Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

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:
KateAdiesEarrings · 03/01/2019 23:48
  1. I didn't include the ones I started and gave up on ie Life of Pi; Crime and Punishment; Cloud Atlas, etc It made me want to read the Secret History again.
icannotremember · 03/01/2019 23:48

37

Some of the books on there should not be, imo

cheesenpickles · 03/01/2019 23:48

Dickens is bloody awful. I know it's upheld as an important insight into the era but it's SO BLOODY DEPRESSING. Hard Times at uni nearly killed me. Steinbeck wasn't much better tbh.

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about this subject:

Books
IsabelleSE19 · 03/01/2019 23:49

71! Although I haven't read the entire Bible or complete Shakespeare so maybe 69 if I'm being strict. It had my favourite ever, Watership Down on it, and two of my stinkers, Da Vinci Code and Jude the Obscure. I love Dickens so that helped boost my numbers!

PickAChew · 03/01/2019 23:50

Glad I'm not the only one who probably avoids "worst book you ever read" threads on the grounds that life is too short to read the whole of a tedious book.

I despise Dickens' verbosity.

Tom Hardy 's characters generally need their heads knocking together.

And the time traveller's wife was tripe. Confusing tripe.

IsabelleSE19 · 03/01/2019 23:51

Cheese try Pickwick Papers - I'm re-reading it at the moment and it's laugh-out-loud funny. Not on that list though.

PerkingFaintly · 03/01/2019 23:53

I'm a big believer in Try A Different Dickens, if you've not got on with one. They're so variable. I love some, can't abide others.

Hard Times is a gruelling read. I recently re-arranged my books and actually shuddered as I shelved it, thinking "Well I won't be opening that again."

Izzy24 · 03/01/2019 23:54

@borninathunderstorm

Ha! I’m an idiot! Thank you 😊

Wandastartup · 03/01/2019 23:54

87! Feeling smug but slightly depressed as very few in the last 11 years( since children!)

PepeLePew · 03/01/2019 23:54
  1. Not counting the large chunks of the Bible or Shakespeare that I have read as it seemed to think the whole thing was needed. Usually I look at these lists and think "oh, I'd like to read that, and should read that" but I think I'll die not having reached 70 as there's very little on that list I haven't read that appeals. Possibly The Little Prince.
EllenJanesthickerknickers · 03/01/2019 23:55
  1. I didn’t include The Bible or Complete Works of Shakespeare. So many of them I read before I was 20, so few afterwards. What happened to me? I’m in my 50s.
BornInAThunderstorm · 03/01/2019 23:56

Judging by his Twitter, a lot of people get them mixed up!

100 books to read before you die. What's your score?
cheesenpickles · 03/01/2019 23:57

@IsabelleSE19 @PerkingFaintly you've convinced me. I've read a fair whack of Dickens prior but HT totally finished me. I live in a particularly Dickens-y place and I always feel there's a touch of subtle shade about my city in his writings too. Grin

MadameJosephine · 03/01/2019 23:57

34 but there are actually quite a few more that I’ve either started and couldn’t get into or have no interest in reading

KateAdiesEarrings · 03/01/2019 23:57

I've heard excerpts of The Little Prince so often that I feel I don't have to read it Grin but I didn't include it in my total

EllenJanesthickerknickers · 03/01/2019 23:58

I read The Little Prince at book club. That was a few hours I’ll never get back. I preferred The Alchemist!

PerkingFaintly · 04/01/2019 00:00

If it's Rochester, the shade ain't subtle.Grin

The Mystery of Edwin Drood is not kind...Grin

Lemond1fficult · 04/01/2019 00:00

59! A few on there I haven't heard of (such as The 5 people you meet in Heaven). Also some I have no desire to read such as Jack Kerouac, and those I have hated, like Catcher in the Rye.

Also skipped the Napoleonic bits in War and Peace. Has anyone ever actually read them?

AnnieOnAMapleLeaf · 04/01/2019 00:01

79 but I am a certified bookworm! Thanks for posting this - I now have 21 books to be added to my "To Be Read" pile. Grin

MargueritaPink · 04/01/2019 00:02

I have never met anyone who has read Les Miserables however!

I have. I've also read The Hunchback of Notre Dame I had 89 (although I cheated on Harry Potter as I was an adult when the first one came out and my son and both disliked it so didn't read any of the others)

I have no intention of reading the ones I haven't read (eg Da Vinci Code, Lovely Bones). Why those were included but not Tom Jones , The Portrait of Dorian Grey, Hangover Square or short story collections by William Trevor, Chekhov or Somerset Maugham is bizarre.

WitchSharkadder · 04/01/2019 00:04

Plus lots like I feel I’ve read, like others have said. There’s a few I have absolutely no intention of reading and a few I’ve tried and given up on. Also a couple I’m Hmm about being on the list.

FanSpamTastic · 04/01/2019 00:06

42 - some were at school and compulsory - do they count?!

brizzledrizzle · 04/01/2019 00:06

67, I'm happy with that. The ones I haven't read are ones I doubt I'll read.

Lucked · 04/01/2019 00:08

51 also not including the Bible and Shakespeare which I will never read all of. I don’t have much time for the Old Testament, I did once start at page one of the bible but there is a lot of tedious stuff in there. I do feel a bit embarrassed I have only read one Dickens’s novel.

Plus points it reminded me I want to read Dune, I saw the film so many times growing up with my sci-fi obsessed brother. Also middlemarch as Silas Marner is one of my favourite books so why haven’t I read more by George Elliott.

I agree WTF is the Da Vinci code doing in there.

MargueritaPink · 04/01/2019 00:08

didn't include the ones I started and gave up on ie Life of Pi; Crime and Punishment; Cloud Atlas, etc

I think it's fair to include them if you gave them a good go but they did nothing for you. The point is surely to have knowledge of the book in question.

I also think the "greatest hits" version of The Bible and Shakespeare is allowed.