Gettin' the book snark on.

Not the 50 books you must read before you die.

Personal score from the list: Read 3 (which ones?  I'm not saying, but I did enjoy them), Attempted 4, Watched 5 (two though are a double hit with the attempt score).


Several things about the list strike me.  First, something like 40% of this semi-worthwhile slush pile has been made into movies.  (And 20% of the raw count isn't really filmable to begin with.  A Brief History of Time or Outliers just wouldn't translate except as say a PBS mini-series which doesn't count.)  So somebody's falling in love with this stuff.  Some of them are big hit movies (Harry Potter), some not (Captain Corelli's Mandolin).  Most of them are sort of dreary, and many are showing their age.  Maybe it's best to wait for the movie versions, just to get it over more quickly.
So go read over the list and feel a little better inside that you didn't finish Nineteen Eighty-Four that day back in 1983 when you had 6" of snow outside and 17 hours of homework ahead of you.  It'll do you good to get a little smug.
Others I'd like to add: Watership Down, any pop history book discussed in the NYT, and any current affairs book more than two years old (The End of History really sounded great in 1992 after all that Cold War drama, didn't it?).