So do you have a plan to help actually finish the list?

[Cera]

Hi all!

I'd vaguely heard of this list, but this group is what inspired me to tackle it.

I think I'm going to try to read them in order -- I don't like a lot of post-WW2 non-genre fiction, so if I start with the present and work backwards I'll almost certainly bog down. I'm going to skip the ones I've read fairly recently (like Aesop's Fables, which I coincidentally read last year), but reread books that I haven't read since high school unless I *really* hated them.

I've only read 61 (despite having been an English Lit major), so I've got a long ways to go!

[Christina Stind]

If I read 25 books from the list a year, then I will be done when I'm 70 or so. That's my current goal...
I choose books based on interest at the moment - a lot of books that I find interesting, are on the list apparently and I have actually a lot of books from the list on my shelf at the moment waiting to be read.
So choosing the ones that appeal to me and trying to get at least 25 read a year and then we'll see how long I will keep it up :-)

[Maria]

Hi,
I have the goal to read all the books on the list, but I'm not so serious about it. If I want to read other books, I read them.

I have also downloaded the spreadsheet, to calculate how many books I have to read every year to manage to finish the list before I die (if I live the average 82 years for a female living in Sweden).

But, for fun I have also constructed a list to calculate how many pages I need to read to complete the list. Some books on the list are only about 50 pages and others are over 1000 pages, so its more . I know, the number of pages differ between two editions of the same book, but I use the number of pages in the editions used in the list on goodreads.com.
So, now I know that I should read 21 pages a day to finish the list.

[Melissa]

I'm a member at Bookmooch, and I've typed in about 50 of the books from the list onto my wishlist, so I order them as they end up on the site, and that kind of dictates what I'll be able to read. What I typed in, however, was pretty much starting at the most recent books and going backwards, so I'm ALSO going through the list and picking out authors I know or books I've always meant to read and choosing those.

Although, I'm totally stuck on Les Miserables right now, so it feels like I'm going to get absolutely nowhere on this list anytime soon!

I also alternate by the way - I read one book from the list, one book off the list. I totally buckle under pressure, so bouncing back and forth helps me stay motivated! :)

[Krenzel]

I have only read probably 20 or 30 books on the list, mostly for school, and have no plan to read them all. But just to broaden my horizons, I want to tackle the list in some form, so I have adopted the recommendation someone posted here awhile ago, to pick one book to read from every group of 10 on the list (I am a CPA so this gives me an ordered system to work from while also allowing some freedom of choice to avoid the clunkers). So I started with Never Let Me Go and have worked my way down the list to Blonde, and it has worked well so far.

If I ever make it through the current to-read list of 100, then I plan to do the same thing with the 2008 list and any later lists that come out. I figure this will let me add the newer books that come out, force me to read the classics that endure from list to list, and also avoid the lamer books that will inevitably drop from the newer lists. So far, it has been a fun journey . . .

[Stephanie "Jedigal"]

Wow, people have such fun strategies.

So far I'm working only off the 2006 list. I actually bought the book, quite an investment, so I'm not very happy about the quick update. I have downloaded the 2008, just haven't reviewed it for what I've completed. On the 2006, I've read 82 so far.

I don't think I really intend to read the whole list, but I like it as a guide to what is a more significant selection of literature than I might on average end up with. Some books I currently have NO intention of reading, for instance the Proust. Also, unless I really enjoy some of the authors with 6 or more books on the list, I doubt I will them all. (I WILL read all the Dickens, as I alreay know I like him.)

I read off list a lot! I like to read a variety, and I like to alternate between what I consider pulp/purely-for-fun and what I consider good or even great literature. The list has me reading MORE good literature, b/c I am excited about getting past the 100 mark.

[Stephanie "Jedigal"]

Doh! I didn't put my strategy for what I choose OFF the list.

Currently it is - I review the list fairly often, so I have a good mental picture of what is on it, and I carry with me a list of what I have already purchased. When I see something at a book fair, or in the bargain section of a store, I buy it and put it on my TBR bookcase. I have also borrowed and added to my TBR a big stack of list books that my sister owned.

When I finish a book, I decide whether the next will be nonfiction, off-list fiction, or on-list. My TBR bookcase is arranged into those categories. (I also have a category for poetry and short fiction, which I just work in a little at a time.) Regardless of category, on-list or the others, once I choose a category, I just look at the selections, and pick whatever I feel like at the moment. I love the choosing of the next book as much as the reading. So many books, so little time!

[Christina Stind]

Stephanie, I bought the book as well so I'm reading from that too and not really thinking so much about the 2008 update yet - might do that when I finish the 1001 books from the book ;-)
And I love to choose my next book as well - I make small lists in my head of the books I want to read soon and in what order and then I change the order and add some or take some away (all in my head, of course) and I have a great time doing this while cleaning the fridge (as I just did) or other similar tasks... :-)

[Beth F]

I found this list a few months ago and didn’t have a plan at first, but I’ve been reading from the list since mid-summer (not exclusively, I switch back and forth between good books and trashy books, I just can’t help myself). But I’ve formulated a plan.

I combined the 2006 and 2008 versions of the list and decided that there was no reason not to read everything I could easily/reasonably get my hands on from the 2000’s and 1900’s (library, bookstore, booksfree). If a book is difficult to acquire or not in English, I’m not going to lose sleep over it and will move on without a second thought. As for titles from the 1800’s, 1700’s and earlier, I’ll probably only read books and authors I’ve heard of or that are recommended to me. I have very little interest in reading some obscure title that was written centuries ago just so I can say I did.

[Justine]

I combined the 1001 list and several top 100 lists (including the ALA's Top 100 Banned Books) into an excel spreadsheet - the one available online would not work with my computer. It works out to about 225 extra books.
I have marked which are short stories based on suggestions in another thread so I know the quick reads from the rest. I have marked the books on the list that I WANT to read, so I'm reading those first. I was worried that I would get lazy after reading those because the desire would be gone, but there are hundreds of them - I won't have to worry about it for a while!

[Michelle]

Hmm not really.

What I'm doing right now is simply finding the books that I own and reading them first. Then once that's finished...well I don't know.
I'll probably just find the ones I've heard of before and then move to the more unfamiliar.

[Angie]

Thanks for the suggestion, Jennifer. I will be reading A Modest Proposal next as I would like a nice quick read for a change

[Dave]

Wow, it's great to hear that others dwell on the choosing of the book as much as I do. I read more off the list right now than on the list, and pretty eclectic(humor, business books, history, etc.) I liked your TBR bookcase, Steph. Do you bother to make similar lists online with Goodreads, etc?

[Jeff]

I downloaded the spreadsheet too and I only need to read 21 of the books a year until I die. I don't intend to finish the list. I actually stumbled upon it because I was in a bit of a reading slump. I hadn't read anything good for a while and this keeps me going until I find a good one.

[Stephanie "Jedigal"]

Actually, Dave, I am not very good at keeping my online life too organized.

I used to make a point to always review a book on Amazon after I read it, and I used my Amazon wish list for kind of a "TBR-I don't own it" list. Then I got the BookCat software, and started using that, but my foray there was shortlived, as it was too time-consuming for me to keep up. Then I got on Library and Goodreads, to try both out.

But now I try to keep from feeling like my online stuff is a chore, so I just do what I feel like at the moment.

Goodreads is almost my only place at the moment. But my online stuff doesn't reflect my physical bookcases. Like I do have a TBR-1001 shelf here at GR, but I know it is not up-to-date - at least one title is missing, since I just bought Jack London's "Martin Eden" about 2 weeks ago, and have not added. Etc etc.

You never know though. One day I might get a wild hair and have to add a new GR shelf. Like I could make a TBR for all the SF books I kept after Dad died. There are so many they have their own separate bookcase that I didn't mention before.

I am a creature of whims with my online presence. What I love most is the emails of group digests, and friend updates. I love to know what everyone is reading and what they think about what they're reading.

It's too bad, since if we all put more of our stuff out here, we could learn more about each other and make more friends with similar (or different) interests.


Justine,
My sister has an "expanded" spreadsheet like you talk about, but she has incorporated a crazy number of lists etc, leaning heavily towards Awards - like Pulitzer, Nobel, National Book, Booker, Hugo, etc etc. She certainly has no intention of reading everything on her crazy awesome spreadsheet. But can you ever have too much information on hand about books and authors?

[Linda]

Brett - regarding your top 100 novel list above, do you know off hand if all of those appear on the 1001 Books list as well? I love comparing lists ( sometimes I wonder if I am OCD when it comes to checking off lists!), and reading books that appear on several different lists seems like a good guide. I have a similar book: "Book of Great Books: A Guide to 100 World Classics" which includes epics, like Paradise Lost and Dante's Inferno and plays (Shakespeare and others) along with novels.
What I do on my 1001 list is use different colored highlighting to indicate Pulitzer Prize winners, Banned books, etc.

[Nola]

I read "Interview With a Vampire" a good 10-12 years ago, which means, in all honesty, I was a teen when I read it. I can't remember exactly why I didn't like it. It may well be that the series as a whole got too tedious, rather than that specific book. But I suppose overall, it just doesn't seem the same caliber to me as "A Modest Proposal" or "Pride and Prejudice". I always regarded it as more of a "fluff book".

[Liz M]

Linda, most of the Novel 100 are included in both editions of 1001 books. The following books are not on one, or both, of the 1001 lists:

The Brothers Karamazov (not in 2008 ed)
The Tale of Genji (not in 2006 ed)
The Sound and the Fury (not in 2008 ed)
An American Tragedy (neither ed)
Dream of the Red Chamber (not in 2006 ed)
The Red Badge of Courage (neither ed)
Petersburg (neither ed)
My Antonia (neither ed)
Cities of Salt (neither ed)
The Death of Artemio Cruz (neither ed)
The Pickwick Papers (neither ed)
Waverley: or 'Tis Sixty Years Since (neither ed)
Snow Country (neither ed)

[Katie]

I've divided up the number of books left in each century and divided that by 50 or so (years left, ya know) and taken that as a guide for how many in each century to read each year. Since the modern ones aren't my favorite anyway, that works out well. I'll read two or three from the 2000's, 14 or 15 from the 1900's, 3 or 4 from the 1800's, one from the 1700's and one from the earliest time period. Then I go through the list and write down which ones look the best in each group, and bam! I have my to-read list for the year! And since I read way more than that number of books, I usually add ones that strike my fancy on top of that. And if I don't get to one of them from my list, it usually carries over into the next year. :)

[Tej]

I plan to read just a little more than half. I want to read at least one by each author, so I'm picking the earliest. I'm sort of going alphabetically by author. Of course, the rule is not hard and fast. I have read everything by George Eliot because she's one of my favorite writers. And, as much as I like Charles Dickens, I'm not too concerned about reading all of his. Frankly, I could easily have died without having read Martin Chuzzlewith. :)

[Kristin]

I'm currently trying to complete Time magazine's top 100 list and several of those are on this particular list also.

When I seriously try to tackle the dubious challenge of reading these 1001 books, I think my strategy is going to be to complete the longest books first. I've already finished five monsters so I've got a good head start.

[[deleted user]]

I am doing a test for 2009 to read 100 books a year about 60 of the books I picked are on teh 1001 to read. If I can read 100 then I figured it will take me 8 years to read the whole list that I have left. I'll tell you how it goes on 12/31/09. This year I have read about 74 books which about 18 were on the list.