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Original poster

100 books to read before you die. What's your score?

399 replies

CeceIsMyFave · 03/01/2019 22:50

I got a nice round 50 and I'm slightly freaked out- if I don't read the other 50 can I still alive longer?!

www.listchallenges.com/bbcs-top-100-books-you-need-to-read-before-you-die

I did cheat slightly and tick both the Bible and Shakespeare.... I've read the greatest hits, as it were.

OP posts:
DGRossetti · 04/01/2019 12:46

Shame more contemporary woman aren't on it

Is Frankenstein there ?

(checks)

No Hmm

and yet "Dracula" is ?

FayFortune · 04/01/2019 12:46

It sticks that book. If I'm ever around a cathedral I start thinking stone mason and I'm there!
'':
Whereas what the hell happened in Midnight's Children?!

DGRossetti · 04/01/2019 12:46

Why no "Catch -22" and "Alice's Adventures"

er, you did click through all 3 pages ?

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about this subject:

Books
Gth1234 · 04/01/2019 12:46

Egg on face. Checked again, and they are both there!

PigletWasPoohsFriend · 04/01/2019 12:49
  1. Quite happy with that.
PerkingFaintly · 04/01/2019 12:58

Grin Soiree

Zeitheist now absolutely has to be a word!

Gooseygoosey12345 · 04/01/2019 13:04

Only 21!! I've read a LOT of books but clearly not many of these

EBearhug · 04/01/2019 13:09

Jude is probably the most depressing novel ever, "because we are too menny."

FatandSassy · 04/01/2019 13:10

56 if I include Shakespeare and the bible... quite a few that I've been meaning to read and never have... guess they'll go in the "to be read" pile for this year.

Some of them are toss though. A curious incident? Blah. The Lovely Bones? Never appealed, never will. Lots of classics in there which I think really only young people or those who want to be "widely read" will actually bother to read... maybe I'm just too old and miserly now to even think of ploughing through!Grin

longwayoff · 04/01/2019 13:16

Lol marygubbins, how many fewer pages in Ulysses if the bugger had been forced to proof read his work? Slim noveletteGrin

MrsTommyBanks · 04/01/2019 13:17
  1. I've impressed myself .
CheeseTheDay · 04/01/2019 13:17

53 - there are a few of those on that list I haven't read, which I intend to at some point. However there are some I have no intention of reading.

HerondaleDucks · 04/01/2019 13:23

44 for me, which isn't too bad. I did Anna Karina last year... That was a challenge.

ILiveInSalemsLot · 04/01/2019 13:33

24 which is fine by me. I’d like to read more as have been a bit rubbish after kids, but I wouldn’t improve my score on that list.

sportinguista · 04/01/2019 13:34

51, although there are some on the list which have no appeal and there are some which in my view should be on the list which aren't, there are a few such as the Tolstoy which I'm planning to get around to, when I have time. Although I typically have about 5 books on the go at any one time. Some I've read at school and were not my thing such as Conrad.

exexpat · 04/01/2019 13:35

I think I've read 60-something from that list - I can never remember which Dickens novels I have actually read and which ones I have just seen BBC dramatisations of...

But those lists always make me wonder whose idea of classics they represent. I have read The Da Vinci Code, but don't feel my life was particularly enriched by the experience, and I will happily go to my grave without having read The Five People You Meet In Heaven or anything by Paolo Coelho (or another half dozen or so books from that list).

Epanoui · 04/01/2019 13:43
  1. Like several other posters, I have no plans to read any more Thomas Hardy. Also, The Faraway Tree, really?! It is absolute rubbish, though a nice comforting read for a small child.
ladybirdsaredotty · 04/01/2019 13:54

19, although if I counted books I've started it would be a LOT higher!

DP got 66, I actually thought he'd get higher than that. I must get reading!

MrsAndrewEldritch · 04/01/2019 13:58

Wont make it higher as i cannot stand charles dickens. Or much Thomas hardy either.

Some of them are not classics either!!

thatmustbenigelwiththebrie · 04/01/2019 14:02

I got 43. But I also included ones I had started but not finished because they were boring Kerouac, I am looking at you

DianaPrincessOfThemyscira · 04/01/2019 14:06

I’m only about ten in and already there’s the Harry Pottet series, His Dark Materials and the complete works of Shakespeare! I’ve read some but not all so do I tick those off or not?!

ladybranstonpickle · 04/01/2019 14:07
  1. Although I do have a MA in English and American Literature so perhaps I'm considered a professional reader Grin

I struggle with the Russian and French ones though (Dostoevsk0 & Zola).

DianaPrincessOfThemyscira · 04/01/2019 14:09

I got 45 but there’s at least ten on there I’ve started and put down because I didn’t like them.

See: most of the Dickens, Austen and Hardy.

bigKiteFlying · 04/01/2019 14:13

49 - I've read.

Many more not ticked I've seen films, audio books/plays or seen summaries/analysis of.

I’ve tried reading Les Miserables but couldn’t get past second chapter of translation I had. However, I have BBC version and the film that was on over Christmas to watch so don't I will read it now but will know the story soon.

Many I have read I couldn’t read now Dickens and Middle March I read as a book starved teen desperate to read anything – I’m not sure I could plough through now.

Rufusthebewilderedreindeer · 04/01/2019 14:14

big

I never managed to read Middlemarch

Which was a shame as it was one of my A level literature books Grin