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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:
SophieSellerman · 04/01/2019 20:28

@mumlost1940 Ohhhhh... This is the wonderful thing about books.

I am not gay. I am right wing. I detest political correctness. The Line of Beauty is still the most spectacular and moving and beautifully written love story ever... Not an iota of PC crap to be found (thank God). Just endless gorgeously written sentences. The last sentence is arguably the greatest last line of any novel...

SophieSellerman · 04/01/2019 20:28

Agree about Burroughs and de Sade, though @mumlost1940 Grin

AnnaNimmity · 04/01/2019 20:34

Beloved - on the Guardian list is one of my favourite books.

agree that there are some strange choices on the first list, but the Guardian one is just poncey

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Books
Womantheonlykind · 04/01/2019 20:34
  1. Hungry brain.

Where is
Lewis Grassic Gibbon
Robert Louis Stevenson
Stephen King
Agatha Christie
Irvine Welsh
Rudyard Kipling
Ian Rankin
Ali Smith
Alasdair Gray
Val McDermid
Muriel Spark

???? So many gaps.

Birds without Wings is a gazillion times better than Captain Corelli, never understood the fixation, have always figured the movie is responsible.

Also why is complete Shakespeare always listed but not complete Dickens? How many works are required before lists give up trying to pick favourites and lumps together as a complete?

XingMing · 04/01/2019 20:41

73 on this list. Obviously need to finish the Russian section, Zola and get started on Latin American fiction. As a PP noted, it's an odd list.

dementedma · 04/01/2019 20:45

31 on that list.
Good to see Germinal on there - what a book!

XingMing · 04/01/2019 20:47

33/100 on the Guardian's list. Definitely a list for those of an intellectual disposition. No no-fiction on either list interestingly.

Sigh81 · 04/01/2019 20:50
  1. I basically fell down on the Dickens (not a fan from the little I have read - so try to avoid!)
Anyonebut · 04/01/2019 20:53

I'm sorry but, The DaVinci Code and Carlos Ruiz Zafón??

Ontopofthesunset · 04/01/2019 21:03

98 of the BBC list, if I allow myself a little latitude on the Complete Works of Shakespeare (loads of it, but definitely not all) and the Bible (again, large chunks but not all). Very odd choices there though.

About 53 of the Guardian list, but again, slightly stumped by the whole Maharabhata or the complete short stories etc of several writers who I've read partially. So I've read Paul Celan, but not all his work, and some Borges, but not all. And authors by whom I've read other works eg not Le Pere Goriot but other Balzac.

I am quite old though (early 50s) and read a lot. Many of the classics I read before I was 25.

Sigh81 · 04/01/2019 21:08

49 on the Guardian list - bloody hell, hadn't heard of some of those books. Early 30s here so time to catch up :)

diamantegal · 04/01/2019 21:11

75 from the BBC list, 18 from the Guardian one. I suspect there's a reason I don't read the Guardian...

luckylavender · 04/01/2019 21:17

68

Frogletmamma · 04/01/2019 21:25

58 but don't agree with all their choices

ForalltheSaints · 04/01/2019 21:45
  1. Five of which I read as a child.
Judystilldreamsofhorses · 04/01/2019 22:00

Only 36, but I could have added 10 that I started and gave up on.

TheLazyDuchess · 04/01/2019 22:01

26, it really is a random list isn't it?

Lokisglowstickofdestiny · 04/01/2019 22:18

49 on the BBC list and 8 (!) on the Guardian one. Obviously a literary lightweight. There's a few on the BBC list that I would like to read but I can honestly say that there are none on the Guardian list, life's too short for dreary Russian angst.

BikeRunSki · 04/01/2019 22:35

52, but how come the Harry Potter series and the Chronickes of Narnia only count as 1 each?

The Da Vinci Code ????? Really???? Really?

upaladderagain · 04/01/2019 23:02

All but 17 of them. But I am very old and have a frightfully dull life 😜

BreconBeBuggered · 04/01/2019 23:16

38 I think, and no intention of reading anything I don't fancy. What a weird list. I'm sure I won't die regretting not having read Cloud Atlas.

PolkaDoting · 05/01/2019 00:03

61

ZenNudist · 05/01/2019 00:59

66 but it was a shite list. I have no intention of trying to catch up. I have a degree in literature. Didn't put all the ones ive started but never finished/ reead the clip notes/ blagged my way through.

It reads like an A level English students list of holiday reading, plus some weighty tomes from recent cannon welded to a list of popular/ enjoyable best sellers from recent years to make sure that everyone can feel included. God bless the bbc.

Atthebottomofthegarden · 05/01/2019 01:07
  1. I don’t want to read most of the others but there are a few in there that interest me!

Guardian - 26.

Amazon - 54.

GoneFishingNC · 05/01/2019 01:09

71 on beeb list, but agree there are some v questionable choices on there (too much “current pop” fiction)

I’m 39, a big reader and the list does kind of cover off most of the books
I read as an Eng Lit undergrad (and as a child)