Top 30 Books
How many of the 30 Books that every adult should have read have I read?
Here's the list, which came from here. Bold titles I have read in full; those with * I've read in part.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Bible *
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien
1984 by George Orwell
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
All Quite on the Western Front by E M Remarque
His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
Tess of the D'urbevilles by Thomas Hardy
Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Middlemarch by George Eliot
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzenhitsyn
That leaves 8 to read, and I don't think I am going to read the Old Testament in full at this stage. I have read the New Testament. I have Clockwork Orange, Ivan Denisovich and Time Traveller's Wife, so now I know what I "should" read next. Seems like a strange list, though, in many ways. What's not here that definitely should be?
posted by GreenishLady @ 5:34 pm
4 Comments:
*boggles* That is a bizarre list. I'm afraid, given what I think of most of the ones I have read that are on that list, that my conclusion is one should NOT ask these librarians to recommend books! *stares*
what an odd list. a good list. but an odd list. I have read several as well (and agree, i probably won't turn to the entire old testament either - read most of the new and lots of the old). "Newer" fiction, I love The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. I am surprised that Shakespeare just didn't make the cut here.
(oh and you must report back about the time traveler's wife - I read it two months ago and it still haunts me).
Anyway, thanks for posting this list. Now I have a couple more to add to my library list...
All I can say is it is a strange list. I haven't read everything on it - but I read Time Traveler's Wife and really enjoyed it. I like a book that keeps you interested all the way to the end and I think that one did it for me.
Like Liz, I also loved The Red Tent by Anita Diamant.
I really like that list, to be honest with you. It's one of the few "must read" lists where I have actually read many of the items. Oh, but no mention of Alice Walker and The Color Purple or Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. Or the lovely prose of Julia Alvarez . . . Or the great storytelling abilities of Amy Tan?
Ah, I just love to read. There are too many valuable books to list!
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