The Great American Read

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I've been voting for my favourite novels from the list of 100 at the PBS (Public Broadcasting Station, the public television in the US) site, The Great American Read and listening to the videos about authors and celebrities and ordinary folks talking about their favourite novels. I think the list would make an excellent place to start for 2019 reading (the ones I haven't read that appeal, a few I don't know at all). Many of them are things I was assigned to read as a young person in school or read as part of my undergraduate studies. You can vote every day, once a day until October 18 so I'm going down the list and voting for the ones I like.

I was surprised that James Patterson (who writes the Alex Cross mysteries and whose writing, particularly his characterization of women, I don't care for) and I have the same favourite book (One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez) and we share the same thoughts about it.

I was heart-broken The Hound of the Baskervilles didn't make the 100 list (but 50 Shades of Grey did? Come on! Poor Artie!).

The ones I've voted for so far:

Alice in Wonderland
And then there were none [Shocked that this one, and not Murder on the Orient Express made the list, but yea, Agatha!]
Beloved by Toni Morrison, a book about a slave who escapes to freedom during the US Civil War and the ghost of her child.
Bless me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya, which is book set in Chicano, meaning Mexican-American, culture that I read in undergraduate
The Color Purple by Alice Walker, a book about African American women in Georgia in the 1930s.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, which is Holmes-inspired.
Don Quixote, which I also read in undergraduate.
Doña Bárbara by Romulo Gallegos. A Venezuelan novel which was made into a Spanish language soap opera I used to watch.

Comments

[misbegotten]

The Hound of the Baskervilles didn't make the 100 list

Tis a crime!

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Yes! I thought so.

[smallhobbit]

I've written 25.5 of them (the 0.5 being the Da Vinci Code which I didn't finish).

I've never read 'One Hundred Years of Solitude'.

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Cool.

I wouldn't recommend One Hundred Years of Solitude to you. It's a long family epic with lots of magical realism. Imagine the Forsythe Saga on acid and set in a jungle. :/

[smallhobbit]

Nope, doesn't sound like my sort of thing - I have read the Forsythe Saga, but even that was a struggle in parts.

[mafief]

50 Shades of Grey made it?!?!? ::falls over::

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Yes, poor ACD must be rolling over in his grave.

[scfrankles]

I was heart-broken The Hound of the Baskervilles didn't make the 100 list (but 50 Shades of Grey did? I would imagine though at least people will still be reading HOUN in 100 years time; I'm not convinced about 50 Shades of Grey ^___^ (Though to be fair I haven't read the latter - only been traumatised by the occasional quote ^^")

And to be controversial... ^_^ I might have expected 'Five Little Pigs' to be on the list, over 'And then there were none'.

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Very true.

Well, I don't know how many Americans know Five Little Pigs. But I don't know if the original list was compiled through public voting or not. I mean, it's certainly not limited to American writers or settings but they do say 'America's best loved book' so :/