

And no, Harry Potter barely counts as toilet paper. ;)

Monday, 26 April 2004 - 1:39 PM BST

To my shame, I've done that in Latin and English. No, I don't read any Latin at all. It was an extremely boring, alienting experience. When I complained, I was informed that any decent school would have taught me latin, and the rest of the course was delivered in latin to prove this point. Taught me to think before I complain.

Monday, 26 April 2004 - 1:40 PM BST

If it were a British list, I agree. But it sounds American to me. There isn't world enough and time for any Briton of sound mind to have to read Walden.

Monday, 26 April 2004 - 1:41 PM BST

The thing is, I use my books all the time - I refer to them all frequently. It's so strange not being able to find a derivation of 'star' if someone asks.
I'll look out for Lewis Nordan on my library visit this week. Thanks.

Monday, 26 April 2004 - 8:41 PM BST

On your list the only ones I've read are The Scarlett Letter, Huck Finn, Edgar Allen Poe and The Picture of Dorian Gray.

You know, when Dorian was written he must have seemed horrid and beastly. I only read this recently and he really didn't seem all that bad a character. Yes, he was vain and yes, he did a lot of catting around but there have been characters (both real and imagined) since that time who've done much worse.

I've read tons and tons of books but what I like is mainstream fiction.

Monday, 26 April 2004 - 9:21 PM BST

This list is the canon, I guess. I dunno why a canon wouldn't be called mainstream. Meh. It isn't, no point wondering.
Re: Dorian - I thought it was partly that he was amoral, a nasty minded villain, and those traits came out in the face of the portrait. He has all sorts of unspeakable appetites in the book, that he sneaks off to the docks to satisfy, doesn't he? I read it several times but all more than 15 years ago. But in my memory, he's sort of turning into a satyr - didn't they kill, rape and murder, as well as drink and shag a lot?