Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die discussion

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message 1: by Skylar (last edited Sep 13, 2008 12:20PM) (new)

Skylar Burris (skylarburris) 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




message 2: by April (new)

April Wow - this was hard. I had 16 that I really truly wanted to recommend but here are my 10, in no particular order:

The God of Small things
A Fine Balance
The Color Purple
Song of Solomon
In Cold Blood
The Bell Jar
To Kill a Mockingbird
Lord of the Rings
The Catcher in the Rye
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn




message 3: by Galen (new)

Galen Johnson (galenj) | 33 comments Also in no particular order,

The Country Girls
A Tale of Two Cities
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
The Great Gatsby
Rebecca
Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
The Secret History
Love in the Time of Cholera
On the Road


message 4: by Erin (new)

Erin this IS hard, especially since i've only read such a small percentage, i kind of feel like it's not an honest list!!!....but, here are mine.

Les Miserables
Life of Pi
I, Robot
The Hitchhiker's Guide
Wuthering Heights
Cold Comfort Farm
The Scarlet Letter
The Maltese Falcon
The Hobbit
To Kill A Mockingbird


message 5: by Linda (last edited Dec 04, 2008 01:57PM) (new)

Linda Okay here are my top faves, but not really in order (I have other favorites that aren't on the list :(

Pride & Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
To Kill a Mockingbird
Pilgrim's Progress
Great Expectations
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Frankenstein
Sense and Sensibility
The Scarlet Letter



message 6: by [deleted user] (new)

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

Frankenstein

To Kill a Mockingbird

Great Expectations

Dracula

The Hobbit

Lord of the Rings

Enduring Love

Black Water

The Bell Jar


Stephanie "Jedigal" (jedigal) | 270 comments In alpha, with stars by the top ones that I re-read over and over...

A Prayer For Owen Meany*
Gone With The Wind**
Little Women
Of Mice and Men
One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest
Pride and Prejudice
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Lord of the Rings**
The Hobbit*
To Kill a Mockingbird



message 8: by [deleted user] (new)

1. Journey to the End of the Night
2. The Trial
3. Cat's Cradle
4. The Magic Mountain
5. The Book of Evidence
6. The Joke
7. Hunger
8. Cancer Ward
9. The Tin Drum
10. Don Quixote

No particular order.


message 9: by Kieffala (new)

Kieffala | 73 comments Well, I had 18, so I took it down to those I'd read in the last 10 years or so. No particular order:

The Shining
To Kill a Mockingbird
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (although I only just started it)
Lord of the Rings
The Hobbit
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Sun Also Rises
The Pit and the Pendulum
Le Pere Goriot


message 10: by Krenzel (new)

Krenzel | 14 comments My favorites:

1. Gone with the Wind
2. Native Son
3. To Kill a Mockingbird
4. Pride and Prejudice
5. Catcher in the Rye
6. Great Gatsby
7. Age of Innocence
8. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
9. All Quiet on the Western Front
10. Unless

I created a list here http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/11... if anyone else wants to add to it and give others an idea of what the favorites are that we can all use as a guide for picking out what to read next . . .


message 11: by Judith (last edited Dec 06, 2008 09:24AM) (new)

Judith (jloucks) | 1202 comments No order...
1. To Kill A Mocking Bird
2. The Great Gatsby
3. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
4. Wuthering Hieghts
5. The Poisonwood Bible
6. All Quiet On The Western Front
7. Absolom, Absolom
8. Don Quixote
9. A Tale of Two Cities
10.Of Mice and Men

Very, very, very hard question! The top 25 would have been somewhat easier, but still hard!
I suspect Cancer Ward will replace one of these if I ever get a copy!


message 13: by Bishop (new)

Bishop (a_bishop) | 72 comments I tried...I can't do it. I got down to about 15 and couldn't take the pressure. :)


message 14: by Silvana (new)

Silvana (silvaubrey) 1. Les Miserables
2. The Lord of the Rings
3. 1984
4. Animal Farm
5. Catch-22
6. All Quiet on the Western Front
7. Gone with the Wind
8. Life of Pi
9. Journey to the Center of the Earth
10. To Kill A Mocking Bird

There are several others that I like (and even rated them 5 stars) but I do not think I'd spend time re-reading them, e.g. War & Peace and Uncle Tom's Cabin.


message 15: by Tracy (new)

Tracy 1. To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
2. Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
3. Crime and Punishment - Dostovesky
4. Lady Chatterly's Love - Lawrence
5. The Cement Garden - Ian McEwan
6. Stephenwolf - Herman Hesse
7.Never Let Me Go - Ishiguru
8. All Quiet on the Western Front - Remarque
9. Invisible Man - Ralph Elison
10. Madame Bovary - Flaubert

And one for good measure I don't think is on the list and really, really should be:
Light in August - William Faulkner



Stephanie "Jedigal" (jedigal) | 270 comments When Krenzel resurrected this topic, I got a little stressed too, Bishop. I glanced at my list, and started jotting the ones I liked "best", and in just a couple seconds I had 17 books....

Luckily, I see, I have done this previously. I pretty much stand by my choices from September, except...
I feel like it sells the rest of the books short.

Of 92 read so far I gave
5 STARS - 12 books
4 STARS - 36 books
3 STARS - 22 books
2 STARS - 10 books
1 STAR - 1 book
The other 11 books I read too long ago and had too vague a memory to make a STAR decision. But I feel affectionately about 9 of those.

And I thought I was conservative with my stars...
Apparently
a) the list is a great source of good reads, and
b) I am good at choosing (from any list or shelf) books that I will like.


message 17: by Steve (new)

Steve Cloud Atlas
The Blind Assassin
Watchmen
Neuromancer
If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler
Solaris
The Big Sleep
The Maltese Falcon
The Great Gatsby
The House on the Borderland

I also had trouble getting from 17 to 10. I had to leave off Frankenstein, Dracula, Hadrian the Seventh, At the Mountains of Madness, The Postman Always Rings Twice, On the Road and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. (There, I listed them anyway) Tomaorrow the list might be different, but I've read all these titles at least twice (except Cloud Atlas &
The Blind Assassin which I read pretty recently) Apparently I'm a big old genre fiction geek.




message 18: by Linda (new)

Linda Krenzel, thanks for posting a listopia list for this category. I added Jane Eyre and Great Expectations to the list.


message 19: by Laura (new)

Laura (laurita) | 42 comments Wow. This was stupid hard. You get eleven. Best I could do...

1. Nightwood
2. Journey to the End of the Night
3. Crime and Punishment
4. Thousand and One Nights
5. Don Quixote
6. The Master & Margarita
7. Invisible Cities
8. Love Medicine
9. The Watchmen
10. Blood Meridian
11. One Hundred Years of Solitude

Had to leave off ten others. You get those, too, because it just wouldn't be right not to mention them. Rules were made to be broken.

12.Sexing the Cherry
13. Hitchhiker's Guide
14. Labyrinths
15. Catch 22
16. Titus Groan
17. The Sun Also Rises
18. Sherlock Holmes
19. Picture of Dorian Gray
20. Great Expectations
21. Count of Monte Cristo


message 20: by Kristi (new)

Kristi (kristilarson) | 263 comments I've only read ~5% of the list, but I'll try this anyway.

Atonement: A Novel
The Blind Assassin
Frankenstein
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Pride and Prejudice
Middlesex
Lolita
Shipping News: A Novel
Little Women
The World According to Garp

Some of my favorite books aren't on the list. And it seems to me that I prefer modern to classics.


message 21: by Jen (new)

Jen (nekokitty) Here's my list in no particular order:

Little Women
Les Miserables
House of Leaves (I believe this was on the older list)
Never Let Me Go (was on the older list...I think)
Pride and Prejudice
The Count of Monte Cristo (currently reading and loving it!)
The Great Gatsby
The Scarlet Letter
Grapes of Wrath
Hitchhiker's Guide

As I read more of the 1,001 list, I'm pretty sure that I will be changing this list.


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