First off I’d like to start by stating that these fifty are not my own choices. They were discovered last year when I visited a small town in the East of Scotland called Dornoch. It is a beautiful and quiet little place that I just adore and I often visit relatives there just to “get away from it all.” But I digress. Whilst I was in this town I visited a bookstore (of course; what else would I do in such a quiet little town?) and came across a bookmark. I personally think it is brilliant and urge any reader out there to pick one up if ever they see one. This particular bookmark claimed that there were “50 books to read before you die” and the list is as follows:
The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R Tolkien. 1984 by George Orwell. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Jayne Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Hamlet by William Shakespeare. A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. Brave New World by Alduous Huxley. The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank. Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes. The Holy Bible by Various. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. Ulysses by James Joyce. The Quiet American by Graham Greene. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks.Money by Martin Amis. The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling. Moby Dick by Herman Melville. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman. Ana Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon. On The Road by Jack Kerouac. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope. The Outsider by Albert Camus. The Colour Purple by Alice Walker. Life of Pi by Yann Martel. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells. Men Without Women by Ernest Hemingwayn. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. The Count Of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. Memoirs Of A Geisha by Arthur Golden. The Divine Comedy by Alighieiri Dante. The Picture Of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
I understand that, including sequels etc, this list actually exceeds 50 books, but you get the idea. 50 of the all-time best. The elite if you will, and I’ll be honest some of these I am not particularly looking forawrd to (don’t yell at me, I’m only young and I’m sorry but Wuthering Heights and Jayne Eyre just doesn’t excite me). The Curious Incident, Gulliver’s Travels, Lord of the Rings, The Lord of the Flies and Canterbury Tales, on the other hand, are stories I can get on board with.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this list. How many have you read? Are there any I just shouldn’t miss? Is there a classic missing here?
The Writer's Block 