Which Book Should Every Adult Read Before They Die?
Here’s an article from Guardian Unlimited concerning “Which book should every adult read before they die?”
It was published over 40 years ago and its American author has lived as a virtual recluse ever since, but according to Britain’s librarians, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mocking Bird is the book that everyone should read.
The Pulitzer prize-winning classic has topped a World Book Day poll conducted by the Museum, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA), in which librarians around the country were asked the question, “Which book should every adult read before they die?” The book, which has been a staple of schoolroom reading lists for many years, also came second in another poll released today on our favourite happy endings. It explores issues of race and class in 1930s deep south America, through the dramatic court case of a black man charged with the rape of white girl.
Here’s the full list of books. I’ve bolded the ones that I’ve read. I’ve got some work to do, it seems. How many have you read?
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
- The Bible (Yes, I have read it all)
- 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 Quite 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’urbevilles 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
Via The J-Walk Blog
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Mar 8th, 2006 at 00:10:13
20. You can really tell I was and english major. Although my favorite authors aren’t on there (William Faulkner, James Joyce, and Amy Tan). So many classics are missing from it.
Mar 8th, 2006 at 10:48:10
1, some of 3, 15, 19, 30. I really liked #30. I’d add The Brothers Karamazov and I can’t believe that Of Mice and Men, Animal Farm, Crime and Punishment and a couple others aren’t on there.
Mar 8th, 2006 at 21:42:21
i’ve only read one in its entirety — to kill a mockingbird.
Mar 9th, 2006 at 11:50:06
1,most of 2,3,4,5,6,11,12,14,28. (6 is one of my favorite books ever.) I need to read the whole Bible. I’ve read most of it, and I’ve started reading it through probably about 10 times, but then I start to skip around.
Mar 11th, 2006 at 20:18:13
Chris,
How did you not read Tess? We were in senior English together and that was one of the assigned readings. It is possible that you just never cracked it, but I believe everyone had to read it. You might be able to add another. I have read 9 from the list. I must say that I have no desire to read #30. A Day in the Life, from those I know that have read it say it is torture.
JM
Mar 11th, 2006 at 20:29:37
Wow, I have no memory of reading Tess at all… I definitely would have read it if it was assigned, so I guess my memory of that completely “overwritten”
Mar 13th, 2006 at 11:43:55
How about the Tom Clancy books on your list. I also thought you had read a couple of John Grisham books too….maybe not.
Mar 13th, 2006 at 11:52:50
I’ve read Grisham and Clancy, greg Iles and many others…but they aren’t really classics
Mar 13th, 2006 at 21:44:01
freakin’ Wuthering Heights needs to die… I hated that book…
Bronte was just a rampid femanist during the Romantics… nobody could silence her…
oh, wait… i got carried away again… lol… my bad…
later..
but yea, i’m not even halfway through high school, and i’ve read (yes, read, not neccisarilly just ‘heard of’) a deal of those books… i’m interested to see what i’ve got done by the time I am out of high school.. better yet even collegue…
oh, yes… dare to dream, Bryan.. heh…
later…
Mar 14th, 2006 at 07:30:33
I’d pay more attention in spelling class if I were you…
Mar 15th, 2006 at 19:00:10
Oh, Bryan–try to look at Wuthering Heights as a social commentary entwined with romantic sentiment and it might be more enjoyable…It really is a brilliant book.