Reading List

There is a note going around facebook that starts with this claim: "Apparently the BBC reckons most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here (Guess it doesn't count if you saw the movie or watched the series on PBS!)." Then, as you would expect, it lists the 100 'books' and you mark which ones you have read. I filled it out and posted it, but I do have a couple quibbles.

Included on the list are Harry Potter series (I thought there were 7 books in that), Lord of the Rings (at least three, but I think each book could be divided into smaller books. I don't remember for sure), His Dark Materials (three books), Hamlet, and the complete works of Shakespeare. Now, I figure if the complete works of Shakespeare is to be considered a book, Hamlet should not be listed separately.

And I would like to see included in the introduction a link to the source of this claim about the BBC.

But as I said, I participated. I like to fill these things out and compare with friends. I won't post the list here, because I find it annoying to come across those on blogs when I'm expecting a thoughtful note or life update. It's not such a big thing on facebook because most of the notes are these survey things anyway. But I will tell you that I read 34 or 35 of them. I'm not sure whether I actually read Little Women all the way through or if I've just read the children's illustrated classic version. And there are a couple that I've read most of but never quite finished.

Anyway, I read 34 or 35. And when I counted them up, I felt quite un-well read. My friend Beth has read 32, and she feels much the same. Now, when you compare our results to the 6 that the average person is supposed to have read, we really did pretty well. But going through the list, I mainly saw all the books I haven't read.

Oh, and I also compared my score to Dad's- he has read 61. And I was like, "That's almost twice as many as me. I really need to catch up." Which makes no sense, because he is more than twice as old as I am.

But there are some books on that list that I really have been meaning to read. And I am now going to make it a point to do so soon.