1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die

[Just2554]

I was in Borders yesterday looking for a new book and I stumbled across this reference book (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0789313707/102-9660903-2908936?v=glance&n=283155). I was curious as to what kind of titles it contained, so I came home and googled it in hopes of finding a list.

Well, I did and here it is: http://www.listology.com/content_show.cfm/content_id.22845/Books

Of the 1001 books listed, I've read the following:
1.) Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
2.) The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien
3.) The Color Purple – Alice Walker
4.) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – Hunter S. Thompson
5.) In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
6.) The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
7.) Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Truman Capote
8.) The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien
9.) Lord of the Flies – William Golding
10.) The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
11.) The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
12.) Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
13.) Animal Farm – George Orwell
14.) For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway
15.) The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
16.) The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler
17.) To Have and Have Not – Ernest Hemingway
18.) Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
19.) Tender is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald
20.) The Thin Man – Dashiell Hammett
21.) The Maltese Falcon – Dashiell Hammett
22.) A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway
23.) The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner
24.) The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
25.) The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
26.) The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
27.) Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
28.) Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
29.) Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30.) Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
31.) Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
32.) The Fall of the House of Usher – Edgar Allan Poe
33.) The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby – Charles Dickens
34.) The Hunchback of Notre Dame – Victor Hugo
35.) Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
36.) Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen

It's an interesting list to say the least. It has some glaring omissions, but also alot of great titles, some of which I've always wanted to read and just haven't had the chance.

I know there are tons of book fanatics on the boards, so I thought it'd be a fun list for everyone.

 

[mickman1962]

Seeing as I've never read a book, I better get going.

 

[TDC Nala]

I don't pay attention to anything that says you "MUST" do something. Imagine, whoever wrote this list telling me I MUST read Jane Austen. Please.

Unless they are talking about paying taxes or something like that.

 

[gina2000]

Fun list. It's always of interest to see what literature people consider indispensible. I've read some of those listed and haven't read alot. Time to bookmark and get reading!

 

[Rikki]

There are some pretty heavy reading books on the list. I am a avide reader but after glimsing at some of the titles there is alot of really depressing doom and gloom. Especially among the English authors.

 

[Just2554]

Fun list. It's always of interest to see what literature people consider indispensible. I've read some of those listed and haven't read alot. Time to bookmark and get reading!

I couldn't agree more; I'm always looking for something new to read. I love looking at these lists. Sometimes they turn me on to great things.

 

[DVCLiz]

Seeing as I've never read a book, I better get going.

Are you serious??

 

[dmslush]

Even though I read all the time, I've still not read many on the list. There are a ton of great books that are not on the list.

1. The Reader – Bernhard Schlink
2. Like Water for Chocolate – Laura Esquivel
3. Foucault’s Pendulum – Umberto Eco
4. Interview With the Vampire – Anne Rice
5. The Story of O – Pauline Réage
6. Wise Blood – Flannery O’Connor
7. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
8. The Trial – Franz Kafka
9. The War of the Worlds – H.G. Wells
10. Dracula – Bram Stoker
11. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
12. Kidnapped – Robert Louis Stevenson
13. Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
14. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
15. A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
16. Hard Times – Charles Dickens
17. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
18. Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift
19. Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

 

[TDC Nala]

There are some pretty heavy reading books on the list. I am a avide reader but after glimsing at some of the titles there is alot of really depressing doom and gloom. Especially among the English authors.

Oh, English authors never write doom and gloom. Neither do the Russians

I minored in English lit and some of those British authors bored my socks off.

 

[gina2000]

I majored in Russian and have read all the Russian novels on the list. Sure they're heavy...but compelling.

I guess I just enjoy a challenge every now and then.

 

[RadioNate]

Are you serious??

Believe it or not, a lot of people don't enjoy reading. I've read 13 of the books on the list, maybe 14. All were forced upon me in HS or College.

But I have seen almost all the movie versions!

 

[liamsaunt]

That's a mighty long list!! I must chime in though and say that I HATED the #1 book they have listed from the 2000's: Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro. Argh!! It is SO bleak and depressing!! I love his other stuff but that book was too much. I really thought it asked for an emotional leap that I was not willing to make.

I have read a lot (not all!!) of those books. I think I will look at the list and post back with my 10 favorites.

 

[aunt kelly]

Here are the ones I've read:

Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
The Satanic Verses – Salman Rushdie
The Black Dahlia – James Ellroy
The Bonfire of the Vanities – Tom Wolf
The Cider House Rules – John Irving
Breakfast of Champions – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Truman Capote
Doctor Zhivago – Boris Pasternak
The Wonderful “O” – James Thurber
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
Animal Farm – George Orwell
Cannery Row – John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
Out of Africa – Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen)
Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
All Quiet on the Western Front – Erich Maria Remarque
The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner
Remembrance of Things Past – Marcel Proust
The Trial – Franz Kafka
Babbitt – Sinclair Lewis
Main Street – Sinclair Lewis
The Jungle – Upton Sinclair
The Awakening – Kate Chopin
The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky
War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
Sentimental Education – Gustave Flaubert
Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
The Red and the Black – Stendhal
Aesop’s Fables – Aesopus

 

[Planogirl]

I love reading but I can't stand reading long lists. I've probably read quite a few of these though.

 

[aunt kelly]

As far as omissions, I was surprised that The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck, Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain and My Antonia by Willa Cather didn't make the list.

 

[liamsaunt]

Just for fun, I went through the list and checked to see how many I had read. I was surprised, given that I was an English major, and that my house is filled with thousands of books (really), that I have only read 167 of the books on this list. I also noticed that some of the titles chosen are not full books, but rather short stories, such as the Edgar Alen Poe selections, and the Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gillman. I may have missed it, but I also don't understand why the Awakening by Kate Chopin is not on this list.

And hey, where are the Harry Potter books?

 

[mickman1962]

Are you serious??

Yes I am. I read countless magazines/trade journals/newspapers, but I can't stand books. Only read enough of a book to do a report on when I had to, never finished one. I've tried all kinds, suspense, mystery, war etc. Tried Harry Potter, Tom Clancy even Steven King. I just never seem to take an interest enough to continue.

 

[DVCLiz]

Yes I am. I read countless magazines/trade journals/newspapers, but I can't stand books. Only read enough of a book to do a report on when I had to, never finished one. I've tried all kinds, suspense, mystery, war etc. Tried Harry Potter, Tom Clancy even Steven King. I just never seem to take an interest enough to continue.

Wow! That's so different from me. I've read since the first grade, and I always have at least one book going - usually two, one for carpool!!

Of course, I majored in English literature and became a librarian, so books have always been important to me!!

That said, there are a lot of boring stinkers on that list, as far as I'm concerned!!!

 

[wideeyes]

I have read

1) The Color Purple – Alice Walker
2) The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
3) Lord of the Flies – William Golding
4) The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
5) Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
6) The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
7) One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey
8) To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
9) To The Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
10)The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
11)Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf
12)The Garden Party – Katherine Mansfield
12)A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce
14)The Awakening – Kate Chopin
15)The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman
16)The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
17)The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
18)Shirley – Charlotte Brontë
19)The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – Anne Brontë
20)Agnes Grey – Anne Brontë
21)Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
22)The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
23)Villette – Charlotte Brontë
24)Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
25)Emma – Jane Austen
26)Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
27)Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen

 

[gina2000]

Life of Pi – Yann Martel
The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver
Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami
The Shipping News – E. Annie Proulx
The Butcher Boy – Patrick McCabe
Get Shorty – Elmore Leonard
Foucault’s Pendulum – Umberto Eco
The Bonfire of the Vanities – Tom Wolfe
Beloved – Toni Morrison
Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel García Márquez
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
The House of the Spirits – Isabel Allende
The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco
Smiley’s People – John Le Carré
The World According to Garp – John Irving
Song of Solomon – Toni Morrison
Interview With the Vampire – Anne Rice
Ragtime – E.L. Doctorow
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – John Le Carré
Breakfast of Champions – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Fear of Flying – Erica Jong
The Castle of Crossed Destinies – Italo Calvino
Invisible Cities – Italo Calvino
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – Hunter S. Thompson
The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison
Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Portnoy’s Complaint – Philip Roth
The Godfather – Mario Puzo
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test – Tom Wolfe
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
The Crying of Lot 49 – Thomas Pynchon
Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold – John Le Carré
The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey
A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
Franny and Zooey – J.D. Salinger
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
Naked Lunch – William Burroughs
The Once and Future King – T.H. White
On the Road – Jack Kerouac
Seize the Day – Saul Bellow
The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien
Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
The Long Goodbye – Raymond Chandler
Casino Royale – Ian Fleming
The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
Foundation – Isaac Asimov
The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
The Rebel – Albert Camus
I, Robot – Isaac Asimov
Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
The Plague – Albert Camus
Animal Farm – George Orwell
The Outsider – Albert Camus
For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway
The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
Finnegans Wake – James Joyce
The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler
Nausea – Jean-Paul Sartre
Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier
Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
To Have and Have Not – Ernest Hemingway
Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
The Nine Tailors – Dorothy L. Sayers
The Postman Always Rings Twice – James M. Cain
Tender is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald
Murder Must Advertise – Dorothy L. Sayers
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
The Glass Key – Dashiell Hammett
The Thin Man – Dashiell Hammett
The Maltese Falcon – Dashiell Hammett
A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway
Red Harvest – Dashiell Hammett
The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner
Lady Chatterley’s Lover – D.H. Lawrence
Steppenwolf – Herman Hesse
The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
The Castle – Franz Kafka
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd – Agatha Christie
The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Trial – Franz Kafka
A Passage to India – E.M. Forster
Siddhartha – Herman Hesse
Babbitt – Sinclair Lewis
Ulysses – James Joyce
Main Street – Sinclair Lewis
Women in Love – D.H. Lawrence
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce
Sons and Lovers – D.H. Lawrence
The Jungle – Upton Sinclair
Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
The Hound of the Baskervilles – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Dracula – Bram Stoker
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
The Death of Ivan Ilyich – Leo Tolstoy
The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky
Return of the Native – Thomas Hardy
Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
The Devils – Fyodor Dostoevsky
Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There – Lewis Carroll
War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
The Idiot – Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Moonstone – Wilkie Collins
Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
Uncle Silas – Sheridan Le Fanu
Notes from the Underground – Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fathers and Sons – Ivan Turgenev
Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
Oblomovka – Ivan Goncharov
Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
North and South – Elizabeth Gaskell
Hard Times – Charles Dickens
Bleak House – Charles Dickens
The House of the Seven Gables – Nathaniel Hawthorne
Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
The Count of Monte-Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
Dead Souls – Nikolay Gogol
Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
The Red and the Black – Stendhal
Frankenstein – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen
Persuasion – Jane Austen
Emma – Jane Austen
Mansfield Park – Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
Candide – Voltaire
Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift
Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
The Thousand and One Nights – Anonymous
Aesop’s Fables – Aesopus


Well, I decided to go back to see how many I've actually read. I found it interesting to see how many authors are channelled....even modern authors like Toni Morrisson has numerous books on the list. I wonder about the thought process behind the list. It would be interesting to see why certain books were chosen.

Some stuff I started and put down. I have the Gormenghast Trilogy....have had it for years....and 2 of the 3 (if I'm not mistaken) are on the list. I guess I should take a crack at them.