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I'm looking for a few books to read. So I googled it. One of the popular things that come up are the "books to read" lists. There is a fair number of them out there on the interwebs. I was looking at a few of those "x books you should read before you die" type lists, and noticed there were some significant differences in the said lists, but a few common names were popping up.. I then spent the next hour or 5 compiling of list all the books on 7 or so of those lists, in order to see what the top picks of "books you should read" were. I put all the books into an excel (openoffice calc, really) spreadsheet by title and author, then sorted alphabetically then gave each book a number based on how many times it appeared. In the end, there was 831 books. Here's the top results:
With 7 hits...
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
1984, George Orwell
Lord of the Flies, William Golding
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
6...
Animal Farm, George Orwell
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Catch-22, Joseph Heller
The Grapes of Wrath, John Stienbeck
On the Road, Jack Kerouac
Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
Ulysses, James Joyce
5...
Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
Moby Dick, Herman Melville
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
What do you think? I personally, in my uncultured glory, have only read The Great Gatsby of the books on this portion of the list. Are these books deserving of "being read before you die", and above other books for that matter? Are there books not on here that should be?
Now there may be errors in my work, but these should be pretty accurate. Not all the sources are quite the same, but since there's 7 of them, it should lessen the impact of any strange choices. I can upload the spreadsheet if you would like.
edit: The title is sort of strange, sorry about that. I'm pretty tired.
Full spreadsheet, by request: http://www.2shared.com/file/cXKPmi5c/book_list.html
If that's a bad upload site, let me know.
Lists used for compilation:
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1951793,00.html
http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/ (both)
http://www.collegeboard.com/student/plan/boost-your-skills/23628.html
http://artofmanliness.com/2008/05/14/100-must-read-books-the-essential-mans-library/
http://bookstove.com/book-talk/100-books-to-read-before-you-die/
http://fallenmonk.blogspot.com/2010/11/100-books-to-read.html
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I don't think you should force yourself to read anything under the impression that it'll make you "smarter". Start with the things you may enjoy, and then move on to headier stuff if you feel up to it.
Millions have lived and died without reading any of these books and millions more will do so.
Personally though, I've read the four books that got seven hits and Brave New World, Catch-22, To Kill A Mockingbird and Lolita.
Reading should be something that you enjoy, not something that evokes feelings of it being a chore. I feel there's a lot of people that have never, and will never, experience the joy and wonder I get from reading because they've been drilled the wrong way about books in school.
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i read a whole bunch of those in english classes in high school and some in college seminar. i definitely recommend catcher, 1984, brave new world, mockingbird, sound+fury from that list in particular
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Lolita all the way. Great book.
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These lists are constantly skewed against anything relating to Sci-fi and fantasy usually, and as such, I just don't place much stock in them. There seems to be this horrible misconception in the literary community that such genre's are "lower" literature.
Any list that is willing to exclude Dune, LOTR, Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Or copious amounts of Jules Verne I just can't get behind.
That being said, these books are all pretty good, I've read most of them and enjoyed almost all of them excluding To Kill a Mockingbird. Fucking hated that book to no end.
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Lots of these are in basic secondary school. Makes you question the level of people questioned.
Heart of Darkness? noice.
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Had to read 1984, Lord of the Flied, Catcher in the Rye, Brave New World, and The Great Gatsby in high school and am glad I did.
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On January 19 2011 01:46 FishFuzz99 wrote:
With 7 hits...
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
1984, George Orwell
Lord of the Flies, William Golding
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
6...
Animal Farm, George Orwell
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Catch-22, Joseph Heller
The Grapes of Wrath, John Stienbeck
On the Road, Jack Kerouac
Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
Ulysses, James Joyce
5...
Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
Moby Dick, Herman Melville
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
The one's I've bolded I have read and enjoyed. The top 4 are all really good. Animal Farm is a great read and so are the other 2 I've bolded. I haven't read the rest. As someone else said - Don't read something because tons of other people think it is good. Read it because you think it might be good. I'd suggest just starting with a recent book you read and looking on Amazon or some similar site for books that are similar to that one and go from there.
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On January 19 2011 01:56 Kimaker wrote:
These lists are constantly skewed against anything relating to Sci-fi and fantasy usually, and as such, I just don't place much stock in them. There seems to be this horrible misconception in the literary community that such genre's are "lower" literature.
Any list that is willing to exclude Dune, LOTR, Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Or copious amounts of Jules Verne I just can't get behind.
That being said, these books are all pretty good, I've read most of them and enjoyed almost all of them excluding To Kill a Mockingbird. Fucking hated that book to no end.
Dune and LOTR (Hobbit, too) were on there, they just weren't in those top 3 categories. Not sure on the others.
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All the books with 5 hits are better than those with 7 hits imo. =>
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i wonder how many hits are skewed because 7hit books are included in the school curriculum and voters haven't bothered to branch out and explore un-assigned books after high school.
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I've read a few of those books but my god I tried so hard to enjoy The Great Gatsby but I could not find any of the characters enjoyable to read about.
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On January 19 2011 02:07 Railxp wrote:
i wonder how many hits are skewed because 7hit books are included in the school curriculum and voters haven't bothered to branch out and explore un-assigned books after high school.
Probably alot since, while those are all pretty good books, I don't think anyone is going to really have all of them so prevalently in their favorites of all time. At least for people who have read most of them.
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I recently just picked up brave new world at a book store to read. I've had the urge to read it again after going through it for a highschool english class. Also, someone mentioned The Hobbit. I've read that on my own years ago and remember it being absolutely amazing. I preferred it over the whole lotr series to be honest.
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I read and wrote a review for an english class on Crime and Punishment and i really liked that book, sometimes i think about reading it again.. Tho the only English copy of that book where i live was a bit old... and very smelly lol
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I've read Catcher in the Rye, and half-read To Kill a Mockingbird and Catch-22.
I was suppsoed to read them for english in highschool years ago, but my teachers had a magical way of making me hate any book they put in the curriculum, so I didn't like any of them. I used Coles Notes for To Kill a Mockingbird and Catch-22 because I couldn't be bothered to finish them in time for the test/assignment.
I think that because there was a deadline on the books (Read 2 chapters tonight or fail the class), I read them out of necessity instead of enjoyment. I'm a little dyslexic so I read pretty slow and absolutely hate having deadlines put on my reading. I read to retain information I thought would be on the tests, rather than reading for the sake of reading. I really should try and read those again now that I'm out of school, see if I like them any different.
I really want to read 1984, Animal House, and On The Road.
Most of what I read is for enjoyment. I love Sci-fi, fantasy, mystery, WWII memoirs, and graphic novels. Must-read books to me are books that I will enjoy most. The books that I've enjoyed reading the most are the ones that have had the most impact on me. Redwall, Generation Kill, A Game of Thrones, Flashforward, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Enders Game, and Rendezvous with Rama are just a few of the books on my ultimate "To Read" list.
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The Great Gatsby is my favorite book of all time, so good.
Some really great books on this list, just a few I would disagree with:
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen - this has to be one of the most over rated books of all time. Just a bunch of rich white women sitting around dribbling about nonsense. (imo)
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov - brilliant piece of literature, brilliantly written, very difficult to read. It's all from the point of view of a child molester and how he reasons his molestation. Very subtle, very long, sort of boring.'
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The Perks of Being a Wallflower...... I suggest this to any teen, as it absolutely warmed my heart when I was younger. Any book by Chuck Palahniuck is pretty dang good.
George Orwell 1984 is also outstanding.
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I don't think these books are a "must-read before you die". In the end, you should read to enjoy and/or educate yourself, not because books are popular and praised. Because you never know why they're popular or what they're praised for.
Some of them are hailed because they express revolutionary ideas for the times they were written in, which nowadays are commonplace. Some books may stay timeless, some may not age so well. Others may just be well known for stylistic devices nobody but literature professors will appreciate. Et cetera, et cetera.
Also, as mentioned before, you'll rarely find any science fiction or fantasy on these lists, for whatever reason. Yet some of the best books I've ever read belong to those genres, while some of the books regarded as the greatest of all time were either boring, predictable or unreadable (Kafka comes to mind).
From that list, I'd recommend 1984 and most of the other dystopian novels. They're a good read even today, especially regarding the world wide political development. Aside from that, explore books and genres on your own and read what you enjoy. As a hint, try Amazon. I've bought a lot of books on Amazon and the recommendations there give me new books I enjoy in 90% of the cases.
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I read 8 of them, the ones I think are actually worth reading if you don't read that much:
1984
Lord of the Flies
Catch 22
I wonder why one fly over the cuckoo's nest isn't on there, I always thought that was a very popular book and a fun one too.
On January 19 2011 02:04 HAUER wrote:
All the books with 5 hits are better than those with 7 hits imo. =>
I wonder if you read pride and prejudice because I couldn't get through it.
On January 19 2011 01:56 Kimaker wrote:
These lists are constantly skewed against anything relating to Sci-fi and fantasy usually, and as such, I just don't place much stock in them. There seems to be this horrible misconception in the literary community that such genre's are "lower" literature..
I think fantasy is a more "hate it or love it" genre, which is why it doesn't score that high on these kinds of lists. Personally I love fantasy though.
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EPT
