Thursday, January 14, 2010

50 Books To Read Before You Die

For my Christmas stocking the Hubs gave me a lovely metal book marker with a list of the 50 books to read before you die.  I was shocked by how few I've read, but glad that I had at least heard of most of them.  I'm making it a goal to read at least 10 the unread books by years end.

Without further ado, here's the list:

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J. R. R. Tolkien (read)
1984 by George Orwell
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (read)
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (read)
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (read)
A Passage to India by E. M. Forster
The Lord of the Flies by William Golding (read)
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
A Bend in the River by V. S. Naipaul
The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger (read)
The Bell Jar by Sylvie Plath
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (read)
The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank
Don Quixote by Miduel de Cervantes
The Bible by Various (read)
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
Ulysses by James Joyce (read)
The Quiet American by Graham Greene
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulke
Money by Martin Amis
Harry Potter Series by J. K. Rowling (read)
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (read)
His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman (read all but last book)
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Alice´s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Caroll
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon (read)
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
The Way We Live Now by Antony Trollope
The Outsider by Albert Camus
The Colour Purple by Alice Walker
Life of Pi by Yann Martel (read)
Frankenstein by Mary Selley
The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
Man Without Woman by Ernest Hemingway
Gulliver´s Travels by Jonathan Swift
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (read)
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Dafoe
One flew over the Cockoo´s Nest by Ken Kesey
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (read the abridged version)
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
The Divine Comedy by Alighieri Dante
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

I may have read Hamlet or Alice's Adventures in Wonderland but I can't say for sure and I don't want to tell lies.  Some of these I can't believe I haven't read, and others I've been meaning to read forever.  So how many books have you read on this list?  Any recommendations on where to start? 



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23 comments:

  1. Appears as though I read half of them and have another 10 on my bookshelves right now. Good luck on reaching your goal with this list for 2010! I'd highly recommend ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST as well as THE GREAT GATSBY. And HAMLET is my favorite Shakespeare.

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  2. I've read all but 16 and several of those 16 I read part of and abandoned.

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  3. You know, except for when I was on the Reading Team in high school or forced to read for English class, I have been a lazy reader. For the most part I've only read what I wanted to read and ignored books I'm sure I'd love. Or I was spoiled by the movies (hello Jane Eyre and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) or just assumed I'd read the books because I know the plots so well (that would be you, Hamlet, Gulliver's Travel and Huck Finn). This year I want to be a more well-rounded reader, although if it sucks I don't care how much I loved the movie version (I'm talking about you, Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper- shocker, you didn't make it on the list did you? Ha!) then I will give myself permission to quit it.

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  4. I've read 12 of them, heard of most of them, but there's a handful that I have never even heard of! Intriguing!

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  5. I've read 26 on your list. Read Anna K. with me this year!

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  6. 15, but I have read Jane Eyre at least two or three times. Love that book. I will be introducing my 8th grade challenge class to Catcher in the Rye this year. I am psyched.

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  7. Looks like I've read 42 but many, many of them were in my dim and callow youth (grade school/high school/college years) when they MADE us read stuff. Ack! Kind of ruined the experience for me. Maybe I'll have to tackle the list again...

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  8. Thanks for the list, Kate! I've read a couple of them:

    READ:
    1. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
    2. Pride and Prejudice
    3. To Kill a Mockingbird
    4. The Lord of the Flies
    5. The Great Gatsby
    6. The Catcher in the Rye
    7. The Bible
    8. Harry Potter Series (Books 1-4)
    9. His Dark Materials Trilogy
    10.Rebecca
    11.The Colour Purple
    12.Life of Pi
    13.Frankenstein
    14.Robinson Crusoe
    15.Alice´s Adventures in Wonderland
    16.The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

    TBR:
    1. Jane Eyre
    2. Wuthering Heights
    3. Hamlet
    4. The Diary of Anne Frank
    5. Harry Potter Series (Books 5-7)
    6. Anna Karenina
    7. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
    8. The Way We Live Now
    9. One flew over the Cockoo´s Nest
    10.Catch 22
    11.Memoirs of a Geisha

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  9. I've read a lot of those but some I haven't

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  10. Great bookmark! I've only read 16 on the list, but own several others in my TBR piles. And like Kate, I feel like I know some of these books because I've seen the movie or just heard about them.

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  11. THE GRAPES OF WRATH is one of my favorite books of all time. I've read it several times, and even though there are lots of books on this bookmark list I haven't read yet, I think I'll sit down with GRAPES again first. It's that sort of book.

    Happy Reading!

    Loree Griffin Burns
    www.loreeburns.com

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  12. That's an interesting list. I've read a lot of them, but I'm a bit ashamed to admit that I'm a former English major who never managed to read Ulysses.

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  13. I got the book 1001 Children's Books: You Must Read Before You Grow Up for Christmas. It is great but like you means I have a lot of catching up to do!

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  14. Sadly, I've only read 8. They're all great works, but I'm not sure I would want to read all of them. There are just some types of stories that don't grab me and hold me.

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  15. I've read, I think, 20 (I kept losing count as the titles would make me think about the books!), and have interest in reading many more. The idea of reading Ulysses has always scared me a little bit!

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  16. Kristi: No need to feel shame! Ulysses is a humdinger of a book that needs a key to unlock its gifts. I tried to read it four times before I used Harold Blamires' The New Bloomsday Book. I followed someone's advice and read a chapter of Blamires, the corresponding chapter of Ulysses, then went back to read the same Blamires chapter. In this way, I read all of Ulysses. I thought the work was well worth it, but it's a good thing that not all books have to be read that way.

    Kate T: Thanks for coming by my blog! I'm glad to visit yours, too.

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  17. I read 24... I like how the list stretches across centuries. :)

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  18. My next read is the Diary of Anne Frank. It's another book I have been bypassing in the library.

    Thanks for commenting on my blog :o)

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  19. Good list! I know the titles and would like to say I've read most, but it's more likely I've seen PBS movies of the books. :) Happy reading!

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  20. I have a B.A. and M.A. in literature, which helped me with this list. A lot. I've read 33 of the titles listed. The most recent was Rebecca. I didn't think I'd like Rebecca, but I did. It surprised me.

    As for where to start, I would read the synopses of the books and figure out which one appeals to you most. Some of them are daunting reads, like Joyce's Ulysses. Don't start with that one, LOL!

    If you like compelling stories about women, Memoirs of a Geisha might be a good place to start. Great book!

    Good luck to you. And thank you for posting this list. I'm going to make a point of reading the rest of them this year. :)

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  21. I consider myself a reader, but not a voracious reader, so I was suprised to discover that I read 33 of the books on the list. I guess I'll keep reading.

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  22. I highly recommend Rebecca, my favorite book ever. It's also not a "hard" read. I'll also nudge you toward The Great Gatsby (short!) and Anne Frank.

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  23. I called myself an English major, but wow, I definitely need to get reading more! Thanks for posting the list.

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Leave a comment, you know you want to! Here's hoping that your next book is a Midnight Read!

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