# The Great American Read - How many for you? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 1, 2018, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-american-read-how-many-for-you/815248 "2018-06-01T11:38:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![sitchensis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sitchensis/32/4892_2.png) [@sitchensis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sitchensis)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2018, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-american-read-how-many-for-you/815248/41 "2018-06-05T16:56:02Z")
23 but a lot of them I read an aweful long time ago. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2018, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-american-read-how-many-for-you/815248/42 "2018-06-05T17:20:18Z")
I’ve read 33 of them. Will be curious how the vote turns out, but as I’m not an American I shall refrain from voting. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2018, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-american-read-how-many-for-you/815248/43 "2018-06-05T18:07:55Z")
How can they call this a great American read with all of the non-American authors? I also don’t understand how you vote. Every time I click Vote it wants to send my vote to Facebook. If I have read lots of those, I don’t want every single vote going to Facebook. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2018, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-american-read-how-many-for-you/815248/44 "2018-06-06T13:48:33Z")
A very odd list of books indeed, of wildly varying literary merit, I’d say. Didn’t see any Bradbury, Heinlein, Clarke, Haldeman or Scalzi on the list of sf contenders, which is too bad. I’ve read 29 of the 100: _1984 A Prayer for Owen Meany A Tree Grows in Brooklyn The Catcher in the Rye Charlotte’s Web The DaVinci Code Dune Foundation A Game of Thrones The Godfather Gone Girl The Great Gatsby Harry Potter The Hunt for Red October Heart of Darkness Invisible Man Jurassic Park Memoirs of a Geisha Pride & Prejudice Rebecca The Help The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy The Joy Luck Club The Lord of the Rings The Lovely Bones The Martian The Shack The Stand To Kill a Mockingbird_ Tough to narrow it down, but I think my Top Five would be: _Gone Girl The Great Gatsby The Hunt for Red October Memoirs of a Geisha The Lord of the Rings_ Very different books, but each a great read in its own way. And if I had to pick just one, it’d be _LOTR_. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2018, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-american-read-how-many-for-you/815248/45 "2018-06-06T14:29:18Z")
I think I’ve finished 36 of them–there are some titles that I may have read as an adolescent, but I don’t remember for sure. Very few of the books I’ve read from that list really stuck with me, but **The Count of Monte Cristo** remains one of my all-time favorite reads. ---
**Author:** ![Jennshark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Jennshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jennshark)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2018, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-american-read-how-many-for-you/815248/46 "2018-06-06T14:41:33Z")
I’ve read 91 of the books, but maybe it should be 90.5 because I have never made it all the way through an Ayn Rand book. I’ve disliked 10 or so of the ones I’ve read, mostly because they were shitty books – the “Great American Literature” book I most despise is “Huckleberry Finn”; I don’t like anything by Mark Twain. My favorite is “Confederacy.” It’s a shame Toole didn’t live to see the success of his manuscript and write more. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2018, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-american-read-how-many-for-you/815248/47 "2018-06-06T14:44:10Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > Man, The Great American Read has a LOT of British novels in it for some reason. And some of them I’d challenge on that basis. That what I was expecting, too. Where the hell is Nabakov on this list? My favorite American novel, _Lolita_ isn’t even on it. Looks like I’ve read about 15 of them, and abandoned a few: (Lord of the Rings, I got through the first third, and had enough; 100 Years of Solitude is beautiful, but a couple times I started, got through about a quarter of the book, put it away for a couple of weeks, and then just completely lost track of the characters, so I’d have to start again.) My favorites of the bunch are _A Confederacy of Dunces_ (I only discovered this book about fifteen years ago; how I had never heard of it until I started leafing through a copy of it on my friend’s shelf, I don’t know. One of the funniest books I’ve ever read), _Catch-22_ (brilliantly funny, too, of course), _Catcher in the Rye_ (I haven’t read it in about 25 years, but I suspect I’ll still enjoy it. I know it’s one of those polarizing books.), _The Little Prince_ (another one I came into later in life, in my early 20s, and adore so much that I started collecting the various translations of it), and _The Picture of Dorian Gray_. ---
**Author:** ![DZedNConfused](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dzednconfused/32/15991_2.png) [@DZedNConfused](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DZedNConfused)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2018, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-american-read-how-many-for-you/815248/48 "2018-06-06T15:17:17Z")
21 completely read and about 10 or so others I’ve read part way and lost interest. I can’t really feel for any list that includes Twilight and it’s knock off fanfic 50 Shades of Gray… ---
**Author:** ![Wednesday\_Evening](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b2d939/32.png) [@Wednesday\_Evening](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wednesday_Evening)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2018, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-american-read-how-many-for-you/815248/49 "2018-06-06T17:52:58Z")
I counted 60 that I’ve read. Favorites that I’ve read multiple times include: **Alice in Wonderland Harry Potter Chronicles of Narnia Lord of the Rings Foundation Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Call of the Wild** ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2018, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-american-read-how-many-for-you/815248/50 "2018-06-06T18:32:07Z")
Wow, **33** on the list for me, way higher than I expected. I counted a few of the series though, as long as I got a book or two into them, even if I didn’t finish (e.g. Wheel of Time, which I mercifully quit at book 4). My short list… 1984 Dune The Stand Watchers Hunt for Red October Hitchhikers Guide ---
**Author:** ![Teuton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/teuton/32/3864_2.png) [@Teuton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Teuton)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2018, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-american-read-how-many-for-you/815248/51 "2018-06-06T19:39:01Z")
For those outside the US who can’t see the list on the front page, you can probably see the [pdf list](http://bento.cdn.pbs.org/hostedbento-prod/filer_public/gar-phase-2/assets/TGAR_BookChecklist_2018.pdf) - I can from the UK. Weird list. No Pratchett? My favourite of the ones I’ve read is probably Hitchhiker’s Guide. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-american-read-how-many-for-you/815248.md?page=2)