9%
That's what I would get on a test that scores how many of Time's 100 greatest novels I've read. Nine of them. What does that say about me, as someone who theoretically likes reading more than the average person?
1. I'm lazy, even about what I read.
2. I like trashy writing.
3. I'm idiosynchratic.
Also, it suggests that maybe only including books written after 1923 is sort of limiting. Why even publish the list if you're not going to do the job right? Or, at the very least, make it since 1900?
Just for the record, of the nine, I read five of them for high school. But I'd actually read two of those on my own already. Actually, I'd read six of them before ninth grade. Just for the record, the nine are:
Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret (obviously, I read this in fourth grade, just like every other girl since 1963, when it was published)
Catcher in the Rye (summer after eighth grade)
Gone with the Wind (I think that was also the summer after eighth grade, though I can't actually remember finishing the book)
Great Gatsby (spring of eighth grade)
Native Son (tenth grade - and anyone who had Miss Brady for English will agree that writing the in-class essay for this was one of the most memorable academic experiences EVER)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (also in Miss Brady's tenth grade class)
The Sound and the Fury (read this at the beginning of AP English. Damn, it was hard.)
The Sun Also Rises (another eighth grade read...though I'm pretty sure I also wrote a paper on this at some point)
To Kill a Mockingbird (read this on the interminable trip my family took the summer after I was in eighth grade. Also of note: Cooper and my friend Ryan both named their dogs Scout after the main character)
Reading back through this list, it's pretty clear that eighth grade was a major reading year for me. During that year, I also remember polishing off the entire John Jakes historical fiction series the Kent Family Chronicles. Guess that's what happens when you take a sullen thirteen year old on a three-week family RV tour of the Rocky Mountain states...
1. I'm lazy, even about what I read.
2. I like trashy writing.
3. I'm idiosynchratic.
Also, it suggests that maybe only including books written after 1923 is sort of limiting. Why even publish the list if you're not going to do the job right? Or, at the very least, make it since 1900?
Just for the record, of the nine, I read five of them for high school. But I'd actually read two of those on my own already. Actually, I'd read six of them before ninth grade. Just for the record, the nine are:
Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret (obviously, I read this in fourth grade, just like every other girl since 1963, when it was published)
Catcher in the Rye (summer after eighth grade)
Gone with the Wind (I think that was also the summer after eighth grade, though I can't actually remember finishing the book)
Great Gatsby (spring of eighth grade)
Native Son (tenth grade - and anyone who had Miss Brady for English will agree that writing the in-class essay for this was one of the most memorable academic experiences EVER)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (also in Miss Brady's tenth grade class)
The Sound and the Fury (read this at the beginning of AP English. Damn, it was hard.)
The Sun Also Rises (another eighth grade read...though I'm pretty sure I also wrote a paper on this at some point)
To Kill a Mockingbird (read this on the interminable trip my family took the summer after I was in eighth grade. Also of note: Cooper and my friend Ryan both named their dogs Scout after the main character)
Reading back through this list, it's pretty clear that eighth grade was a major reading year for me. During that year, I also remember polishing off the entire John Jakes historical fiction series the Kent Family Chronicles. Guess that's what happens when you take a sullen thirteen year old on a three-week family RV tour of the Rocky Mountain states...
posted by Kit Pollard at
3:53 PM
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