At the end of last year I made a long term goal to read all
of the books in the top 100 best books list. I read often and consider myself
a well-read person, but I hear references to famous books I’ve never read all
of the time, so I guess that means I’m not as well well-read as I thought. When
I stumbled across the 100 best books list on the internet and discovered that I’d
only read about 5 of the books, I decided that I needed to tackle the entire
list.
At first glance this list seems great – it includes authors
from all over the world and a wide variety of genres and story types. After living
with this list for a few months though, I’ve begun to realize that this list is
cheating a bit; the amount of reading on this list is much larger than 100
books worth. For instance, it includes the complete works of Edgar Allen Poe,
Hans Christian Andersen, Paul Celan, and Doris Lessing, but it counts each of
these as one book each. The list also includes two novels from Wikipedia’s “longest
novels” list: Remembrance of Things Past
(3,031 pages) and War and Peace
(1,440 pages). So my point is that getting through this list is not going to be
easy. My goal is to read 10 books a year so I can finish before I’m 40 years
old.
I’ll take time to review the books I’ve read on this blog after
I finish a group of four (here’s the first group):
Pride and Prejudice by
Jane Austen (258 pages) | Rating: 5/5
·
This is the only book on the list they I had
previously read and chose not to re-read as part of this large reading endeavor.
I’ve read this book about three times and love it. It’s a quick read that
tells a beautiful, charming story using beautiful, charming language. If you
haven’t read it yet, you should.
The Complete Tales by
Edgar Allan Poe (842 pages) | Rating: 4/5
·
It took me about three months to get through all
of Poe’s stories. Some of them are pretty dull, but it’s worth reading all of
them to get to the truly great horror stories that made him famous. Full disclosure:
I skipped his literary critiques, poems, and novel because the list said “complete
tales,” so I stuck to short stories only (I know his novel technically counts
as a “tale,” but by that point I was ready to be done with Poe, and his novel
didn’t get great reviews anyway). I would definitely recommend his top 25 stories (here's a list); you can skip the rest of his stuff since it's a little dense and boring.
Pippi Longstocking by
Astrid Lindgren (160 pages) | Rating: 3.5/5
·
I listened to this book on tape and finished it in
a few hours while driving to Las Vegas. This is really easy to read because it’s
a children’s book that includes a series of light, cheery stories about a
peculiar orphan named Pippi Longstocking. It’s an easy read so I’d recommend it
if you also want to read all of the books on the top 100 list or want to read
something fun to kids – otherwise there’s nothing really special about this
book.
Things Fall Apart by
Chinua Achebe (209 pages) | Rating: 4.5/5
·
I was surprised by how much I liked this book
but you have to listen to it on tape like I did – otherwise the names are way too
difficult to pronounce and you’ll get caught up trying to keep track of all of
the characters and places while reading. This is a story about an African tribe
during the time when English missionaries started moving to the area. I learned
a ton about African culture and would recommend this book mainly for that reason.
The story is also very rich and simply told. You should definitely listen to
it if you get a chance.
That’s all I have for now. My first few books were pretty
easy to read and quite enjoyable. We’ll see what the rest of the books are like…
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