This list is the results of a 2006 poll of British librarians conducted by the Museum, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA), in which librarians around Britain were asked, "Which book should every adult read before they die?"
It looks like the list reflects a split between those librarians who popped off with the name of the book that most recently captured their fancy and those who considered what should really be the one book everyone should read. I mean, The Time Traveler’s Wife was extremely popular, but is it really a book deserving of every adult’s bucket list? On the other hand, The Bible is a space-hogging gimmee – my rule is that all Must Read lists come with a silent caveat: “a list of books other than The Bible . . .” So take this one with a grain of salt.
Those I have read are in red. Those on my TBR shelf are in blue.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Bible
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien
1984 by George Orwell
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
All Quiet on the Western Front by E M Remarque
His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Tess of the D'urbevilles by Thomas Hardy
Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (reviewed here)
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (reviewed here)
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Middlemarch by George Eliot
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzenhitsyn
NOTE
Last updated last on January 9, 2019.
OTHERS READING THE BOOKS ON THIS LIST
caribousmom
(If you would like to be listed here, please leave a comment with links to your progress reports or reviews and I will add them here)
I never understood why we don't write The Bible by God :)
ReplyDeleteI think you are right though in that adding The Bible to a list of must reads, somewhat taints said list. Being that we already are all walking around with that "to-do at some point" in the back of our minds.
Re the Colourful Reading Challenge. The six required colours White,Black,Blue,Red,Gold
ReplyDeleteand Silver. You can get full details from Rebecca at:
http://imlostinbooks.blogspot.com/2009/01/colorful-reading-challenge.html