Happy Halloween!

Halloween is not a big thing over here. Somehow it just doesn’t catch on. Even though the shops sell Halloween costumes and decorations, even though the TV channels show spooky movies, the people seem reluctant to really get into the spirit. Strange, usually the Germans are always more than willing to adopt foreign customs.

Image Vintage Halloween postcard by riptheskull on flickr

Still, I had a look around for horror classics and found a list at Techland. According to them these are the 15 must-read horror classics. I’m no big fan of horror, so let’s see how many I have read (in italics).

• The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, 1764
• Vathek by William Beckford, 1786
• The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe, 1794
• The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis, 1796
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, 1818
• Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Robert Maturin, 1820
• Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, 1886
• The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, 1890
• The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen, 1894
• Dracula by Bram Stoker, 1897
• The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, 1898
• The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by H. P. Lovecraft, 1927
• At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft, 1936
• Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, 1938
• Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber, 1943

5 out of 15, not so great. I always wanted to read Castle of Otranto and, as an Austen lover, The Mysteries of Udolpho, but never got around to doing so. I have to put them on my to-read-list on Goodreads, so I won’t forget. Apart from those two I’m not very interested. Except maybe for Conjure Wife. That sounds interesting. Lovecraft I will definitely give a pass. I tried to read some short stories by him once and found them too weird for me.

Are you a horror lover? How many have you read?

The Literary Lollipop created this fun quiz about your book habits. She says “Feel free to cut and paste the questionnaire onto your own blogs, or if you would like to add a question, please do so! Did I miss anything? Let me know! Change it around or leave as is… it’s up to you.”

I am breaking this up, because 55 long winded answers from me in one go will probably make your eyes glaze over.

1. Favourite childhood book: The mystery series by Enid Blyton. There were 15 books and I devoured them all. It was the first series of books I collected.

2. What are you reading right now? “The Shipping News” which so far is a bit disappointing, but only because I have watched the film first – always a mistake. The second book I am reading is “Clean Slate” by Aleksandr Voinov, a GLBT novella.

3. What books do you have on request at the library? None. It costs at our library to request books and I am too cheap to pay that fee.

4. Bad book habit: Dog ears

5. What do you currently have checked out at the library? Three books on beading, 2 vegetarian cook books and a cookie baking book. I usually go for non-fiction from the library.

6. Do you have an e-reader? Yes, A Sony PRS 505

7. Do you prefer to read one book at a time, or several at once? Usually two or three books, so I can switch over when my mood changes.

8. Have your reading habits changed since starting a blog? No, not really. The difference is now I talk about the books I read on the blog.

9. Least favourite book you read this year: That must have been “Mr. Darcy takes a wife” which was a DNF. I swapped it as soon as possible.

10. Favourite book I’ve read this year: I read many books I liked a lot so far this year. I can’t name a favourite, but the biggest surprise to me was “Enlightened”, a self published book by J. P. Barnaby that I received for review and accepted even though there were a lot of aspects I usually don’t like in a book. Unexpectedly I totally loved it.

That is it for today. Another set of questions will follow shortly. Want to tell me what your answers would be? Join the 55 quirky questions!

At Jockey full of Bourbon I found this pretentious book meme, which sounded like fun. Obviously those are the top 106 “unread” books at The Library Thing. Their purpose on the shelf is to make you look smart or well-rounded (or they could have been a gift). The meme has complicated rules as to underscore, make bold, put in italics etc. depending on the status of the book in your case. Too much effort, but I will make the ones I’ve read bold.

Btw, why anybody would think that putting books like “Angels & Demons” or “The Time-Traveler’s Wife” on his “unread” pile makes him look smart I don’t know. They might be bestsellers, but that’s about it. Give me a break!

1. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
2. Anna Karenina
3. Crime and Punishment
4. Catch-22
5. One Hundred Years of Solitude
6. Wuthering Heights
7. The Silmarillion
8. Life of Pi : a novel
9. The Name of the Rose
10. Ulysses
11. Don Quixote
12. Moby Dick
13. Madame Bovary
14. The Odyssey
15. Pride and Prejudice
16. Jane Eyre
17. The Tale of Two Cities
18. The Brothers Karamazov
19. Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
20. War and Peace
21. Vanity Fair
22. The Time Traveler’s Wife
23. The Iliad
24. Emma
25. The Blind Assassin
26. The Kite Runner
27. Mrs. Dalloway
28. Great Expectations
29. American Gods
30. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
31. Atlas Shrugged
32. Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
33. Memoirs of a Geisha
34. Middlesex
35. Quicksilver
36. Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
37. The Canterbury Tales
38. The Historian : a novel
39. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
40. Love in the Time of Cholera
41. Brave New World
42. The Fountainhead
43. Foucault’s Pendulum
44. Middlemarch
45. Frankenstein
46. The Count of Monte Cristo
47. Dracula
48. A Clockwork Orange
49. Anansi Boys
50. The Once and Future King
51. The Grapes of Wrath
52. The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
53. 1984
54. Angels & Demons
55. The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise)
56. The Satanic Verses
57. Sense and Sensibility
58. The Picture of Dorian Gray
59. Mansfield Park
60. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
61. To the Lighthouse
62. Tess of the D’Urbervilles
63. Oliver Twist
64. Gulliver’s Travels
65. Les Misérables
66. The Corrections
67. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
68. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
69. Dune
70. The Prince
71. The Sound and the Fury
72. Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
73. The God of small things
74. A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
75. Cryptonomicon
76. Neverwhere
77. A Confederacy of Dunces
78. A Short History of Nearly Everything
79. Dubliners
80. The Unbearable Lightness of Being
81. Beloved
82. Slaughterhouse-five
83. The Scarlet Letter
84. Eats, Shoots & Leaves
85. The Mists of Avalon
86. Oryx and Crake : a novel
87. Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
88. Cloud Atlas
89. The Confusion
90. Lolita
91. Persuasion
92. Northanger Abbey
93. The Catcher in the Rye
94. On the Road
95. The Hunchback of Notre Dame
96. Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
97. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: an inquiry into values
98. The Aeneid
99. Watership Down
100. Gravity’s Rainbow
101. The Hobbit
102. In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
103. White Teeth
104. Treasure Island
105. David Copperfield
106. The Three Musketeers

36 out of 106, that is only 34%. But given that the list is not representative, I’m not too bothered. So, what books can you check off this list?

I came across this list at An eerie tapestry. Since I love lists, I thought I’d play along, even though the list has not much to do with books (if anything). I could probably stretch it a bit and say that a lot of them are either based on books or some dubious writer came up with a not so good novelization later to make a few more bucks. Which ones they are I can’t say, that would take too much research and time I don’t want to spend that way. But I’m sure you’ll live without that valuable knowledge.

The bold one I’ve seen, the blue ones I really liked.

0-9
12 Angry Men (1957)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) √
400 Blows (1959)
8 1/2 (1963)
A
The African Queen (1952)
Alien (1979)
All About Eve (1950)
Annie Hall (1977)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
B
The Battle of Algiers (1967)
The Bicycle Thief (1948)
Blade Runner (1982)
Blazing Saddles (1974)
Blow Up (1966)
Blue Velvet (1986)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
Breathless (1960)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
C
Casablanca (1942)
Chinatown (1974)
Citizen Kane (1941)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
D
Die Hard (1988)
Do the Right Thing (1989)
Double Indemnity (1944)
Dr. Strangelove (1964)
Duck Soup (1933)
E
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Enter the Dragon (1973)
The Exorcist (1973)
F
Fast Times At Ridgemont High (1982)
The French Connection (1971)
G
The Godfather (1972)
The Godfather, Part II (1974)
Goldfinger (1964)
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1968)
Goodfellas (1990)
The Graduate (1967)
Grand Illusion (1938)
Groundhog Day (1993)
H
A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
I
In the Mood For Love (2001)
It Happened One Night (1934)
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
J
Jaws (1975)
K
King Kong (1933)
L
The Lady Eve (1941)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
The Lord of the Rings (2001)
M
M (1931)
M*A*S*H (1970)
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
The Matrix (1999)
Modern Times (1936)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
N
National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978)
Network (1976)
Nosferatu (1922)
O
On the Waterfront (1954)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
P
Paths of Glory (1958)
Princess Mononoke (1999)
Psycho (1960)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
R
Raging Bull (1980)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Raise the Red Lantern (1992)
Rashomon (1951)
Rear Window (1954)
Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
Rocky (1976)
Roman Holiday (1953)
S
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Schindler’s List (1993)
The Searchers (1956)
Seven Samurai (1954)
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Some Like It Hot (1959)
The Sound of Music (1965)
Star Wars (1977)
Sunset Blvd. (1950)
T
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
The Third Man (1949)
This is Spinal Tap (1984)
Titanic (1997)
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Toy Story (1995)
U
The Usual Suspects (1995)
V
Vertigo (1958)
W
When Harry Met Sally… (1989)
Wild Strawberries (1957)
Wings of Desire (1988)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Women On the Verge of Nervous Breakdown (1988)
The World of Apu (1959)

I don’t know whether I agree with the list. You can certainly live without having seen The sound of music and the like. And obviously I missed a lot of so-called must-sees. In fact I take pride in the fact that I’ve never seen E.T. or Titanic. Some of the films on the list I should certainly go and see, like for example Schindler’s list.

An eerie tapestry (unfortunately I don’t know his name, so I have to call him by the name of his blog) suggested to add a film to the list, which I think is a good idea. He added Brazil, another film, I haven’t seen. Oh well, I’m adding:

Manhattan (1979)

Lists of books are popular. This list of the nation’s (UK) best loved novels is slightly different from this one. I just wonder who those people are who "love those books best". According to the other list only 6 books of 100 have been read by the average citizen.

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie

A lot of the books are on both lists, but one of my favourite ones appears on this one, No. 71. If you’ve never read "Perfume" I highly recommend it.  Patrick Süskind did a marvelous job describing the world of scents (and stenches). The film was ok, I suppose, considering the topic, but the book is a thousand times better.

I love lists, and this is a great one. I found it at Thorne’s world, who in turn found it on Nicholas’ A Gentleman’s Domain.

"A list of books that the BBC website had shown some months ago.  There are 100 titles in all and the BBC, or whoever is in charge of this sort of thing at the BBC, reckon that most people will have read only six of them." Six is pretty poor, isn’t it? So, let’s see. I’ll colour the ones I’ve read in blue…

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

6 The Bible –

7 Wuthering Heights -Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk

18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch – George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis

34 Emma – Jane Austen

35 Persuasion – Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne

41 Animal Farm – George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving

45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding

50 Atonement – Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel

52 Dune – Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men- John Steinbeck

62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens

72 Dracula – Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses – James Joyce

76 The Inferno – Dante

77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal – Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession – AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Bank

94 Watership Down – Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

What a fun list, and what variety! I’m glad, they have Vikram Seth on it, as well as Nevil Shute. I haven’t thought of Donna Tartt’s book for a long time, I must get it out again and re-read it.

 

Actually I just found another 100 books list at BBC which is obviously some reader’s choice list. Also interesting. I’ll go over that one later.