Complete waste of time for the terminally bored...

[Stuart M]

Stuart - I was trying to be facetious!!

[jiveaddicted]

Er I got to about 500 on the list and hadent read any of them!!!

Where's the Patterson,Pratchet,Deaver,Eddings,Gerritson and i didnt see any Harry Potter!!!!

M

[Caro]

can't believe Shakespeare is not on the list???

Agree with JA, JK Rowling should be there as well...
As well as Tolkien

and from the French authors, I thought they made some weird choices in some of the books... Sometime the same author has written some much better stuff.
Like the alchimist from Coelho (ok not French) isn't in the list when some later books are...

And where are Musset, Moliere, Corneille, Racine, Descartes, Freud, Nietzsche, Pascal, etc etc??

[Blueshoes]

Another mysteriously missing author is Enid Blyton. My score would have hovered near the 800 mark if all her books had been included.

[TheTramp]

As well as Tolkien

Lord of the Rings (494) and the Hobbit (610) are both in the list. Did you want more than that?

[Princess Fi]

Woohoo! 6!!!

(I feel so learned)

[Beowulf]

what got me was, There's Gormenghast, There's Titus Groan but where was Titus Alone? I would have had 76 if that was there. Why include 2 books of a trilogy and not the finale?

There were some glaring ommisions I think , some good books I've read that I personally would rate higher than books on that list. I'd have more Dick for one thing, Ubik, a Scanner Darkly etc.. Ursula Le Guin was absent, They had some Doris Lessing but where was "the making of the representative for Planet 8" ? Where was "The Time Traveller's Wife"? "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell"?? to name but a few?

[Caro]

Lord of the Rings (494) and the Hobbit (610) are both in the list. Did you want more than that?

ok I didn't see.... that's 2 more for me I guess... still I'm barely at 20!

[azande]

I found 88 books I've read.

[Dreadful Scathe]

can't believe Shakespeare is not on the list???

Agree with JA, JK Rowling should be there as well...
As well as Tolkien

and from the French authors, I thought they made some weird choices in some of the books... Sometime the same author has written some much better stuff.
Like the alchimist from Coelho (ok not French) isn't in the list when some later books are...

And where are Musset, Moliere, Corneille, Racine, Descartes, Freud, Nietzsche, Pascal, etc etc??

Jk rowling? popularity doesnt amount for anything, and they are childrens books. If that still makes it applicable in your eyes then Dan Brown should be there too - on both counts oh and "the cat in the hat" by Dr.Seuss.

As for shakespeare...i cant even think of a shakespeare novel - are there any ? he's got books of poems and sonets i think.

[Stuart M]

can't believe Shakespeare is not on the list???

Agree with JA, JK Rowling should be there as well...
As well as Tolkien

and from the French authors, I thought they made some weird choices in some of the books... Sometime the same author has written some much better stuff.
Like the alchimist from Coelho (ok not French) isn't in the list when some later books are...

And where are Musset, Moliere, Corneille, Racine, Descartes, Freud, Nietzsche, Pascal, etc etc??

It looks like the compiler doesn't consider plays or most philosophical texts worth reading. And as suggested earlier is somewhat confused as to whether the short story form counts either. And, of course, the list has a bit of an anglosphere bias.

Certainly if I died without ever having read a play by Shakespeare or Moliere, a Chekov short story, or a poem by Pushkin, I would reckon on having missed some fairly fundamental aspects of human literature.

[Caro]

Jk rowling? popularity doesnt amount for anything, and they are childrens books. If that still makes it applicable in your eyes then Dan Brown should be there too - on both counts oh and "the cat in the hat" by Dr.Seuss. .

I think that when somebody writes something (anything) that has the impact of Harry Potter (distributed in 200+ countries, 61 languages, hundreds (thounsands may be?) of millions of readers), it becomes parts of the popular culture. Anything that achieves that, IMO, is worth reading whatever the quality of the 'litterature'. I think this is paramount if you want to get a chance to understand the culture that developped at a certain point in time.
Then you're free to be critical to it...

I would put some political and religious books in the list as well, such as Mao's Little red book, the Bible, the Coran, all because of the impact they had not because I believe this is outstanding litterature

As for shakespeare...i cant even think of a shakespeare novel - are there any ? he's got books of poems and sonets i think.

Are plays for theater not included in books? The name of list is 'books', surely that doesn't cover only novels?
Some major poets missing as well...

[Barry Shnikov]

can't believe Shakespeare is not on the list???

I think they may have started off as "1001 novels you must read..." but then some of the judges wanted to include short stories - Poe's, for example - so they had to choose between "1001 books..." or "1001 bits of variable length fiction..." which they may well have felt was a bit unwieldy...

There are no plays, nor poems in there, so no Shaw, Milton, Ibsen, Wordsworth, etc.

It is a fairly elitist list, it must be acknowledged. Dan Brown, of course, should NOT be on the list; but what would be the explanation for including, say, The cloud atlas and not the most recent Harry Potter book?

The biggest surprise for me was the large quantity of Beckett. Never really crossed my radar screen as a top novelist, though have seen (and acted in) his plays.

Also, is bit of a cheat. A dance to the music of time is actually 12 novels, and I've never seen A la recherche du temps perdu in less than 4 volumes. (Hands up anyone read that in French?)

I'm a little disappointed in the forum ||frown and stern disapproval smiley|| I thought loads of you would top my 151....

[Sparkles]

I'm too nervous to look at the list!
I read a lot, but I'm very slow...
Something tells me Princess Fi and I will have to go sit in the corner together on this one - I'd rather not look I think

[Barry Shnikov]

Woohoo! 6!!!

(I feel so learned)

um...may we know which 6?

[Barry Shnikov]

I'd have more Dick for one thing

...ah bless. Feeling a little inadequate, old chap?

[Tessalicious]

Poor Barry! One day you'll learn that even if something is designed for bored people with loads of time on their hands, forumites will still find an extra thing to waste time on it with!

I thought loads of you would top my 151....

Well, if it's a boring list, and you've read more of it than anyone else, shouldn't that tell you something?

[Barry Shnikov]

Poor Barry! One day you'll learn that even if something is designed for bored people with loads of time on their hands, forumites will still find an extra thing to waste time on it with!Well, if it's a boring list, and you've read more of it than anyone else, shouldn't that tell you something?

I was going to rep you, but the list isn't boring. It's sitting down and meaninglessly counting how many you've read.

The list has - Great Expectations, Pride and prejudice, Vanity Fair, Wuthering Heights, Lord of the flies, Lady Chatterley's lover, Tristram Shandy, Lucky Jim - how could it be boring?

[Beowulf]

...ah bless. Feeling a little inadequate, old chap?

Sigh!! there's ALWAYS ONE!!

I was (in the context of the original post) talking about PHILIP K. DICK

*reads above post to make sure nothing can be quoted out of context for cheap posts..*

I could make some "witty" comments about having lots of PHILIP K. DICK but I won't

[Dreadful Scathe]

Anything that achieves that, IMO, is worth reading whatever the quality of the 'litterature'. I think this is paramount if you want to get a chance to understand the culture that developped at a certain point in time.

A fiar point, but despite its cultural significance - would you describe Harry Potter as a "must read before you die"? . That of course leads onto questioning the judges actual decisions...lets not go there

[quote]
I would put some political and religious books in the list as well, such as Mao's Little red book, the Bible, the Coran, all because of the impact they had not because I believe this is outstanding litterature [\quote]

And ..mien kampf ......the communist manifesto ...Origin of the Species....animal farm...1984... all political, even if only by association

Are plays for theater not included in books? The name of list is 'books', surely that doesn't cover only novels?.

but "books" also covers "Dan Brown" so of itself "books" = any spiders drunken ink well sodden wanderings across a page they had to stop somewhere and it appears it was before plays and poetry.