Another list, this time novels - I found this one at the WordRidden blog. It’s 1001 books you must read before you die, taken from the book of the same name. The full list is here.
I was slightly disappointed to tick off a mere 21 titles (as listed below), with a further 6 which already appear on my ‘Must Read’ list (this actually exists, I may make it publicly available soon).
I think I’ll sneak a look at this publication next time I’m in a bookshop, and, if it’s informative beyond providing a list, I might purchase a copy, as I would love to expand my reading into different genres. It’s clear from the list below that I have a strong preference for dystopian/sci-fi themes. I don’t think this has anything to do with disliking other types of books, it’s just that there is an existing and ever-growing list of (mostly sci-fi) books that I urgently want to read, and it would be difficult to motivate me to take a break from these and try something completely new.
The books I’ve read:
Dead Air – Iain Banks
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis de Bernieres
Complicity – Iain Banks
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
2001: A Space Odyssey – Arthur C. Clarke
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick
A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
I, Robot – Isaac Asimov
Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
Animal Farm – George Orwell
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists – Robert Tressell
The War of the Worlds – H.G. Wells
Dracula – Bram Stoker
The Island of Dr. Moreau – H.G. Wells
The Time Machine – H.G. Wells
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson
The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift
The books I plan to read:
Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephenson
Watchmen – Alan Moore & David Gibbons
The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
Neuromancer – William Gibson
The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson
You might be interested in heading over to Arukiyomi’s blog and picking up a copy of the new version of Arukiyomi’s 1001 books spreadsheet.
Along with some cool new features, there are lists of both the revised 1001 books and those that were removed from the new 2008 list.
Happy reading!
Read the Wilde soon - it’s ace, and I put it off for ages.
(sorry, random click through from Iestyn’s twitter, n’ discovered similar book taste!)