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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:
WizardOfToss · 04/01/2019 14:16

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Message withdrawn at poster's request.

HalfBloodPrincess · 04/01/2019 14:21
  1. Lolita, Harry Potter, curious incident, mice and men and the great gatsby. But the harry potter series is 7 books so it’s 11 really.
bigKiteFlying · 04/01/2019 14:24

Rufus Sneaky loving parents - I read everything so my parents filled the book case with classics.

I think I was only one to read them to this day and Middle March nearly defeated me - I kept thinking it would get better.

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Nousernameforme · 04/01/2019 14:24

27 not counting ones i have started and not finished but life is too short to read stuff you have no interest in Dickens, the bible, the complete works of Shakespeare ffs.
My to read list is ever growing if I include stuff i don't actually want to read I would have no chance in finishing it.

Rufusthebewilderedreindeer · 04/01/2019 14:26

big

Couldn't stand any of the characters...I honestly didnt care what happened to them at all Grin

umpteenpinecones · 04/01/2019 14:30

I got 36, which seems fine to me. There were quite a few that I'm totally uninterested in so won't bother reading, and several others that I have tried to read, got halfway down page 2 and thought, nah, sod this.

And where were Black Beauty, 101 Dalmatians and the Canterbury Tales I ask?

Inthetropics · 04/01/2019 14:35
  1. And i read a LOT! IMO the list is very odd and very focused on north american and european authors.
bigKiteFlying · 04/01/2019 14:38

Rufus

It was useful to naive teenage me - taught me classic and well know doesn't mean it's any good.

Plus many people who say Middle March is a good book it is haven't ever actually read the thing and are going of it being a classic.

FaFoutis · 04/01/2019 14:42

60 but it's a crap list.

RedForShort · 04/01/2019 14:51

The list doesn't claim to be a list of classics. All these 'must read' books are someone's opinion.

It would be interesting to know how this was put together. Especially as contains books that don't suit literary snobbery.

Maybe it's all the books whoever compiled it has read; just so they can preen themselves whilst saying they got 100%.

Might create one myself ...

floribunda18 · 04/01/2019 14:51
  1. Many of the others I don't want to read though, such as all the Dickens or the Complete Works of Shakespeare. That's not to say I won't ever read any more Shakespeare but I've no need to read the Complete Works.
teawamutu · 04/01/2019 15:06

67, quite pleased. Some on that list I've no intentions of going anywhere near, though.

WakeMeUpWhenGoodOmensIsOn · 04/01/2019 15:20

48 plus large chunks of Shakespeare and the Bible. I’ve listened to very long adaptations of Les Mis and Secret History on the radio if that counts. Dickens is my undoing - I’ve only ever read the ones I was forced into at school and neither of those are on the list.

FrazzyAndFrumpled · 04/01/2019 15:25

14! Blush but it gives me some good suggestions of things I must read!

Karmagoat · 04/01/2019 15:31

15Blush 38 if you count the filmsGrin

Prokupatuscrakedatus · 04/01/2019 15:33

54 of those ... and there are other lists of other countries / languages / compilers.

Jolonglegs · 04/01/2019 15:41

17, and I thought I read a lot. Strange that there is no Kafka or D H Lawrence.

Candolim97 · 04/01/2019 15:42

13 Grin
Many of them I already know the story or have watched the film whatever so haven’t bothered to actually read them
I will get round to read them one day

Saisong · 04/01/2019 15:43
  1. Mostly because I was a complete bookworm of a child and would read the telephone directory if there was nothing else (hence having read The Bible). I also included those that had petered out before I got to the end like Midnights Children and Ulysses. Probably cheating with the whole works of Shakespeare - but most of them.
ladybirdsaredotty · 04/01/2019 15:45

I agree with PP about 101 Dalmatians (although the sequel is very strange!). Also another PP about DH Lawrence, seems an odd omission.

HollaHolla · 04/01/2019 15:45

79 - but my first degree is in English & French Literature.
I cheated slightly, as haven’t read everything Shakespeare has ever written, but I read one Harry Potter, and didn’t get on with it, so didn’t add them!

DarlingNikita · 04/01/2019 15:59

79 - but my first degree is in English & French Literature.
I've a degree in English Lit too, and score pitifully low compared with you Blush Grin

RedForShort · 04/01/2019 16:05

I did the guardian one (under it) definitely read fewer on that one!!

www.listchallenges.com/the-gardian-the-top-100-books-of-all-time

RangeRider · 04/01/2019 16:11

A mere 23. Bridget Jones' Diary? Hardly a classic or a particularly noteworthy choice. Might as well stick 50 Shades of Really Crap Writing on at that rate.

ShortandSweet96 · 04/01/2019 16:14

Came here to suggest Lovely Bones, to see it already made the list!
'Room' is another fantastic book.