Well, for some of them, and several suggested, the inability to carry on a educated discussion about them, and for all your life you will be Captain America “I understood that reference,”- and that will be about some comic you read.
Not even in the top 100, but that is just me.
Yep.“All that glitters is not gold…[I] go further than that [and say] that nothing that glitters is gold”.
but Innocents Abroad gives it a run.
So, if I’ve already read Eat, Pray, Love, I’ve experienced a variation on this and can skip it?
I’ve read about 240 from that list of 1000, and sure, there are some books on there that I don’t think belong, but there are a few of the more obscure bangers that I’m delighted to see on there, like Shirley Hazzard’s Transit of Venus, or A Month in the Country.
Yeah, the plots are pretty similar if you diagram them.
You might or might not appreciate it (and that goes for any book), but it shows up often on “ordinary” people’s lists of favorite books (and having read and enjoyed it myself, I can understand why).
Yeah, probably. It’s certainly the canonical choice, which is often the deciding factor in these things if your goal is to be “well-read”. And I agree with @Thudlow_Boink, it’s actually a very enjoyable read (kind of like Dickens) - not too difficult, nice pacing, memorable characters. Remember these were popular books at the time, not just “proper literature” like you have now where “serious books” are different from “popular books”.
Hmm. I can give it a hack, but those are pretty broad.
SF: Rendezvous with Rama (Arthur C Clarke), War of the Worlds (HG Wells), Stranger in a Strange Land (Heinlein), and Foundation (Asimov) will get you a taste of four of the titans of classic sci-fi.
Mystery: Sherlock Holmes (any collection), Murder in the Rue Morge (Poe), something by Christie (perhaps Murder of Roger Ackroyd to see if you like Poirot).
Historical Fiction I don’t really know - it’s not my cup of tea. Perhaps Gone with the Wind?
No out and out racist books please. How about the The Last Plantagenets by Thomas B. Costain- explains the "Wars of the Roses’ in a entertaining yet factual way. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon , and The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett.
Ah yes, these were quite enjoyable. A bit rapey in parts, but otherwise entertaining.
What about The Name of the Rose? That gets your mystery and your historical fiction. And it was quite good, IIRC.
This. Great book.
ETA: And has a character: Jorge de Burgos, inspired by Jorge Luis Borges.
Good choice.
That lets out Twain and Dickens I guess.
Yeah, screaming at the top of his lungs against the slave culture of the south is about as racist as someone can get.
As an antidote, let me suggest Cloudsplitter, by Russell Banks, a huge novel about the life of anti-slavery crusader John Brown. One of the great novels of the 20th century. I would substitute it for at least eight of the “best novels”. Maybe nine. Or all ten.
Yeah, Twain was the opposite of racist. Of course some of his comedy sketches( about the Indians, etc), written with broad satire and tongue in cheek could be interpreted as bigoted- but only if you dont get Twain.
He had bought a large map
representing the sea,
Without the least vestige of land:
And the crew were much pleased
when they found it to be
A map they could all understand.
Out of curiosity, why not?
From what I can see on Wikipedia, ‘The Alchemist’ looks like rather a lot of similar ‘magical journey’ stories?
I’m a fast and critical reader; I expect I will see whether it’s worth reading rather quickly.
Is there something about his work you particularly dislike?
OK, since we have some heavy-duty readers in this thread, maybe someone can help me with a major brain block I’m having.
At first I thought I had read The Alchemist but after seeing the negative reactions here and reading a summary I’m pretty sure I haven’t.
But I have read a book about a caravan across a dessert and mystical visions and I believe the title had something about alchemy or mysticism or magic or something in it. Maybe there was a magical book cart or something (although that might be a different book)? I think it was a more modern book (like last 10 years or so), and probably on some “books of the year” list.
Someone please help me…
My opinion of the list, aside from “of course you can’t have a list like that which is perfect,” is that it’s a perfectly decent list: if you haven’t read them, it’s not a bad set of suggestions to plunge into.
To Kill A Mockingbird isn’t necessarily holding up real well, though I loved it when I read it. There was a discussion of that here on the Dope not too long ago, about the “white folks front and center as heroes saving the oppressed” nature of the book. Not a totally fair criticism in my view, but not entirely lacking in merit.
My personal 10 favorite novels don’t appear on the list, but that’s just because there are a helluva lot of stellar contenders for any serious reader’s top 10.
Yes, the list is very anglocentric. Don Quixote is in my personal top 10, as is The Famished Road, by Ben Okri.
Care to write it out for me?
Not sure I have all of them at the ready (I have a bookshelf where I keep hard copies of the Best Books I Ever Read, and I am tucked away in bed now, far from that bookshelf), but here are four more off the top of my head (in addition to The Famished Road and Don Quixote) to keep you occupied for quite a long time:
Sir Vidia’s Shadow (Paul Theroux)*
Night Train to Lisbon (Pascal Mercier, translated by Barbara Hershaw)
Mendel’s Dwarf (Simon Mawar)
Story of Your Life (Ted Chiang)**
(*)Technically a memoir, not fiction. But goddammit, what a remarkable book!
(**) A collection of short stories, all of which are good but the first one, a novella, left me utterly stunned. (The movie Arrival was based on it - movie is okay, but nowhere near the subtlety of the novella.)
You can keep Christie; give me Ngaio Marsh any day. Unlike Dame Agatha, Marsh knew how to write characters I could give a crap about.
Because it’s new agey “the universe conspires in your favor” woo, and cheap woo at that.