I don’t know. When I went looking for it in used bookstores while I was in school, there were plenty of recent paperback copies. Someone’s reading it, still, I think.
However, I wasn’t one. Too much like work for something I’d picked up on a whim.
add-on titles
Tom Sawyer - Yes
Moby Dick - Yes
The Old Man and the Sea - Yes
Catcher in the Rye - Yes
Grapes of Wrath - Yes
Of Mice and Men - Yes
The Great Gatsby - Yes
In Cold Blood - No (Is this really a novel, though?)
The Scarlett Letter - Yes
Gone With the Wind - No
The Red Badge of Courage - No
Other suggestions:
The Last of the Mohicans (Just to make Samuel Clemens spin in his grave) - Yes.
Billy Budd - far more allegorical than Moby Dick to my mind - Yes
Say what you will about the quality of prose, but the novel is historically accurate. Margaret Mitchell consulted with the Atlanta Historical Society while writing it. (And don’t forget that some contemporaries of Scarlett were still alive when the novel was published.)
The only specific historical criticism I’ve seen is that the wealth of the Tara plantation, from acreage to livestock to slaves, was exaggerated; no actual plantation of that time in Clayton County, Georgia, matched it.
Others:
Gone with the Wind- YES
Of Mice and Men- no
Tom Sawyer- YES
The Old Man and the Sea- YES
Scarlett Letter- YES
Moby Dick- NO (note: got 100 pages or so into it one night in jr. high when I was babysitting and had nothing else to read; was kind of enjoying it, but never picked it up again. It’s on a very short list of classic novels that I haven’t read but do plan to read)
The Turn of the Screw- NO
Grapes of Wrath- no
Yes, my post was very slow in loading. Was that a coincidence or if two people are responding simultaneously does that cause one to take forever to load?
A wittier response on my part would have been to ask if the two cities were New London CT and Paris TX, anyway.
The Sun Also Rises NO
Catcher in the Rye YES
The Great Gatsby NO
The Color Purple NO
Catch-22 YES
To Kill a Mockingbird YES (although it gave me absolutely no useful advice on killing mockingbirds…what a ripoff!)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn YES
Slaughterhouse-5 YES
Gone with the Wind NO
Of Mice and Men YES
Grapes of Wrath YES
Tom Sawyer YES
The Old Man and the Sea NO
Scarlett Letter YES
Moby Dick YES
The Turn of the Screw NO
The Da Vinci Code NO
Peyton Place YES
Valley of the Dolls YES
Easy to tell apart, Tom Sawyer is the one that’s racist toward native Americans and Huckleberry Finn is the one that’s racist toward blacks.
The Sun Also Rises - Yes
Catcher in the Rye - Yes
The Great Gatsby - Yes
The Color Purple - No
Catch-22 - No
To Kill a Mockingbird - Yes
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Can’t remember, don’t think so.
Slaughterhouse-5 - Yes
Gone with the Wind - Yes
Of Mice and Men - No
Grapes of Wrath - No
Tom Sawyer - No
The Old Man and the Sea - Yes
Scarlett Letter - Yes
Moby Dick - No
The Turn of the Screw - No
The Da Vinci Code - No
Peyton Place - No
Valley of the Dolls - No
The Sun Also Rises No. I love it, but no.
Catcher in the Rye No. Overrated.
The Great Gatsby No. I love it, but no.
The Color Purple Huh?
Catch-22 No, I love it but…
To Kill a Mockingbird Yes.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Yes
Slaughterhouse-5 No.
I know of no reason to suspect that Samuel Clements disliked Last of the Mohicans in any way. Yes, he wrote a rather well-known essay criticizing it, but Clements was a satirist, and many of the things he criticizes in Cooper’s writing, he uses in his own (in the same essay, even, as I recall).
Of the ones in the OP, I’ve read The Sun Also Rises, Catcher in the Rye, Catch-22, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Huck Finn. I suspect that the title would go to either Mockingbird, Huck Finn, or Tom Sawyer (which I’ve also read): All of those are very commonly assigned reading, and they’re also (unlike some other oft-assigned books) frequently read voluntarily.
The Sun Also Rises- No
The Great Gatsby- Yes
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn- Yes
Slaughterhouse-5- Yes
then, Sampiro’s list:
The Valley of the Dolls - Jacqueline Susann - Yes (God help me)
Jonathan Livingston Seagull - Richard Bach - Sadly, yes
The Exorcist - William Blatty - Yes
Jaws - Peter Benchley - Yes
God’s Little Acre - Erkstine Caldwell - No
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller - Yes
To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee - Yes
A Woman of Substance - Barbara Taylor Bradford - No
The Thorn Birds - Colleen McCullough - Yes
Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell - Yes
Peyton Place - Grace Metalious - No
Animal Farm - George Orwell - Yes
The Carpetbaggers - Harold Robbins - No
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger - Yes
The Godfather - Mario Puzo - Yes
Others:
Moby Dick - Yes. I’m glad I didn’t read this in high school. I would have hated it in high school. I read it years later and really loved it.
Old Man and the Sea- Yes, hated it, but then, I read it in junior high.
Farewell to Arms - Yes, loved it
Scarlett Letter - Yes
Of Mice and Man - No
The Turn of the Screw- Yes
Grapes of Wrath - Yes…well, mostly.
Babbit by Sinclair Lewis - Nope
The Da Vinci Code - Yes
The Sun Also Rises Nope
Catcher in the Rye Yep
The Great Gatsby Nope
The Color Purple Yep
Catch-22Nope
To Kill a Mockingbird Yep (do we have a rhythm going?)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Yep
Slaughterhouse-5 Yep
Just a “Yes/No/ No/ Yes” etc. response is fine, but if you want to argue with me, go right ahead.
[/QUOTE]
The Sun Also Rises - Yes
Catcher in the Rye - No
The Great Gatsby - No
The Color Purple - No
Catch-22 - No
To Kill a Mockingbird - No
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Yes.
Slaughterhouse-5 - Yes (not the best of Vonnegut, though)
Gone with the Wind - Yes (I doubt I could re-read it now without boredom)
Of Mice and Men - No
Grapes of Wrath - No
Tom Sawyer - Yes
The Old Man and the Sea - Yes
Scarlett Letter - Yes
Moby Dick - Yes (read it in high school, tried to re-read later and gave up)
The Turn of the Screw - No
The Da Vinci Code - No
Peyton Place - No
Valley of the Dolls - No
I’d vote for Sam Clemens. The list leads me to realize I’ve been much more likely to read English novels; which is interesting, because one of the reasons I favor Twain is that he writes in more of a distinctively American idiom. He had an ear for American humor and speech patterns of that place and time. (Some of the others, I think, could have been written almost anywhere.)
Scarlett Letter Yep
Moby Dick Nope
The Turn of the Screw Nope
Grapes of Wrath Nope
Tom Sawyer Yep
The Red Badge of Courage Yep
Gone with the Wind Yep
For Whom the Bell Tolls Nope
Da Vinci Code Yep
Peyton Place Nope
Valley of the Dolls Nope
Autobiography of Ben Franklin Nope
Jonathan Livingston Seagull Yep
The Exorcist Nope
Jaws Yep
God’s Little Acre Nope
A Woman of Substance Nope
The Thorn Birds Nope
Animal Farm Yep
The Carpetbaggers Nope
The Godfather Nope
The World According to Garp Yep
A Prayer for Owen Meany Nope
Moby Dick Nope
In Cold Blood Nope
Of Mice and Men Nope
The Old Man and the Sea Nope
Last of the Mohicans Nope
Billy Budd Nope
Babbitt Nope
My nomination: Stephen King, The Stand. (Yep)
The first one was witty enough–in fact, it was just the type of rejoinder I was attempting to head off. Oh well, it is a far, far better thing I do, than I have ever done before and all that…
