• nytquill17 said on Jun 22, 2008....

  Zayda, I think your link is broken.  Seems to have an extra "http" on the front :)

• Zayda said on Jun 22, 2008....

  Thanks Nyt! :)

• nytquill17 said on Jun 22, 2008....

  Hmm...I think the list is heavily slanted in time periods and content, but still a good list!  Obviously as you said, nobody will completely agree with everything.  I would've included more Shakespeare, plus Beowulf and the Canterbury Tales, but I suppose those are all things appreciated more by certain corners of the literary world than by all walks.  I would also have included more "recreational fiction" and a bit less "serious fiction," but that again is a personal preference.
  
  Statistical analysis for me:  I've only read 20 things on the list.  I saw as many or more titles I recognized or of which I could have described the plot, but couldn't honestly say I'd read.  None of those two groups surprised me for being on the list - they are all either "classics" or in my personal opinion, very good reads.  And the rest were things I'd never heard of so I don't know if they were surprising or not (but I suppose the real purpose of a list like this is not to reassure yourself that you are well read, but to discover suggestions of new titles that someone else equates to whichever books you feel made you well-read in the first place).
  
  Of those 20, most were things I have only read because it was required for either a high school or college English class.  A handful I read just for fun, because I wanted to.  And about half of the ones I only read because of school, I ended up liking and adopting into my personal list of favorites.  The other half, I am glad to have read once but probably wouldn't read again (Steinbeck, ack!)
  
  Interestingly, two on the list I haven't read but just bought copies of recently during a massive book shopping haul and will be reading within the next couple of months.
  

• MissMimi said on Jun 22, 2008....

  LOL  I better get busy, is all I can say.  Good grief.

• Zayda said on Jun 22, 2008....

  Since I was an English major in college and graduate school, I was surprised by how few on the list that I have read.
  
  
  I came up with a grand total of 31 that I have definitely read. I think there may be some others that I read in college, but I simply don't remember if I have actually completely read them or only partially read them to get through a class or just think I read them because we discussed them in class but I didn't really actually read them.
  
  
  Some of the more recent ones (under the 2000s sub-category), I have simply never heard of.

• soaringraven said on Jun 22, 2008....

  I came up with at least sixty titles I have actually read cover to cover with another thirty or so that I have started over the years and never finished reading for one reason or another.   There were several titles I recognised and could recall the story line but cannot remember having actually read them.  Generally I can picture myself sitting under a particular lamp, in a specific chair or whatever and that is how I am certain I have actually read the work.   Some of the ones I am uncertain of sound like required reading in high school or college.   I may have read the cliff notes or something, or read just enough to get by. 

  What are missing of course are the hundreds of books I have read, many by authors not even included in the list notwithstanding the sheer volume of their writings.  

  I question the inclusion of anything by Steven King on anyone's serious must read list, but I certainly would not have listed The Shining as the example of King's work.  It was not one of his better offerings in my opinion. 

  I would have certainly included The Prince by Machiavelli.  In my mind that is a must read for anyone interested in understanding the philosophy of governance, which should be everyone living in a free, oppressed or repressed society.  Doesn't that include just about everyone?  I could go on for some time listing books I have read and would have included on such a list. 

  soaring

• silverwhisper said on Jun 23, 2008....

  i too was an english major. i don't believe i've read more than a handful of the titles from the 1900s, never even heard of most of the 2000s. the older stuff i happen to know a bit better, though.
  
  i lack the patience to count which ones i have read but i to be honest, it can't be more than 2 dozen, if that.
  
  however, i was shocked not to see: the bible, koran, talmud, upanishads, like nyt was surprised not to see either beowulf or canterbury tales. i don't understand those omissions at all.
  
  people keep telling me how good les miserable is, but the funny thing about that, apparently, according to my sister (she teaches french): a complete english translation of les miserables has not been done in a few decades: what you find in most bookstores apparently are abridgements. i don't know if that's changed in the past decade or so but i find that shocking, esp given the popularity of the musical.
  
  ed

• Arukiyomi said on Jun 23, 2008....

  silverwhisper... please read Boxall's intro to his book. All will be revealed. Unabridged editions of Les Miserables are easy to find with a simple google
  

• sweetsoul said on Jun 23, 2008....

  I've read about 70 of them and own another 50 on the list that I haven't read yet,  but that's because there was a time when I was collecting and reading from a few top 100 lists. Having said that I've read none from the 2000s list.

  What surprised me, but probably shouldn't have, were the number of movies from the books.

  Yes some of the books were surprising...D.H. Lawrence's The Plumed Serpent? Who's even heard of it except someone like me who read all of his books in high school as part of her sexual awakening?

• pickersplock said on Jun 23, 2008....

  It seems I've missed out on the newer books.
  As I went down the list, I realized the older the book, the better the chance that I've read it.
  I guess it comes from majoring in English.
   
  As far as I'm concerned, they can take Gargantua and Pantagruel off of the list.
  If I never have to read that book again, it will be too soon.
  Pages and pages of items used to wipe one's bottom.......not my cup of tea!
   
  Strike it from the list forever!

• vacantmind said on Jun 23, 2008....

  I have read at least 100 on the list. I'm not an English major just reading for pure enjoyment. I read more than I watch tv and alot of these books I got cheap at the second hand book store.

  I'm not really surprised that my favorite book isn't listed; The girl, the goldwatch and everything by John D. McDonald. Doesn't really seem to fit this list.

• Eilan said on Jun 23, 2008....

  I'd have to sit down and look through the list more thorougly, but at a glance, I saw at least 30 that I'd read, many of them pre-1900.

• Eilan said on Jun 23, 2008....

  So, because I obviously have way too much time on my hands, I looked over the list and found that I'd read 93 works, including the two I'm currently reading.  Yay for my book group, Virginia Woolf grad-school seminars, and that 18th-century novel class I took (and loved every minute of)!
  
  I'm thinking that the person who made this list got tired by the time he (?) hit the 1700's.  Like others, I'm surprised at the exclusion of at least one of Shakespeare's works (Hamlet, at the very least), The Canterbury Tales, and Beowulf.  I'd have probably also included Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight, The Faerie Queene, Paradise Lost, Le Mort d'Arthur, The Decameron, The Divine Comedy, and at least The Iliad or The Odyssey.  And maybe Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh just to get another 19th-century female voice in there.  I may have missed it, but I also didn't see Kafka's The Metamorphosis.
  
  And, technically, Edgar Allan Poe's works aren't really books, are they?
  
  I've not read too much of Stephen King (other than On Writing, which I enjoyed), but I'd have included The Stand and/or The Dark Tower.
  

Comment on "1001 Must Reads..."

Currently tagged	reading literature Books lists arukiyomi (Click to add tags below)
Tag this post	(Separate tags using commas, for example: New York, dating, vegetarian)
Your comment