1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die

DiscoBoy

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So I found this list of 1001 books you "must" read before you die, "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die" | Listology. The list is actually taken from:
"1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die: A Comprehensive Reference Source,
Chronicling the History of the Novel
Preface by Peter Ackroyd, General Editor Peter Boxall
ISBN 1-84403-417-8"

Anyway, I thought it'd be interesting to see how many of these books we've all read. I am at the incredible amount of...12! :tongue: My list includes:

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon
The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje
The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien
The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (in it's original French)
The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
The Hunchback of Notre Dame – Victor Hugo (in it's original French)

Obviously you don't have to list your books if you have a significantly larger number than I do.

I hope to read them all one day, and luckily for me, I found several of the books on this list at a used book store. I have about 7 lined up to read as of right now.

So, how "well-read" are you?
 

Pitbull

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I am not going to learn French to read anything. :mad:

Guess I'll never finish that list.
 

IntoxicatingToxin

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To be fair and honest, I can't be bothered reading through the list. But after scanning the first couple hundred, I can say that I haven't read a single one of them! And I read a lot too, so that sort of shocks me. I have "Smilla's Sense of Snow" here, I just haven't read it yet.
 

DiscoBoy

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I am not going to learn French to read anything. :mad:

Guess I'll never finish that list.

All these books have been translated into English :tongue:. I was just noting that I read those 2 in their original French, because there is a slight difference between the english and the french versions of the books.
 

D_Jared Padalicki

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This must be stupid for some people, but I really recommand all the 7 books of Harry Potter from J.K. Rowling.

I also like the book 'Pompeii' from Robbert Harris
I also like the books of Dan Brown and Nicholas Evans
 

DiscoBoy

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I've barely read 15% of these which considering that I read constantly, is pitiful. I'd better start reading with a little more, um, gravitas.

I wouldn't call it pitiful. Reading is reading, regardless of what you're reading (except in the case of Twilight, I'm sorry, I really do despise the series). I love good psychological thrillers and sci-fi novels, and very few books of either of those 2 genres is listed.
 

DiscoBoy

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This must be stupid for some people, but I really recommand all the 7 books of Harry Potter from J.K. Rowling.

I also like the book 'Pompeii' from Robbert Harris
I also like the books of Dan Brown and Nicholas Evans

I think everyone secretly loves Harry Potter :rolleyes:. If not the books, at least the movies.

And like I said, I really enjoy psychological thrillers and Dan Brown's books are at the very least interesting to read.

And out of curiosity Pieter, do you speak Swedish? I have no idea wherein Europe you are, so I obviously don't know. The point of my asking was because I recently read a book by the Swedish author (translated into English of course) Marianne Fredriksson and absolutely loved it.
 

D_Jared Padalicki

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I think everyone secretly loves Harry Potter :rolleyes:. If not the books, at least the movies.

And like I said, I really enjoy psychological thrillers and Dan Brown's books are at the very least interesting to read.

And out of curiosity Pieter, do you speak Swedish? I have no idea wherein Europe you are, so I obviously don't know. The point of my asking was because I recently read a book by the Swedish author (translated into English of course) Marianne Fredriksson and absolutely loved it.

Lol, nope, not sweddish, from Belgium here :rolleyes:.

I also like detectives, and who can write those better then Agatha Christie! Lovely books!
 

sparky11point5

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Nick8, I did about as badly as you, I hate to say. Pathetic, here. Although this might have something to do with generally preferring non-fiction or fiction written before being born (in 1970.) I got more hits towards the bottom of the list. :)

I however doubt any list with 165. American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis, which NO ONE should read this.
 

Pitbull

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I've barely read 15% of these which considering that I read constantly, is pitiful. I'd better start reading with a little more, um, gravitas.

15% = 150 Books may be pitiful

30 Books is Pitibull :biggrin1:
 

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I'd read 69 but I used to be an absolute rabid devourer of literature. I felt the list read a little like a reading list for an exam and it had some glaring omissions - The Decameron, the Bible, The Faery Queen and the Canterbury Tales for a start. Salman Rushdie was in there six times, he certainly doesn't deserve six mentions.
 

Pitbull

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The problem with the list is that it is compiled by someone who lives very much in 2009.
His view is that we are so far superior and advanced.
So 69 books written in the last 9 years made the list.
Hardly have stood up to the test of time.
The list is very heavily weighted from the last half of the 20th century to today.
The list appears to be a chronological compilation which would put the year 1948 at around #550
(Orwell's 1984 was written in 1948 - (Notice the title derived from the year switch) and is #547).

So 55% of the 1001 I must read before I die were written in the last 60 years.
45% in approximately 2000 years.
Gosh, they must have been lazy and stupid in the old days.
 

Pitbull

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it had some glaring omissions -... The Bible

My first thought.
Then I thought is was just fiction but I went back and looked and is just says books.

Sorry.
The Bible should be first on any list of must read books.
(Muslims are allowed to substitute the Koran)
 

DiscoBoy

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I'd read 69 but I used to be an absolute rabid devourer of literature. I felt the list read a little like a reading list for an exam and it had some glaring omissions - The Decameron, the Bible, The Faery Queen and the Canterbury Tales for a start. Salman Rushdie was in there six times, he certainly doesn't deserve six mentions.

There would have been too many political issues if they had included the Bible. While the Bible is debatably the most influential of all the religious texts, I'm sure other major religious groups would still argue that their texts should also have be included. What makes the Bible any more relevant than the Vedas or the Qur'an?
The problem with the list is that it is compiled by someone who lives very much in 2009.
His view is that we are so far superior and advanced.
So 69 books written in the last 9 years made the list.
Hardly have stood up to the test of time.
The list is very heavily weighted from the last half of the 20th century to today.
The list appears to be a chronological compilation which would put the year 1948 at around #550
(Orwell's 1984 was written in 1948 - (Notice the title derived from the year switch) and is #547).

So 55% of the 1001 I must read before I die were written in the last 60 years.
45% in approximately 2000 years.
Gosh, they must have been lazy and stupid in the old days.

I think you've made an extremely valid point, but it's the only list of this kind I've got :frown1:. I've avoided buying the 2000s books though (the exception of course being that one book, but I read that some time ago). Also, today's books are much 'easier' to read than older books. The prose is just so much more simplistic. Whilst reading The Great Gatsby and Wuthering Heights, I read over every page twice, to make sure I understood exactly what was going on.

Yeah it is, you should visit Ypres, quite impressive!

Canadian poem :wink:. And I'd love to visit Ypres. I love Europe.
 
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There are TV/Film adaptations of a surprising number of them (I've seen more on this list than I've read, lol).

I've read a few on the list - but not many: The Colour Purple, Schindler's Ark, Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. I spent ages looking through the list, to discover the Bible wasn't on it - then realised someone has already pointed that out! Oh dear...

My sister has a few - mainly the more contemporary ones: Atonement, Cryptonomicon, Memoirs of a Geisha, Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime...

Oh, and I too like the Harry Potter books. ;)
 
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SpoiledPrincess

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I specified the Bible (in particular the King James) as opposed to the Rig Veda, the Kalevala, the Mabinogion, the Qu'ran, the Book of Mormon, etc., because the Bible is much more a mix of poetry, history and legend than the others. The Rig Veda, for instance, is pretty much a dry as dust collection of prayers, I don't find any poetry in the Qu'ran, the Kalevala in translation reads quite well but it doesn't have much relevance to the present day, there are a host of religious texts which could be included, but I think the Bible is pre-eminent amongst them purely on a literary level.