Books I have read

There is a blog meme going around that I’ve heard someone is waiting for me to participate in. Unfortunately, I won’t be. At least not exactly.

The meme is a list of 100 books that you are supposed to mark the ones you have read. Unfortunately, how this list came to be is suspect. The meme starts by saying the list is apparently sponsored by the BBC. That word, “apparently” stood out to me.

I didn’t want a list that was apparently sponsored by someone if they had not actually sponsored it. So I went to the BBC website and found the actual list of books they did come up with. The actual list is different from the apparent list. The claim of how many the average adult has read on the list is completely bogus and does not come from the BBC at all.

I blame the folklore side of me for trying to track down the truth of this.

Here’s the actual book list. I’ve put the titles I’ve read in bold and put an asterisk in front of the ones I want to read. The ones I really liked get a smiley and a frowny next to the ones I really didn’t like.

BBC’s Big Read – the top 200 favorite books in the UK.

Edit: On second thought, that list was long and distracting here. I’ve made it a page on my B.Log. Go check it out there.

Now, for those of you who did the fake list, why not give the real list a try?

Also, what have we learned from this activity? We’ve learned that I have very different tastes in books from the BBC’s general audience. I have around 30 books on my to-read list right now, and not a one of them is actually on this list of 200 right here. And I’m not going to read a book just because it is on somebody’s list. There’s only so much time in this life, I want to spend it reading the books I want to read.

Also, we’ve learned I should not write blog posts when I’ve been dealing with financial aid stuff, or my lack thereof. It makes me cranky.

Do I read? Of course I read. I had to start a whole different blog just to keep track of my books. Of course it’s only a partial list from the last five years. All the books from before 2003 aren’t on that list. Go check out the other blog. Giggles Reads B.Log