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

Hi All,

I just joined the group and look forward to reading some of the books, but as I was browsing the list I wondered who are the critics who put the list together and how diverse a group they are, and therefore, how diverse is the literature on the list... Is anyone aware of any serious criticism of the list from a racial/ethnic/cultural/non-Anglo/non-Western/feminist/etc... perspective?

I found a funny blog about the "whiteness" of the list:

http://morosehellhole.blogspot.com/20...

Enjoy! ;)

Mindy

Take a look at the thread on the 2008 updated version... I guess we're not too sure if this is a new list or just the British version of it, but it's definitely more international. About 350 books have been replaced by more non-Anglo/Western works.

I think it is interesting that it was gotten through critics. Critics can have a VERY different approach to what's good and why. I was thinking about it this morning. I'd love to see how different the list would be if prominent authors were asked what THEY thought should make up the list.

Gee if they are anything like most movie critics I already know my taste is almost the opposite at times as theirs!! But I do like finding out names of other authors. I wish there was a list of the most number of copies purchased or maybe the most checked out at public library lists. Now that would be interesting to see how they compare to critics' choices.

It does seem odd that some authors seem a bit over-represented. I'm an old Atwood fan, but really, one seems like plenty for a list like this. As far as authors that I haven't read, but have multiple titles on this list, I'll probably just ask for suggestions and pick one.

I finally had a chance to browse through the entire list and was also surprised by the number of books Atwood had on there. It made me think that one of the "critics" must be real fan of hers. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that I have read 30 books on the list. It's a start!

With 6 books each are Atwood, Austen, Wharton, Iris Murdoch, Elizabeth Bowen, and probably some other more (I only scanned the list randomly).

Compare with 7 of J.G Ballard's, Saul Bellow's, Don DeLillo's and Rushdie's each, 8 Graham Greene's, and 10 Dickens and Coetzee's each.

I concur, if I were to make a list like this I would pick the best book of each author and have a list almost like 1001 authors you must read before you die. If someone likes a particular book's writing style or something of that nature then it might be beneficial for that person to read more of that author again.

This isn't necessarily about the list of 1001, but thought I would share it here anyway. I found this great website while I was looking for books in the decade I was born. And it literally lists the "best" books of fiction and non-fiction for each of the years. The glitch that I can't seem to get passed is that I can't simply go to caderbooks.com and find a link. I had to do a search for "the best books of the 1970's" and clicked on the link provided.

http://www.caderbooks.com/best70.html

however, I did find that you could simply replace the number and it brought you to that year.

It is kind of neat to see what was "hot" in the literary world when I was born; although it was really nothing that I would read!

I thought the list was stupid. It had mostly authors from the last 0-15 years and the classics were on the end maybe ten of them. Majority of the books were best sellers or Oprah picks, not that means anything, but there seemed to be no legitiate writers on the list unless you count the few classics. love it or hate. I think the list is faulty.

Kristine, were you talking about the Caderbooks lists or the 1001 list?

Stacie-
THanks for the link. I had fun looking through the list. I recognize a lot of the titles as ones lying around my house when I was growing up. I haven't thought of some of those, like Sybil, in a long time. I was suprised that the Atkins diet was that old. I thought of that as something a bit more recent.