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