1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die

Peter Boxall has made many a reader weep with his bilblio-list 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. It's a very hefty book, and has inspired a LT group aptly named 1001 Books to read before you die

Boxall's list was compiled from questionaires sent to thousands of English instructors, and it has stirred up controversy within the literary world. Some critics claim the list is too heavy with English authors and not enough from other countries. Others feel the list is to weighted with 20th century books, and not enough classics. Many authors have more than one entry, Austen, McEwan, and Murakami among others.

Boxall's admitted he wanted to stir up contraversy as a way to inspire reading, and told the complainants to write their own lists... or something like that.

Link to spreadsheet:

If you're familiar with the 1001 Books you Must Read Before you Die by Peter Boxall then you might very well be interested in an all-singing, all-dancing spreadsheet that Arukiyomi's developed to go along with the book.

Here are some of the features:
* All the 1001 books listed in descending chronological order
* Automatic calculation of what percentage you have read
* Automatic calculation of how many you have to read per month before you die
* Filter the entire list by author's last name

To get your copy of the spreadsheet, head to ARUKIYOMI'S BLOG: http://johnandsheena.co.uk/books/ for a free download. Comments welcome on the blog.

I believe there's going to be a third edition published; Amazon has details of a 23 Mar 2010 release date !

http://www.amazon.co.uk/1001-Books-Must-Read-Before/dp/0789320398/ref=sr_1_5?ie=...

I know it has been explained a million times, but why can't he just change the title to 1001 novels You Must read Before You Die.

I mean no Glgamesh, Illiad, Odyssey. C'mon.

I definitly see your point. Seriously, I don't think anyone should make it out of this world without having read The Illiad and The Odyssey, and it's been a while since I looked at the list, but is Shakespeare on it? I think one should read his work, as well.

Nope, Shakespeare wasn't a novelist, so reading The Catcher in the Rye is more important.

(sigh)

Yeah.... no, I think NOT. The Catcher in the Rye was only a good book when I was 15. When I read it at 13, it sucked. When I read it again when I was in my 20s and a mom, it SUCKED even more. It seems that only when I was a whiny obnoxious teen... like Holden... that I thought it was the book that SPOKE to me. LOL... I think Peer Gynt, which I read when I was 16, was a MUCH better book to read than Catcher was.

I realize that there are many different versions of this list. I like the approach at http://1001bookreviews.com/the-1001-book-list/ with an organized list by century.