Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to bechewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.
- Francis Bacon
This is the first time I actually tried a book on my bathroom scale out of curiosity - the thing weighs 4.2 lbs! I leafed through the 1001 books in the list and I found to my chagrin that I have covered only 7% of the entire lot (and I have been seriously reading since I was at least 9 years old; but then no Book of Knowledge, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, or Enid Blyton in this list). I did some calculations and arrived at the conclusion, all things being equal, that I would need to read about 3-4 books a month from the said list until the day I complete the average lifespan of a human being in order to cover the entire list.
The books are divided according to the century they were written, starting from the 1700. All fiction earlier than 1700 is classified under the heading “Pre-1700”. Among the writers included in the 21st century are Haruki Murakami, Margaret Atwood, Philip Roth, Milan Kundera, Paulo Coelho, Yann Martel, Chuck Palahniuk, Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, J.M. Coetzee, John Banville, and Kazuo Ishiguro.
Each entry is accompanied by a synopsis of the book, the background of the writer, the date of first publication, language of first publication, and the title under which it was first published.
Towards the end of the book is an Author Index where you can check how many books of your favourite author has been included in the list as compared to another author. Herman Hesse, for example, has four to his name (The Glass Bead Game, Rosshalde, Siddhartha, and Steppenwolf) vis-à-vis McEwan’s ten (Amsterdam, Atonement, Black Dogs, The Cement Garden, The Child In Time, Comfort of Strangers, Enduring Love, First Love Last Rites, In Between the Sheets, and Saturday).
You may not agree with all the books included (I don’t) and those excluded which should have properly been in the list, but it is no debate that 1001 Books to Read before You Die is a good guidepost to good fiction that has been written throughout the ages.
This is the first time I actually tried a book on my bathroom scale out of curiosity - the thing weighs 4.2 lbs! I leafed through the 1001 books in the list and I found to my chagrin that I have covered only 7% of the entire lot (and I have been seriously reading since I was at least 9 years old; but then no Book of Knowledge, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, or Enid Blyton in this list). I did some calculations and arrived at the conclusion, all things being equal, that I would need to read about 3-4 books a month from the said list until the day I complete the average lifespan of a human being in order to cover the entire list.
The books are divided according to the century they were written, starting from the 1700. All fiction earlier than 1700 is classified under the heading “Pre-1700”. Among the writers included in the 21st century are Haruki Murakami, Margaret Atwood, Philip Roth, Milan Kundera, Paulo Coelho, Yann Martel, Chuck Palahniuk, Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, J.M. Coetzee, John Banville, and Kazuo Ishiguro.
Each entry is accompanied by a synopsis of the book, the background of the writer, the date of first publication, language of first publication, and the title under which it was first published.
Towards the end of the book is an Author Index where you can check how many books of your favourite author has been included in the list as compared to another author. Herman Hesse, for example, has four to his name (The Glass Bead Game, Rosshalde, Siddhartha, and Steppenwolf) vis-à-vis McEwan’s ten (Amsterdam, Atonement, Black Dogs, The Cement Garden, The Child In Time, Comfort of Strangers, Enduring Love, First Love Last Rites, In Between the Sheets, and Saturday).
You may not agree with all the books included (I don’t) and those excluded which should have properly been in the list, but it is no debate that 1001 Books to Read before You Die is a good guidepost to good fiction that has been written throughout the ages.
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