How many of these have you read?

[Jessicatmagnificat]

johnandsheena.co.uk/books/1001books_arukiyomi.xls

Just came across this. It is fun, but quite scary. Am too embarrassed to reveal my own score here! Don't know if the link will work, and would be grateful if someone more knowledgeable than me could amend it. Thanks

no Kafka or Chechov either

35

i am so very ashamed!!!

115 for me. made me want to get reading again, loads of those were a long time ago. think my brain has turned to mud. as the great mr stipe said ' i am mainly a magazine reader..' bout another 100 of those are on our bookshelves, dh was a big reader, now he struggles with words of more than 1 syllable tbh. think its called sleep deprivation..

206 - but it is hard to be sure with some if I have seen the film or read the book or both.

There are some series (e.g. A Dance to the Music of Time, 12 books) which count as one, but other series e.g. Gormenghast and Titus Groan, are separate (Titus Alone is not there at all).

227 (long term commuter and pretty old).

55 and another English graduate I did dip in to many of the others from same author or genre though

5 or 6 not including the one I didn't finish or the one I am intending to read

Does that make me a twit?

125 i started, finished most of them but read very little worthy stuff after i was about 22. almost no ticks at all in the 2000s since there is no detective fiction or sf in there. in fact i'm quite proud of not reading quite a lot of them.

is it just me or has anyone else been hypnotised by that spreadsheet? my eyes are all spinny.

275. But honestly, what a bizarre list, a lot of those books are complete sh*te.

132 but tbh, some I ticked I can't recall whether I ever actually finished, lol. It is an odd list, I agree.

191

Some real forgettables, there, too.
And some extaordinary absences.

oh well.

I just counted - I didn't do all the ticking - does it give you a 'result' of any kind?

only 69

Most seem to be films and to appeal to men rather than women. I always thought I was well read but clearly not, and most of mine were from the 1800s and 1900s. A lot of those books I won't be reading in a million years...

Just 54. I thought a lot of it was pretentious wank - especially the more modern stuff, but I'd like to read some more of the 19th and 20th century classics.

356
Degree in French means I've read all the pre 1900 stuff including that little known lady author Francoise Rabelais
Some very interesting inconsistencies in this list

Mine was very pre 1900s too evenhope.
I mean, Donald Barthelme and John Pynchon

100 finished and a some more unfinished (undetermined number)... Only a few of the more modern stuff though, but haven't read much for years since meeting dh, starting renovating houses and having ds...

Ridiculous list

Have got anal about it now. Stupidly biased to the 21st century of which like none have stood the test of time. 716 of these "unforgettable" books are from the 20th century and lots of them are eminently forgettable.

Also ridiculously biased towards writers of english but then throws up an odd one or two.

Has anyone read Cees Nooteboom? Worth it?

221. Some ropey modern stuff on the list though

109

no poetry

no short stories

no independent stuff

bor-ing

8 becuase the books I do read are not there. Theres was one book ididn' t because I strarted reading it but never finished.

I think I know why the list seems so bizarre.

I presume it originally came from this book. I'm an editor and used to work for the company that made the book. Its main area of publishing is 'co-editions' - basically, you think of a book idea then sell it to lots of other publishing companies around the world before you actually make the book, and these other companies will sell it under their own name. It's a good, very low-risk way of making money in publishing because all your costs are underwritten before you even start.

The drawback is that, because you want the book to sell all over the world, you have to make it appeal to the whole world. The biggest market is the USA, so these books really have to be skewed to an American audience. It will then be sold in translation all over Europe, so you have to have lots of European content too. The risk is that in trying to be so all-inclusive, you lose the book's integrity
and it starts to look strange to the UK audience.

I think that's what's happened with this book. The list is very US-centric but also carefully includes lots of obscure-sounding European authors. In trying to be all things to all people, they've ended up with a a list that looks a bit odd to us Brits.

Having said that, there are lots of things on here that I've not heard of and I quite fancy trying!

(my score was 204, by the way - I'm quietly impressed with myself!)

Hey, Botbot, I used to be an editor at a packaging publisher as well. It's an eye-opener, isn't it?

Certainly is. I remember when I first started (mid-90s) there was a directive that came from one of our big US clients (very famous publisher which I'm obviously not going to name) that we were not allowed to show black people in our books, as they 'wouldn't appeal to their core readership'. Found it a bit scary! Presume it's changed now though.

Oops, this is turning into a hijack...