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SixFourian 
"Four ever European"
The European Union
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 Posted - 23/01/2011 : 02:41:05
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quote:
Originally posted by AC
And bife, Salopian - I am ashamed to say I've never read Wuthering Heights. I'll put it on the to-dos. I expect it's much like the Kate Bush song, right?  
Well, it does kinda capture part of its essence. I love that song, such an amazing accomplishment for someone so young.
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SixFourian
"Four ever European"
The European Union
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Posted - 23/01/2011 : 02:52:53
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quote:
Originally posted by AC
my favourite book is 'Catch-22'
One of my favourites too, and by far my favourite humorous book. Shame that the film doesn't capture it well, though I can't imagine it's possible. |
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demonic
"Cinemaniac"
United Kingdom
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Posted - 23/01/2011 : 03:03:44
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Remembered that I had these lists saved - you see the sheer number of essential books that this recent list missed out...
I was working in a Waterstone's bookshop when I left university around the time they published their "Books of the Century" list which always seemed like a pretty good one to me and kept me checking them off for a long time.
1. THE LORD OF THE RINGS
2. NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR
3. ANIMAL FARM
4. ULYSSES
5. CATCH-22
6. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE
7. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
8. ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE
9. THE GRAPES OF WRATH
10. TRAINSPOTTING
11. WILD SWANS
12. THE GREAT GATSBY
13. LORD OF THE FLIES
14. ON THE ROAD
15. BRAVE NEW WORLD
16. THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS
17. WINNIE-THE-POOH
18. THE COLOR PURPLE
19. THE HOBBIT
20. THE OUTSIDER
21. THE LION, THE WITCH & THE WARDROBE
22. THE TRIAL
23. GONE WITH THE WIND
24. THE HITCHHIKER�S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY
25. MIDNIGHT�S CHILDREN
26. THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK
27. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE
28. SONS AND LOVERS
29. TO THE LIGHTHOUSE
30. IF THIS IS A MAN
31. LOLITA
32. THE WASP FACTORY
33. REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST
34. CHARLIE & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY
35. OF MICE AND MEN
36. BELOVED
37. POSSESSION
38. HEART OF DARKNESS
39. A PASSAGE TO INDIA
40. WATERSHIP DOWN
41. SOPHIE�S WORLD
42. THE NAME OF THE ROSE
43. LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA
44. REBECCA
45. THE REMAINS OF THE DAY
46. THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING
47. BIRDSONG
48. HOWARD�S END
49. BRIDESHEAD REVISITED
50. A SUITABLE BOY
51. DUNE
52. A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY
53. PERFUME
54. DOCTOR ZHIVAGO
55. THE GORMENGHAST TRILOGY
56. CIDER WITH ROSIE
57. THE BELL JAR
58. THE HANDMAID�S TALE
59. TESTAMENT OF YOUTH
60. THE MAGUS
61. BRIGHTON ROCK
62. THE RAGGED-TROUSERED PHILANTHROPISTS
63. THE MASTER AND MARGARITA
64. TALES OF THE CITY
65. THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT�S WOMAN
66. CAPTAIN CORELLI�S MANDOLIN
67. SLAUGHTERHOUSE 5
68. ZEN & THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE
69. A ROOM WITH A VIEW
70. LUCKY JIM
71. IT
72. THE POWER AND THE GLORY
73. THE STAND
74. ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT
75. PADDY CLARKE HA HA HA
76. MATILDA
77. AMERICAN PSYCHO
78. FEAR & LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS
79. A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME
80. JAMES & THE GIANT PEACH
81. LADY CHATTERLEY�S LOVER
82. THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES
83. COMPLETE COOKERY COURSE
84. AN EVIL CRADLING
85. THE RAINBOW
86. DOWN AND OUT IN PARIS AND LONDON
87. 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
88. THE TIN DRUM
89. ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF IVAN DENISOVICH
90. LONG WALK TO FREEDOM
91. THE SELFISH GENE
92. JURASSIC PARK
93. THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET
94. CRY, THE BELOVED COUNTRY
95. HIGH FIDELITY
96. THE VAN
97. THE BFG
98. EARTHLY POWERS
99. I, CLAUDIUS
100. THE HORSE WHISPERER
The Next Fifty:
THE WASTE LAND & OTHER POEMS
EAST OF EDEN
WAITING FOR GODOT
FOUR QUARTETS
THE SECRET HISTORY
FEVER PITCH
THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA
DARKNESS AT NOON
MY FAMILY AND OTHER ANIMALS
UNDER MILK WOOD
FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS
LONDON FIELDS
THE SOUND AND THE FURY
THE SHIPPING NEWS
THE FEMALE EUNUCH
CAT�S EYE
THE PLAGUE
INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE
WOMEN IN LOVE
THE SECOND SEX
THE GOOD SOLDIER
THE GO-BETWEEN
ORLANDO
GOODBYE TO ALL THAT
COLD COMFORT FARM
DUBLINERS
A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN
THE FORSYTE SAGA
A FAREWELL TO ARMS
THE WITCHES
SCHINDLER�S ARK
THE DAY OF THE JACKAL
COMPLICITY
FOUCAULT�S PENDULUM
THE LOST CONTINENT
SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM
COLLECTED POEMS OF T.S. ELIOT
THE CROW ROAD
WATERLAND
BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE MUSEUM
SWALLOWS AND AMAZONS
NOSTROMO
THE CASTLE
A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES
THE COLOUR OF MAGIC
MRS DALLOWAY
GRAVITY�S RAINBOW
EMPIRE OF THE SUN
DANNY, THE CHAMPION OF THE WORLD
THE LIAR
And another interesting list was The Times Best 60 books of the Last 60 Years:
1949 Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell
1950 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe C. S. Lewis
1951 The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger
1952 Pigs Have Wings P. G. Wodehouse
1953 Casino Royale Ian Fleming
1954 Lord of the Flies William Golding
1955 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov
1956 The Hundred and One Dalmatians Dodie Smith
1957 Doctor Zhivago Boris Pasternak
1958 Our Man in Havana Graham Greene
1959 The Leopard Giuseppe di Lampedusa
1960 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
1961 Catch 22 Joseph Heller
1962 The Golden Notebook Doris Lessing
1963 The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath
1964 Funeral in Berlin Len Deighton
1965 Dune Frank Herbert
1966 Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys
1967 Towards the End of the Morning Michael Frayn
1968 2001 Arthur C. Clarke
1969 The French Lieutenant�s Woman John Fowles
1970 Play it as it Lays Joan Didion
1971 Americana Don DeLillo
1972 Watership Down Richard Adams
1973 Crash J. G. Ballard
1974 Fear of Flying Erica Jong
1975 Salem�s Lot Stephen King
1976 Even Cowgirls get the Blues Tom Robbins
1977 A Scanner Darkly Philip K. Dick
1978 The World According to Garp John Irving
1979 Smiley�s People John le Carr�
1980 Earthly Powers Anthony Burgess
1981 Lanark Alasdair Gray
1982 The House of the Spirits Isabel Allende
1983 Waterland Graham Swift
1984 Money Martin Amis
1985 Love in The Time of Cholera Gabriel Garcia Marquez
1986 Tourist Season Carl Hiaasen
1987 More Die of Heartbreak Saul Bellow
1988 Mother London Michael Moorcock
1989 Sexing the Cherry Jeannette Winterson
1990 Get Shorty Elmore Leonard
1991 The Famished Road Ben Okri
1992 The Secret History Donna Tartt
1993 Trainspotting Irvine Welsh
1994 How Late it Was, How Late James Kelman
1995 Northern Lights Philip Pullman
1996 Angela's Ashes Frank McCourt
1997 Harry Potter and the Philosopher�s Stone J. K. Rowling
1998 The Wind-up Bird Chronicle Haruki Murakami
1999 Disgrace J. M. Coetzee
2000 The Blind Assassin Margaret Atwood
2001 The Corrections Jonathan Franzen
2002 Atonement Ian McEwan
2003 The Time Traveler�s Wife Audrey Niffenegger
2004 The Line of Beauty Alan Hollinghurst
2005 Twilight Stephenie Meyer
2006 The Road Cormac McCarthy
2007 A Thousand Splendid Suns Khaled Hosseini
2008 Netherland Joseph O�Neill
2009 The Little Stranger Sarah Waters |
Edited by - demonic on 23/01/2011 03:10:21 |
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SixFourian
"Four ever European"
The European Union
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Posted - 23/01/2011 : 03:06:36
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| I see that I'm the only one so far to have read Cloud Atlas. I hate recommending subjective things but I really loved it: it's my favourite modern book (We Need to Talk About Kevin being second). It couldn't be made into a film (please don't let someone try) but I'd like to see a high-quality television version. |
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demonic
"Cinemaniac"
United Kingdom
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Posted - 23/01/2011 : 03:12:39
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| I've stalled a bit with David Mitchell - I bought his first three novels in one go and read Ghostwritten and didn't like it - it seemed forced to me, but I will get around to Cloud Atlas as it's so often recommended. |
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SixFourian
"Four ever European"
The European Union
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Posted - 23/01/2011 : 03:43:05
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I thought I'd do the same with demonic's lists:
1. THE LORD OF THE RINGS
2. NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR
3. ANIMAL FARM
4. ULYSSES
5. CATCH-22
6. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE
7. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
8. ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE
9. THE GRAPES OF WRATH
10. TRAINSPOTTING
11. WILD SWANS
12. THE GREAT GATSBY
13. LORD OF THE FLIES
14. ON THE ROAD
15. BRAVE NEW WORLD
16. THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS
17. WINNIE-THE-POOH
18. THE COLOR PURPLE
19. THE HOBBIT
20. THE OUTSIDER
21. THE LION, THE WITCH & THE WARDROBE
22. THE TRIAL
23. GONE WITH THE WIND
24. THE HITCHHIKER�S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY
25. MIDNIGHT�S CHILDREN
26. THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK (I'm ashamed not to have read this yet.)
27. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE
28. SONS AND LOVERS
29. TO THE LIGHTHOUSE
30. IF THIS IS A MAN
31. LOLITA
32. THE WASP FACTORY
33. REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST
34. CHARLIE & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY
35. OF MICE AND MEN
36. BELOVED
37. POSSESSION
38. HEART OF DARKNESS
39. A PASSAGE TO INDIA
40. WATERSHIP DOWN
41. SOPHIE�S WORLD
42. THE NAME OF THE ROSE
43. LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA
44. REBECCA
45. THE REMAINS OF THE DAY
46. THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING
47. BIRDSONG
48. HOWARD�S END
49. BRIDESHEAD REVISITED
50. A SUITABLE BOY
51. DUNE
52. A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY
53. PERFUME
54. DOCTOR ZHIVAGO
55. THE GORMENGHAST TRILOGY
56. CIDER WITH ROSIE
57. THE BELL JAR
58. THE HANDMAID�S TALE
59. TESTAMENT OF YOUTH
60. THE MAGUS
61. BRIGHTON ROCK
62. THE RAGGED-TROUSERED PHILANTHROPISTS
63. THE MASTER AND MARGARITA
64. TALES OF THE CITY (Never yet read it or the sequels but ever since seeing the great television adaptation I've wanted to live in a San Francisco apartment building like that. It was the first thing I ever saw Laura Linney in and she plays the (decreasingly) wide-eyed ing�nue perfectly.)
65. THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT�S WOMAN
66. CAPTAIN CORELLI�S MANDOLIN
67. SLAUGHTERHOUSE 5
68. ZEN & THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE
69. A ROOM WITH A VIEW
70. LUCKY JIM
71. IT
72. THE POWER AND THE GLORY
73. THE STAND
74. ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT
75. PADDY CLARKE HA HA HA
76. MATILDA
77. AMERICAN PSYCHO
78. FEAR & LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS
79. A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME
80. JAMES & THE GIANT PEACH
81. LADY CHATTERLEY�S LOVER
82. THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES
83. COMPLETE COOKERY COURSE
84. AN EVIL CRADLING
85. THE RAINBOW
86. DOWN AND OUT IN PARIS AND LONDON
87. 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
88. THE TIN DRUM
89. ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF IVAN DENISOVICH
90. LONG WALK TO FREEDOM
91. THE SELFISH GENE
92. JURASSIC PARK
93. THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET
94. CRY, THE BELOVED COUNTRY
95. HIGH FIDELITY
96. THE VAN
97. THE BFG
98. EARTHLY POWERS
99. I, CLAUDIUS
100. THE HORSE WHISPERER
THE WASTE LAND & OTHER POEMS
EAST OF EDEN
WAITING FOR GODOT
FOUR QUARTETS
THE SECRET HISTORY
FEVER PITCH
THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA
DARKNESS AT NOON
MY FAMILY AND OTHER ANIMALS
UNDER MILK WOOD
FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS
LONDON FIELDS
THE SOUND AND THE FURY
THE SHIPPING NEWS
THE FEMALE EUNUCH
CAT�S EYE
THE PLAGUE
INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE
WOMEN IN LOVE
THE SECOND SEX
THE GOOD SOLDIER
THE GO-BETWEEN
ORLANDO
GOODBYE TO ALL THAT
COLD COMFORT FARM
DUBLINERS
A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN
THE FORSYTE SAGA
A FAREWELL TO ARMS
THE WITCHES
SCHINDLER�S ARK (I really should read this given that I live in Cracow, have often been to the cafe where it was planned, have taught lessons around the making of the film &c. &c.)
THE DAY OF THE JACKAL
COMPLICITY
FOUCAULT�S PENDULUM
THE LOST CONTINENT
SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM
COLLECTED POEMS OF T.S. ELIOT
THE CROW ROAD
WATERLAND
BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE MUSEUM
SWALLOWS AND AMAZONS
NOSTROMO
THE CASTLE
A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES
THE COLOUR OF MAGIC
MRS DALLOWAY
GRAVITY�S RAINBOW
EMPIRE OF THE SUN
DANNY, THE CHAMPION OF THE WORLD
THE LIAR
1949 Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell
1950 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe C. S. Lewis
1951 The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger
1952 Pigs Have Wings P. G. Wodehouse
1953 Casino Royale Ian Fleming (Only the 2006 film, so I know it doesn't really count.)
1954 Lord of the Flies William Golding
1955 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov
1956 The Hundred and One Dalmatians Dodie Smith
1957 Doctor Zhivago Boris Pasternak
1958 Our Man in Havana Graham Greene
1959 The Leopard Giuseppe di Lampedusa
1960 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
1961 Catch 22 Joseph Heller
1962 The Golden Notebook Doris Lessing
1963 The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath
1964 Funeral in Berlin Len Deighton
1965 Dune Frank Herbert
1966 Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys (Easily the best ever novel that develops characters from another.)
1967 Towards the End of the Morning Michael Frayn
1968 2001 Arthur C. Clarke
1969 The French Lieutenant�s Woman John Fowles
1970 Play it as it Lays Joan Didion
1971 Americana Don DeLillo
1972 Watership Down Richard Adams
1973 Crash J. G. Ballard
1974 Fear of Flying Erica Jong
1975 Salem�s Lot Stephen King
1976 Even Cowgirls get the Blues Tom Robbins
1977 A Scanner Darkly Philip K. Dick
1978 The World According to Garp John Irving
1979 Smiley�s People John le Carr�
1980 Earthly Powers Anthony Burgess
1981 Lanark Alasdair Gray
1982 The House of the Spirits Isabel Allende
1983 Waterland Graham Swift
1984 Money Martin Amis
1985 Love in The Time of Cholera Gabriel Garcia Marquez
1986 Tourist Season Carl Hiaasen
1987 More Die of Heartbreak Saul Bellow
1988 Mother London Michael Moorcock
1989 Sexing the Cherry Jeannette Winterson
1990 Get Shorty Elmore Leonard
1991 The Famished Road Ben Okri
1992 The Secret History Donna Tartt
1993 Trainspotting Irvine Welsh
1994 How Late it Was, How Late James Kelman
1995 Northern Lights Philip Pullman
1996 Angela's Ashes Frank McCourt
1997 Harry Potter and the Philosopher�s Stone J. K. Rowling
1998 The Wind-up Bird Chronicle Haruki Murakami
1999 Disgrace J. M. Coetzee
2000 The Blind Assassin Margaret Atwood
2001 The Corrections Jonathan Franzen
2002 Atonement Ian McEwan
2003 The Time Traveler�s Wife Audrey Niffenegger
2004 The Line of Beauty Alan Hollinghurst
2005 Twilight Stephenie Meyer
2006 The Road Cormac McCarthy
2007 A Thousand Splendid Suns Khaled Hosseini
2008 Netherland Joseph O�Neill
2009 The Little Stranger Sarah Waters |
Edited by - SixFourian on 23/01/2011 05:01:17 |
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Sean 
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
New Zealand
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Posted - 23/01/2011 : 03:51:12
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quote:
Originally posted by demonic
I was working in a Waterstone's bookshop when I left university around the time they published their "Books of the Century" list which always seemed like a pretty good one to me and kept me checking them off for a long time.
Now that's a damn fine list.  How about we delete this thread and start again with that list?  |
Edited by - Sean on 23/01/2011 03:53:20 |
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SixFourian
"Four ever European"
The European Union
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Posted - 23/01/2011 : 03:55:10
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Other big omissions, in my opinion, are Beowulf, Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver's Travels.
Edit: This post was in response to some holes that Sean highlighted, but they've gone now! |
Edited by - SixFourian on 23/01/2011 03:56:22 |
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
New Zealand
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Posted - 23/01/2011 : 04:17:04
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quote:
Originally posted by Salopian
Other big omissions, in my opinion, are Beowulf, Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver's Travels.
Edit: This post was in response to some holes that Sean highlighted, but they've gone now!
Yeah, I deleted that part of my post as I was searching the thread by author, having forgotten that authors are not mentioned in demonic's list, only the titles.  Sure, some of them will be missing but I'm not going to go through the list one-at-a-time to be sure. I was also unsure as to whether some of the authors were from pre-1900 (the list is 20th century I think).
BTW demonic, do you happen to have a copy of that list with authors? I may use that as a better "books to read and movies to watch" list than the one I posted, so I'll be attaching authors at some stage. |
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SixFourian
"Four ever European"
The European Union
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Posted - 23/01/2011 : 04:29:30
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quote:
Originally posted by Salopian
Cloud Atlas... couldn't be made into a film (please don't let someone try) but I'd like to see a high-quality television version.
Yikes, although Portman is excellent casting for Sonmi~451. |
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demonic
"Cinemaniac"
United Kingdom
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Posted - 23/01/2011 : 05:28:33
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quote:
Originally posted by Se�n
BTW demonic, do you happen to have a copy of that list with authors? I may use that as a better "books to read and movies to watch" list than the one I posted, so I'll be attaching authors at some stage.
I didn't write out the authors when I copied it originally - but I've found it's a list that's reprinted quite a few times online...
Here's one
As for the "next 50" - that was printed in the brochure they made at the time, and I thought extremely useful. I can't seem to find that reprinted anywhere else though. |
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
New Zealand
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Posted - 23/01/2011 : 09:26:40
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Thanks mate.  |
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Cheese_Ed 
"The Provolone Ranger"
Guernsey
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Posted - 24/01/2011 : 15:21:06
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Read Wuthering Heights? Hell, I haven't even watched it.
As far as I can recall:
1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
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
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
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker�s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma -Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli�s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
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
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
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-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones�s Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight�s Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Inferno - Dante
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
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
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte�s Web - E.B. White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
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
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
23 read
48 seen |
Edited by - Cheese_Ed on 24/01/2011 15:23:02 |
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BiggerBoat 
"Pass me the harpoon"
London, UK
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Posted - 24/01/2011 : 21:42:28
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quote:
Originally posted by Salopian
I see that I'm the only one so far to have read Cloud Atlas. I hate recommending subjective things but I really loved it: it's my favourite modern book (We Need to Talk About Kevin being second). It couldn't be made into a film (please don't let someone try) but I'd like to see a high-quality television version.
Seconded. Fantastic book. The most amazing thing is that it jumps around from story to story, from time to time and, most incredibly, from writing style to writing style. In fact, some quarters accused the author of having others write different parts of the book because they couldn't believe that one writer could alter his style so dramatically. A must-read, especially if you have multiple personalities yourself yourselves.
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Edited by - BiggerBoat on 24/01/2011 21:45:31 |
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ci�nas 
"hands down"
Brizzle
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Posted - 25/01/2011 : 00:17:15
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The list derives from a British-sponsored World Book Day survey in 07 that asked people to list 10 books they couldn�t live without � rather different from the FB �Book List Challenge� (I�d hardly call it a meme) claiming that it represents a list of putatively important books people said they�d read or hadn�t read. Who on earth has read the entire Bible or the complete works of Shakespeare?
Here�s a Guardian article from the time:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/mar/01/topstories3.books
This explains the randomness of the quality of the books listed � James Joyce & Dan Brown on the same list: do me a favour � & the overlaps noted by AC above. It also explains the bias towards children�s books. Many adults seem to retain a sentimental attachment to stuff they read as kids.
I�d read 59 when I did the quiz on FB. Altho I've always read a lot & still average a novel a week, I�m sure my score would be quite a bit lower if it weren�t for the fact that my degree was in English & Linguistics, & the English component included what is nowadays called a module in America Lit. So, for example, I�ve read most of those massive nineteenth-century blockbusters, even Moby<sob>Dick. (In fact I did a dissertation on symbolism in nineteenth-century American fiction: Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, Crane, et al.)
Number of adapted books watched as movies is harder to quantify (Dracula? Sherlock Holmes?) but I make it 37 or thereabouts if all adaptations of a book count as one.
I agree completely with Salopian & BB about David Mitchell. With the possible exception of Dickens, who I suspect arrived here from another planet, I think he has the most extraordinary imagination of any author I�ve ever read.
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Classic/popular fiction to read/watch.
