Earlier this year, a book was released that set out an ambitious list, 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, compiled by Peter Boxall, a professor of English Literature at the University of Sussex.
Is it fun to go through the list and count up how many you have read - or not read? Is the glass half empty or half full? Mine is pretty darn empty! I am a regretter. As I counted up my tally, I was thinking, "But what if I own this one and haven't read it yet?" "Oh, I always meant to read this one!" "Why haven't I read that?" "Why aren't the other books I've read by Faulkner, Melville, whomever, on the list?" It was fun and tortuous.
Apparantly the book itself is well written and argues out why books are included on the list. I haven't actually looked at it! I was pretty surprised to see things missing. What was I reading if they aren't on the list? What was I reading in all those English classes? Oh well.
Listology.com has numerous copies of the list. Here's a link to one of them so you can make the count yourself.
My total is a miserable 79 titles. I have a long way to go! (Maybe if I hadn't been reading so much kid lit...)
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Farewell for Now, Totz!
2 years ago
1 comment:
oh, boy. i didn't do so well. i stopped reading titles at 324 and i had only come up with 4 books i had read. i was surprised at the number of (who i assume to be) non-american authors (which is great) and how some of the authors were from that popular genre of bestsellers that are pretty much fluff.
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