Author Topic: I is amazingly under read (Read 6846 times)

geraldc · « **on:** 27 January, 2009, 10:35:03 am »

Guardian's list of 1000 books everyone must read.          1000 novels everyone must read: the definitive list |
            Books |
            guardian.co.uk


I've only done about 1-2% of them. There must be some of you guys here pushing at least 30%.

clarion · « **Reply #1 on:** 27 January, 2009, 10:36:27 am »

Nah. That's a lot of stuff, and there were some glaring omissions, but I hadn't read (and , in the main, don't intend to read) a very large number.

pcolbeck · « **Reply #2 on:** 27 January, 2009, 10:38:20 am »

Some odd ones in there. Bridget Jone's Diary and High Fidelity for example ? Not really classics and in 50 years will probably be forgotten.

Really Ancien · « **Reply #3 on:** 27 January, 2009, 10:45:14 am »

They've picked the wrong time to use the word 'must', that's so 2008!
I have read 'Blott on the Landscape'.

Damon.

hatler · « **Reply #4 on:** 27 January, 2009, 10:49:34 am »

Blimey. I've got some reading to do.

73 down, 927 to go.

LEL · « **Reply #5 on:** 27 January, 2009, 10:50:36 am »

have not heard of half of these or the authors......have read about 80 of them.

Lifes too short to read anything on a 'must' basis.

If you read one book a day that would be almost three years worth....

geraldc · « **Reply #6 on:** 27 January, 2009, 10:54:19 am »

At least it's 'must' rather than 'before you die'.

Looked the list a little more, it's pushing 3% for me now.

Happy to see the Machine Gunners was on the list. That was a set text at my primary school.

Why's there Tintin but no Asterix?

Ariadne · « **Reply #7 on:** 27 January, 2009, 11:05:04 am »

I can't believe I just sat and counted those. I've read 231 of them. I think a lot of the list (including plenty I've read) is ridiculous - Bridget Jones, Harry Potter... not really classic literature, is it?

pcolbeck · « **Reply #8 on:** 27 January, 2009, 11:06:26 am »

62 down 938 to go. Cant say I have a desire to read quite a lot of the ones on that list, though I should make an effort with Dickens.

blackpuddinonnabike · « **Reply #9 on:** 27 January, 2009, 11:11:42 am »

Odd things as well like the whole of the Discworld series being included as one lump (so surely longer than 1000 books), but only one of the HP books, then all of the Dark Materials books, but only one of the Hitchhikers books...

nicknack · « **Reply #10 on:** 27 January, 2009, 11:13:39 am »

143 I'm sure I've read. There may be others. My memory's not what it used to be.

Can't think of notable omissions. A few disagreements with which ones of Dickens or Iain Banks, for instance, to include. Not a bad list to start with though.

Hello, I am Bruce · « **Reply #11 on:** 27 January, 2009, 11:14:43 am »

I've read 102 of them, maybe a bit of miscounting around P.G. Wodehouse and I'm not sure how many Terry Pratchet you need to read to get a "point". Lots of them weren't very good.

Ariadne · « **Reply #12 on:** 27 January, 2009, 11:16:25 am »

The categories are strange - peculiar things listed as 'crime' or SF' that I wouldn't have put there.

FatBloke · « **Reply #13 on:** 27 January, 2009, 11:25:07 am »

A quick scan of the list and I counted 77 that I've read. Or 76½ as I think I failed to finish Foucault's Pendulum. $:-\$

Wascally Weasel · « **Reply #14 on:** 27 January, 2009, 11:30:04 am »

114 – probably up to another 100 on the shelves waiting to be read someday (most of which have sat there unread a long time.

Some odd choices I agree - Sharpe's Eagle? I've read it, still got a copy somewhere but wouldn't put it on a must read list.

blackpuddinonnabike · « **Reply #15 on:** 27 January, 2009, 11:33:03 am »

Only 42 I think. In some cases it appears I chose the wrong book. Primo Levi for instance - I started 'If not now, when?' but just couldn't get into it, unlike 'If this is a man'. Same with Dickens, had a couple on the list, but my favourite (The Old Curiosity Shop) wasn't on there.

And I counted the likes of Paul Auster's NY Trilogy, cos I read the first one and though, meh, it's alright, but couldn't be bothered with the rest.

These lists are always pretty random really.

clarion · « **Reply #16 on:** 27 January, 2009, 11:42:54 am »

Just going through the list, and I am struck by the number of titles about which I have to ask myself, 'Did I read that?' . Maybe it's my memory fading, but there are a lot which I have definitely read, but only have a vague memory of, and a lot more that I have started but never finished.

Some very curious omissions:

War, for example, does not include Henri Barbusse's Under Fire, or Remarque's The Road Back, sequel to All Quiet...

SciFi has Foundation by Asimov, but not the concluding parts of the series, without which Foundation doesn't make an awful lot of sense. While H2G2 stands on its own, it is better with the sequels...

clarion · « **Reply #17 on:** 27 January, 2009, 11:46:20 am »

Similarly: Clayhanger by Arnold Bennett rather than Old Wives Tale?

No Mephisto by Thomas Mann?

Only News from Nowhere from Morris?

The trashy Absolute Beginners from Colin Macinnes rather than Mr Love & Justice?

Nevil Shute is represented by A Town Like Alice rather than On The Beach. Hmm.

Wowbagger · « **Reply #18 on:** 27 January, 2009, 11:47:53 am »

I reckon 56.

Why are there no chess books? Most of them are works of fiction.

blackpuddinonnabike · « **Reply #19 on:** 27 January, 2009, 11:49:42 am »

There were, however, some of my faves as well.

The Sportswriter by Richard Ford (though no Independence Day)
Oh, What a Carve Up! by Jonathon Coe as well.

tonyh · « **Reply #20 on:** 27 January, 2009, 11:51:56 am »

Quote from: blackpuddinonnabike on 27 January, 2009, 11:33:03 am

These lists are always pretty random really.

Yes. (Perhaps they should be properly drawn up by someone who has read Everything Ever Written!).

What a lot of good stuff there is! Thus people tend to "support" whatever they happen to have read themselves. Eg I think Penelope Lively should be in there, didn't see her. And more McEwan.

I've got to some 90 of those. Probably stuck at that, reading leads too quickly to sleep.

Deano · « **Reply #21 on:** 27 January, 2009, 11:52:47 am »

I've read about 200 of them.

There are loads on there I haven't heard of - and plenty which I will never read (Guns of Navarone? The Mask of Zorro?). I couldn't fathom the categories either, or why there were four novels by Dashiel Hammett on there but only two by Raymond Chandler. And they've missed my favourite Hemingway novel, The Sun Also Rises.

An exercise like this is always pointless, though. I can't imagine why anyone would plough their way through this list, which makes it a dry, soulless exercise in box-ticking. I'd rather delve at the back of a musty old bookshop and find a gem amongst the dog-eared copies of Jaws, or heed somebody's recommendation of a book they've just read and which they have to evangelise about, or even grab something from the shelf in WH Smith's cos it has a shiny cover and I've only got five minutes before my train arrives.

Still, it keeps the Guardian's writers out of trouble, fills a bit of space and stimulates debate.

fred the great · « **Reply #22 on:** 27 January, 2009, 11:53:28 am »

No reading of any Books for me but magazines on Cycling, Photography and to a much lesser extent Computers are my preferred relaxation

Phil · « **Reply #23 on:** 27 January, 2009, 11:53:56 am »

I couldn't be bothered to scan the whole list, so I counted the number I'd read in the first 100, which was exactly 20. I might sit down and check the entire list, cause I can't believe I've read an entire fifth of them.

EDIT: Ah, that was the comedy category. That explains it.

clarion · « **Reply #24 on:** 27 January, 2009, 11:56:19 am »

130 as it happens. I'm astonished I've read more 'classic' literature than the erudite Wowbagger.

Author Topic: I is amazingly under read (Read 6846 times)

Really Ancien

blackpuddinonnabike

blackpuddinonnabike

blackpuddinonnabike