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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:
BitOutOfPractice · 04/01/2019 17:34

I got 70. I'm rather pleased with that

Mistlewoeandwhine · 04/01/2019 17:37

74

littlebillie · 04/01/2019 17:50

55

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littlebillie · 04/01/2019 17:56

56 with Bible as I have read part of it.

littlebillie · 04/01/2019 17:57

57 with Shakespeare as I haven't read all the plays

loveyouradvice · 04/01/2019 17:57

79 ... and I agree - Where was Kate Atkinson? And others I love!

NoShitHemlock · 04/01/2019 17:58

15 ffs - and I consider myself a bloody bookworm! In my defence there was no Stephen King, Clive Barker or Dean Koontz on the list.

picklemebaubles · 04/01/2019 18:03

Some of them get very lukewarm reviews on Amazon. Won't bother with those. Will do the classics though!

lotusbell · 04/01/2019 18:14

38 with a degree in English and a heaving bookcase. Never liked the 'classics' and don't intend to start now, I'm afraid! Grin

dirtylittlemonsters · 04/01/2019 18:17
  1. So happy to see that my two most favourite novels are on there - Suitable Boy and Shadow of the Wind - and weirdly next to each other. My New Years resolution is to read 6 classics that I haven't read before so that should up my total by the end of the year.
whyameyehere · 04/01/2019 18:25

43, quite a few others that I started but gave up like anna karenin or the count of monte cristo

SophieSellerman · 04/01/2019 18:59

56 - but there are some on that list which I suspect life is too short to bother with (and I read endlessly). I started Midnight's Children, and gave up. I persisted with Brideshead Revisited, but it was dreary. However, I've read every single bit of prose Thomas Hardy ever wrote, some several times over - so who am I to say?

One serious omission is The Line Of Beauty (one of the greatest novels ever). Music and Silence and Birdsong are also big omissions which will stand the test of time, IME. I think there should probably be something by Kate Atkinson (Life After Life?) My tastes are generally 19thC ish, but those are all novels I wish I had written.

I also wonder where Trollope is, along with the Forsyte Saga. The Cazalet Chronicles might also just squeeze in there.

But others might hate all of the above!

Lweji · 04/01/2019 19:07

Very British centric and some dubious choices (very much fashion choices).

My 100 list would be different. Smile

I've read about 25. Saw a few more as movies or series.

User260486 · 04/01/2019 19:27

45 on the guardian list (undoubtedly helped by availability of mostly classics when I was a child), compared to around 60 on the first one. But I realised that even if I read some of the books, I can hardly remember what they are about. Maybe it's time to re-read. Disagree about Midnight children, I think it is a beautiful book.

Sonnet · 04/01/2019 19:38

47
Didn't include The Bible or Shakespeare given I don't think I've read all.
Noted a couple I'd like to read but a bit 'meh' about the rest.

PicaK · 04/01/2019 19:55
  1. But very broad English lit degree.
safariboot · 04/01/2019 20:00

And that's cheating a bit with the Bible, which I've only read some of, and Shakespeare as I regard his plays as being for watching not for reading. (And as such have seen quite a few at the theatre.)

LostaraYil · 04/01/2019 20:05

61 that I am sure about. I can't for the life of me remember whether I have ever finished anything by Dickens. Re-reading War and Peace now and even enjoying the war bits!

ravensbook · 04/01/2019 20:06

I remember this list coming out, its all over the place because it was created by popular vote, and asked people for their 'favourite' not 'most significant book'.

This is also why there's no Pratchett, Discworld wasn't treated as a series, so fans all voted for different favourites. BBC released the next 100 as well, and there was a lot of Pratchett there.

mumlost1940 · 04/01/2019 20:08

Read the lot. Some startling omissions on the list: Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer specifically: The Miller's Tale & The Reeve's Tale. At least one book by Ernest Hemingway. The Decameron by Giovanni Boccassio. The Leopard by Guiseppi de Lampedusa. At least one Biggles book by W G Johns. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Ecco. A Selection of short stories by Guy de Maupassant. The Fountainhead by Ann Rand.

Theimpossiblegirl · 04/01/2019 20:08

38
More if I count films. :)
There are a few I don't fancy reading so I'll never the get full 100.

pallisers · 04/01/2019 20:10
  1. I have no interest in reading the ones I haven't read already and didn't think very much of several on the list I did read (I regard most of the Dickens I read as a waste of literary time)
mumlost1940 · 04/01/2019 20:10

Not forgetting The Search for Lost Time - A la Recherche du Temps Perdu by Marcel Proust.

mumlost1940 · 04/01/2019 20:17

The Line of Beauty - a masterpiece? Just an extended gay shag. Worth reading - as a manual of how to do it. Should be listed in a separate politically correct canon along with Burroughs and de Sade,.

Sarahandduck18 · 04/01/2019 20:21

But lots more if I can count films/tv!