Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die discussion
Popular Topics
>
How many of the 1001 books have you read?
message 1451:
by
Gemma
(new)
Jul 11, 2017 05:32AM

reply
|
flag

Luis, we're at the same place. Keep going! :-)
Tim, I started last year and read a heap (101). You'll find your groove so don't worry. I'm tackling chunksters now and have finished 29 titles thus far and expect to add 30 more by the end of the year. The milestones will come and the ride towards them is sweet. Enjoy it!


LOL. I think milestones can be more encouraging. Especially at the beginning. I've wrapped up several authors and I'm aiming to add Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Proust to this year's list.
While the completion number may not be great, if you've gotten rid of writers with numerous titles or chunksters you'll feel a great sense of accomplishment.
And 268 isn't anything to sneeze at. Congrats! :-)

List Books read since April:
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
Jealousy by Alain Robbe-Grillet
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
On The Black Hill by Bruce Chatwin
The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum by Heinrich Böll
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy
Surfacing by Margaret Atwood
Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy
The Poor Mouth: A Bad Story about the Hard Life by Flann O'Brien
Passing by Nella Larsen
Bonjour tristesse by Françoise Sagan
The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark
Has anyone else read Blood Meridien...I thought it was one of the worse books I have ever read and can't understand how it is on the list....and has such high ratings? Also not much of a fan of The Black Dahlia.
My favorite from this batch was Bonjour Tristesse.



Your comment made me laugh Shaun, I never considered what year it would be when I finished!
Ed wrote: "Has anyone else read Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West...I thought it was one of the worse books I have ever read and can't understand how it is on the list....."
I read this recently, and had a tough time getting through it- so violent and bleak. Evidently all his books are like that. Great power of description though.
I read this recently, and had a tough time getting through it- so violent and bleak. Evidently all his books are like that. Great power of description though.
I'm now at 230 (219 from the original edition and 11 from later editions). Ed, you've probably passed me by now.
I've nearly reached my reading goal number for the year, so taking on some of the longer ones: The Woman in White, Auto-da-Fe, and The Godfather.
I've nearly reached my reading goal number for the year, so taking on some of the longer ones: The Woman in White, Auto-da-Fe, and The Godfather.

Here's one source:
http://www.listchallenges.com/1001-bo...
I like this one because you can set up a profile and save the ones you've checked off. It has all the editions combined, so there ends up being around 1300+ books in this list. I'm not sure where the best place to find the updated list is at.
The only thing I don't like about the interactive list is that it can sometimes be hard to track down a title. Most of them are listed by publishing date, but the revisions were tacked on at the end, so something like Eugene Onegin, which was published in the 1830s, isn't listed until page 26, because it's one of the added titles, whereas novels from that same time period that were in the first edition are on page 2 and 3.

A better option for iOS users is the 1001 app. Titles that are included in the 1001 Movies book are noted along with the option to follow specific editions or the complete version instead.
I like the 1001 Google sheet as a quick reference from my desktop pc: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
It's alphabetized by author, you can use "control-F" to search for a title.
It's alphabetized by author, you can use "control-F" to search for a title.
Bryan wrote: ...something like Eugene Onegin, which was published in the 1830s, isn't listed until page 26, because it's one of the added titles..."
Eugene Onegin is on page 3 now in the List Challenges site, so they seem to have updated it.
Eugene Onegin is on page 3 now in the List Challenges site, so they seem to have updated it.

Kelly wrote: "So I just joined you all, but I read mostly Classics this year so I have added those in as read. I am at 48, but plan to finish at least 5 more before the year ends. Favorites so far: Far From the ..."
Welcome to the group! A Prayer for Owen Meany is one of my all-time favorites!! And definitely add in any classics you have already read -- I did.
Welcome to the group! A Prayer for Owen Meany is one of my all-time favorites!! And definitely add in any classics you have already read -- I did.

Easy to do, there's so much great stuff :)!




Kirsten wrote: "It looks like I'm ending off the year at 275. Maybe this means I will be at 1001 on the combined lists in 2018!!"
Ha, I doubt it but you're making great progress!
PS: I have family in Surrey and visited there a year ago.
I completed 35 list books this year (plus one book of a trilogy listing) which brings my total to 238. All but 11 of those were in the 2006 edition.
My favorite list books this year were Beloved and Broken April.
Ha, I doubt it but you're making great progress!
PS: I have family in Surrey and visited there a year ago.
I completed 35 list books this year (plus one book of a trilogy listing) which brings my total to 238. All but 11 of those were in the 2006 edition.
My favorite list books this year were Beloved and Broken April.


Taking on some big fish, good for you.



- "Fingersmith" by Sarah Waters: 3 Stars
- "The Kindly Ones" by Jonathan Littell: 4 Stars
- "Home" by Marilynne Robinson: 5 Stars
- "The Gathering" by Anne Enright: 3 Stars
- "The Accidental" by Ali Smith: 4 Stars
- "Family Matters" by Rohinton Mistry: 4 Stars
- "Thursbitch" by Alan Garner: 4 Stars
- "Giovanni's Room" by James Baldwin: 4 Stars
- "Lord Jim" by Joseph Conrad: 4 Stars
- "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" by Muriel Spark: 3 Stars
- "Tender Is the Night" by F. Scott Fitzgerald: 3 Stars
- "A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift: 3 Stars
- "Northanger Abbey" by Jane Austen: 4 Stars
- "Daniel Deronda" by George Eliot: 4 Stars
- "Antic Hay" by Aldous Huxley: 4 Stars
- "The Maltese Falcon" by Dashiell Hammett: 3 Stars
- "Red Harvest" by Dashiell Hammett: 3 Stars
- "Our Mutual Friend" by Charles Dickens: 2 Stars
- "Silas Marner" by George Eliot: 4 Stars
- "Troubling Love" by Elena Ferrante: 3 Stars
- "Agnes Grey" by Anne Bronte: 3 Stars
Dan wrote: "I knocked off 21 in 2017, bringing my total to 437: .....
- "Silas Marner" by George Eliot: 4 Stars
- "Troubling Love" by Elena Ferrante: 3 Stars
- "Agnes Grey" by Anne Bronte: 3 Stars
.....
I hadn't realized Ferrante has a book in the list. I see it was added in '08. I read and liked her My Brilliant Friend, so I'll consider "Troubling Love", though I see you weren't crazy about it, nor are most Goodreaders (avg rating 3.37).
- "Silas Marner" by George Eliot: 4 Stars
- "Troubling Love" by Elena Ferrante: 3 Stars
- "Agnes Grey" by Anne Bronte: 3 Stars
.....
I hadn't realized Ferrante has a book in the list. I see it was added in '08. I read and liked her My Brilliant Friend, so I'll consider "Troubling Love", though I see you weren't crazy about it, nor are most Goodreaders (avg rating 3.37).

I read 16 books since August and one so far this year. So my total is a teeny tiny 50 books....a long way to go!

Goal for 2018: another 30.
Rory wrote: "Julie wrote: "Managed to get to 92. Currently reading Moby Dick. Desperately trying to finish Gone with the Wind and just started The History of Love!"
Taking on some big fish, good for you."
Was that a pun intended Rory? :) (good one) Moby is a good one to have on your resume as a serious reader Julie!
Taking on some big fish, good for you."
Was that a pun intended Rory? :) (good one) Moby is a good one to have on your resume as a serious reader Julie!


Taking on some big fish, good f..."
I know it was a bit of an obvious pun but I was also saying 'Gone with the Wind' is a big one too. I still both on my to-ready list.
Rory wrote: "I know it was a bit of an obvious pun but I was also saying 'Gone with the Wind' is a big one too. I still both on my to-read list...."
Millions of people [but probably 90% women] have read Gone with the Wind and liked it, I know, but it seems so melodramatic I'm just not interested. However, I seem to like books in which people die, or nearly do, and it seems to have that ;)
Millions of people [but probably 90% women] have read Gone with the Wind and liked it, I know, but it seems so melodramatic I'm just not interested. However, I seem to like books in which people die, or nearly do, and it seems to have that ;)

The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark
Rameau's Nephew and First Satire by Denis Diderot
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
Love's Work: A Reckoning with Life by Gillian Rose
Oroonoko by Aphra Behn
Wittgenstein's Nephew by Thomas Bernhard
Kokoro by Sōseki Natsume
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau
The Invention of Curried Sausage by Uwe Timm
Back by Henry Green
The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith
To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West
The Nose by Nikolai Gogol
Howards End by E.M. Foster
Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley
The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy
Amok and Other Stories
The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
Blue of Noon by Georges Bataille
(total=258)
That's a lot of good books Ed! You're about a dozen ahead of me now. I've read some of the books you listed- Cold Comfort Farm was the most amusing of those, Beloved I thought a bit overwrought but very good, To Have and Have Not probably the coolest of those on your list I've read. Your favorites?

I agree Cold Comfort Farm was a fun one.
I was glad to finally read War and Peace...and I was surprised that it wasn't as difficult as I expected it to be. I did like it...but not as much as Anna Karenina.
As for To Have and Have Not.... I hated it. I'm not a Hemingway fan...and I'm not happy that so many of his works are on the list...although I recently read The Snows of Kilimanjaro (not on the list) which wasn't so bad.
I agree with you about Beloved too...but I watched the move immediately after I read the book...and it filled in the gaps for me in my appreciation of the novel.
Books mentioned in this topic
Kidnapped (other topics)Ragtime (other topics)
Lives of Girls and Women (other topics)
Lives of Girls and Women (other topics)
Lives of Girls and Women (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Robert Louis Stevenson (other topics)E.L. Doctorow (other topics)
E.L. Doctorow (other topics)
Thomas Hardy (other topics)
Emily Brontë (other topics)
More...