If you took a few minutes to explore my blog you would understand how wrong you are when you accuse me of ‘west worship.’ That is ignorant and rude.

Get off your high horse and come to India to practice medicine if you love the motherland so much and don’t want it going to hell.

PS. FYI I haven’t read Charlotte’s Web, and I don’t intend to. The least you could have done is check my read & suggested reading list at the end of the post. Please see # 8 & 9.

DrCris My boarding school had a huge collection of abridged classics and I read a large number of them. I usually avoid all books that are short-listed for prizes. I find that I don’t understand most of them. I read about thirty pages of Arundhati Roy’s God of Small Things and gave up. Thankfully, I didn’t waste money on that book. It was a gift (from someone who obviously did not know my taste).

Thanks for pointing out the error Pk. A stupid mistake for a radiologist. Missing a ‘lesion’ as big as a whale! I’m ashamed

You asked why Moby Dick wasn’t on there …but it is ..and you highlighted it ;o)

Also, I love P.G. Wodehouse. He’s amazing. One of my favorite authors. His Jeeves books are all hilarious!

And one more thing I’ve noticed about this list. Doesn’t number 14 kind of cover number 98? Seriously, I mean, if you’re going to ask about “every shakespeare book” and then about “hamlet”. . . I mean, isn’t it slightly redundant?

Anyway. . . I’ve read plenty of these. Not all of them. But probably a good 10%. It makes for a good list of books I need to read!

And you have to read the Lord of the Flies. It’s a high school level book that takes not alot of time to read. I finished it in one afternoon. It’s very intense, and way creeepy.

Ugh. Moby Dick. We have a reading tv book club in Australia and they raved about it. People seem to love it. I really wanted to, but really didn’t. Luckily, there is not as much pressure to read it in Aus - it is the “great American novel” after all.

Scanman, I can’t believe that a school would stock so many abridged classics. Although, if you have read the fabulous “Mister Pip”, which was Booker shortlisted last year, you will get an explanation of the value of good abridgements. Although I suppose that is a minor spoiler. Sorry.

Cris

It did seem like a really random list of books…

Moby Dick? I shudder to think of legions of young readers who picked up Moby Dick, read through the first ten pages, put it down, and went back to their GameBoys never to return again.

Purplesque in my boarding school’s library A few of them may have been illustrated versions.

I remember a few more classics like Lord of the Flies, that I read in abridged form.

Wonder why none of Mark Twain’s books are there? And Pearl Buck’s Good Earth?

And;
- Moby Dick by Herman Melville Redacted after reading Pk’s comment.
- The Pillars Of The Earth by Ken Follett.
- The Name of the Rose by Umerto Eco.

- Your list is better than the preceding one.

- The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes? Really?

- Where did you get all those abridged versions?