Top 100 Books

I found this list of top books a while back, but I can't remember where it was.

When I look at it I'm surprised at the number of them I've read. Also, it seems quite an arbitrary list. James Joyce at the bottom? But anyway, lists are fun. Titles with an asterisk are those I've read.

1.The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)*
(Great page turner. By comparison, the movie sucked. And furthermore, I don't care what the judges said, you'll never convince me that the whole premise wasn't based on Holy Blood & Holy Grail...or that the controversy wasn't manufactured by the publisher to boost sales of both books...)
2.Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3.To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)*
4.Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5.The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)*
6.The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)*
7.The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)*
(I read the entire trilogy approximately every five years.)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10.A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11.Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)*
(I want J.K. Rowling to stop using the word "revision" for "review".)
12.Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13.Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)*
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
(Saw the movie. Loved it.)
16.Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)*
17. Fall on Your Knees(Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban(Rowling)*
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21.The Hobbit (Tolkien)*
(What has it got in its pocketses?)
22.The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)*
(High school required reading.)
23.Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)*
26.The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)*
(See previous post on this.)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)*
(Can't tell you how many times I've read this.)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie(Mitch Albom)*
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)*
(A masterpiece. Again, the movie sucked.)
32.The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33.Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)*
(Ayn Rand makes me want to chew nails...both for her philosophy and her fictional style.)
34. 1984 (George Orwell)*
(Orwell makes me want to chew peyote buttons...just to forget about things for a while...)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)*
(Really well-written retelling of the Arthurian story from the women's point of view.)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)*
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True(Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40.The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. The Bible
(Too much violence. Too much sex. Too many characters.)
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47.The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)*
48.Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49.The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50.She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51.The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)*
(Kingsolver engages in the exercise of writing from several disparate points of view.)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
(Only managed the Coles Notes.)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54.Great Expectations (Dickens)*
55.The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)*
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)*
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)*
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)*
(Oooh...scary.)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)*
62.The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)*
(See above)
63. War and Peace (Tolsoy)*
(I read this for the first time when I was 12 years old.)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davies)*
(You really can tell he's from Ontariario.)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)*
(This is a Major Major piece of work.)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)*
(I first read this probably around the same time I read WarrenPeace. I did not then understand why Police Inspector Javert hounded Jean Valjean. Valjean had done his time (originally) and paid his debt to society. What right had Javert to persecute him? I recently re-read it. My opinion has not changed.)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)*
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
(Great movie.)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73.Shogun (James Clavell)*
(Everything I know about Japan I learned from this book.)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
(Great movie.)
75.The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78.The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)*
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)*
(Huxley makes me want to chew peyote buttons...just to forget about things for a while...)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)*
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)*
(Another masterpiece.)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)*
(Everything I know about Toronto...well, actually, I didn't learn it from this book.)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)*
(More high school reading.)
93. The Good Earth(Pearl S. Buck)*
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)*
(I want Redfield to stop using the word "intensely" when he means "intently".)
100.Ulysses (James Joyce)*
(Still working on this one...about two-thirds through it...on my second attempt...I have no idea what it's about.)

Upcoming Jack Kerouac Movie

Curt Worden left a comment in my post about Jack Kerouac from Sept/07 to tell us about a new documentary about Kerouac called One Fast Move Or I'm Gone. There is still not much detail available about where we can see this film, but Curt says it will be forthcoming.

I didn't want to leave his comment languishing in the back pages, so I'm posting about it here. I'm sure Kerouac fans everywhere would want to know about it. Click on Curt's name to go to the website, where you can view a trailer.

And here's a screenshot of the web page:

The Original 9-11 Conspiracy Film

If you're interested in watching this, prepare yourself for the long haul. It's nearly 2 and a half hours long.

Buddhist Film Festival

Saturday April 28th, 2007

Presented by Blue Heron Zen Buddhist Centre & Lama Yeshe Ling Tibetan Buddhist Study Group

Be inspired•meet•share a meal

at Chua Huong Dam Temple, 228 Brucedale Avenue East , Hamilton Ontario

(1 block west of Upper Wellington)

2:30 p.m. Asoka The sweeping Indian epic of the story of King Asoka`s life, from savage warrior to Buddhist messenger of peace. Told in Bollywood style this is a visually stunning retelling of the legend of Asoka, starring Shah Rukh Khan and Kareena Kapoor. It traces the legendary life of Asoka, who ascended the throne of Magadha in the 3rd century BC. To extend the borders of his empire, Asoka waged one of the bloodiest battles in history. Confronted by the carnage of his conquest, Asoka was overcome with remorse and renounced the path of war to dedicate his life to spreading the teachings of Buddhism across the world. In Hindi with English subtitles.

5:00 p.m. Why Has Bodhi Dharma Left for the East? Bae Yong-kyun's Zen masterpiece. Acclaimed by critics and audiences as one of the most ravishing films ever made. In a remote mountain monastery, an old master, a young monk and an orphaned boy devote themselves to their teachings. Facing death, the master becomes desperate to lead his disciples away from the outer world and point them toward their quest for enlightenment. This magnificent film, astonishingly rich in beauty and affirmation of life, is not only a cinematic gem but also a transcendent evocation of the mystery and humanity of Zen Buddhism. Selected by three international film critics as "One of the Ten Best Films of All Time" in the 1993 Sight & Sound Critics Poll.

7:15 p.m. Champion of Compassion An engaging and insightful documentary on His Holiness the Dalai Lama's 12 Day visit to Toronto, for the 2004 Kalachakra Initiation, which is one of the most important teachings in Tibetan Buddhism. By Tashi Eugyal, Narrated by Dr. Thupten Jinpa.

DAY PASS - THREE FILMS & DINNER $30.00

Tickets will be held at the door in your name.

Please make cheques payable to: Lama Yeshe Ling

and mail to:

Film Festival,

3333 New Street, Unit 109,

Burlington ON L7N 1N1

Insider Tip on Major Film Distribution

HWSRN* learned some trivia about the film distribution system today. You know (or maybe you don't but now you do) that he is a courier in his other life. (What he is in this life we're not sure. Anyway, never mind.)

In the course of couriering, this is what he learned today. Major films are distributed to the theatres that are/will be showing them by a combination of public and "private" transport. Greyhound bus, for one. And HWSRN's courier vehicle aka Minnie Van Nice** for two.

Hannibal Rising is the latest offering in the Hannibal Lecture series. Opening today in theatres throughout North America? I have no idea. I don't pay much attention to such things. Neither does HWSRN.

However, he did deliver two film canisters to a local megaplasticplex today, labelled Hannibal Rising. When he arrived the manager said, both casually and with an apparent wish to impress, "Oh, here's our Hannibal." HWSRN replied, "Yes, I noticed that on the label."

Manager was surprised. "They actually put that on the label?" she asked. "Usually for the big films they don't put the actual title. They name it something else."

Why? you ask. I'll tell you, altho it's obvious if you think about it. To hoodwink potential thieves.

So, next time you see a couple of film canisters on the Greyhound bus labelled something like Truffle Hunting in the South of France you can bet that it's really the latest blockbuster from our Murrican friends.

* For those of you who don't know, HWSRN stands for He-Who-Shall-Remain-Nameless. I am his altered ego, as he is mine. I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together. I am not the Walrus.
** Sad to say, but Minnie Van Nice is on her last legs...er...wheels. Still lots of pep. Lots of getup and go, but bits of the body are sagging. Other bits falling off. She won't raise her tailgate anymore, despite HWSRN's manful efforts to get it up. In other werds, the mind's still sharp, but the body's failing. HWSRN will be replacing her soon. 670,000k later.