Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die discussion

For me, it would have to be:

Middlemarch by George Elliot
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

hmm... I read some of them so long ago it seems unfair to include here, but of the ones I read (somewhat) recently, here are the tops:

The Trick is to Keep Breathing by Janice Galloway
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

Not on the list but also recent favorites are Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (also JSF and I thought in a league above Everything is Illuminated - might be my favorite book of all time), Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky and Night by Elie Wiesel.

Have people gone back and reread any of the ones on the list that they liked but read too long ago to remember well?

Lelia, I'm not much on re-reading books when there are so many I have never read; but I like the concept. I avoid re-reading some of my favorites for fear they will disappoint at my current stage of life when they remain in my memory as opening my eyes to some new perspective or self-awareness. "A Separate Peace", "Silas Marner", "Great Expextations", "Wuthering Heights", "All The King's Men" are a few that fall into that category (two of these are not on the 1001 To Read Before You Die list though).

And I could never list my five favorites from such a comprehensive list. I could list the five favorites I've read THIS YEAR though:

Everything is Illuminated
The Bluest Eye
Never Let Me Go
The Temple of My Familiar
The Reader

A sixth would be "Saturday" by McIwan.

And not even choosing these six was easy! So many of them have left an impression on me!

My five favorites from the list are my five favorites ever...it was nice to see them on the list:

The Great Gatsby
The Old Man and the Sea
Pride and Prejudice
Love in the Time of Cholera
The Sun Also Rises

To answer Leila's question...I've read all of these more than once. I love-love them so much that every few years I have to treat myself again.

Leila, you are right, Night by Elie Wiesel should certainly be included. I really liked Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close as well, but I passed it on to my daughter who did not finish it. I thought it was a very poignant look at a young man's way of dealing with tragedy.

I do like to re-read certain favorites, and end up doing so with my library book discussion groups. So many of the classics I read YEARS ago (I am 52) and don't remember the details, just impressions. I like to listen to books in the car so sometimes I will listen to something I previously read to refresh myself and get a different perspective. And sometimes another book will make me want to re-read a book--I read Moby Dick right after college, but then read Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund and that made me want to go back and take another look at Moby Dick. The same with The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver--I re-read Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad after.

I haven't gotten really far yet, but I can name five that I really liked.

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Yellow Wallpaper by Catherine Perkins Gilmore
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
The Shining by Stephen King

My list is not going to include books I read before I discovered the list, but rather the books I've read from the list since finding it. One note: I've been working in reverse chronological order.

Vanishing Point - David Markson
Schooling - Heather McGowen
Platform - Michel Houllebecq
City of God - E.L. Doctorow
The Reader - Bernard Schlink

Listed in no particular order (just what I located first on my list)
Sense & Sensibility - Jane Austen
Pride & Prejudice -Jane Austen
The Great Gatsby _ F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie
Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (read in spanish)

This is actually kind of hard, but here is my top 5 in no particular order...

Old Man and the Sea - Hemingway
To the Lighthouse - Woolf
On the Road - Kerouac
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Garcia Marquez
Life of Pi - Martel

Erewhon, Samuel Butler
The Secret History, Donna Tartt
The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon
Choke, Chuck Palahniuk
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon
The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
American Pastoral, Philip Roth
The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien
The Cider House Rules, John Irving
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, Douglas Adams

Okay, I couldn't narrow down to just five. And I really wish Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy and many of Ernest Gaines books were on this list. Also, I book I have read 3 or 4 times, at various stages of my life, is A Wrinkle in Time, which I continue to enjoy.

The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood

Oh man...only 5?! Let's see...

Orlando (my ALL-TIME favorite book!)
Yellow Wallpaper
The Shining
Lord of the Rings
Jane Eyre

Also really liked Frankenstein, Stranger in a strange Land, Little Women, Gone with the Wind...I could go on!

These five came to mind immediately, but I have to give honorable mentions to Gogol's Dead Souls and Ford's Parade's End.

Proust: Remembrance of Things Past
Pynchon: Mason Dixon
Delillo: Underworld
Nabokov: Lolita
Sterne: Tristram Shandy

I also loved Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre

Edith Wharton: Custom of the Country and House of Mirth

Sylvia Plath: The Bell Jar

I adore ORLANDO (next to my favorite book of all time, A ROOM OF OWN'S OWN). I even liked the film, though nobody else did.

SMILLA's was a one book wonder.

I really like a lot of them, so those are only those that I discovered THROUGH the list:

1. Independent People by Halldor Laxness --> seriously one of the best novels I have encountered in my life!

2. Interview with the Vampire by Ann Rice

3. Eugenie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac

4. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell --> I never had a clue that the book could be even better then the phenomenal movie!

5. The Ground beneath Her Feet by Salman Rushdie --> I was totally absorbed by it in a hypnotic sort of way. I would never have read this without the book club!

Okay, guys, I cheated and added a sixth to my list.
I chose "Saturday" - McEwan. I'm now substituting one I read since that posting:

6. Love In The Time of Cholera - G. Marquez

Well, I haven't gotten too far into the list, but here are my 5 from what I have read so far:
(in no particular order)

1. To Kill a Mockingbird
2. Gone With the Wind
3. Of Mice and Men
4. The Godfather
5. Vanishing Point

:-)