Old Book Meme

I unearthed the following list of books and accompanying instructions on Duck of Minerva while searching for something else. The list can apparently be found on many other blogs if you look around for  it. Bill Petti posted it in February 2006, so this is an old meme among academic and other bloggers:

Bold the books you have read. Italicise the books you might read. Cross out the books you probably won't read. Underline the books you have on your shelf to read or have started reading.

Some bloggers add this line to the instructions: "Pass it on."

I also clarified my status in that some of the underlined books are owned by other readers in my home, but I'm only likely to read the ones in italics.

The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams
The Great Gatsby - F.Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (3 books)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J. K. Rowling
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story - George Orwell
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
1984 - George Orwell
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J. K. Rowling
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
Angels and Demons - Dan Brown
Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk
Neuromancer - William Gibson
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C. S. Lewis
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien (3 books)
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
Good Omens - Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman
Atonement - Ian McEwan
The Shadow Of The Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafón
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Dune - Frank Herbert

So, of the 50 books listed, I've read 22 and have immediate access to another 3 that I intend to read. I might read 15 or so of the others eventually. Yes, I'm stubborn about Harry Potter. The Hunger Games trilogy is not on this old list, but I have been thinking about reading it and it is on a shelf in this house. I think I enjoyed the film version more than I enjoyed any of the Potter movies.


Update: added yellow highlighting to indicate books read since this was posted.

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High noon high

Watching "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" wasn't as difficult as trying to sit through Gus Van Sant's "Elephant" (which I failed to do), but the former certainly reminded me of the latter. Guess which film this reviewer is describing?

[The] film is a highly stylized, dreamlike tone poem that defies linear conventions and is almost surreal in its approach. Using flashbacks and recurring images from different points of view, the film captures the mood and tone of its adolescent world: its perceptions, its self-absorption, and ultimately its darkest instincts.

The camera is a detached observer, and the strength of the film lies in its acute power of observation and detail....[The director] shows us all the surface rituals

In the end, both feature a troubling school massacre.

That review describes scenes of cheerleading rather than quidditch, but the meaning for the larger story is similar.

There is an important difference between these films. In the more recent one, the protagonist vows revenge -- foreshadowed by both prior books and films and the fact that Harry Potter has tasted a bit of evil in this film (the inevitable ring -- and of the course the subtitle character's potion book).

Perhaps the final episode will be "Harry Potter at High Noon."


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Potter

Unlike my colleagues over at the Duck, I have not read the books in the Harry Potter series.

I have seen the five movies, however, and can give the latest a thumb's up with the caveat that it probably won't make much sense to anyone who has not at least watched the earlier movies.

Additionally, my household is caught up in Potter-mania as my wife has read all the earlier books to our youngest daughter and the oldest daughter has read the entire shelf multiple times. Yes, our reserved copy will be in-hand near the stroke of midnight tonight.

Once again, I'm going to hold out for the movie.

Hopefully, the family will enjoy Potter VII more than I enjoyed my latest read from a best-selling author.

Note: Photo courtesy U.S. Department of State.


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Another culture update

It's the weekend, my wife's brother and sister have been visiting, and I'm trying to recover from the Hit and Run.

So, it's time for another culture update.

Last weekend, the family checked out "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban." I thought it was better than the second one (which I really cannot remember...though I recall that Kenneth Branagh was in it).

What should parents like me make of this line from the film? "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."


Trivia question: How many times did characters refer to Hermione as the most promising witch of her age?

Last night, my spouse, her siblings and I went to see Jeff Black and Kim Richey. The show was good, though jet lag and other maladies caused us to leave after about 90 minutes.


Finally, RIP Tony B.

Oh, and Ray Charles. Ray was singing alt-country with soul and passion long before Norah Jones ever recorded a note. Check it out.