Seriously thoughtful Have you read 6 of those 100?

[lilac_jive]

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen -
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling -
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee -
8 1984 - George Orwell
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams -
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll -
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis -
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown -
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen -
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold -
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett -
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens -
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White -
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad -
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory -

23 total, but quite a few of those are on my to read in the near future list.

[ShortNCuddlyAm]

I've read 62 of them (excluding duplicates )

[Idoine]

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen - YES
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien - YES
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte -
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling - YES
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee -
TOTAL SO FAR: 3

6 The Bible --
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte -
8 1984 - George Orwell - YES
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman - YES
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens -
TOTAL SO FAR: 5

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott -
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy -
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller -
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare -
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier -
TOTAL SO FAR: 5

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk -
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger -
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot -
TOTAL SO FAR: 5

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell -
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens -
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams - currently reading it
TOTAL SO FAR: 5

26 Tess Of The D'Urbervilles -
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky-
28 Grapes of Wrath
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll -
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame -
TOTAL SO FAR: 5

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy -
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens -
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis - YES
34 Emma - Jane Austen - YES
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen - YES
TOTAL SO FAR: 8

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis - YES
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hossein -
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres -
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden -
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne -
TOTAL SO FAR: 9

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell -
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - YES
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez -
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving -
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins - Already started
TOTAL SO FAR: 10

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery -
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy -
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood -
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding -
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan -
TOTAL SO FAR: 10

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel -
52 Dune - Frank Herbert -YES
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons -
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen - YES
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth -
TOTAL SO FAR: 12

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon -
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens -
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley -
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon - YES
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez -
TOTAL SO FAR: 13

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck - YES
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov -
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt -
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold -
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas - YES
TOTAL SO FAR: 15

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac - YES
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy -
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding - YES
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie -
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville -
TOTAL SO FAR: 17

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens -
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker -
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett - YES
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson -
75 Ulysses - James Joyce -
TOTAL SO FAR: 18

76 The Inferno - Dante -
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome -
78 Germinal - Emile Zola -
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray -
80 Possession - AS Byatt -
TOTAL SO FAR: 18

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens -
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell -
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker -
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro -
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert -YES
TOTAL SO FAR: 19

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry -
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White -
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom -
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle -YES
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton -
TOTAL SO FAR: 20

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad -
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery -
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks -
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams-
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole -
TOTAL SO FAR: 20

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute -
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas -YES
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare -
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - YES
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo -
TOTAL SO FAR: 22

22 then...
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Why are some titles here several time (Tess, 1rst of Narnia...) ?
And 4 or 5 are are in my TBR list already.

[Moejoe]

I've read about 50 of them, but I consider only 6 worth reading out of the whole 100.

To Kill a Mockingbird
1984
Grapes of Wrath
Brave New World
Of Mice and Men
Animal Farm

No Cervantes on the list, no William S Burroughs, no Ray Bradbury, no Murakami or Yoshimoto or Abe, no Cheever or Welty or....well, my top 100 wouldn't be anything like this list

[dreams]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

It seems to me that there is a lot of debate about what would be the essential 100 books of all time.

I'd be happy to start a new thread where people here can nominate their favourite 10 books, say, and I'll compile a top 100 (or maybe 50) list from that if enough people respons.

Before I do that, though, I'd be interested to know if people think it's a good idea (maybe it's been done before?) and whether or not we should have some stipulations (e.g. not all sci-fi, the ten books chosen have to be from a variety of decades (or centuries), all English language (or widely available in translation), that kind of thing.

Please let me know - I'm happy to start such a thread and pull all the results together.

Nice idea How about something like this?

The MR International Essential Books of all Time List suggestions. (Fiction) [Non-discussion Thread]

and a second thread or in the same thread....

The MR International Essential Books of all Time List suggestions. (Non-Fiction)[Non-discussion Thread]


*[Separate threads in: English forum / German forum / French forum - Language forums can contain suggestions from other languages ie., Spanish in the English forum etc.]

*List no more than 5 essential books and the universal aspect of each that makes it qualify as an essential book (in your opinion).


To keep the thread on topic of lists and aspects of universal appeal, and not digress into various side debates of another member's personal listed choices, the thread title could state; Non-discussion Thread.

I'd be interested to see what the compilation of the 3 separate language forums would be.

**I've read 51 of the books and some of 12 more--I found it strange that a few were listed as counting as only 1 book.. His Dark Materials, Harry Potter series, Complete Works of Shakespeare, The Bible, The Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia.. **

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by rhadin

...Douglas Adams ... a mediocre writer at best.

Heresy!

Originally Posted by rhadin

Arthur Clarke was certainly a better and more memorable writer, just to name one.

Apples and oranges. One was known mainly for excellent science fiction, the other for his sci-fi humor.

[junkml]

I've read 13 (although I only gave myself half credit for the works of shakespeare - I've read most, but not all - and Lord of the Rings - I've tried to read it several times, but never quite finished the second book)

[Deb]

23. Of course, there are 7 in the Chronicles of Narnia, many-many by Shakespeare, 7 of the Harry Potter books, so if you count them separately that would add more for a number of us...

And no Poe? What's up with that? Silly people.

[pholy]

Well, I counted up to 22 and I was feeling pretty well above average until I saw how many people had read 40 or more - Patricia up at 69! Now I feel like an ignorant clod. Maybe I can get my edjicashun once I retire? Find the time to read all of Encyc. Britannica's Great Books of the Western World. (wish I had it in ebook)

I'll be interested to seel how the MR poll shapes up. In many ways my reading has been pretty limited - it's due for expansion.

[sapphiresilver]

I've only read 22 of those books, mostly the sci-fi and fantasy ones. I didn't finish some of the other books, so I didn't count them, and some are on my "to read" list.

[neilmarr]

Seventy-five for me, and many of those read several times. Probably some others I've forgotten. Mind you, I've been a bookworm ever since I learned the alphabet nearly sixty years ago. Some great books on that list.

[PKFFW]

19.

To be honest not many of the other 81 even interest me enough to think I will ever read them.

Guess my reading habits are just too low brow!

Cheers,
PKFFW

[kaan]

14

And I'm not reading Dan Brown just to increase that number!
Actually most of the books I haven't read on the list isn't something ill be likely to read any time soon.

[MickeyC]

Twenty one; more if I can count every time I've read The Hitchhikers Guide

[Over]

I've only read 5 of those 100

A dozen from that list I won't ever read, as I've already watched the movie or series version, including some classics.

Anyway, I'm not english or american, so it's understandable that I've not been exposed to most of those works. But I've read a lot of books by portuguese authors.