Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish.

Today is a Top Ten Rewind so I got to pick a previous TTT topic that I missed out on.

Today's list is the top ten books I feel like everyone has read except me

So without further ado, in no particular order...

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Don't tell my high school English teachers, but I totally faked my way through these books (and many others).  I was the master of Cliff's Notes in high school.  I don't think I even read a book for pleasure until I was halfway through college.  All the books I was *forced* to read totally killed it for me for a while.  At this point, I kind of wish I had read them, because they're such classics  But, alas, I did not.  Oh well, maybe one day I will pick them up and see what all the fuss is about.

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

It's true...I've never read it.  I seriously think I am the only person on the planet that hasn't.  Everyone was so pumped about the movie and I was all like "yeah, that looks weird."  My little one got thefor her birthday last month, maybe I need to take a look at it.

The Harry Potter Series by J. K. Rowling

Nope...none of them.  I love the movies,but I saw the first several before it ever occurred to me that I should read the books.  By then, I was like "nah...I've gone to far."  I can't force myself to read a book after I've already seen the movie.  I know the books are always better, but I can't read a book if I know what's going to happen.  It makes me feel like I am wasting my time.  I can watch a movie I've seen before, but that only takes a couple hours.  It takes me way longer to read a book and there are so many I don't know what happens in that I'd rather read those.

The Lux Series by Jennifer L. Armentrout

This has been on my TBR list ever since it crossed the pages of nearly every book blog that I follow.  Everyone is always going on and on about Daemon and I'm all like "who is he?!?!?!"  He looks super hott on the cover of that book, but I haven't read it yet.  (Mainly because I'm not allowing myself to spend money on books until I read a couple that I already own.  Right now I'm on a library kick, so who knows when that will happen.)

Pretty much anything by Nicholas Sparks

The man has written a ridiculous amount of books (in my opinion) and I have only read four of them.  While most of you may think that's a good number, you have to understand that the man lives in my town.  He is our "local celebrity"  (*vomit*).  Everyone around here is all "oh he is amazing, I love his work" and I'm like "seriously!?!  everyone always dies!!!  it is awful!"  Last time my mom, grandma and sister dragged me to one of his movies when I left the theater I was like "that's it....let's go to his house...when he opens the door I'm going to punch him in the throat."  A Bend in the Road, in particular, is set in our hometown.  While I am curious about it, I just cannot bring myself to read it because I know the ending will be awful.  (Side note:  I do own all of the books.  My sister gives signed copies as Christmas gifts every year.  I keep telling her I'm not going to read them, but I don't think she cares.  Haha)

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

I feel everyone has read this and everyone has loved it.  It was a New York Times best seller and then they made a fancy movie out of it, but I'm just not all that interested in it.  I don't know what it is about it that turns me off, but I just truly have no desire to read this book....or see the movie, for that matter.

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

This is another one of those that everyone raved about and then someone made a movie and I'm just not feeling it.  I will tell you, I read Angels and Demons and I absolutely loved it.  I thought it was a fantastic book, I loved the suspense and I even enjoyed the movie.  But when I picked up The Da Vinci Code, I just couldn't get into it.  It didn't grab me like Angels and Demons did and so...I've never read it.  And I have never seen the movie either.  Oh well.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

*GASP*  I know...I hate to admit this one.  But I haven't read Pride and Prejudice.  And, quite honestly, I'm not even sure I've seen the movie.  Everyone's always talking about Mr. Darcy and I just smile and nod.  I'm sure it's good, but I just can't get with the language.  I actually own a really cool set of Jane Austen novels and yet, I haven't read it.  I feel like I want to...but I also feel like it would take for-ev-er because I would have a hard time understanding the language.  In college we were required to memorize the first 18-20 lines of The Canterbury Tales (another one I totally didn't read and faked my way through) in Olde English and quite frankly I never again want to see/read anything that hard to understand.

And yes....I really was required to memorize them...and recite them for my instructor...for a grade.  Everyone at Meredith College is required to do so when taking British Authors (I think that was the class).  I cannot begin to tell you how stressful it was.  And incase you're interested...here it is...

Whan that aprill with his shoures soote 
The droghte of march hath perced to the roote, 
And bathed every veyne in swich licour 
Of which vertu engendred is the flour; 
Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth 
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth 
Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne 
Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne, 
And smale foweles maken melodye, 
That slepen al the nyght with open ye 
(so priketh hem nature in hir corages); 
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages, 
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes, 
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes; 
And specially from every shires ende 
Of engelond to caunterbury they wende, 
The hooly blisful martir for to seke, 
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.