I came across this list while Goololligagging (my word, I made it up) instead of working:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/mar/02/news.michellepauli The list (with my comments), created by English librarians is: +) To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee Just read it for the first time. Deserves to be the classic it is. +) The Bible Forced myself to read it a long while ago. An impossible, difficult book. Maybe evangelicals are so grumpy because they're forced to read this snoozer? +) The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien I played "Dungeons and Dragons" all through Jr High. This was required reading. I've probably read it three dozen times since. Absolute classic of the genre. +) 1984 by George Orwell Read it once. Liked it. Deserves to be on the list. +) A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens Read it a few times. Deserves to be on the list if for no other reason than it's probably one of the most parodied, retold stories in history. +) Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Never read it. +) Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Never read it. +) All Quite on the Western Front by E M Remarque Never read it (and now I'm starting to get a complex...) +) His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman Read it... started great, turned to weird, watered down crap at the end. What in the hell is this doing on the list? +) Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks Never read it. +) The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck Never read it... but one of the ones my short list. +) The Lord of the Flies by William Golding Read it and loved it. I just wish they'd stop making Americanized, modernized film versions of it. The story is about the descent from proper English school boys to savage primitives. Putting a bunch of modern-day, inner-city Americans in the roles is moronic. So stop it. +) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon Never ever heard of it (should I be ashamed)? +) Tess of the D'urbevilles by Thomas Hardy Never read it. +) Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne Loved it! And it can be read in an hour or two! How much easier do you want classics to be?! +) Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte Never read it. +) The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham Read it. Of course I loved it... but I'm not sure if it's a "MUST READ BEFORE YOU DIE!" It's cute... but life altering? I don't see it. +) Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell Never read it. But my mother's read it like 300 times - does that count at all? +) Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Read it a long, long time ago... remember something about a convict in a graveyard. Sure, why the hell not put it on the list? +) The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger Never heard of it. +) The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold Never heard of this either (and here I thought I was at least moderately well-read). +) The Prophet by Khalil Gibran Beautiful little book. Haven't read it years and years but I remember it was very nice. I went through a "religious" phase where I read the Bible, the Koran, this, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" and a lot of feel-good crap like "Way of the Peaceful Warrior". I'm over that now. +) David Copperfield by Charles Dickens Never read it. +) The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho Damn... another one I've never even heard of! +) The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov And another. +) Life of Pi by Yann Martel And another. +) Middlemarch by George Eliot One more. +) The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver Oh shit... another one. +) A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess Read it. Liked it. Another I would question being on this list... but whatever. +) A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzenhitsyn Damn it! Another one I've never heard of! That makes like a third of list that I've never even heard of! Now I'm feeling borderline retarded. I love a lot of books, but coming up with a list I would suggest that everybody read before they die... coming up with a list of "MUST READ" books? That's hard. Having giving it a small amount of thought I would add: +) "Extraterrestrial Civilizations" by Isaac Asimov. My favorite book. Really no other reason. But it does provide an amazing insight into the size of the Universe that we live in and the possibilities in it. It's getting more and more out-of-date every year, but I still adore this book. +) "Watership Down" by Richard Adams My other favorite book. Although this is one I would have expected to be on any librarians list. They're saying that you should read definitely stay alive long enough to read "The Golden Compass" but "Watership Down" isn't even mentioned? What they fuck? This is the archetypical adventure story told with a grace rarely seen. Yes, they're bunnies - but you'd be hard pressed to find more fully rendered characters in any story. (By the way: bonus credit here because "Watership Down" is mentioned in "Extraterrestrial Civilizations".) +) "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten" by Robert Fulghum Yes, it's sickly, syrupy, sweet and yes he did go ape shit and keep writing books long after he lacked anything worth writing about - but this is a real gem. A gem in little bite-sized chunks. I had people sign this book instead of my yearbook when I left high-school - I knew I'd always have it around. Reading it now interspersed with dumbass comments from lost friends just adds something amazing. +) "Dune" by Frank Herbert If "Lord of the Rings" defines fantasy literature "Dune" defines Sci-Fi. The depth of this created universe rivals Tolkien in every detail. Just remember: there are no prequels. Got that? NO PREQUELS. +) "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" by J.K. Rowling Nah - I'm just shittin' you. You can definitely die without reading this book. ;^) +) "Tarzan of the Apes" by Edgar Rice Burroughs This isn't high art or really even classic literature. Rather this is one of the mangled stories ever: mangled by comics, mangled by TV, mangled by movies and radio and everything else. People should read this to understand that Tarzan NEVER said "Me Tarzan, you Jane" (in fact Tarzan had had an amazing affinity for language and once taught spoke several fluently). They should know that Cheetah didn't exist (in fact I don't Chimpanzees are mentioned in any of the stories). They should know that Clayton was actually a pretty damn nice guy and Disney can eat my ass. I would probably thrown "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde", "Frankenstein" and "Dracula" among others on the list for similar reasons. It annoys me when dozens and dozens of "popular" versions of a story exist but none of them actually resemble the source material. +) "Matilda" by Roald Dahl There are a lot of children's book that might be on the list, buy in my mind this one capture's an essence of childhood fantasy like no other. All children do not live storybook lives and all those that don't aren't dramatically tragic orphans. Grown-up can just plain be assholes at times (but not always) and this is one of the few books that really isn't afraid to revel in that. I'm sure there are others but damn, it's almost five in the morning! Jim Davis ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;203748912;27390454;j Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:266009 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
