Showing my ignorance - genre meme

[steepholm]

ETA: Via lady_schrapnell and ladyofastolat...

It occurs to me that I'd have a much higher score if I were counting television and radio adaptations rather than bona fide reads:

 

The usual rules apply: Read, Partly Read (or just read some books of the series),   Loved.

 1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien 
2. The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien Foolishly I read this after LOTR, to which it could never quite live up.
3. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien One of many books read on the bus to sixth-form college. A curate’s egg.
4. Foundation series, Isaac Asimov
5. Robot series, Isaac Asimov
6. Dune, Frank Herbert
7. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein
8. Earthsea series, Ursula le Guin
9. Neuromancer, William Gibson
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury I’m pretty sure I read this, though I have stronger memories of the film.
11. The Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham – a strange omission,  but I’ve loved a lot of Wyndham’s others
12. A Book of the New Sun series, Gene Wolfe
13. Discworld series, Terry Pratchett
14. Sandman series, Neil Gaiman
15. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams – Haven't read it, but I heard the BBC Radio 4 series of which it is the novelization.
16. Dragonriders of Pern series, Anne McAffery
17. Interview with the Vampire series, Anne Rice
18. The Shining, Stephen King
19. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula le Guin
20. The Chronicles of Amber, Roger Zelazny
21. 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke
22. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
23. Ringworld, Larry Niven
24. Elric of Melnibone series, Michael Moorcock
25. The Dying Earth series, Jack Vance
26. Lyonesse series, Jack Vance
27. The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever, Stephen Donaldson
28. A Song of Ice and Fire series, George R.R. Martin
29. The Worm Ourobouros, E.R. Eddison
30. Conan series, Robert E. Howard
31. Lankhmar series, Fritz Leiber
32. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
33. The Time Machine, H.G. Wells
34. The Invisible Man, H.G. Wells
35. The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells
36. Eon, Greg Bear
37. Book of the First Law series, Joe Abercrombie
38. Miss Marple stories, Agatha Christie  I’ve read maybe half a dozen of these – a lot of fun
39. Hercule Poirot stories, Agatha Christie  Have I read some of these? I’ve seen and heard so many adaptations I’m not entirely sure, but I’m giving myself the benefit of the doubt.
40. Lord Peter Wimsey stories, Dorothy L. Sayers
41. The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett
42. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
43. Sherlock Holmes stories, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
44. Cthulhu Mythos, H.P. Lovecraft
45. Inspector Wexford stories, Ruth Rendell
46. Adam Dalgliesh stories, P.D. James
47. Philip Marlowe stories, Raymond Chandler I loved these for the voice more than for the mysteries.
48. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
49. The Day of the Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
50. The Fourth Protocol, Frederick Forsyth
51. Smiley series, John le Carre
52. Gentleman Bastard series, Scott Lynch
53. The Malazan Book of the Fallen, Steven Erikson
54. Watchmen series, Alan Moore
55. Maus, Art Spiegelman Started – but haven’t made much progress yet...
56. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Alan Miller
57. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi
58. Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling
59. Chrestomanci series, Diana Wynne Jones With a distinct preference for Charmed Life, Witch Week, and The Lives of Christopher Chant.
60. Ryhope Wood series, Robert Holdstock
61. Wilt series, Tom Sharpe
62. Riftwar Cycle, Raymond E. Feist
63. Temeraire series, Naomi Novik
64. Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis
65. His Dark Materials series, Phillip Pullman Loved the first two, barfed on the third, tasty chunks of diced carrot notwithstanding.
66. Dragonlance series, Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
67. Twilight saga, Stephanie Meyer
68. The Night's Dawn trilogy, Peter F. Hamilton
69. Artemis Fowl series, Eoin Colfer
70. Honor Harrington series, David Weber
71. Hannibal Lecter series, Thomas Harris
72. The Dark Tower series, Stephen King
73. It, Stephen King
74. The Rats series, James Herbert
75. Dirk Gently series, Douglas Adams
76. Jeeves and Wooster stories, P.G. Wodehouse  I loved this in the same way as I did Philip Marlowe, to whose prose I see a curious resemblance. (They went to the same school, bizarrely – perhaps there was an inspirational master at Dulwich College?)

77. The da Vinci Code, Dan Brown
78. The Culture Series, Iain M. Banks
79. The Duncton series, William Horwood
80. The Illuminatus! trilogy, Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson
81. The Aberystwyth series, Malcom Pryce
82. Morse stories, Colin Dexter
83. Navajo Tribal Police stories, Tony Hillerman
84. The Ipcress File, Len Deighton
85. Enigma, Robert Harris
86. Fatherland, Robert Harris
87. The Constant Gardener, John le Carre
88. The House of Cards trilogy, Michael Dobbs
89. The Dark is Rising saga, Susan Cooper A Big Reading Event for me (at the age of 17)
90. Psychotechnic League and Polesotechnic League series, Poul Anderson
91. Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton
92. Star Wars: Thrawn trilogy, Timothy Zahn
93. Ender's Game series, Orson Scott Card
94. Gormenghast series, Meryvn Peake
95. Miles Vorkosigan saga, Lois McMaster Bujold
96. The Once and Future King, T.H. White  I definitely  read and loved it, but the details aren’t quite as clear as they should be
97. Fighting Fantasy books, Ian Livingston & Steve Jackson
98. The Stainless Steel Rat series, Harry Harrison
99. The Lensman series, E.E. 'Doc' Smith
100. The Cadfael stories, Ellis Peters Read quite a few, but never much liked them, really. The covers always carried a reviewer’s quotation: ‘Cosy as a teapot.’ I never saw this as a compliment.

ETA: I should have included these three additions from lady_schrapnell:

101: The Riddle Master Trilogy, Patricia A. McKillip
102: The Wolves Chronicles, Joan Aiken This one was thanks to you, Lady S!
103: The Perilous Gard, Elizabeth Marie Pope A totally unexpected pleasure, come across when I was researching my Tam Lin article. The cover was horribly sappy, the contents anything but.

And three additions from me:

104: The Owl Service, Alan Garner
105: Fire and Hemlock, Diana Wynne Jones
106: Lud-in-the-Mist, Hope Mirrlees

I love all these for their different ways of mapping the borderlands of the mundane and the fantastic, my usual obsession. (I suppose The Faerie Queene doesn't count as genre?)

 

Comments

[sovay]

‘Cosy as a teapot.’ I never saw this as a compliment.

Only if it came with a dormouse stuffed inside.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

That was no dormouse, that was Derek Jacobi!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Wimsey, Vorkosigan, and Le Carre are my top tips.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Wimsey in particular has been on my meaning-to-read list since - well, for ever, actually.

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

There now - and I thought you'd add one book for certain-sure! Er, which reminds me - why'd you omit the three added books? You've even read one whole book and one or more of another series!

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Oh, I just took the original list you helpfully linked to, so as not to have to do all that fiddly debolding. But since you mention it, I'm happy to add:

101: The Riddle Master Trilogy, Patricia A. McKillip
102: The Wolves Chronicles, Joan Aiken This one was thanks to you, Lady S!
103: The Perilous Gard, Elizabeth Marie Pope A totally unexpected pleasure, come across when I was researching my Tam Lin article. The cover was horribly sappy, the contents anything but.

As for additions... well there are the obvious:

104: The Owl Service, Alan Garner
105: Fire and Hemlock, Diana Wynne Jones

And let's add one from a rather different stable:

106: Lud-in-the-Mist, Hope Mirrlees

I love all these for their different ways of mapping the borderlands of the mundane and the fantastic, my usual obsession. (I suppose The Faerie Queene doesn't count as genre?)

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

Yup - 104 (and 106) are the expected ones. And 105 - I don't know why I felt it wouldn't be quite okay for me to add another DWJ - just silly I guess! But if you put them in your actual post then anyone picking up the meme from you will have your added books. I think philmophlegm was looking forward to the list getting back to him sometime several times the original size!

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Philmophlegm has a lot of faith! Okay, I'll see if I can transfer it to the post - but I'm tired and about to go to bed, and will probably give up if it doesn't work smoothly first time!

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Your additions are far, far better than some of these that just seem to me to be The Usual by white males.

(I've read most of these, and a whole lot of them I don't think belong on any "must read" list.)

[diceytillerman.livejournal.com]

Oh how I LOVE The Perilous Gard.

[writinghood.livejournal.com]

Me too!! I have her other book sitting around, and I keep meaning to get to it.

[intertext.livejournal.com]

I approve all of your (and lady s's) additions. I adore The Perilous Gard. Have you read Catherine Storr's Thursday? Still probably my all-time Tam Lin variant. And Fire and Hemlock is probably my absolute favourite DWJ.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Yes, I really like Thursday too - though it doesn't seem to be well known. (As a matter of fact, I wrote about it in the Tam Lin article I linked to a couple further up the comments.)

[a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com]

I'm going to have to do this one. And at least I've read some, and have ideas for what to read next!