30 books

[vilakins]

From communicator, 30 books every adult should have read, voted for by some British librarians. I take exception to being told I should have read anything, but I've managed over half of them. Admittedly a couple were because I was forced to at school. I still wish I hadn't been made to read Lord of the Flies at 14.

I've bolded the ones I've read and italicised the ones I've only read parts of.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Bible
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien
1984 by George Orwell
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
All Quiet on the Western Front by E M Remarque
His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Middlemarch by George Eliot
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. 
A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzenhitsyn

Comments

[labingi.livejournal.com]

Interesting. We've read almost the same ones, though you've read more than I have. I was also made to read Lord ot the Flies at 14, and I loved it. No accounting for taste, I guess. Or maybe it was my teacher; I remember his lectures as being fascinating.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

It was well-written. I just don't like bleak and cynical. I like a little hope and humour and entertainment in my stories.

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

What is it about Lord of the Flies and 14? I read it then and it was one of the better things they made us read. I tried it again recently (a copy was being thrown away so I caught it) but just couldn't get into it.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

It depressed and squicked me.

I enjoyed a lot of the books other classes were set, so I suspect reading for pleasure rather than duty has a lot to do with it.

[snowgrouse.livejournal.com]

ARGH, fucking Lord Of The Flies! I just hate books that preach at you, period. *Especially* if they go on about how Violence And Nastiness Are Human Nature And Inevitable. I really screamed inside when they made us read that and the teacher really didn't like it when I ranted about cultural relativism because of it--societies create violence and not the other way around, damn it. GRRR.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. I much prefer All Quiet on the Western Front which shows that people can retain their humanity and even humour in the most horrifying conditions.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

And talking of preaching, one of the local librarians recommended The Alchemist but I gave up less than half-way though. Ugh. Give me Candide any day.

[snowgrouse.livejournal.com]

I gave up on The Alchemist because it was boring rather than anything else. Richard Bach's novels are very spiritual but I do like them as it's gentle and not preachy--really love Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Illusions. But yeah, whether it's telly or books and whether I agree with something or not, I don't like being told what to think. Grr.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

It was boring; that was my main reason too. I remember liking Jonathan Livingston Seagull as a teenager though.

[steverogerson.livejournal.com]

I've read six of those - Lord of the Rings, 1984, Pride & Prejudice, His Dark Materials, Lord of the Flies and Great Expectations - but not sure what of the rest I really want to read.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure of your taste in books, but you might like The Master and Margarita. It's fun and satirical and has demons. :-) (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0141187794/qid=1141859360/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_3_1/026-5523926-1306859)

[jomacmouse.livejournal.com]

Maybe I should investigate it, then. I mean, I get paid next week...

[shimere277.livejournal.com]

I've read 20 of these, and I agree about Lord of the Flies. But the one that is worse is Tess of the D'Urbervilles. If you really need to know how hopeless, boring and pointless life can be, read this book.

Why is there no Shakespeare on this list? Perhaps they don't want to count the individual plays as "books" - but I think they fudge with the Bible anyway since it's clearly an anthology.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I love it. I've read it twice. :-)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Someone once gave me a synopsis of Tess of the D'Urbervilles and I agree with you. I have no intention of reading it, or the Pullman.

I have no idea how they chose the books, but I suppose they were going for novels. It's an odd list though.

[jomacmouse.livejournal.com]

If you have any taste for steampunky sorts of things, the first of the His Dark Materials trilogy is pretty good. I can do without the rest. They make me gag. If someone wants to write anti-Narnias, they need to lay off the trowel-work a bit more...

[jomacmouse.livejournal.com]

*puts it on the list*

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

No thanks. I don't like the whole premise. The preachiness of the later Narnia books was annoying enough without having my beliefs downright insulted.

I do like steampunky things though. I loved 'Feersum Enjin' and 'Snowcrash'. :-)

[jomacmouse.livejournal.com]

No thanks. I don't like the whole premise. And fair enough too. There was a certain amount of wishing the plot wouldn't get in the way of exploring the terrain while I was reading. That happens for China Mieville's Bas-Lag stuff too...

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I haven't read any of his. They look interesting though.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

The Time Traveller's Wife???? What crack were these people on?!! Exactly how is reading that book supposed to, oh, I dunno, expand your horizons, give you a fresh insight into human nature, uplift you morally, make you a better person - whatever it is that reading these thirty books is supposed to achieve for you, I can't see how The Time Traveller's Wife is going to do it. And no John Irving. Humph.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Apparently it was the result of a vote by librarians, most popular choices at the top; who knows what criteria they used. There's at least one that would do little but depress the reader, and another that's just smug and boring.

[imhilien.livejournal.com]

I've read about half of those books - I know I definitely didn't like being made to read 'Lord of the Flies' (shudder). I haven't read 'The Lovely Bones' but I think local chap Peter Jackson is going to make a film out of it for his next project...

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

[shudder] I just looked it up on Amazon and I won't be reading or watching it.

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

I had to study Lord of the Flies twice through changing schools - I still hated it.

This is an odd selection, but then I find these lists usually are. I mean I enjoyed The time travellers wife and The lovely bones, but neither of them would have featured on a list that this librarian would have complied. As for The alchemist, I thought that was as big a waste of time and paper as The lord of the flies.

I'm about to start on The poisonwood bible

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

In turn:

Grrr. What is it with schools and torturing teenagers with bloody Lord of the Flies? [beats head on desk] What, kids aren't depressed and stressed enough already?

Was it ever. So boring and smug. I didn't even get a third through.

I quite like Kingsolver but I haven't read that one. [looks it up] Hmm, I don't think it's my thing, not set during such an era of violence. :-(

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

I've only read ten of those. There are obviously some timeless classics there, but also a few recent books that I suspect wouldn't be on such a list if it was compiled in ten years time.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

It's a very idiosyncratic list. And there's not enough SF either. ;-)

[kerravonsen]

You make me eternally grateful that I wasn't forced to read Lord of the Flies at school. I have no intention of reading it. I already know that human nature is violent and nasty -- it's only on the news every day!

I want to read books that tell me that the glass is half full, not half empty.

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

Lord of the flies was my mock O Level book ,14 again, the girls in the class hated it the boys loved it. My O Level book was the Moonstone by Wilke Collins. I loved that.

All I can say about the choice is I wasn't one of the librarians that was asked. And further I would love to know just how many of these books the choosers themselves have actually read,

[shimere277.livejournal.com]

Lord of the Flies - big theory

Like other horrific books young people are forced to read ("The Pearl" by Steinbeck, anyone?) they have two things in common:

1) Passes for serious literature

2) Absolutely NO SEX.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it's because I'm male that I thought that Lord of the Flies was good, then. (Though I read it a very long time ago, so might not feel the same were I to reread it.) It's very depressing, sure, but also very powerful. I understand that Golding is supposed to have written it after having read RM Ballantyne's The Coral Island, which has a rather idealised view of now three boys might cope if marooned. (And which was my favourite book when I was aged eight, reread time after time.)

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

We got to read DH Lawrence's The Rainbow when I was in the sixth form. Plenty of sex but one of the most tedious books that I have ever read.

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

. (Though I read it a very long time ago, so might not feel the same were I to reread it.

It can't be any longer ago than me, 43 years, and I did try it again about 10 years back and still hated it.

Golding is supposed to have written it after having read RM Ballantyne's The Coral Island, which has a rather idealised view of now three boys might cope
I couldn't stand that one either but then I knew that no boy on Earth would cope with being marooned with out a woman to look after them. Even back then I was a rampant feminist.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Me too. And I don't watch or read the news. It frightens and depresses me.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Some of them are very good, but I can't see why others are there.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

As a child and teenager, I preferred 'male' books--war, SF, adventure--so I doubt it was me being a female that put me off it., It was its sheer bleakness and cynicism about the human race. 'All Quiet on the Western Front' is horrific too but show people retaining their humanity under horrific conditions, as do many Holocaust novels.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Once again this attitude that sex is bad and violence is acceptable.

It was Lord of the Flies' bleak and cynical attitude about people that really disgusted me. And I read a lot about war and the Holocaust at the same time, but most of those showed that people are not victims of their circumstances; they can rise above them.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

But those novels are dealing with adults. Children, boys especially, can be very cruel, especially when operating in gangs. Yes, Golding's book was extremely bleak, but I didn't think that it was cynical.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Yes, kids can be cruel. And this is a good thing to teach in school?

Huh. I wonder if the huge level of violence these days is due to forcing generations of kids to read that bloody book.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

I doubt it. I suspect that books have far less effect in that respect than violent movies and TV programmes do. And in any case, I should have thought that Golding's book was a powerful disincentive to violent behaviour. The violence isn't glamourised.