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100 novels everyone should read

CarolCarol
edited January 2009 in - Reading
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/4248401/100-novels-everyone-should-read.html

got me a bit worried that I hadn't read any of them until I got further down the list. But discovered I had read at least 9, and listened to another 10 on Radio.
There is hope for me yet! :)
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Comments

  • goodsuspectgoodsuspect
    I've read about 15 - but I remember some of them better than others
  • JennyJenny
    Don't give it another thought, Carol. Luckily once we leave school we aren't obliged to read books just because someone else thinks we should! :D
  • heatherheather
    edited January 2009
    An interesting list. Nice to see a good variety of older and modern, well known and (I would have thought) lesser known.
    I've read 30+ of those including two of my favourites 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' and 'The Grapes of Wrath'. I couldn't finish 'Oscar and Lucinda' - just found it pretty dull.

    Yes, Jenny, I do object to the word 'should' in the title.
  • StirlingStirling
    19 and quite a few I want to read.
  • JennyJenny
    I read some of them years ago. Not sure they had any great effect on my literary knowledge though! (Alice in Wonderland was good!)
  • VericaVerica
    I've read about 25 of them, but wouldn't like to take a test on each! Some of the subjects I remember vividly, while others . . .

    Maybe they ought to include Shakespeare's plays, like Macbeth, my favourite.
  • RosalieRosalie
    edited January 2009
    I clocked up 42 - but have started and not finished quite a few more of them!
  • JennyJenny
    Don't read any Magic Realism books at bedtime. They give you strange dreams. (In my experience anyway!)
  • Jay MandalJay Mandal
    edited January 2009
    Well, I haven't read many of them, but I've read one in Italian and one or maybe two in French.

    Later edit: Nope, didn't read La Nausee. It was Les Mains Sales; and Huis Clos.
  • JediyaJediya
    I've read twelve of them. Great to see 'War of the Worlds' there...now I want to read it again.
  • Jay MandalJay Mandal
    edited January 2009
    The Big Read (top 100):
    http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:yuEiQ-ePT8MJ:www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100.shtml+%22Top+100+books%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=uk

    Guardian (top 100):
    http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:xPeQTmP3ensJ:www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/may/08/books.booksnews+%22Top+100+books%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=uk

    Any interesting differences in the three lists?

    And Best Gay Read (top '10'):

    http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:KnpoJvdX230J:www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/may/11/gayrights.books+%22Best+Gay+Read%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=uk
  • CarolCarol
    I was pleased to see The Great Gatsby there- I read that as a teenager, and a few other stories by Scott Fitzgerald.
  • dorothyddorothyd
    let's not include Shakespeare in there, there's enough to read in that lot! Didn't count how many I had read, forgotten many of the books I have read over the years. Shakespeare is not a 'must read' person, not with his distortions of history, thanks very much! One of my BIG hates.
  • LizLiz
    edited January 2009
    I've read 44, I was quite surprised.

    And I've read all of the first Jay list, the Big Read one, except Pillars of the Earth

    and only 21 of the third list - clearly I don't read enough in translation...

    Oh crikey, read 5 on the gay list!!!
  • CarolCarol
    edited January 2009
    11 of list 1 on Jay's links.

    6 on the second.
  • NutmegNutmeg
    edited January 2009
    only 4 from the first list but then i am only 20 so...

    a few books not on that list that should be:

    The Bourne Identity, Supremacy and Ultimatum (Brilliant!! finished Identity yesterday and am a quarter of the way thru supremacy!)

    on the big read 22...

    and the guardian only the shakespeares- King Lear and Othello
  • PiperPiper
    I agree with Dorothy. Macbeth should NOT be on that list. I had to do an essay on that and yes after spending my entire half-term holiday writing it instead of my story may have been worth it since I got an A*, I still hate Macbeth AND Shakespeare. (This is my opinion, I don't mean to offend anyone but take it from a 14 year old that it can be very boring after spending 3 months on why "Macbeth is a typical tragic hero")
  • CarolCarol
    Fair enough. :)
  • PiperPiper
    Trust me that essay was the bane of my life, now I have another one to do about how "The Signalman, The Monkeys Paw, The Red Room and The Withered Arm create Victorian belief in the supernatural." I'm glad we're moving onto creative writing, I can gather some useful knowledge!
  • CarolCarol
    That sounds like something Stirling would understand!!!!
  • GrimmyGrimmy
    I've only ready two on the list- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and To Kill a Mockingbird, but there are a few there I've half read or planned on reading. I don't know, I just couldn't get into Pride and Prejudice or Lord of the Rings. But what happened to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and The Reader? I reckon they definitely deserve a place!
  • PiperPiper
    edited January 2009
    I'm afraid to say that I have read none of them. I started reading Pride and Prejudice but I think I stopped because I was too young to understand or something. After all the other books I have lined up to read (Which is about 15 or so, 8 of them is a series) I might finally read them. I'm just about to read Jay's list...

    I've read ten from the Big Read, but none of the others. Oh well there's still time, I'm only 14. Be 15 in june, and that's during my work experience...
  • Jay MandalJay Mandal
    Hi, Katie. I suspect that I read those I have read between the ages of 14 and 18. So you've not got long left! :-)
  • PiperPiper
    Most of them in the Big Read were the Harry Potters. I STILL don't understand which Lord Voledemort killed his parents in the first place. Oh well I feel a re-read coming on, after the 20 other books I want to read *sigh*
  • NutmegNutmeg
    i've read LOTR a lot of times and the Harry Potter books plenty of times... animal farm was our first proper literary high school essay assignment... i tried to read Pride and Prejudice and could't get into it.

    still say the Bourne Books are the best books i have read in a while
  • PiperPiper
    We did animal farm very briefly at the end of year nine, my ex-crush kept falling a sleep when we were reading it.
  • NutmegNutmeg
    understandable... as i wasn't studying the Russian Revolution at the time and was not interested in history at the time it was very boring...

    but what set work books at school are not boring?!
  • LizLiz
    To Kill a Mockingbird was immediately my all time favourite book, given as a school set book at age 13. Still my favourite, age 50.
  • CarolCarol
    Lorna Doone should have made one of the lists.
  • NephNeph
    Ok i surmise that if you take ten people and ask them for their top ten books the lists would all be different.

    For example I did Macbeth for 'A' level and I love it, it is still one of my favorite plays although I am not a huge Shakespeare fan.

    Harry Potter was ok up to the end of the Order of the Pheonix and then I gave up.

    I don't like Jane Austin I find her boring.

    We are all different and I have to say I really don't like people telling me what I should read.

    OOC that sounds like a fun essay, at least you arent having to read 'Sons and Lovers' that has to be the worst book by the worst author ever. Pity he was a local lad.
  • CarolCarol
    I did Othello and Henry IV Part 1 at various points through my exams. Not to be recommended. Shakespeare is better for watching and listening to, than reading.
  • NephNeph
    I actually quite like reading him, but then again I've always been a bit masochistic!!!
  • CarolCarol
    edited January 2009
    :)

    Have to admit, when I left school my parents bought me a present. I asked for the complete works of Shakespeare, and read a lot of the plays and poems in it.
    I still have the book upstairs somewhere.
  • NephNeph
    I also think with things like that, you know the books and plays you do at school, you are influenced by the teacher. Mr Penrice my English teacher was barking - but he brought macbeth to life, on the other hand Mrs Sweatmore (I kid you not) was insufferable because she was so in love with D H Lawrence.
  • PiperPiper
    edited January 2009
    I'm sorry NC but what sounds like a fun essay exactly, because if your talking about my "How The Signalman, The Monkeys Paw, The Red Room and The Withered Arm create Victorian belief in the supernatural." essay, you would be mistaken. I have two weeks to get this essay done. It's going to feel like two long heavy months.
  • NutmegNutmeg
    if we continue to call you OOC we're all going to sound like the librarian in Terry Pratchett's books!!! ;)

    i'm sure you'll do fine on the essay...just remember to back yourself up with lots and lots of quotes!!! ;)
  • PiperPiper
    I know about the quotes, I got an A* in Macbeth so, we'll see. As for my name, I don't know if you've read them but to save people calling me OCC or OutOfControl, call me Probie, as I'm the Junior TB Member! ;)
  • NutmegNutmeg
    let me guess you watch NCIS?
  • PiperPiper
    YES! Please say something in my Any NCIS Fans thread!
  • NutmegNutmeg
    just done... ;)
  • PiperPiper
    I know. Thank you!
  • VivViv
    I recently bought a great hardback book in the Past Times sale for £10, reduced from £25. It's 501 Must Read Books. An even bigger list to wade through and count which ones I've tackled.
  • purplebeetlewingspurplebeetlewings
    51 Telegraph list
    64 of the big read
    29 of the guardian
    4 of the gay list

    I read a lot
  • forget-me-notforget-me-not
    edited August 2009
    Wow I did SO bad :( I suppose I'm only 19, but still...

    6 - Telegraph
    18 - The big read (only 'cos they have loads of childrens books)
    4 - the guardian
    1 - The gay list (Trumpet - Jackie Kay)

    Two of those lists had Toni Morrison's 'Beloved', a book I hate, hate, hate with a passion!

    That's embarrassing! I'm off to go read now...
  • PiperPiper
    FMN....I did worse....
  • forget-me-notforget-me-not
    Yeah but I'm 4 years older. At your age apart from the big read, I don't think I would have read any books on any of the lists!
  • PiperPiper
    Hmmm. I spend too much time on my laptop....so not much reading gets done now....
  • purplebeetlewingspurplebeetlewings
    edited August 2009
    I'm 23 *hides* Nearly 24 but I do have a literature degree so...a lot were school reading
  • JediyaJediya
    I read a lot too, (oh stop hiding Loz, I'm the same age as you :P).... just not those books obviously... I mean, add all the HG Wells, Jules Verne, Michael Crichton, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Robin Hobb, Andy McDermott etc..etc..etc.. ;)

    Anyway, round up umm...

    13 - Telegraph (yep I read another one since I posted 12 :P)
    37 - Big Read
    11 - Guardian
  • StirlingStirling
    I wonder if my current reading list has a few of them in there?
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