Top 10 Tuesday: Books I Can't Believe I've Never Read

I'm especially excited for this week's Top Ten Tuesday hosted by the Broke and Bookish -- the top ten books I can't believe I've never read. As a bookish person, I think every one of us is guilty of getting a little bit of an inflated head every once in a while -- everyone always asking you for book recommendations and thinking you just know everything to know there is about the literary world. So this week, I get to declare to the world (or however large our readership is) ten books I can't believe I've never read.

1. The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins. I know. I honestly cannot count how many times I have been recommended this book series, even by very trusted bookish people, but I just haven't gotten around to reading them. I tell myself it's because I don't want to get sucked in until all the books are out and I don't have to wait frantically to read the next installment like we all did with Harry Potter, but with Mockingjay coming out today, who knows if I'll actually get around to this series in the near future.

2. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. Okay, at least I can say that I have started this book. I got about 300 pages in, and then school started, and I stopped reading it. By now, and having a taste now of Tolstoy's famous gradual character development, I'll need to start it over from the beginning before truly tackling this one.

3. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. This book is on SO many of my friends' top ten books lists that I know I should have read it by now. I really have no excuse.

4. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. This one is hard for me to confess, but it must be done. I absolutely revere Virginia Woolf, and I love reading her novels, stories, essays, and journals, but alas, I haven't gotten around to reading perhaps her most famous -- and most praised -- novel.

5. The Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd. I have read and loved Kidd's two novels The Secret Life of Bees and The Mermaid Chair, but it wasn't until my film and literature class that I found out that Sue Monk Kidd writes about what I have been obsessed with lately -- women's spiritual journey. After reading a chapter excerpt of this book, I definitely need to move it up on my to-do list.

6. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Again, no excuse for this one. I just haven't tackled it yet. And I can't even say with total confidence that I ever will.

7. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King by JRR Tolkien. I know I'm going to offend a lot of people with this, but I just couldn't make it through the series. The Hobbit? Brilliant. Fellowship? Pretty good. Two Towers? Couldn't finish. Return of the King? Couldn't start. Tolkien just couldn't help getting wordier and wordier, spending pages describing a simple gate or patch of grass. I just couldn't finish.

8. On the Road by Jack Kerouac and

9. HOWL by Allen Ginsberg. These two I'm really ashamed of. For having studied these figures and their movement a THOUSAND times, reading these really ought to have been a priority. I will proceed to slap myself on the wrist. But not too hard.

10. The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak. This one I'm kind of cheating on, because I'm actually in the middle of reading this one right now. BUT it took me a ridiculously long time to get around to it.


 Whew. That felt like a huge confessional. All right, now your turn -- what haven't YOU read, eh?