what books should be added to and taken off the bbc list?

[raggedtrouseredphilanthropist]

Because I thought it was a really strange list, overrepresenting some authors and missing out some really good books.

So, I reckon less austen and dickens and shakespeare (and not the lovely bones or the da vinci code), but what other books should go on there?

can I suggest 1000 splendid suns.

any other suggestions?

I 2nd without wings in place of corelli - why miss off the one book in which de bernieres actually says something?

there should be some Angela Carter and Doris Lessing too

I remember Sher's Richard III being a bit of a bum-numbing experience, though, despite the quality - I was right up in the highest seats, very hard and cramped, and as I recall they put the interval at the point at which he is crowned King, which is well into Act IV!

Kingsley's Othello was unintentionally hilarious. I remember our teacher at the time commenting, as the usual collection for the coach-driver went round on the way home, that this must be the "Ben Kingsley Retirement Fund".

Why is the whole bloomin' Harry Potter series on that list? I've read the first two and got the idea.

I second spokette on:

Toni Morrison (Oh, any of her novels - she is just utterly fabulous)
Ben Okri - The Famished Road
Chinua Achebe - Things Fall Apart
Mark Twain - Huckleberry Finn

Plus:

Zora Neale Hurston - Their Eyes Were Watching God
Amongst Women - John McGahern
Reading in the Dark - Seamus Deane
Germinal - Zola
Dog Years - Gunter Grass

Don't take Lolita off!!

Can't believe that Dune is the only sci fi novel. What about some Asimov, Phil Dick or Iain M Banks?

Would agree with adding the Poisonwood Bible.

MitchyInge - yes to Doris Lessing!

'The Grass Is Singing' is my personal favourite, but take your pick.

Germinal is on the list already

Take out a lot of the newer stuff. TTs wife needs to be publicly burned.The five people you meet in heaven was sweet and sickly enough to give you cavities.

Moby Dick gave me jaw ache from yawning so much.

More Dickens - Was Bleak House there? Villette? Both fantastic stories

Some good Sci Fi - Asimov and Clarke. Pratchett - brilliant funny clever writing.

Modern feminist works - Marge Peircy, Le Guin, Lessing. Well of Loneliness by thingy Radcliffe.

Ooh, missed that. What about Stendhal 'Scarlet & Black'? is that on there? My eyes are aching reading the list, sorry!

villette isn't dickens, which makes me wonder how much Bronte stuff is on the list?

I can't believe Fontane wasn't there either

but my eyes kept glazing over when I was working down the list too

I wish I could be bothered to write my own list, but I'd forget loads of good ones probably

I found the TT's Wife unreadable. It took me about 20 attempts (no lie) to finish it. Ghastly@Orm

No I know Villette isn't Dickens

well it looked like it thought it was in your post

So it did. Stream of consciousness typing I think...

What about translations:

The Girl with a Dragon Tatoo
The Reader
Alexandr Solzhenitsyn

Oh yes Mrs Mattie, how could I FORGET Zora Neale Hurston!

The other one to add to the list is
Wallace Thurman - The Blacker the Berry

These two authors represent a watershed in African-American literature at a time when African-Americans had no civil rights, political or economic power or influence and when many struggled with their self-esteem especially those with a darker hue.

It depends what the list is meant to represent (didn't see in original context) but if it's some sort of essentials-of-the-canon I do think it's better to split adult & children. Am I biased or is an under-representation of Irish literature on there? I mean I know it's not about quotas etc but how about a bit of John McGahern or John Banville, anyone?

Obv ditch H Potter and Enid Blyton (I mean the Faraway Tree stuff is so much the worst of what Blyton wrote, too) and Dan Brown off any list of must-reads, but need a fuller brief!

Here is the original BBC list apparantly. Citedhere which looks like the same list as on the other thread.

It is diffent list of novels only and is apparantly nominations for "the Nation's best loved novel"

Note "best loved" not "best"

Oh I remember this list - didn't it come out absolutely ages ago though? Don't think 1000 Splendid Suns was even published at the time.

Well if it's NOVELS only, then WTF is Shakespeare doing on there? And the Bible (alright, I know it's a work of fiction, but...)?

Ivan Denisovich
Gulliver's Travels
We need to talk about Kevin

Angelene - exactly. The original BBC list doesn't seem to have Shakespeare or the Bible or the series ones.