Skylar's comments

Skylar's comments from the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die group.

Note: Skylar is no longer a member of this group.

It is very popular to talk of "banned" books these days, but I have to say that declining to force children to read a particular book, or declining to choose one book out of several million for inclusion in a limited space in a public library, is not "banning." Nor is saying that you find the content of a particular book offensive and discouraging others from reading it "censorship."

"Censorship" is when you are *legally* prohibited from publishing, buying, selling, or reading a book, and "banning" is when a government refuses to allow a book to be published, sold, and/or read in its country.

It gets tiresome to hear people cry censorship or banning because of a failure either to require students to read a particular book or a failure to buy and house a particular book with public funds extracted from people by force of law.

If I use community pressure to persuade a public school English teacher to assign my daughter "Pride and Prejudice" rather than the "Vagina Monologues," and I am persuasive, I am not "banning" the "Vagina Monologues." I am exercising my rights of free speech and freedom of assembly to persuade others to change which books they deem worthy of academic study in a high school setting.

Night - Elie Wiesel

In Cold Blood - Truman Capote (but that's in the 1,001)

Confessions - St. Augustine

A Personal Oddyssey - Thomas Sowell

A Grief Observed - C.S. Lewis

The Autobigoraphy of Malcolm X - Alex Haley

The Cost of Discipleship - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Up from Slavery - Booker T. Washington

Orthodoxy - G.K. Chesterton

Intellectuals - Paul Johnson

Seven Storey Mountain - Thomas Merton

Surprised by Joy - C.S. Lewis

Death of a Friday Afternoon - Richard John Neuhaus

The Wealth of Nations - Adam Smith - no, not a good read, just a "should read"

Eats, Shoots, and Leaves - Lynn Truss

The Professor and the Madman - Simon Winchester

A Tale of A Tub - Swift - is probably the most obscure I've read.

Well, all of Austen's are "happy" books in the sense of happy endings, positive. But 20th century literature is, in general, cycnical and depressing, and since 95% of the list comes from the 20th century...

It's a complete stretch to call it, or any of Poe's short stories, novels.

] I wonder if in another 100 years his "carnivore" values will be as difficult to read as his "racist" values are today?

In short: No.

Well, I'm one of those rare breeds who neither loves nor hates Rand. I see the power of her writing; as a philosophical novelist, she's really very good, and "The Fountainhead" was one of the first books I was able to gulp down in one sitting after a long dry spell; she really made me think. I loathe half her philosophy and agree with half of it. But the omission seems to me indefensible, given how influential she was on libertarianism as a movement, given the controversy her philosophy engendered, given that The Fountainhead was made into a movie, and given the virtual cult following she inspired. There is also a sea of anti-capitalist books in the offering, and one of hers would have added a rare tiny hint of balance in being pro-capitalist. I think her pro-capitalism, pro-individualism stance is part of what makes her so easily dismissed by so many literati.

But what really surprises me is the complete omission of ALL three of the following--Chaim Potok, Elie Wiesel, and Herman Wouk. What, no love for the Jews? (I jest, but one book from each should have made the list - The Chosen, Night, and The Caine Mutiny, probably.)

I rate BK as one of my five favorite books of all time.

I LOVED this one. I didn't much care for Gulliver's Travels, but what I really enjoyed (not on this list) is Swift's "Abolishing Christianity." "A Tale of a Tub" (on the list) is also good.

Robinson Crusoe bored me to tears both times I had to read it. I wonder if I would like it in my older age?

What are your top five authors of novels who have been completely omitted from the list (not a single book by the author has been included anywhere on the list). Not playwrights here; just authors.

For me it's--

1. Elie Wiesel
2. Herman Wouk
3. C.S. Lewis
4. Chaim Potok
5. Ayn Rand

I'd also like to see G.K. Chesterton

Well, I'm sure among the books I have NOT read are ones I would dislike far more than these picks, but, of those I HAVE read, these are the ones I liked the LEAST:

Madam Bovary
Robinson Crusoe
Frankenstein
The Time Machine
A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man
Women In Love
To the Lighthouse
A Farewell to Arms
The Color Purple
Love in the Time of Cholera (couldn't finish)

Yes, I've managed to read a lot of books I don't like.

It should have been called 1,001 NOVELS and they should take out all the essays and short stories and non-fiction memoirs, of which there are only about 30 or so.

Well these would be on my "Poetry Books You Must Read Before You Die" List. (I think it's best to omit any "collected" works and just put actual titled books or long poems published):

The Book of Psalms
The Book of Job
Ecclesiasties
The Tao Te Ching
The Bhagavad Gita
Paradise Lost – Milton
Beowulf – anon.
The Canterbury Tales - Chaucer
In Memoriam – Alfred Lord Tennyson
An Essay on Criticism – Alexander Pope
An Essay on Man – Alexander Pope
The Black Riders and Other Lines – Stephen Crane
Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience – William Blake
Don Juan – Lord Byron
Absalom and Achitophel – John Dryden
Where the Sidewalk Ends – Shel Silversteen
Rape of the Lock – Alexander Pope
The Singer Trilogy – Calvin Miller
Goblin Market – Cristian Rossetti
The Rubayat of Omar Khayyam – Edward Fitzgerald
My Last Duchess – Robert Browning
The Cry of the Children – Elizabeth Barret Browning
The Divine Comedy – Dante
Astrophil and Stella – Philip Sydney
The Faerie Queen – Edmund Spencer
Leaves of Grass – Walt Whitman


Here would be my "Plays You Must Read Before You Die" List:

King Lear – Shakespeare
Much Ado About Nothing – Shakespeare
Richard III – Shakespeare
Measure for Measure – Shakespeare
(Here I am aiming for one of each kind – tradgedy, comedy, history, and problem play, otherwise the list would be all Shakespeare)
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead – Tom Stoppard
Doctor Faustus – Christopher Marlowe
The Crucible – Arthur Miller

(And there I must end, as I haven't read many plays)


And this would be on my "Nonfiction You Must Read Before You Die List:

This Is My God – Herman Wouk
Mere Christianity – C.S. Lewis
Orthodoxy – G.K. Chesterton
Night – Elie Wiesel
In Cold Blood – Truman Capote (though this is on the list despite being nonfiction)
The Abolition of Man – C.S. Lewis
Eat the Rich – P.J. O'Rourke
Confessions – St. Augustine of Hippo
A Grief Observed – C.S. Lewis
A Personal Odyssey – Thomas Sowell
Up From Slavery – Booker T. Washington
The Autobiogrpahy of Malcolm X – Alex Haley
The Professor and the Madman – Simon Winchester
Literary Converts – Joseph Pearce
The Seven Storey Mountain – Thomas Merton
The Everlasting Man – G.K. Chesterton
The Cost of Discipleship – Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The Virtue of Selfishness – Ayn Rand
The Leviathan – Thomas Hobbes
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding – John Locke
The Wealth of Nations – Adam Smith
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman – Mary Wollstencraft
The Kama Sutra

7.99% based on the original list. The second edition list would bring me down to 6.7%.

Of those on the list that I have actually read, the funniest are (in no particular order):

* Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen

* A Tale of A Tub - Swift (but you need the background to appreciate it)

A Modest Proposal - Swift (funnier than A Tale of A Tub - definitely has something on its mind)

Middlemarch (subtle funny - satire)

* A Handful of Dust - Evelyn Waugh (subtle funny - but also quite serious - satire)

Thank You, Jeeves - P.G. Wodehouse

Cat's Cradle - Vonnegut

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Adams


* The starred three were removed from the 2008 list but were in the 1st edition

So many are missing. But if I had to pick five--

1. The City Boy OR The Caine Mutiny - Herman Wouk

2. The Bible -- Talk about a "must read before you die"; it's also essential for understanding most English literature; and it has some of the oldest short stories, epic, closet drama, etc.

3. The Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

4. The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand

5. Night OR Dawn - Elie Wiesel

I'd replace Stephen King's The Shining with The Body or The Stand. I'd replace Cat's Cradle with Player Piano (Vonnegut). I might replace one of the Waugh with The Loved One.

Fun. 6.79% read. I'm doing this because it's fun, but I think the selection is on average terrible (because of its omissions and frivilous inclusions) for books to read before you DIE. Then there is the matter of changing over 200 books between the first and second edition, which shows the list was completely random to begin with.

Which list? Apparently the 1,001 books has been REVISED? And the ones they removed happened to be many of the ones I've read. So are we going by the earlier or later list here? What's up with that change? 282 different ones?

To get a better idea where to start (since I know I won't really read them ALL before I die), what are your top 10 favorites that you have already read from the 1,001 list? Mine are:

In no particular order

Brother's Karamazov
Middlemarch
Pride and Prejudice
In Cold Blood
Jane Eyre
Northanger Abbey
A Tale of Two Cities
Brave New World
A Handful of Dust
Namesake