Fill in the Gaps, the 2011 Edition

In February 2010, I finalized my Fill in the Gaps Book list.  I made a few adjustments when I realized I had read a few on my original list, and I removed a few when I discovered I was heavy with books by a single author (see strikethroughs below).  I also made a tiny dent in the list (see checks below) and added a few new titles (see green entries below marked with an "N").

I'm still determining the status of All That Dickens and Should I Dumas to That Extent, but I think I'm good with the balance of books on the list.  As you can see from the strikethroughs, I have a few more books to choose, so I'll take suggestions.

In the meanwhile, this is the status of this daunting task.


Chris' Fill in the Gaps Book List





1001 Nights / Arabian Nights




Things Fall Apart
Chinua
Achebe


Highsmoor
Peter
Ackroyd


Foundation
Isaac
Asimov


Pride and Prejudice
Jane
Austen


Sense and Sensibility
Jane
Austen

Sundays With Vlad
Paul
Bibeau
The
Lost Symbol
Dan
Brown

The
Early Fears
Robert
Bloch

The
Good Earth
Pearl S.
Buck

A
Little Princess
Frances Hodgson
Burnett

The
Secret Garden
Frances Hodgson
Burnett


Cold Sassy Tree
Olive Ann
Burns

The
Land that Time Forgot
Edgar Rice
Burroughs


Tobacco Road
Erskine
Caldwell

The
Plague
Albert
Camus


Ender's Game
Orson Scott
Card


Death Comes for the Archbishop
Willa
Cather


O Pioneers
Willa
Cather


Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Michael
Chabon

The
Big Sleep
Raymond
Chandler

The
Stories of John Cheever
John
Cheever


Girl with the Pearl Earring
Tracy
Chevalier

The
Woman in White
Wilkie
Collins


Moll Flanders
Daniel
DeFoe

The
Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Junot
Diaz

A
Tale of Two Cities
Charles
Dickens


David Copperfield
Charles
Dickens


Little Dorrit
Charles
Dickens


Oliver Twist
Charles
Dickens


Great Expectations
Charles
Dickens

The
Count of Monte Cristo
Alexandre
Dumas

The
Man in the Iron Mask
Alexandre
Dumas

The
Last Cavalier
Alexandre
Dumas

A
Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Dave
Eggers


Middlemarch
George
Eliot


Madame Bovary
Gustave
Flaubert


Where Angels Fear to Tread
E.M.
Forster

The
Corrections
Jonathan
Franzen

The
Quiet American
Graham
Greene
N
The
Talented Mr. Ripley
Patricia
Highsmith


Goodbye, Mr. Chips
James
Hilton


Lost Horizon
James
Hilton

Les
Miserables
Victor
Hugo


Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale
Hurston

The
Lost Weekend
Charles R.
Jackson
The
Haunting of Hill House
Shirley
Jackson

The
Portrait of a Lady
Henry
James


Three Men in a Boat
Jerome K
Jerome


Up the Down Staircase
Bel
Kaufman


On the Road
Jack
Kerouac


Please Don’t Eat the Daisies
Jean
Kerr


Under the Dome
Stephen
King

The
Poisonwood Bible
Barbara
Kingsolver

The
Jungle Books
Rudyard
Kipling

The
Man Who Would Be King
Rudyard
Kipling

A
Separate Peace
John
Knowles


Little Drummer Girl
John
LeCarre

The
Golden Notebook
Doris
Lessing


Sliver
Ira
Levin


Elmer Gantry
Sinclair
Lewis

The
Monk
Matthew Gregory
Lewis


What the Dead Know
Laura
Lippman

        
The
Call of the Wild
Jack
London
The
Best of H.P. Lovecraft
H.P.
Lovecraft


One Hundred Years of Solitude
Gabriel Garcia
Marquez


Love in the Time of Cholera
Gabriel Garcia
Marquez

The
Road
Cormac
McCarthy

The
Member of the Wedding
Carson
McCullers

Atonement
Ian
McEwan


Lonesome Dove
Larry
McMurty


Moby-Dick
Herman
Melville


Peyton Place
Grace
Metalious

The
Seven-Per-Cent Solution
Nicholas
Meyer


Beloved
Toni
Morrison


Lolita
Vladimir
Nabokov


Suite Française
Irene
Nemirovsky

A
Confederacy of Dunces
John Kennedy
O'Toole


Doctor Zhivago
Boris
Pasternak


Bel Canto
Ann
Patchett


Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Robert M.
Pirsig


Gravity’s Rainbow
Thomas
Pynchon


Atlas Shrugged
Ayn
Rand

The
Fountainhead
Ayn
Rand


All Quiet on the Western Front
Erich Maria
Remarque


Home
Marylynne
Robinson

The
Human Stain
Philip
Roth

The
God of Small Things
Arundathi
Roy


Midnight’s Children
Salman
Rushdie


Sarum
Edward
Rutherford


Frankenstein
Mary
Shelley
A

Town like Alice
Nevil
Shute


Prayers to  Broken Stones
Dan
Simmons


Enemies, A Love Story
Isaac Bashevis
Singer


Angle of Repose
Wallace
Steigner

Dracula
Bram
Stoker

The
Valley of the Dolls
Jacqueline
Suzanne

The
Magnificent Ambersons
Booth
Tarkington

The
Man Who Fell to Earth
Walter
Tevis


Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Hunter S.
Thompson


Anna Karenina
Leo
Tolstoy


War and Peace
Leo
Tolstoy


All the King's Men
Robert Penn
Warren


Brideshead Revisited
Evelyn
Waugh


Night
Elie
Weisel


Journey to the Center of the Earth
H.G.
Wells


Trainspotting
Irvine
Welsh

The
Age of Innocence
Edith
Wharton

The
Inimitable Jeeves
P.G.
Wodehouse







Comments

  1. Did you love Atonement? I think I commented last year, too, so hopefully I'm not repeating myself. Love Austen, Dickens, Tolstoy, Waugh... I don't think you can go wrong keeping/adding anything by them. I have not read Dumas at all. I would drop Tobacco Road... hated it. Ditto, I hated On the Road, but I can see why you'd want to keep it on the list. In the same vein, I found F&L in Las Vegas tiring... the whole "screwed up beyond belief and writing about it" thing just doesn't appeal to me. I found Moby-Dick too dense. I gave it the old college try, but there was no way. Life is too short. I love Garcia-Marquez, but he can be an acquired taste. I could not get into Bel Canto (not an Ann Patchett fan). I read Sarum many, many years ago and it is quite a tome. I remember enjoying it (for a long, long time!). I think I recommended last time maybe substituting So Big for the Mag Ambersons. I see you've added a few from the book club list. I would also add the other Stegner book, Crossing to Safety, if you haven't read it. Lolita is really good. Night is excellent. I wanted to love When Things Fall Apart and heard Achebe speak and thought he was amazing, but I just could not get into that book the way I wanted to. Might give it another try. Hmmm don't you just love books? I wish I could read them all! :)

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  2. If I could, Katie, I'd give up sleeping to read!

    LOVED Atonement. I had seen the movie, which I kept seeing as I read the book, and I liked that. I thought it was a flawless movie and, after reading the book, found it a great tribute to the novel.

    I started reading some Dumas and found him very readable, so I can't wait to really sink my teeth into a few swashbucklers.

    I can't wait to get to Crossing to Safety. Don't know if I can get into So Big after the travesty that was Giant.

    What did you hate about Tobacco Road?

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  3. Okay, I looked back in the reading log I keep and I read TR in 1999 and actually I liked it when I read it, but I know now why my memory of it is so tainted. It is about squalid, disgusting, ignorant life in the rural South. Did you read Winters Bone? That whole world of crazy idiocy among poor Southerners... I dunno. Maybe leave it on your list!

    So Big I loved and highly recommend! I have not read Giant. I think I remember that Carole liked SB, too.

    I agree about Atonement, the film. It is the only movie that I went back to see 2x in the theater. Loved it!

    ReplyDelete

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