Another option, and why I did it: as a way to remind myself of some of the books I'd read a long time ago, loved then, and should read again now.

Like any list, it's arbitrary and about as useful as rat poo for anything other than navel gazing - IMnsHO etc etc

Charlotte's Web - it'll teach kids empathy. How can this be wrong? Lots of adults could do with more of that too. When they're done with that they should read To Kill A Mockingbird, then Huckleberry Finn.

Edited for under-caffeinated brain

Edited at 2008-06-25 13:41 (UTC)

Tough question and a good observation.

Brave New World, though not as mind-expanding (in all senses) as the Doors of Perception, reads in a pretty terrifying way if you follow current affairs in any kind of detail. I still hold Rebecca up as a magnificent study in obsession and the devastating effects of idol-worship; Mrs Danvers is possibly one of the best-written female villains in literature.

But for sheer wallop, nothing for me beats the dysfunctionality, the dark, brooding, violent obsessiveness of Wuthering Heights, which is in essence a phenomenally well-written story about two vile human beings being exactly what each other deserve, and the utter devastation that partnership wreaks on everything it touches. People who think this is a love story probably describe It's a Wonderful Life as a "feel-good film" too.

I'm quite surprised you haven't read it; I reckon it to be the best Bronte book, and the only one I ever managed to get all the way through.

Olivier and Merle Oberon did the novel a disservice in the 40's film that stands uncorrected to this day; in fact, I haven't yet seen a film version that captures the true cruelty of the book. Enjoy it - it's a true classic.

Wuthering Heights is the only Bronte book I haven't been able to get all the way through. I don't deal well with overblown and purple. Shirley is much more interesting, for example--about the riots in the mills and the cruelty of one woman to herself.

I couldn't bear Wuthering Heights and found it a struggle to finish. It doesn't help that I don't much like Bronte but I detested the selfish central characters so much that I wanted them to fall down a Yorkshire pothole and die.

Well I filled it in because a) Work is quiet b) it's a natty list of books I've not read, and that's worth storing somewhere.

I do think 1984 is a book that people should read, at least to study if not for pleasure. It's flawed, and I think Orwell's rather miserable assertion on the nature of the human spirit is also flawed, but as a science fiction novel it does what the genre often claims to: Shows us a potential future (and highlights aspects of the present.)

High quality food for thought.

I've read those since and I'm still convinced Orwell had serious anarchist leanings. But then so did many authors, and "anarchist" doesn't automatically equate to Conrad's "caped man with bomb."

Speaking of connections, Ursula LeGuin's "The Dispossessed" goes well (in contrast with) with 1984. ;)

I'll hold my hand up;

It came along and I was a little bored and I was interested to use it as a tool of remembrance and to focus me on some of the ones on the list that I want to 'get around to'.

I mostly agree with you that it's an almost completely pointless exercise lacking in context and representing absolutely no useful benchmark / metric - I'm just not bothered by that, it did however use up half an hour or so and the resulting comment traffic has eaten up a good hour and a half as well, so for me at least it has served its purpose.

One book from the list that everyone should read - Anna Karenina. I could wax lyrical about the beauty and the tragedy and the sheer quality of the prose, but frankly none of that is as important as this - Tolstoy is Russia's Shakespeare / Dickens / Hardy (take your pick) and that alone is a crappy reason to read a book, but there is a reason why he is; he can REALLY write, and Anna Karenina is the proof.

One book to be pulped - Based on how hard I know it to be to get someone else to pay for the publication of one's prose I can't argue that for any book. Just because I don't like it does not mean that it has no value. That may be overly concilliatory, but that really is how I feel about it.

*nods*

A point well made, I guess I am just happy with the dissonance, or put another way, I am happy to advocate an opinion I believe to be positive or constructive, but I am not comfortable with similarly declarative statements that are negative and / or destructive. I appreciate that this lacks logic, but I would say that I lack logic in a lot of ways, so at least that has the merit of being consistent.

I agree with you about Dan Brown, but it didn't stop me enjoying The DaVinci Code, and I am loathe to suggest that anyone else shouldn't enjoy it or is an idiot for enjoying it - there is nothing necessarily wrong with finding enjoyment in the mediocre although I suppose that I might temper that with the utterly arrogant and elitist caveat of 'as long as you know that it is mediocre'.

As for praise in favour of Anna Karenina - I like to say positive things about art / literature / music that I like, but you are right - my opinion is worth absolutely nothing to anyone else, and I would not have it any other way, because I want the freedom to have it, and I want others to have the freedom to have theirs. Opinions are personal, and relatively irrelevant; the nice thing about a positive opinion is that it does not sound mean.

I would argue for 'Nineteen Eighty Four'.

I first read it when I was too young to understand it, but it still gave me the basics of a political education. I regret that in many quarters it still seems to wear the tag of compulsory school read that we had to get through. Re-reading it in later years, when I knew more of politics in general, I saw a great deal that I had missed. A particular prize is Goldstein's book within a book. I am not sure that I have learned as much about the rationality and irrationality of power, violence, collective organisation or politics from any other source.

Watership Down, because bunnies.

Canonisation. Though my 'best book of the year so far' goes to The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, Watership Down is a book I can re-read time and time again. Oddly enough, Plague Dogs by the same author gets my vote for pulping.

Germinal; because it is powerful and brilliant, I quite like strong passionate writing, next to witty and insightful, I like the mouse of Austen sitting making caricatures of the bores of her world, but then I like the longing and repression of Emily Bronte's great work. It is about love, it's about the kind of love that burns, it's Cid and Nancy love, it's Othello and Desdemona love, hmm advocating the wrong book here, so many to chose from!.Back to Germinal it's political, well researched and honest,it's a turning point, a transition not only in writing style but how the world worked and it made changes happen, best kind of lit, that which provokes real change Oh and Zola can turn a neat phrase, not perhaps with the elegance of Flaubert or the wit of Austen(certainly not that! and who could possibly want to?:)but where is Henry James...Toni Morrison?? bah silly list oh pulp Dan Brown ftw gf, not his books the man himself for helping to fill the louvre with ejiots when you want to look at the pretty pictures.