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

Hello I'm Wabisabi, I'm new around here and totally enthusiastic about this group which seems very active around the 1001 books to read!

I've started looking at the 2006 list last year ad after discovering about the new versions I've been inspired by Arukiyomi work and decided to build a new excel spreadsheet and a blog about the 1001 books.

It's all just at the very beginning and I would love to have your input about it: what would you like to see in your dream spreadsheet? I work all day in front of Excel so would be more than willing to experiment a bit to find the solutions to best fit everyone's needs!

Thanks!

Wabisabi

It's not really a new feature, but I think a notes column would be handy. Some of the books aren’t available in English - it might be handy to mark them with an * or something...

The forums here have recognised a number of books as being either quick reads or hard going maybe you could flag them - I know this is subjective to personal opinion so may cause a bit of controversy.

Personally I use a printed hard copy of all three lists sorted alphabetically by author surname as my working list, which I write notes on. I make a note of whether the book is available at any of the libraries in my surrounding area to save money on making book requests. If the book is in the public domain and is available online as a free e-book, I also make a note of the ULR.

I know everybody wont necessarily like these changes – its just how I’ve customised my own list.

I think those are great suggestions. I am just beginning to make my own list as well (for the 1001 books list as well as my home library list). I especially like the notes column.

Thanks for the great feedbacks... I was thinking that to start filling out the more "expert knowledge" columns like "quick read" "hard going" etc I could publish the list on google docs and share it with everyone so it would have the inputs from everybody.

Personally I would like to have the nationality of the author and the original language it was written in...I'm trying to fill this out but it will require some time.

I will post it tonight (european time) and share the link!

Here comes the link to the google spreadsheet.
Please feel free to change the columns of Nationality, Genre, availability in English and difficulty.

Please do not change the first columns!

You can find the 3 combined lists with the columns I started filling myself.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?ke...

Wabisabi wrote: "Here comes the link to the google spreadsheet.
Please feel free to change the columns of Nationality, Genre, availability in English and difficulty.

Please do not change the first columns!

You ca..."

Looks great! For me, I like to see what the book's average ratings are because most of the books i have no clue what they are about but If I see a book with 5 stars I will start that one first

Wabisabi wrote: "Here comes the link to the google spreadsheet.
Please feel free to change the columns of Nationality, Genre, availability in English and difficulty.

Please do not change the first columns!

You ca..."

I agree, great spreadsheet! This might be a lot of work, but maybe instead of quick read, long read, etc, you could just put # of pages? Also, if there was any way to put summaries of the books, I think that would be helpful to have all in one place.

Steve wrote: "Wabisabi wrote: "Here comes the link to the google spreadsheet.
Please feel free to change the columns of Nationality, Genre, availability in English and difficulty.

Please do not change the first..."

Good idea though they will vary with editions. This would solve the subjective issue on this tag.

That is a great spreadsheet! Very good reference!

I like it so far! Thanks for sharing!

What I like to do is combine lists on one spreadsheet.
I'd like to be able to add columns for, as examples, Booker and Pulitzer and other prizes/awards, Modern Library's 100 Best Novels, Bloom's Western Cannon, etc.

Thanks everyone for the great feedback.
I like the idea of the n° of pages instead of the difficulty and also the prizes list. It is true that it can vary with editions but it normally gives a good idea of the effort required.
If you have a spreadsheet with the prizes I will match it and insert it.

Except for the first columns I marked, please feel free to add anything you want. I started filling out nationality and original titles of the ones I know.

Once the spreadsheet is filled out I'll build a more complex one in Excel with stats and share it on the blog I'm trying to create.
If you want to start using it to mark your readings you can download it in the format you prefer... File-> Download As ->

In the final file I'll build a simple way to import the data already filled out in the "read" column.

Judith wrote: "Steve wrote: "Wabisabi wrote: "Here comes the link to the google spreadsheet.
Please feel free to change the columns of Nationality, Genre, availability in English and difficulty.

Please do not ch..."

I agree, some short books make for pretty rich reading though - eg Animal Farm. You could use a page count as a rough guide (as it will vary from edition to edition) and also note if its a quick read or hard read in the comments section. The vast majority of books will fall somewhere in between.

Wabisabi wrote: "Thanks everyone for the great feedback.
I like the idea of the n° of pages instead of the difficulty and also the prizes list. It is true that it can vary with editions but it normally gives a good..."

Its in table format - not a spreadsheet - but here are the booker prize winners and shortlisted books since it started in 1969.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_...

The Pulitzer prize would include the prizes for "Fiction" and "Novel"

http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat

You could include Nobel prize winners but its not awarded for a specific book usually... (?)

http://classiclit.about.com/library/b...

I saw your version of the spreadsheet tonight for the first. I like what you are trying to do. I really don’t like the colour schemethough; I’d much prefer a white background and coloured text / links like the previous SS.

Personally speaking I liked the authors first and last name as two separate columns. Reason being, in my library and most book shops, books are organised alphabetically by author’s surname.

I don’t thing there should be a whole column titled “available in English” – to the best of my knowledge there is only one book… the mountains of Teabeck – or something like that (don’t have my list with me) that’s only available in French and Korean – I think everything else has been translated.
If it were me I’d have a “Comments” column that individuals can edit. The can use it to note their opinion of the book, like it / hate it / worth reading again / brief outline of what the book is about… etc – but initially – when you first download the list, you could use the column for anything noteworthy about the book. Ie. “NOT AVAILABLE IN ENGLISH”

I’d make the books number, Title and Author name the first 4 columns from the left as that’s the first thing I’m interested in.
I love the “prizes” idea, and the average rating – although. I’d prefer the rating to come from goodreads as I’m not familiar with project Gutemburg.
Sorry to sound so critical but I figured this is what you’d want to hear at this point before you put too much work into it. These are just my personal opinions and I’m sure you will get as many conflicting ones as there are people commenting on this thread :oP

Good job though

Thanks Paul, very useful comments.

The colours were completely random so don't look too much at them! :D I was thinking of leaving the spreadsheet neautral and color coding rows based on the fact that the books was read/tbr or wishlist.

If the available in English column is not useful I will eliminate it.

I put together name and surname with the surname first to simplify the spreadsheet and therefore shouldn't be a problem to search for books in a library or bookshop. Does having the name together with the surname cause any problems? I couldn't think of any specific use you could have from having them as separate fields.
Another question is: I found the book numbers on another spreadsheet but I don't understand them... do they have a specific function? because otherwise I'll build a different index.

I'll definitely put a comment column.

I've starting working on the prizes columns offline and upload the final version later on. I really like this suggestion.

I will mark the single books as Man Booker and Pulitzer winners for the Nobel I'll mark the author.

Thanks everyone for the feedback!

AH, Yes having the names together with surname first will be ok. I was just thinking about the ability to sort by last name - but as you rightly point out this wont be affected.

I think the numbers might come from the book, although I'm not certain as I dont have a copy. I wouldnt remove them as a lot of people use them to choose which book to read next. You can go to a site like random.org and ask it to select a number between 1 and 1001 - this is also how the monthly reads for the group is selected.

I like the idea of the whole row changing colour when you mark a book a read. Is it possible to add a strike through effect as well - so it looks like it has been crossed off?

If the available in English column is not useful I will eliminate it.

Perhaps change the column to "Translation By" so that people can mark which specific translation (if any) of a foreign text they read. I know I would get a lot of use out of a column like that because not all translations are created equal and I like having that information at the ready when people ask "which edition" I read. Thoughts??