Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die discussion
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The super-reads, who have read more than 200 list books
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Discovered the list in 2006. Had read about 20 or 30 at that point. Tomorrow, I'll finish my 400th (Fear of Flying). I read about four list books a month although that's taking a beating this year as I'm currently reading the two longest books (A Dance to the Music of Time and In Search of Lost Time). Count movies? No way! Hardly any of the films made from any of the books are even close to as good as the original novels. I use all sorts of media... And which I prefer depends on the book. Proust on a tablet is very, very convenient. I read several at once so that I've always got something to fit my mood. I do read books not on the list, but not often. I'm pretty dedicated to finishing this thing off in the next 25 years!
I discovered the list in 2010 and started pursuing it seriously in 2012. Thanks to high school, I had read 60-70 of the books before then, and am now at 203. Last year, 60 of the 100 books I read were list books, whereas I'm nineteen for 46 thus far this year, having made an effort to read outside of the list defined boundaries. I have no interest in completing the list, but seeing as how I've discovered many of my favorites by branching out of my comfort zone due to its recommendations, I like keeping track. I have no idea what my reading speed is, but I finish a minimum 100 pages a day in a reasonable amount of time. I am a treebook devotee, and couldn't absorb literature in any other medium to save my life.
I mentioned small goals in a previous post. One of my small goals last year was to read all of the books added to the 2012 list. Mission accomplished. I still feel great when I see that. Other smaller goals can be things like reading all books with "breakfast" in the title (At Tiffany's? Check! Of Champions? Check!).
Jonpaul wrote: "I mentioned small goals in a previous post. One of my small goals last year was to read all of the books added to the 2012 list. Mission accomplished. I still feel great when I see that. Other sm..."
I like your small goals idea! And they are fun, inventive ideas at that.
Wayne wrote: "I also don't count movies, which in a way is too bad. I've seen Manon des Sources three times and it's an excellent movie, but do you think I can find it in book form? "Jean de Florette & Manon of the Springs is available at a few BC libraries - you could probably inter-library loan if not available in Alberta. The hardback is available cheap from Amazon.com, but I didn't look at Amazon.ca.
Mod
Currently @ 285 or so 1001 books.
I started actively reading from the list sometime in 2010. At that time I had about 80 books that I had already read. I have tried to read 50-75 1001 books per year since than. Like JonPaul, I try to tackle both the shortest and the longest books first (i.e. currently reading A Suitable Boy and just finished Matigari). I also try to mix up formats between regular books, Kindle, Nook, & other e-books (open library, etc.) and audiobooks (I like all formats!). I do probably tend to read faster than the average person and read about 250 books per year. Movies definitely do not count! I also force myself to finish, even if I don't like it, so I will be able to count it.
I discovered the list back in 2008. Up until that point I had read the rudimentary high school novels, all the J.G. Ballard and a couple Booker prize winners.It really wasn't until I signed up with Goodreads that I started reading at the pace I am today.
Right now I believe I am at 323 from the list and all of those have been read on paper. I am fortunate to live in Ottawa where I am an alumni of two major Universities. I peruse the stacks weekly. I usually read novels that are between 200 and 400 pages long, and once or twice a year I will read a long 1000 pager.
I would never count films, but from the 1001 films to see before you die I think I am around 700.
To anyone who wants to read the list, prepare to read a considerable number of books relating to war. All wars.
Also, I tend to enjoy novels written in the past 70 years. I'm biased I guess. I read fairly quickly now. I think the way I became a quick reader (around 100 pages a day) is by reading dense theory all the way through university. Reading prose feels so much easier by contrast.
In the past 12 months I have read 78 list books! Well back to reading...
I started reading from the list in 2009 and had read under 100 at that point. I'm now at 229. I read about 60-75 books a year, though only roughly half are list books. This year the ratio is skewed higher toward list books, I think. I read about 1 page/minute, depending on the writing style and subject matter. A few of the books have been in audio format, but other than a handful, I am a conventional book reader. I don't own an ereader and have way too many unread books in my home to justify buying one. I think counting the books as read by having seen the movies is cheating :)
I've read 296 already. I read without letup. I mean I read other books but I always have a 1001 book in my currently-reading folder. I started in 2010 but have already read 11 out of the 276.
Mod
I discovered the list in 2011 and at that time had read around 80 books. I acitvely started reading list books in late 2012. I'm a quick reader and read around 150 books a year anyway. If I only stuck to list books I would be able to make a still much faster progress but I like some variety in the books I read.
Movies don't count for me. Otherwise, I use all kinds of media. I'm downloading lots of books from Project Gutenberg. This saves me lots of money and makes it possible to read some books which otherwise are hardly available. I also listen to audiobooks. Currently I'm listning to the Arabian Nights but it might still take awhile until I'm finished.
Something I find very motivating is this group. When I see others have read so many books from the list (one member is even almost finished) I know that it will actually be possible for me to complete it as well. My reading progress increased immensely after joining Goodreads and especially this group.
Hit the 200 mark! Started actively working on the list in 2010. Last year I didn't read a large number of books, but read War and Peace, Moby Dick, Hobbit w/LOR trilogy, and Don Quixote all in the same year! This year I am reading shorter books, but then also doing more off-list reading as well.
Nancy wrote: "Hit the 200 mark! Started actively working on the list in 2010. Last year I didn't read a large number of books, but read War and Peace, Moby Dick, Hobbit w/LOR trilogy, and Don Quixote all in the ..."Great job, Nancy!!! I just started reading from the list last December and am only at 46, but I also checked off some long reads this year including Don Quixote, Les Miserables, and Daniel Deronda.
[ a quick disclaimer - I think I answered a similar question before, but now I can't find my original comments ]A quick look at my books shows I have read about 225 of the 1001 list. I know that there are half a dozen others that aren't noted.
Many of the ones I have read were for academic reasons. The others were read over several decades.
One of my previous comments, somewhere on the web, and continues to be valid is that I don't know how many more of this list I will read.
Some of the list I am familiar with, but know I won't read for reasons ranging for lack of interest in the work having started it, the author's other works that I have read did not resonate, and other similar reasons.
While this isn't the right place to carry on at length the discussion about the suitability of some of the works, (i.e. authors who have written far better books than those included) that too is one reason for my having ground to a halt in progress around a total of a quarter of the inclusions.
Mod
About half the books I read are List books. I like audiobooks also, and always have one (from the public library) going in the car CD player, and often an e-audiobook on my iPad that I downloaded from the public library. I think I read about 50% paper, 20% Kindle and 30% audiobooks.
I should hit 200 by the end of the year. I discovered the list sometime ago and finally took the leap in 2016. I decided to start from scratch and read them all.
I still haven't properly gone through my personal spreadsheet and Goodreads. When I see one I'm sure is on the list, I add it to my 1001 shelf, but my personal spreadsheet puts me at about 397. I hope to get it over 400 this year, but I don't plan on even trying to read the whole list. I do love my copy of the 2010 book, and I often just pick it up, find a page and read the blurbs. If I'm interested, I put a hold at the library. I use the list mostly to ferret out authors I might like, and I've read loads of books by the authors included that don't happen to be on the list.
I finally hit 200 this year. I began intentionally reading from the list in 2015, but I had already read over 100 at that point. I generally read 90-100 books a year and have since I was a kid (minus college and the years when my kids were little). I also read a lot of current literary fiction, history, and food books. I am also a mood reader, and have learned that trying to plan my reading does not work. I have read 15 list books so far this calendar year and 24 total.
I have no plans to finish the list--I am not reading fast enough given my age, and there are a few authors on there I have read one by and have no intention of reading another.
I have a great library system (and a card to another good system) and get virtually all of my books that way. I read almost all actual books. I have read a few on my phone while traveling. I also just caved and got a kindle, but mostly to avoid carrying books around. I am also eligible for a UCLA card should I ever decide to read one of the really hard to get books--but between the traffic and the parking I haven't done this yet lol.
Movies don't count, and I usually fall asleep anyway.
I hit 200 earlier this month. I started reading more list books in the last two years or so. When I started focusing on it, I'd already read 150-170, but I'd been working off some other lists before that that listed some of the same books.The list has changed my selection of what to read in some ways. If I happen to find a book that I know is on the list at one of the library sales that I go to, I'll usually pick it up, though before I might not have. Once it's on my shelves, I consider it to be in my TBR pile. Whenever one of the groups I belong to select that for their monthly read, I do my best to read along. Probably what's gotten me to read more from the list than anything else is that silly check-off website, where you can check off the books you've read, and it keeps a running tally for you. Game theorists saw me coming from a mile away.
https://www.listchallenges.com/1001-b...
Bryan wrote: "https://www.listchallenges.com/1001-b...."I had to try that.
I like that it is in chronological order. There has been a few surprises for me. It is very confusing that The Hamlet by William Faulkner has a cover that says William Shakespeare (page 11)
Got the the last 8 pages. Turned out it is not chronological - or there is a large group of unknowns. Now I have checked mine. And as expected the numbers does not add up. I have read 144 and the site says 142 so some where I have overlooked two. Hmmm.....
J_BlueFlower wrote: "Got the the last 8 pages. Turned out it is not chronological - or there is a large group of unknowns. Now I have checked mine. And as expected the numbers does not add up. I have read 144 and the s..."The ones at the end that are seemingly out of order are probably additions from newer editions of the book.
Melanti wrote: "The ones at the end that are seemingly out of order are probably additions from newer editions of the book. ..."
That's how I understood it. That's why there's 1300+ selections.
I wish they had some way to indicate which titles were dropped from earlier editions to make room for the newer ones. Other than that, it's a pretty convenient way to see what books are actually on the list. Plus I'm just like a little kid--when I finish a book, one of the first things I do is go check it off the list. Sheesh.
J_BlueFlower wrote: "I have read 144 and the site says 142 so some where I have overlooked two. Hmmm..."There are a couple of titles that are listed under other titles than what I was familiar with. You saw the Hamlet/Hamlet Shakespeare/Faulkner problem...I think the list compiler was just doing it as a labor of love. One title I remember off the top of my head that was listed under a different title than what I knew it as was Victor Pelevin's The Clay Machine-Gun, which is the same book as Buddha's Little Finger. I know there are a couple others.
I've read somewhere around 230, +/- 5. I don't feel like going through the list right now, but when I looked a couple of months ago I was around 225. I tend to read 1 or 2 a month, so I really will be working on this until I die. I'd probably read around 30-40 when I first discovered the list back in 2007/2008 but didn't start regularly reading from it until I got my Kindle back in 2009 or so.
I tend to read along with group reads (though not this group, sadly) and for the still-in-copyright books, I haunt a couple of e-book deals/sales threads and if I spot something posted that I know is on the list, I'll snap it up. Anything I own and have paid money for eventually gets read. Or at least started, even if I decide not to finish.
I took the list-challenge, and with the most generous accounting for books I read 'a lifetime ago' (The Old Man and the Sea? Less Than Zero?) I only scored 157. So I am not a super-reader.BTW, I am reminded again how little respect I have for this list.
(but that could be sour grapes, of course)
Christopher wrote: BTW, I am reminded again how little respect I have for this list..."What!?
Christopher wrote: "I took the list-challenge, and with the most generous accounting for books I read 'a lifetime ago' (The Old Man and the Sea? Less Than Zero?) "This brings up a point I always wonder about when the counting begins.
I'm in my 50s and I read many of the list books in school or early adulthood when I was involved in opera. I know I read Goethe's Werther when I first studied the opera, but I know the opera so much better -- can I "count" the books if I can't actually recall things about the book itself? I can't recall things I read in school very well - even things that took a semester and had a course attached. The Old Man and the Sea is a great example of something I read ages ago and if my life depended on it, I might be able to scrounge up a sentence, but do I count it? I dunno. Do I make time to read it again? I also don't know.
Something that's changed that is forcing myself to write at least a blurb about the books I read. If I do this within a few months of reading the book, I have a much easier time recalling the actual book. Even then, the Philip Marlowe books blend together for me, etc. This is sort of why completing the list seems like a pipe dream for me. I do want to read a lot of books not on the list.
I hope to get to 300 next month. I'm reading number 296 now, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I came across the list in 2010 and decided to make it part of my bucket list. I've really enjoyed reading so many books I wouldn't have encountered on my own.
I read 458 books as of this moment (am currently reading no. 459 and 460). I started out in 2011, just after I joined Goodreads and somehow decided this would be a good idea (it's not).I started reading the list systematically with close to 200 books (I think it was somewhere around 190) marked off already, whether from school reading, or my own personal reading through the years. What I do is set myself an annual goal that would, each year, shorten the amount of time it would hypothetically take me to read the book. I use Ayarkuomi's phone app to do that, so it's not hard. It amounts to 48 books a year. Then I try to exceed that. So far that impetus worked. I read about 120 books a year, so I have a decent chunk of books I read that are not "list" books but are personal choices.
And I agree, by the way, I don't respect the list much. For one, it's Anglo-centric as hell. For two, it's skewed to modern literary prizes stupidly. Why do I need to read twenty Iris Murdochs, fifty-seven Philip Roths, ninety Pinchons and three hundred Ian MacEwans? Yes, I'm exaggerating for effect. I even like some of these people, but there is nothing justifying why there should be more Ian McEwans on there than Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky taken together. Just because someone is a Nobel laureate or Man-Booker finalist doesn't mean they automatically deserve to be on the list of only 1001 books picked out of four centuries of bookwriting out of anyone.
I found the Boxall list when I was just out of college, the 2006 edition. I don't know where I found the whole list online, but probably someone's html blog, and I added all the books to my huge TBR spreadsheet that year. I still only read what I want to, so it is not like I ever thought of my TBR list as a required reading list or anything. But every so often I would check back with my list and mark off the ones I finished, so over time I also internalized the titles and authors, so when I come across those books on free-books shelves or library shelves, I recognize them. I also read a lot, and I have a high reading rate, so out of the 200-300 books I finish each year I tend to pick out a decent number of List books and authors just by reading what catches my eye.I started tracking specifically my Boxall List reading about 5 years ago, when I found the listchallenges site and joined a few Goodreads groups (this one and the smaller Reading 1001 group). If I could find all the List books within my tiny book budget I might finish the List in 5 years or less rather easily, but I don't really live in a college town any longer and can only find a few List books to add to my stacks each year through the library and local, cheap/free used book sources.
I keep a lot of books in my 'currently reading' stack at one time, switching between them as my moods shift, so I don't waste reading time wading through a book I am not into. If I am slogging through a book I know I won't ever really be into I set page goals (50pgs and then I can read a fun book for a bit, or 2hrs focused reading in the dud book before I can switch for a bit to a fun one). If a book is VERY bad and very long (Ulysses) I still at least skim every page, at least reading close enough that I could discuss the material in a college-class style discussion without being lost.Some of the books on the List are VERY bad, and I'm guessing that they were added by academics who are the sort of professors who assign books for their shock value or discussion points, rather than because they are good books worth reading.
As for rate, I read each book at a rate that suits the story and style. If you take a week to read a page-turner, it will feel slow and disjointed, because those are written to be read fast in a short time. If you read a long book like Middlemarch or War and Peace in a day or two you often get more out of the book by reading it again in a few weeks or months to catch the stuff going on under the surface. I check off each book once I am satisfied that I have read it, but I may still go back for a second or third reading, especially if I was involved in discussions in a group about the book. Once I am done with a book though, I pass it on to someone else or leave it on a free-shelf, so I can enjoy the closure and move on to other books.
I also read a lot more than just the Listed books by most authors on the List, so I have a better context for the ones that made it onto the List. Often my favorite book by an author is not one on the Boxall or the Guardian list. My favorite Ballard book, for example, is Vermillion Sands, a sort of novel in short stories that is not on the Boxall or Guardian list. Sure, Crash and Atrocity Exhibition are terrible books, and if you start with those, you may never want to read more by Ballard, but he wrote a lot of books, and a lot of them are ok or really good.
And, I never would read just List books, because I like a wider variety of authors and perspectives in my reading diet. Boxall's list was compiled by a bunch of British academics, and tends to focus on the sorts of books one might expect to read in a small-town British college. I have my own in-progress list of 1001 books I think people ought to read, so when I find myself grumbling about the existing published lists, I can play with making my own.
I have read 309 books untill now. I'm happy with my recent progress (I try to read at least 25 off the list every year), but I already know I won't finish it. At least not officially, by having read all the books. There's already a few that I know I won't start because of disturbing contents. I'm not a prude, but De Safe is just too much for my liking, even though he might have started a revolution with his books. I enjoy reading from the list for the most part. Some books I read in grammar school already, or during my university years. If I feel like it/have time to do so, I will reread (some of) these books. Don"t know about that yet.
About some decisions to put books on the list I wonder why, some are absolutely stunning, some are BORING (to me), but most are okay to read.
I use arukyomi's spreadsheet and that works great in keeping track, sorting which books in which edition, searching for authors and titles.
I read lots of other books as well, have added ebooks and audio to my collection as well. That makes 'reading while doing chores' and reading in a sleepless night a whole lot easier 🙂
I'm approaching 500 list books read. I discovered the list in about 2010. I had read maybe 75 list books by then. I average around 80 books a year and now most of those are list books. I used to bounce around a lot on the list but I began a new strategy about three years ago. I decided to start reading the list chronologically based on publish date. I chose this approach so that as I read list books I'd have a chance at understanding references and allusions to earlier list books and their authors. That has proved useful numerous times. I am presently reading list books from the 1860s, having finished all earlier list books. Happy reading!
According to my records, I passed the 200 mark in 2014 and the 300 mark in 2020. I don't see myself ever beating my 2013 record of reading 63 list works in a single year, but I'd be happy with maintaining my current rate of 10-20 new/non-reread works a year, especially when there's barely more than a 100 list works that I'm genuinely interested in reading.
I discovered the list around the time I joined Goodreads in late 2010. At that time I had already read just over 200, being a lifetime heavy reader already 50 years old and having done a degree in English and American literature. In the 12 years since then I have read another 480 books from the list, totalling 690. If I live another 10 years I may get to 1001, but I don't think I will ever complete the 1300+ because some books are not available in English. But I can read French and who knows, if I have enough years of a healthy brain I might learn the other required languages :)
I have read 302 books so far. I had read 200 of them before joining Goodreads. I started in high school before I even knew about this list. My English teacher gave us a list of classics and asked us to read 3 books from it. I read the entire list. And since then I have kept adding to my completions. I have been a lifelong reader.Like Rosemary, I will likely never complete the entire list. I can only read in English or Spanish. But each year I set a goal to read at least 25, so I keep chipping away at it.
Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die
Books mentioned in this topic
The Clay Machine-Gun (other topics)Buddha's Little Finger (other topics)
A Suitable Boy (other topics)
Matigari (other topics)
Jean de Florette & Manon of the Springs (other topics)
It seems that the wast majority of us have read about 30-80 books. But a few exceeds 200 and even way beyond that. Maybe you could tells us a bit more about how you did it? How many had you read when you discovered the list? How many years did it take? How much do you read? In books month or year or pages per day? Do you know your reading speed? What is your preferred medium (book, kindle, ipad, audiobook)? Did you READ all the books or are you counting movies too?