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

[CeceIsMyFave]

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.

Is this a list of the 'best books to read before you die' or a list to slowly torture you to death with? Its simply a list made up to intellectually beat others up with. There is plenty on that list, that I've tried and hated with a passion. I don't care what their 'literary snob value' is. They just aren't that good.

I indulge in "tsundoku" (See this tweet! <a class="break-all" href="//%27twitter.com/RobGMacfarlane/status/1081445249522851840" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">'twitter.com/RobGMacfarlane/status/1081445249522851840 ) and frankly, I'd rather what I already have in my house, before I die before most of this list.

I've rather people read things for the joy of reading not because they feel they have to read something because other people say so. The love of reading will lead your curiousity to new and interesting things which expand your mind and creativity anyway.

Besides which I'd much rather read non-fiction than fiction as a rule anyway. No one ever does lists of 100 non-fiction books. Why is that? Could it be this cultural snobbery is only in acceptable in fiction?

I've only read 25- which I reckon is probably good compared to the general public (although obviously not for the literary section on MN). I read a lot but some of the books on the list are just plain dull and of no appeal or relevance to me.

Would love to see a different list with genuinely gripping reads on it, not dreary classics.

Only 44 but there are a lot on there I’m just not interested in (would sooner poke out my eyes than read Harry Potter.)

And why so much Dickens??? I’ve read some of them but no one needs to read that much.

Bit of a strange list.

A nice round 40.

There's some more I could push myself to read, but I'm never going to plough through A Clockwork Orange or Middlemarch or Dostoevsky (sp?) or War and Peace - and I've never read any Dickens. (I don't need to when they make such nice telly adaptations ).

44, gave up on Captain Corelli's Mandolin ,War and Peace and Lord of the Rings (though I've read Anna Karenina and The Hobbit). A lot of the others don't interest me. I've read the first Harry Potter but it wasn't my thing, same with the His Dark Materials.

FWIW I loved The DaVinci Code and all the Dan Brown books, though Digital Fortess was quite hard going.

55 and I'm 37 so hopefully have plenty of time left for the rest. I'm not impressed with the list to be honest. Dan Brown? The Lovely Bones? I thought they were both rubbish, and I don't really fancy subjecting myself to any more Dickens when there are other more interesting books to be read.

75 not including those I started and didn’t finish. I am 74 years old and an English graduate. If I counted the abandoned ones it is 91.

61 and Les Miserables was one of them. I did skip out several excruciatingly dull chunks about the Napoleonic Wars though.
Lots in that list I don’t agree with. Isabel Allende wrote far better magical realism that either Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Salman Rushdie. Dan Brown is obviously crap. And I’m not a Dickens fan at all. Also, Persuasion and Emma but no P&P? No Brontes?

I have read 81. Some like Dan Brown, I wish had hadn't wasted my time with. Some were school texts so I had no choice. Some I did finish but only through gritted teeth when I was younger and felt worse about giving up reading books I wasn't enjoying. I haven't read that much Dickens, I don't really enjoy him. I think it did help that I have DC and have read them quite a few of the DC's books on this list to them.

I read around a book a week at least

76%

but it's just someone's opinion & none of the ones I've missed interest me at all, several that I have read in my youth were boring AF & I can think of books that should be there that I enjoyed far more too.

68. About 15 years ago I was living abroad and had no British telly and no money but there was a secondhand bookshop near me that had some English books. The old novels are the longest, so I worked my way through Austen, Elliot, the Brontës, Dickens and Tolstoy. It was great.

I wonder if this might be the year I make it through Crime and Punishment? I don't know why I find it so hard going, I've read both Ulysses and Infinite Jest cover to cover so I'm not averse to a challenge, but that one just defeats me.

79 (I'm 22) But I don't want to read the others on that list anyway...

I've read 93!

About ten years ago I decided to work my way through the list so that's all I read for a while. Have since read The Count of Monte Cristo three times. Absolutely hated most of Moby Dick. Haven't ever managed Anna Karenina or Ulysses but one day ill give them another shot. The only one I doubt I will ever read is the Bible.

43. So pleased to see Vicram Seth's 'A Suitable Boy' on there. Loved that book.

52 and I thought I was fairly well read. Most of the childhood ones, none of the Russian novels. I left in one or 2 I'd read under protest at school and out at least one I can't remember whether I've read or not. Thought there were some odd choices on the list? Memoirs of a Geisha?

However disagree with a previous poster, I think Time Travellers wife is wonderful.

@Mumlost1940 Thanks for your lovely reply to my post. I think this is the wonderful thing about books: what appeals to one person isn't necessarily another person's cup of tea. But the main thing is that we all love reading and books. You can't beat it.

Mumlost1940, you are clearly exceptionally well-read! I have to confess that I cannot understand how you wasted your time on Dan Brown though.

35...and I have a way to go.

83 - English degree and convent school education.

All of them - although the Bible's merely a result of sitting through a childhood of Sunday school lessons rather than anything more proactive. (Also, I read English/have an MA in English lang and lit, so am slightly cheating).

I agree that there are some peculiar choices along with the wonderful ones.

Thank you. BitOfFun. I should know the difference between good and bad in literature: I have written 12 books. I speed read Dan Brown's - The DV Code: it was time wasted. Appreciation of literature is a matter of taste. Book Prizes are generally awarded by an incestuous clique of insiders. Book Lists are compiled by others of the same ilk. One of the best independent Lists of essential reading, is the one compiled by Scott Fitzgerald to his last mistress: Sheila Grahame - its in her memoir - Beloved Infidel.

36