List of 40 books to read before one dies. Do you agree?

[Anonymous]

The web page for the first list is so ad heavy and awful I can't scroll past the third title!

[Anonymous]

The best books to read are the ones you enjoy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it's a good place to start. Especially if you don't recognize most of the titles.

I like this list of novels by modern library. A bit more varied.

http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/

Varied? It is almost entirely a list of books by white men.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I like the Great American Read List better.

https://www.pbs.org/the-great-american-read/home/

Only a great 'Murican book list would include the Twilight Saga....

The Great American Read list isn't limited to US books. Maybe you should check it out first. You can watch the episodes online, or get the reference book.

Even if you hate Twilight, it got a lot of people reading who do not normally read. That's a good thing.

You make an excellent point. I was being a book snob. I actually read the Twilight books after I heard the author dreamed the story before she wrote it. I could see them being on a teenager book list, but not a list of must reads.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's a good place to start. Especially if you don't recognize most of the titles.

I like this list of novels by modern library. A bit more varied.

http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/

Varied? It is almost entirely a list of books by white men.

Ok, so that's your definition of varied, I suppose. I'm not threatened by the idea that a lot of white men have written really good books. Why are you?

[Anonymous]

Wow, OP, I'm surprised you haven't heard of most of those titles. Did you go to high school in the US? A lot of those titles (especially books like The Great Gatsby and 1984) are mainstays of American MS and HS curricula.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's a good place to start. Especially if you don't recognize most of the titles.

I like this list of novels by modern library. A bit more varied.

http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/

Varied? It is almost entirely a list of books by white men.

Ok, so that's your definition of varied, I suppose. I'm not threatened by the idea that a lot of white men have written really good books. Why are you?

DP, but come on. There is SO much great literature out there not written by white men. At least the first list had Things Fall Apart.

[Anonymous]

Here are my comments for what they are worth, lol:

Read and Agree:
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
100 Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Trial, Franz Kafka
Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier

I should probably read:
Catch-22, Joseph Heller
1984, George Orwell
The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley (My husband loves this book)
Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie (My husband also loves this book)
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
Beloved, Toni Morrison
Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
Dracula, Bram Stoker
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath

Read and didn't really care for (but probably because I was forced to read in school):
Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
Lord of the Flies, William Golding
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray

Didn't Read, No opinion:
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 ¾, Sue Townsend
Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
The Code of the Woosters, PG Wodehouse
Middlemarch, George Eliot
The Secret History, Donna Tartt
Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
Dune, Frank Herbert
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Philip K Dick
The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler
Dangerous Liaisons, Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
The Leopard, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

[Anonymous]

I've been trying to read Dune, but SciFi just isn't for me. It's highly recommend by so many of my friends though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's a good place to start. Especially if you don't recognize most of the titles.

I like this list of novels by modern library. A bit more varied.

http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/

Varied? It is almost entirely a list of books by white men.

Ok, so that's your definition of varied, I suppose. I'm not threatened by the idea that a lot of white men have written really good books. Why are you?

I'm not, I've read most of them, but let's not pretend that is a variety of literary voices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here are my comments for what they are worth, lol:

Read and Agree:
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
100 Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Trial, Franz Kafka
Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier

I should probably read:
Catch-22, Joseph Heller
1984, George Orwell
The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley (My husband loves this book)
Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie (My husband also loves this book)
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
Beloved, Toni Morrison
Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
Dracula, Bram Stoker
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath

Read and didn't really care for (but probably because I was forced to read in school):
Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
Lord of the Flies, William Golding
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray

Didn't Read, No opinion:
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 ¾, Sue Townsend
Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
The Code of the Woosters, PG Wodehouse
Middlemarch, George Eliot
The Secret History, Donna Tartt
Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
Dune, Frank Herbert
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Philip K Dick
The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler
Dangerous Liaisons, Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
The Leopard, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

How did you get through school without reading 1984?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's a good place to start. Especially if you don't recognize most of the titles.

I like this list of novels by modern library. A bit more varied.

http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/

Varied? It is almost entirely a list of books by white men.

Ok, so that's your definition of varied, I suppose. I'm not threatened by the idea that a lot of white men have written really good books. Why are you?

Why would you choose the word "threatened" when someone makes a simple statement of fact?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here are my comments for what they are worth, lol:

Read and Agree:
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
100 Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Trial, Franz Kafka
Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier

I should probably read:
Catch-22, Joseph Heller
1984, George Orwell
The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley (My husband loves this book)
Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie (My husband also loves this book)
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
Beloved, Toni Morrison
Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
Dracula, Bram Stoker
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath

Read and didn't really care for (but probably because I was forced to read in school):
Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
Lord of the Flies, William Golding
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray

Didn't Read, No opinion:
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 ¾, Sue Townsend
Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
The Code of the Woosters, PG Wodehouse
Middlemarch, George Eliot
The Secret History, Donna Tartt
Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
Dune, Frank Herbert
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Philip K Dick
The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler
Dangerous Liaisons, Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
The Leopard, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

How did you get through school without reading 1984?!

I really don't know!!!!! LOL. We did read: Handmaid's Tale, A Brave New World, and a Clockwork Orange, so maybe those filled the dystopian novel quota?? There is a copy of 1984 at my parents' house from my sister reading it in school (same HS as me), and I know I should read it!! LOL. Maybe this will give me a kick in the pants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it's a good place to start. Especially if you don't recognize most of the titles.

I like this list of novels by modern library. A bit more varied.

http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/

Hmmm. There are some good ones in there but I think that list lost credibility with me by listing three Joyce novels. I’d rather stick pins in my hand.

[Anonymous]

I’m a little surprised neither of those lists had anything by Milan Kundera on it. Or Dostoevsky. Also seemed light on Latin American authors (how about Kiss of the Spider woman? Or House of Spirits? both of which are amazing.)