Wow… thanks to everyone who took the time to comment and give me their input. I’ve got a lot of great suggestions. In fact, after compiling the list, it appears that I have 105 books. I need you all to help me decide which of the following books to drop out of the list. It’s hard for me to get rid of any of them, but if I don’t draw a line somewhere, I’ll just keep adding more. So here’s what I’m thinking. Everyone select the five books you think I should drop. I don’t really need reasons why, and I don’t want this to turn into a bashing session on anyone’s interests. Just enter the five you don’t think I should bother with at the moment and I’ll tally up the votes. Here’s the list of 105:
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
The Number One Ladies Detective Agency – Alexander Mccall Smith
The Count Of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
The Three Muskateers – Alexandre Dumas
Idylls Of The King – Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Beowulf – Anonymous
The Fountainhead – Ayn Rand
Dracula – Bram Stoker
Starship – Brian Aldiss
Wuthering Heights – Bronte
Fairy Tales – Brothers Grimm
Star Risk Ltd. – Chris Bunch
Xxx-Holic – Clamp
The Wings Of A Falcon – Cynthia Voight
Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe
Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
The Old Man And The Sea – Earnest Hemingway
The Chessmen of Mars – Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Dark Knight Returns – Frank Miller
The Trial – Franz Kafka
Crime And Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Man Who Was Thursday – G.K. Chesterton
The Napoleon Of Notting Hill – G.K. Chesterton
100 Years Of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Seventh Tower (6 – book series) – Garth Nix
Canterbury Tales – Geoffrey Chaucer
Lilith – George Macdonald
Animal Farm – George Orwell
She – H. Rider Haggard
To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee
Moby Dick – Herman Melville
The Odyssey – Homer
Modern Japanese Stories – Ivan Morris
Pride And Prejudice – Jane Austen
A Confederacy Of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
A Separate Peace – John Knowles
The Constant Gardener – John Le Carre
Grapes Of Wrath – John Steinbeck
Of Mice And Men – John Steinbeck
Heart Of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad
Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
The Tale Of Desperaux – Kate Dicamillo
Bitten – Kelley Armstrong
The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
Ceremony – Leslie Marmon Silko
Peace Like A River – Lief Enger
Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
Wrinkle In Time – Madeline L’Engle
In Search Of Lost Time – Marcel Proust
Rorschach’s Ribs – Marcus Eder
Oryx And Crake – Margaret Atwood
Gilead – Marilynne Robinson
Home – Marilynne Robinson
House Of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski
The Book Thief – Markus Zusak
Frankenstein – Mary Shelley
World War Z – Max Brooks
The Unbearable Lightness Of Being – Milan Kundera
The Tale Of Genji – Murasaki Shikibu
Leepike Ridge – Nathan Wilson
Metamorphoses – Ovid
Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? (Blade Runner) – Philip K. Dick
His Dark Materials Trilogy – Philip Pullman
The Dark Elf Trilogy – R.A. Salvatore
Dandelion Wine – Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
Percy Jackson And The Olympians – Rick Riordan
The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress – Robert A. Heinlein
Citizen Of The Galaxy – Robert A. Heinlein
“Conan” Short Stories – Robert E. Howard
Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson
The Hound of the Baskervilles – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Ivanhoe – Sir Walter Scott
The Stand – Stephen King
Eye Of The Dragon – Stephen King
Shawshank Redemption – Stephen King
The Green Mile – Stephen King
The Emperor Of Ocean Park – Stephen L Carter
Picasso At The Lapin Agile – Steve Martin
The Once And Future King – T.H. White
Thief Of Time – Terry Prachett
Look Homeward Angel – Thomas Wolfe
The Name Of The Rose – Umberto Eco
Les Miserable – Victor Hugo
The Aenid – Virgil
The Razor’s Edge – W Somerset Maugham
The Book Of The Dun Cow – Walter Wangerin Junior
Moonstone – Wilkie Collins
Neuromancer – William Gibson
Hamlet – William Shakespeare
Life Of Pi – Yann Martel
7 Responses to “Help Me Finalize the List”
The Three Muskateers – Alexandre Dumas
The Number One Ladies Detective Agency – Alexander Mccall Smith
Eye Of The Dragon – Stephen King
Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad
Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
I don’t really know. There are a lot of great books on this list. It’s hard to narrow it down. I own some of these books though if you want me to bring some down….
Old man and the sea
Canterbury Tales
Either Dracula or Frankenstein
one of the Stephen King books
fifth, I don’t know
Don’t you dare drop the Kite Runner though!
The Count Of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
The Three Muskateers – Alexandre Dumas
The Napoleon Of Notting Hill – G.K. Chesterton
Canterbury Tales – Geoffrey ChaucerLife Of Pi – Yann Martel
You should limit it to one book per author. That should help. You can always come back to the other book(s). There are lots of good titles by Austin, Stienbeck, Dumas, King, etc. Just pick the one voted for the most.
I would cut out Proust. I kinda put it as a joke…I never finished the first chapter. It’s also really, really long. Really long.
I personally never thought A Wrinkle in Time was all that good.
Ditto Dark Elf Trilogy (sorry Pearson).
The Shawshank Redemption isn’t really a full book anyway.
Either Dumas book can go.
There’s so much Dumas hate. I think I actually may have miscalculated because it only looks like there are 101 books on that list but I thought there were 105 on my spreadsheet. I’ll have to check later.
In the mean time, thanks for the suggestions. Final list coming soon, then you guys can help me order it. :)
Drop these:
One Chesterton
One Conrad–probably Lord Jim–save it for later
Proust–it takes like an eternity to read
Drop one Stephen King
Drop The Name of the Rose
Your Faaathuh!