50 books to read before you die discussion

I love HP, each book is better than the last. It gets serious from book 4.

Books 4 and 6 are my favorites. 5 gets an honorable mention because of the introduction of Luna Lovegood(my favorite character next to Snape) and Deloris Umbridge (the vilest character in the series).

Kim wrote: "Books 4 and 6 are my favorites. 5 gets an honorable mention because of the introduction of Luna Lovegood(my favorite character next to Snape) and Deloris Umbridge (the vilest character in the series)."

5 is my favorite- because of Luna

45. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey - I reread this because it is our monthly group read and it had been many many years. I'm glad my initial high regard was borne out. It stays on my personal list of (fewer than 50) books one should read before dying.

And now...drum roll... I have read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the first half of Alice in Wonderland. Ta da! Through the Looking Glass And What Alice Found There is contained in the same volume and so I shall continue on with it.

29. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll - Everybody knows this story from the great Disney animated movie, but the film is based mostly on the first book, with only a little of Through the Looking Glass (Tweedledee and Tweedledum, for instance), in which Humpty Dumpty tells Alice of the meaning of some of the unfamiliar words in the poem Jabberwocky. I never even knew that Alice was acquainted with Mr. Dumpty. I give it extra credit, a fourth star, because of that marvelous poem.

11. A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul - This is a dully written memoir of a shopkeeper of Indian descent in a town with no name on a bend in the river in a fictional post-colonial country in central Africa. At the very end of the book, things become politically unsettled and he leaves.

27. The Golden Compass byPhilip Pullman, the first book in the trilogy His Dark Materials. So now I have a handle on the religious controversy surrounding this book. This trilogy is said to be a counterpoint to C. S. Lewis' pro-christian The Chronicles of Narnia

Just finished Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. YA fantasy is not my usual reading preference, but the Harry Potter books are redeemed by their whimsey.

Buck wrote: "29. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll - Everybody knows this story from the great Disney animat..."

I like the Disney version on its own merits, but my favorite film version of the books is the 1932 movie with Charlotte Henry as Alice and a cast that included nearly every great character actor of the day, plus Cary Grant as the Mock Turtle. He wears a turtle suit and a calf's head. Gary Cooper plays the best white knight ever, composing pudding recipes while lying upside down in a ditch, and W.C. Fields is the curmudgeonly Humpty Dumpty, insisting that words are not in charge. It also contains a fantastic reel of an animated Walrus and the Carpenter, which may have been Disney. Can't remember.

Great books too, though I thought they were perfectly frightening as a kid!

I have a very vague recollection of a man in a mock turtle get-up, but I don't know if it was Cary Grant in 1932.

I keep expecting to find that you are done!

Lisa wrote: "I keep expecting to find that you are done!"

I'm closing in on it, I guess. Working on the His Dark Materials and Harry Potter series slows it down. Read ten books to check two off the list. I'm not as far along as you are though, and there are a small few that I probably will never read.

The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman. Two thirds of the way to checking the His Dark Materials trilogy off my list. After reading The Golden Compass, I wasn't all that keen on continuing the trilogy. I enjoyed The Subtle Knife more than The Golden Compass. I'm ready for the third book.

25. Moby-Dick; or, The Whale by Herman Melville. If an editor were to eliminate all the expository prose on whales and whaling, the story of Captain Ahab and the white whale could, perhaps, be told in a novella.

Yup, and it would be more gripping. It felt like loads of whale facts thinly veiled by story

27. His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. I read these three YA fantasies with an eye out for the sacrilegious or blasphemous aspects. The trilogy has been touted as a counterpoint to C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia.

8. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster. I had trouble keeping straight the characters and their relationships with one another, especially early on. The only part of the book that held my interest was the accusation and trial of Dr. Aziz. I saw the movie of Forster's Howards End with Anthony Hopkins and found it dull. I wonder if A Room with a View is better? This one didn't encourage me to read more Forster.

Buck wrote: "8. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster. I had trouble keeping straight the characters and their relationships with one another, especially early on. The only part of th..."

Hey Buck,

I enjoyed Howards End as a book, never saw the movie, but was disappointed with A Room with a View. It bored me.

Buck wrote: "25. Moby-Dick; or, The Whale by Herman Melville. If an editor were to eliminate all the expository prose on whales and whaling, the story of Captain Ahab and the white ..."

Exactly! A novella! There are somewhere around a hundred pages where Melville describes the various types of whales. The book must be out there somewhere in the abridged version, which is the only way I would ever recommend anyone reading it. Strangley though, it's probably the one book that folks claim to have read, but never did. It's like by saying that they read the book, they jump up a notch on the culture scale.

Michael wrote: "Exactly! A novella! There are somewhere around a hundred pages where Melville describes the various types of whales. The book must be out there somewhere in the abridged version, which is the only way I would ever recommend anyone reading it. Strangley though, it's probably the one book that folks claim to have read, but never did. It's like by saying that they read the book, they jump up a notch on the culture scale. "

I didn't have a big problem with all the exposition. I didn't dislike it, really, but I was impatient for Melville to get on with the great and terrible adventure. Most of the book seems more like a documentary than a novel.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire That's book 4 of the series of 7. The movie diverged from this one a bit more than the earlier books, but the movies, including this one, are as good as the books. The dragon segment was much more exciting in the movie.

Most of the movie budget went to that Dragon. It's probably the movie that I like the least.

Most of the movie budget went to that Dragon. It's probably the movie that I like the least.

41. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift is a satire entailing the description of the author's time among the inhabitants of four strange lands he encountered by misfortune on four separate sea journeys over a sixteen year period. His time with the tiny people of Lilliput is well known from the movies, but his last two visits were heretofore completely unknown to me. The prose of three centuries past was handled quite well by the reader of the audiobook I heard.

23. Money by Martin Amis - What a stinker! The protagonist is an unlikable drunk. The prose is like a pointless and rambling trying-to-be-too-clever Dennis Miller rant, but less coherent. This is the sort of book that would be read by Margo and Todd, the couple who live next door to Chevy Chase in Christmas Vacation. There were a couple of things I thought were clever: The kinds of cars people drove - Fiasco, Autocrat, Culprit, Boomerang, Farrago, Hyena, Alibi, Mañana; and there was a minor character, a writer, named Martin Amis. Other than that, this book is not worth reading. I can hardly believe I persevered to the bitter end

You must be almost done!

Lisa wrote: "You must be almost done!"

Hi Lisa. I checked your list. I'm not quite as far along as you are. There are three that we have in common as unread.

I see that you haven't read Money yet. Good luck with that one.

I'm left with books that I'm unlikely to read. I started and stopped Money. More than once.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. With perhaps a little less whimsy than the previous books, the defiance of our heroes towards the Ministry of Magic is akin to those rare few in real life who thumb their noses at arrogant authority.

This is the book where the shift from children's story to epic occurs

19. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer - I hadn't known this is all in verse. Some of the tales are quite ribald and fun, but I must admit that the language, though lyrical, is archaically arcane and difficult at times. The Canterbury Tales will appeal to those who love poetry and to those who love Shakespeare, though it was written two centuries before his time.

Buck wrote: "The Canterbury Tales will appeal to those who love poetry and to those who love Shakespeare, though it was written two centuries before his time."

Great. Two of my least favorite reads - poetry and Shakespeare. Sounds like this one is going to be a tough one for me.

It's one of those books best read in stages, or in starts to wear you out.

I really enjoyed one of the tales, but I can't remember whose it was, a about a dishonest miller and two customers who stay overnight. Ribald is the word they used in them days.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The darkest and most compelling of the Harry Potter books, and the only one that has left me wanting to start the next one right away. The final book, the climax of the series, alas, is not presently available at my library and I have had to put a hold on it.

Buck wrote: "I really enjoyed one of the tales, but I can't remember whose it was, a about a dishonest miller and two customers who stay overnight. Ribald is the word they used in them days."

That story is "The Miller's Tale". I remember liking that one too, though in general I didn't enjoy Canterbury Tales much.

24. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling - The culmination of the Harry Potter series and the best of the lot. The first four are cute and whimsical and fun to read, but rather formulaic; Then things begin to get sinister and the plot thickens. The climax involves murder, torture, treachery, and mayhem. It is really a page turner. These seven books are a rarity in my experience. Each book builds on the previous one; each tells its own story, but in sequence they build to a smashingly good climax.

Buck wrote: "24. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling - The culmination of the Harry Potter series the best of the lot. The first four are cute and whimsical and ..."

Good job Buck! I'm in the middle of swimming through Ulysses (and attempting not to drown!), and your post makes me wish I was reading Harry Potter instead.

Linda wrote: I'm in the middle of swimming through Ulysses (and attempting not to drown!), and your post makes me wish I was reading Harry Potter instead.
"

Good luck. It's a hard swim.

28. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy - What a soap opera! People who like Jane Austen will like Anna Karenina. Tolstoy's writing is better than Austen's, in my opinion, and Anna Karenina is better than Pride and Prejudice. I chose Anna Karenina over War and Peace as my first Tolstoy because War and Peace is such a long novel (and because it's on our list). Anna Karenina is a long novel, too; and it does go on. If you ever wanted to become intimate with the lives and times of nineteenth century Russian aristocracy, read Anna Karenina. While I didn't dislike it, it really wasn't my cup of tea.

Buck wrote: "28. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy - What a soap opera! People who like Jane Austen will like Anna Karenina. Tolstoy's writing is better than Austen's, in my opinion..."

Inflammatory words, Buck! (Just kidding; I'm not starting a fight!)) I have to disagree, because Austen is at the top of my list of favorite writers and Tolstoy is not. I think, though, why I definitely love Austen more is because of her humor and wit. They both are good tellers of tales, but I don't remember anything funny about Anna Karenina. And that's a deal-killer for me. (And it's why I love Shakespeare, too)

Well you're right about that - Anna Karenina isn't humorous. I like humor in a novel as much as the next guy, but it's not necessary for me to like a book. I know there are a lot of Janites out there. It wasn't my intention to detract from Austen's writing, but to recommend Tolstoy. What Tolstoy and Austen have in common is their ability to build intricate relationships. I found Tolstoy's prose to be more cogent. In fact, neither of them are my preferred reading.

Buck wrote: "Well you're right about that - Anna Karenina isn't humorous. I like humor in a novel as much as the next guy, but it's not necessary for me to like a book. I know there are a lot of Janites out ..."

Well, I just can't argue with personal taste!

44. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Everybody knows about Robinson Crusoe, don't they? Robinson Crusoe was shipwrecked on a island, discovered a human foot print, and found his man Friday. I didn't realize that he discovered the footprint after 12 years and found Friday after 25 years on the island.

Buck wrote: "44. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Everybody knows about Robinson Crusoe, don't they?"

Ha! What timing. My husband is reading this right now and was telling me bits of the story tonight. He told me about the two cats he brought on the island, that they were both female but that one came back pregnant and then the island was full of cats. I had no idea the story takes place over so many years.

Linda wrote: "Buck wrote: "44. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Everybody knows about Robinson Crusoe, don't they?"

Ha! What timing. My husband is reading this right now and was telling me bits of the story tonight. He told me about the two cats he brought on the island, that they were both female but that one came back pregnant and then the island was full of cats."

He had a dog, too. The dog obviously came from the ship, but the first time he mentions the dog, he's been on the island for a little while and it was a surprise to me. Apparently he never thought of the dog as man's best friend.

Crusoe's attitude regarding slavery is appalling, but I guess it was normal for his day.

Buck wrote: "He had a dog, too. The dog obviously came from the ship, but the first time he mentions the dog, he's been on the island for a little while and it was a surprise to me."

Yep! He mentioned the dog to me too, and how he was barely mentioned. Poor dog!

22. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

Birdsong: a Novel of Love and War. It starts with a passionate love story. And then it is war; World War I, interspersed with brief episodes in the life of the main character's granddaughter, 60 years later. The main character survives the war, though not unscathed. His granddaughter, all those years later, learns the story of his love.

It is quite a literary novel; not great, but worth reading.

47. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas - This is as good as or better than anything else on our list from the first half of the nineteenth century.