Friday 27 June 2008

1001 Books: You Must Read Before You Die.

I was reading about this "1001 Books" book on a forum and decided to do a "ticking off" exercise rather than something more productive with my afternoon! The list has been edited by Peter Boxall assisted by, or so the blurb says, a "superb international team of writers and critics" so that's OK then.

Without trying to be too picky, I'm not sure I entirely agree with all the entries and there are altogether too many repeat appearances by some authors and some very odd omission of others. It's an interesting time waster all the same!

There's a great spreadsheet to download here on Arukiyomi's excellent site so you can track your own progress. Should you be mad enough to want to do this! I've read that there are two versions of the book as the first one was a bit euro-centric but no idea which edition this list is based on.

Much to my surprise I've read 157 books on the list (or 15.68% according to the lovely spreadsheet) and, much to my shame, I own at least another 25-30 of them but probably more! Most of them are in the attic but at least this exercise should shame me into reading some of the accessible ones!

5 comments:

bethany (dreadlock girl) said...

yeah, I am not into lists of "must reads" that others make....reading is so individual, so personal. I agree with you.

Anonymous said...

Hmmm, only 25 out of 1001 at 1st glance. Nothing 1700 or before, does that make me a heathen? I do focus on crime novels though?!?

Peta said...

I've started reading a few of this list but they were just not my cup of tea so I'm never going to complete the list - even if I was trying to! I think it's fair to say that lists like this are never going to suit everyone and I'm not going to read the 18 books from this list each year until I die that the spreadsheet tells me is my target to get to the 1001!

bibliophile - if it helps, I posted about a list of 50 great crime writers
href="http://thebookling.blogspot.com/2008/02/some-things_29.html"> here!
Consider yourself challenged...

Peta said...

Blooming hyperlinks....

Anonymous said...

Hmmm... many read so feeling better, although might have to build a spreadsheet so it looks pretty!