[AnAmericanMother]

Atlas Shrugged - One of the few books I've started and deliberately put down. Turgid prose, tin ear for dialogue, WAY too much preaching. I want preaching, I'll read a book of St. John Vianney's sermons or something.

Origin of Species - no interest, other than history of science. Have read excerpts.

Les Miserables - Yep, I've read it. Even liked the lengthy digression into a history of the Paris sewers. Fun book. But then I like Anthony Trollope too (I've even read The Vendee.)

A Tale of Two Cities - I've read it. Didn't like it. Don't like Dickens in general.

1984 - read it, but agree with C.S. Lewis that Animal Farm is much better.

Democracy in America - don't know if it counts that I HAD to read this for a history class.

The Wealth of Nations - nope!

Moby Dick - I did read it for an English Lit class (an entire semester on Moby Dick, Typee, and Billy Budd!) but I read it again just for fun.

The Art of War - nope.

The Prince - only bits and pieces, for a history class.

Ulysses - stalled halfway through. Don't care for Joyce, would rather read Donn Byrne.

My favorite book-that-everyone-says-they-read-but-didn't is Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. I love medieval history so I read it all the way through, but you have to have a good grasp of the period, plus more than a passing familiarity with Latin and the Church Fathers. It's a tough read, but it sold millions and millions of copies and stayed on the NYT bestseller list for ages. Just to sit on people's coffee tables.

[jocon307]

“Animal Farm is much better”

That is a book that I must read, and haven’t yet. Also, as I mentioned here a while back “A Canticle for Liebowitz” (STILL haven’t read it!).

I’d like to try Trollope too.

I love Waugh, but I HATED Brideshead revisited, just hated it. (I don’t really know if this relates to Trollope, but I always think of them together.)

I can’t believe you had to read the whole Democracy in America for school. I have it in a beautiful edition but I’ve never read it.

I kind of agree with you about Dickens, he’s good when he is funny, but he seemed to give that up too soon.

[left that other site]

I read “The name of the Rose” too.

Much better than the Movie!

[Mercat]

I have read Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose but I prefer Foucault’s Pendulum which I have read twice. So there. :-P