Day 69: December 27

I'm not a high fan of classics. In fact, I quite loudly dislike them. But with no proper reason, it seems. I have never read The Great Gatsby or even To Kill A Mockingbird. I have started to read To Kill A Mockingbird twice, as we are doing it for school, but I can never seem to get into it. I think my dislike stems from the fact that I dislike ye old English and I find it hard to get into. When I read something, it has to grab me right from the start to actually capture my attention. I think that's why I love murder mystery novels so much. They are full of secrets, lies and clues at every twist and turn of the novel. Today I saw Les Miserables, which my sister pronounced Lez Miz-er-ables. So, so wrong. Despite my cynicism, it was actually rather good. The whole thing was sung, save for a few words. I think the movie captured me right from the beginning to the very end. It took me away, to Paris, to the 1800s. I'm a big believer in 'books before movies', but in this case, I think it was a 'movie before book'.

Sixty-nine 'Classic' Books:
1. Pride and Prejudice
2. To Kill A Mockingbird
3. Jane Eyre
4. The Great Gatsby
5. Romeo and Juliet (we're doing this next year as well)
6. The Catcher and the Rye
7. Animal Farm
8. Little Women (started this - never finished)
9. 1984 (started this - never finished)
10. Wuthering Heights
11. The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn
12. Of Mice and Men
13. Lord of the Flies (I really want to read this)
14. Sense and Sensibility
15. Frankenstein (weird to think of this as a classic)
16. Tale of Two Cities
17. Dracula
18. Great Expectations
19. The Secret Garden
20. Fahrenheit 451
21. Brave New World
22. Hamlet
23. A Christmas Carol
24. Les Miserables
25. Gone with the Wind (we have this on DVD - it's 3 hours!)
26. Anna Karenina
27. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
28. The Grapes of Wrath
29. Macbeth
30. The Diary of a Young Girl: Anne Frank (read this one)
31. Crime and Punishment
32. Anne of Green Gables
33. Moby Dick
34. A Midsummer's Night Dream
35. Alice in Wonderland (weird to think of this as a classic. read this one)
36. Alice through the looking-glass (again, read this)
37. Oliver Twist
38. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (never read this, never seen any of the films. I have seen Epic Movie though)
39. Treasure Island
40. The Iliad
41. The Odyssey
42. The 3 Musketeers
43. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
44. Tess of the D'Ubervilles
45. Gulliver's Travels (saw this movie, Jack Black style)
46. War and Peace
47. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (seen the movie, read the book and watched the play)
48. David Copperfield (we have this)
49. Othello
50. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
51. Peter Pan (read the book, seen the movie)
52. Much Ado About Nothing
53. Julius Caesar
54. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Never seen/read any of this, but my dash is filled with it)
55. A Clockwork Orange
56. The Outsiders (my sister is doing this for her set-work next year)
57. The Phantom of the Opera
58. The Hunchback of Notre Dame
59. The War of the Worlds
60. Around the World in 80 Days (seen the movie)
61. The Taming of the Shrew
62. King Lear
63. Journey to the Centre of the Earth (seen the movie)
64. The Scarlet Letter
65. The Wind in the Willows (I'm pretty sure I read a kid watered-down version of this book)
66. The Tempest
67. Merchant Of Venice
68. Twelfth Night
69. A Room With A View

The website I got these off kept saying that Lord of the Rings was a classic. I disagree. I think, that if Lord of the Rings is going to be counted as a classic, so should Harry Potter. Although, I might be slightly biased because Harry Potter is my favourite. Ever.