My first Musing Mondays! Yea I know it’s not Monday. So I’m making this a Sunday Salon post too. (Then I forgot to post it on Sunday, so it’s back to Monday now. Oh well, who’s taking note?)

This past week, Borders re-released it’s 100 Favourite Books of All Times. Do you vote in these kinds of polls when they arise? Do you look through the list, or seek out books featured?

The list is from Borders Australia and I somehow missed the poll. I love book lists I do! I can’t resist to go through each one and mark it, or whatever. It drives me mad though that My Sister’s Keeper is always on popular books list like this one (always near the top too). I read it and hated it. The one book from top 10 that I never heard of is Magician by Raymond E. Feist. Interesting.

Recently Angus & Robertson Australia has also just came out with their own 100 Top Stories. So that’s another list for you. I have the physical list and have marked the ones I read. It’s therapeutic.

Anyway, going back to Borders list, I’ve marked the ones I’ve read in bold, the ones I have on my physical self at home in orange, the ones I really want to read right now underlined, and the ones I’m never going to read in strike (that makes it a bit easier to weed through the list).

I’ve read 17 out of 100.

1. Jane Austen – Pride & Prejudice
2. Harper Lee – To Kill A Mockingbird
3. JRR Tolkien – Lord Of The Rings
4. Jodi Picoult – My Sister’s Keeper
5. Stephanie Meyer – Twilight Saga
6. JK Rowling – Harry Potter & The Philosopher’s Stone
7. Audrey Niffenegger – The Time Traveler’s Wife
8. Markus Zusak – The Book Thief
9. George Orwell – 1984
10. Raymond E. Feist – Magician
11. Khaled Hosseini – A Thousand Splendid Suns
12. Paullina Simons – Bronze Horsemen
13. Gregory David Roberts – Shantaram
14. Margaret Mitchell – Gone With The Wind
15. Bryce Courtenay – Power of One
16. Dan Brown – The Da Vinci Code
17. Dan Brown – Angels & Demons
18. Paulo Coelho – The Alchemist
19. Charlotte Bronte – Jane Eyre
20. Tim Winton – Cloud Street
21. Khaled Hosseini – The Kite Runner
22. Emily Bronte – Wuthering Heights
23. Arthur Golden – Memoirs of Geisha
24. LM Montgomery – Anne Of Green Gables
25. Joseph Heller – Catch-22
26. Elizabeth Gilbert – Eat Pray Love
27. Niv Mass Market Bible With Bible Guide – International Bible Society Staff and International Bible Society
28. JRR Tolkien – The Hobbit
29. Yann Martel – Life of Pi
30. AB Facey – Fortunate Life
31. Douglas Adams – The Hitch-hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy
32. Lewis Carroll – Alice In Wonderland & Through The Looking Glass
33. Diana Gabaldon – Cross Stich
34. Rohinton Mistry – A Fine Balance
35. David Pelzar – A Child Called It
36. Li Cunxin – Mao’s Last Dancer
37. John Marsden – Tomorrow, When The War Began
38. Frank McCourt – Angela’s Ashes
39. Frank Herbert – Dune
40. JD Salinger – A Catcher In The Rye
41. F. Scott Fitzgerald – The Great Gatsby
42. Gabriel Garcia Marquez – One Hundred Years Of Solitude
43. Bryce Courtenay – April Fool’s Day
44. Ken Follet – Pillars Of The Earth
45. Patrick Suskind – Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer
46. Matthew Reilly – Ice Station
47. Carlos Ruiz Zafon – The Shadow Of The Wind
48. Stephen Hawking – A Brief History Of Time
49. Christopher Paolini – Eragon
50. Louisa May Alcott – Little Women
51. Mitch Albom – Tuesdays With Morrie
52. Jane Austen – Persuasion
53. Alice Sebold – The Lovely Bones
54. Ian McEwan – Atonement
55. Leo Tolstory – Anna Karenina
56. George Orwell – Animal Farm
57. Anthony Burgess – A Clockwork Orange
58. Antoine de Saint Exupéry – The Little Prince
59. Roald Dahl – Charlie & The Chocolate Factory
60. CS Lewis – The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe
61. Gabriel Garcia Marquez – Love In The Time Of Cholera
62. Bill Bryson – A Short History Of Nearly Everything
63. Fyodor Dostoevsky – Crime And Punishment
64. Anthony Bourke – Lion Called Christian
65. Arundhati Roy – The God Of Small Things
66. Paullina Simons – Tully
67. John Grisham – A Time To Kill
68. John Grogan – Marley & Me
69. Vikram Seth – A Suitable Boy
70. Alexandre Dumas – Count Of Monte Cristo
71. Neil Gaiman – American Gods
72. Cormac McCarthy – The Road
73. Aldous Huxley – Brave New World
74. Brendan Shanahan – In Turkey I Am Beautiful: Between Chaos And Madness In A Strange Land
75. Tim Winton – Breath
76. Bryce Courtenay – Jessica
77. Graeme Base – Animalia
78. Donna Tartt – The Secret History
79. Mario Puzo – The Godfather
80. Anne Rice – Interview With The Vampire
81. Steig Larrson – The Girl With A Dragon Tattoo
82. Stephen King – Stand
83. Helen Fielding – Bridget Jones’ Diary
84. Eckhart Tolle – New Earth
85. Matthew Reilly – Seven Ancient Wonders
86. Jung Chang – Wild Swans
87. Nicholas Sparks – The Notebook
88. Bret Easton Ellis – American Psycho
89. David Eddings – Belgariad Vol. 1: Pawn Of Prophecy; Queen Of Sorcery; Magician’s Gambit
90. Louis De Bernieres – Captain Corelli’s Mandolin
91. Melina Marchetta – Looking For Alibrandi
92. Celia Ahern – PS I Love You
93. John Irving – A Prayer For Owen Meany
94. Colleen McCullough – The Thorn Birds
95. John Kennedy Toole – A Confederacy Of Dunces
96. Terry Pratchett – Good Omens
97. Hunter S. Thompson – Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas
98. Joanne Harris – Chocolat
99. William Goldman – Princess Bride
100. Charles Dickens – Great Expectations

1. First awards were presented in 1979
2. It celebrates their 30th anniversary this year
3. In 1979, NSW became the first state in Australia to present Premier’s Literary Awards
4. The awards celebrate achievements by Australian writers

Admittedly, I’ve never heard of this award before until I’m back in NSW. I’ve also never heard of the books shortlisted apart from Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan, whose 2 books I just borrowed from library 2 days ago. (I think I first knew about Shaun Tan from a fellow blogger, but I can’t remember who. Do you know who you are? Please shout or raise your hand! :)

Anyway, I’ll list a couple of the shortlists here. You could check out the NSW PLA website yourself for more.

Christina Stead Prize for Fiction ($40,000)

The Spare Room by Helen Garner
The Lieutenant by Kate Grenville
Disquiet by Julia Leigh
The Good Parents by Joan London
A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz
Breath by Tim Winton

Go here to see the covers.

Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children’s Literature ($30,000)

The Word Spy by Ursula Dubosarsky & Tohby Riddle (illus)
How to Heal a Broken Wing by Bob Graham
Sadie and Ratz by Sonya Hartnett & Ann James (illus)
Perry Angel’s Suitcase by Glenda Millard & Stephen Michael King (illus)
Nobody Owns the Moon by Tohby Riddle
Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan

Have any of you read one of these books? Or read the book by one of these authors? Please let me know! I’d love to hear if there’s any recommendation.

Go here to see past PLA winners from year 1979 to 2008. (Again, admittedly I’m mostly unfamiliar with the names of books and authors. Sure I know Peter Carey, but I’ve never picked up his work before.)

This event coincides with Sydney Writers’ Festival which is happening on May 18 to 24, 2009 (Winners will be presented on the 18th). Anyone’s going? Any of my reader is from Australia at all? LOL. I’m currently browsing the site to see if there’s any that I’m interested in.

On another note, I’ve been hearing about Kazuo Ishiguro’s new upcoming novel: Nocturnes for a few times now. I hope it’s gonna be good. Ishiguro will have one event at the festival, but I think it’s just via video link (video conference talk?). That’s lame. I want to see the real man!

I think I’m gonna keep track of both lists. I’m especially pissed that they took out Never Let Me Go. Not only because it’s a good book, but also because that’s the first one I read for my 10 out of 100 out of 1001 Challenge. This new list just makes things complicated. Especially that they took out a whole bunch of books from no 1 to 100. I’m of course still going to continue with the challenge, but I’m not so sure what to do after that. We’ll see.

Anyway, rather than bitching about the dropped out books, let me just point out a few interesting additions. The thing with the additions are that almost, if not all of them are by International authors (by International I mean non US non UK). I’m especially interested in addition of Japanese or Chinese writers.

Pre 1800
0003 : The Tale of Genji . Murasaki Shikibu
0004 : Romance of the Three Kingdoms . Luó Guànzhong
0005 : The Water Margin . Shi Nai’an & Luó Guànzhong
0013 : Monkey: A Journey to the West . Wú Chéng’en
0054 : A Dream of Red Mansions . Cao Xueqin

I’m not sure if I will ever read The Tale of Genji. I started Tale of Murasaki before (it’s about Murasaki, the author of Tale of Genji), and it was boring so I couldn’t finish it.
Romance of Three Kingdoms is GREAT addition. This is a book that my father claims is (should be?) a required reading in a lot of countries around the world, in schools and army.
I grew up with The Journey to the West. I read illustrated books and watched countless tv series about it. Also a great addition. Although I didn’t know that they actually have a real book on that. I thought it’s more like a myth or folktale, which got told over and over, brought over many generations over various forms of entertainment medium.

1800s
No Asian authors

1900s
0258 : Rashomon . Akutagawa Ryunosuke
0376 : Rickshaw Boy . Lao She
0480 : A Thousand Cranes . Yasunari Kawabata
0498 : The Sound of Waves . Yukio Mishima
0602 : Silence . Shusaku Endo
0666 : The Twilight Years . Sawako Ariyoshi
0700 : Almost Transparent Blue . Ryu Murakami
0738 : Leaden Wings . Zhang Jie
0782 : Half of Man is Woman . Zhang Xianliang
0819 : Kitchen . Banana Yoshimoto
0829 : Paradise of the Blind . Duong Thu Huong
0897 : Deep River . Shusaku Endo

I’m happy with the addition of Banana Yoshimoto, Shusaku Endo, Ryu Murakami, Yasunari Kawabata, and Yukio Mishima. I haven’t read any of their books, but would like to and have heard good things about them.

2000s
No Japanese or Chinese authors, a few Indians. These are the ones I have on my shelf:
0972 : The Namesake . Jhumpa Lahiri
0991 : A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian . Marina Lewycka
0996 : The Inheritance of Loss . Kiran Desai

I’m surprised that with these many additions, Gao Xingjian and Pearl S. Buck’s books are still not there. Both won Nobel Prize in Literature. (Buck is not Chinese, but she grew up in China)

Talking about Japanese authors, 2 of Haruki Murakami’s books have been dropped out: Sputnik Sweetheart and After the Quake. Kafka on the Shore and the Wind-up Bird Chronicle stay.

Curiously Sarah Waters’ books -2 of them- have been totally dropped out (one author that I’m actually interested in). I wonder which other authors that have been completely dropped out of the list too. I mean I understand if they took out some books from the authors that previously had multiple books in the list, to make rooms for other authors. But to completely drop all books by one author is kinda weird. It’s like saying today some of your books are so important that everybody must read them before they die, and the next day, well no, none of your books are important anymore.

I saw this list posted all over people’s blog. I’m skeptical about the list, seeing books like Eat, Pray, Love and Angela’s Ashes (ones that I think I would never read). But then I also saw 2 of my favorite books, the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and the Joy Luck Club (I never found Amy Tan on any other lists out there!).

So hey, it could be a list I could refer to when one day I need some suggestions. The ones in bold are the ones I’ve read, and in purple are the ones I have on my shelf (but have not read).

1. The Road , Cormac McCarthy (2006)
2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling (2000)
3. Beloved, Toni Morrison (1987)
4. The Liars’ Club, Mary Karr (1995)
5. American Pastoral, Philip Roth (1997)
6. Mystic River, Dennis Lehane (2001)
7. Maus, Art Spiegelman (1986/1991)
8. Selected Stories, Alice Munro (1996)
9. Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier (1997)
10. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami (1997)
11. Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer (1997)
12. Blindness, José Saramago (1998)
13. Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (1986-87)
14. Black Water, Joyce Carol Oates (1992)
15. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers (2000)
16. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood (1986)
17. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez (1988)
18. Rabbit at Rest, John Updike (1990)
19. On Beauty, Zadie Smith (2005)
20. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding (1998)
21. On Writing, Stephen King (2000)
22. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz (2007)
23. The Ghost Road, Pat Barker (1996)
24. Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry (1985)
25. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan (1989)
26. Neuromancer, William Gibson (1984)
27. Possession, A.S. Byatt (1990)
28. Naked, David Sedaris (1997)
29. Bel Canto, Anne Patchett (2001)
30. Case Histories, Kate Atkinson (2004)
31. The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien (1990)
32. Parting the Waters, Taylor Branch (1988)
33. The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion (2005)
34. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold (2002)
35. The Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst (2004)
36. Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt (1996)
37. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi (2003)
38. Birds of America, Lorrie Moore (1998)
39. Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri (2000)
40. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (1995-2000)
41. The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros (1984)
42. LaBrava, Elmore Leonard (1983)
43. Borrowed Time, Paul Monette (1988)
44. Praying for Sheetrock, Melissa Fay Greene (1991)
45. Eva Luna, Isabel Allende (1988)
46. Sandman, Neil Gaiman (1988-1996)
47. World’s Fair, E.L. Doctorow (1985)
48. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver (1998)
49. Clockers, Richard Price (1992)
50. The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen (2001)
51. The Journalist and the Murderer, Janet Malcom (1990)
52. Waiting to Exhale, Terry McMillan (1992)
53. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon (2000)
54. Jimmy Corrigan, Chris Ware (2000)
55. The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls (2006)
56. The Night Manager, John le Carré (1993)
57. The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe (1987)
58. Drop City, TC Boyle (2003)
59. Krik? Krak! Edwidge Danticat (1995)
60. Nickel & Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich (2001)
61. Money, Martin Amis (1985)
62. Last Train To Memphis, Peter Guralnick (1994)
63. Pastoralia, George Saunders (2000)
64. Underworld, Don DeLillo (1997)
65. The Giver, Lois Lowry (1993)
66. A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, David Foster Wallace (1997)
67. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini (2003)
68. Fun Home, Alison Bechdel (2006)
69. Secret History, Donna Tartt (1992)
70. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell (2004)
71. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Ann Fadiman (1997)
72. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon (2003)
73. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving (1989)
74. Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger (1990)
75. Cathedral, Raymond Carver (1983)
76. A Sight for Sore Eyes, Ruth Rendell (1998)
77. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)
78. Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert (2006)
79. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell (2000)
80. Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney (1984)
81. Backlash, Susan Faludi (1991)
82. Atonement, Ian McEwan (2002)
83. The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields (1994)
84. Holes, Louis Sachar (1998)
85. Gilead, Marilynne Robinson (2004)
86. And the Band Played On, Randy Shilts (1987)
87. The Ruins, Scott Smith (2006)
88. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby (1995)
89. Close Range, Annie Proulx (1999)
90. Comfort Me With Apples, Ruth Reichl (2001)
91. Random Family, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc (2003)
92. Presumed Innocent, Scott Turow (1987)
93. A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley (1991)
94. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser (2001)
95. Kaaterskill Falls, Allegra Goodman (1998)
96. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown (2003)
97. Jesus’ Son, Denis Johnson (1992)
98. The Predators’ Ball, Connie Bruck (1988)
99. Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman (1995)
100. America (the Book), Jon Stewart/Daily Show (2004)

I’ve read 8 and have 10 ready on my shelf (although technically it’s 3 books for His Dark Materials).
So that’s not so bad. I almost cover about 20% of it? :)
And there are definitely more books that I’d like to read in that list.