The MLA's List of 30 Books Every Adult Should Read Before They Die

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. I agree that everyone should read it, but 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.

Here's the list, with notes for those I've read, are on my TBR shelf, or are available as an audiobook from my library.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee FINISHED

The Bible FINISHED

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien FINISHED

1984 by George Orwell FINISHED

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens FINISHED

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte FINISHED

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen FINISHED

All Quiet on the Western Front by E M Remarque FINISHED

His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman ON OVERDRIVE

Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks FINISHED

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck FINISHED

The Lord of the Flies by William Golding FINISHED

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon FINISHED

Tess of the D'urbevilles by Thomas Hardy FINISHED

Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne FINISHED

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte FINISHED

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (reviewed here) FINISHED MANY TIMES

Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell FINISHED

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (reviewed here) FINISHED

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger FINISHED

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold ON OVERDRIVE

The Prophet by Khalil Gibran FINISHED

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens FINISHED
 
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho FINISHED

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov FINISHED

Life of Pi by Yann Martel FINISHED

Middlemarch by George Eliot FINISHED

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver FINISHED

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess FINISHED

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzenhitsyn ON OVERDRIVE


NOTES

Last updated last on December 28, 2022. I've read 27 of these 30 books, some of them several times! I could see myself reading the last three and wrapping this one up for good. 

Review of the Day: The Jane Austen Book Club

The Jane Austen Book Club did not deliver like I hoped it would.

The six main characters are the members of a book club established to read the six novels of Jane Austen. Each chapter is devoted to one of Austen's novels and to one of the main characters. But this structure chopped up the story into disparate segments. The stories were only loosely connected to each other with the thinnest of cohesive plots.

My real gripe, though, was the connection between the characters' stories and the Austen novels. There were general similarities between the characters here and in Austen’s books, but I could not tell if the stories of these six characters were supposed to parallel the plots of Austen’s novels.

I consider myself a big Austen fan, having recently read all six of the novels in publication order, most for the second, some for the third, time. Still, I do not have instant recall of the plots and characters in each novel, and Karen Joy Fowler's book does not give many clues that would connect the Austen novels to the story. In fact, Fowler barely mentions the story lines of the Austen novels at all. References to the novels usually concern comments about the personalities of various characters, but with so little context that they could have been comments about anyone. "Mr. Parsons had a cutting wit" or "Lucy was too prissy" are meaningless without a little reminder of Austen's plot to tie everything together.

This is a pretty short book. It would have been fairly easy for Fowler to pull in more details from Austen's novels without bogging down the story or condescending to the readers. That kind of contextual detail would have made for a richer reading experience.

Book Notes: The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire

I am enthralled with this book! The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire by C. M. Mayo is a historical novel of the best kind -- a tale based on history, not merely set in historic times -- about how Maximilian, the Hapsburg Emperor of Mexico, "adopted" the grandson of the first Mexican Emperor. There are so many characters telling the tale from their own point of view -- everyone from the Emperor to the scullery maid to the toddler prince himself -- and such a complicated plot! It has me hanging on every page. Lots of adventure and detail; great, clean writing that doesn't get in the way of the story. And all about a sliver of European/New World history that I know nothing about and am intrigued by. This is the kind of novel to get lost in. I only wish I had some kind of winter get-away like a mountain weekend or Spring Break so I could hunker down with this and read it straight through. As it is, I have to get in ten or 15 minutes am and pm and it is barley enough to keep me going.

List of the Day: Book Club, Updated

The book club I am in continues to be great bibliophile fun, but has become even more enjoyable as we get to know each other better. We've even done some non-book socializing, like when one of our members invited us all to an oliebollen party during the holidays, and when the others (not me, unfortunately) got together for a movie night to watch the film adaptation of Sometimes a Great Notion. This updated book list includes all the books we've read since I joined last year: Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky Leap of Faith by Queen Noor The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini The Bone People by Keri Hulme (reviewed here) The History of Love by Nicole Krauss Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver Loving Frank by Nancy Horan Somtimes a Great Notion by Ken Keysey Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali (this month's book) It will be my turn to host at our May gathering. Hopefully my house will be finished by then so we don't have to eat dinner in the habitrail.

Review of the Day: Living the Seven Habits

Living the 7 Habits: The Courage to Change is a compilation of real-life stories about how people have implemented the Seven Habits in their family and professional lives. It follows two other books: the seminal The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Peopleand the more nuts and bolts First Things First.

The stories were inspiring and good reminders to practice the Seven Habits. But I could not relate to most of the stories directly because, while they involve universal principals, the specifics of the stories are far removed from my life. Many of the stories concern raising children, dealing with enormous adversity, or working in large companies. I have no children, am blessed with a pretty easy life, and work for myself.

Because I could relate to these stories only on a theoretical level, I preferred the first two books, both of which are more abstract than anecdotal. Of course, for these very same reasons, many people may prefer this packaging of Covey's ideas.