“Ten Books to Read Before You Die” – I think not
July 13, 2009
A Harris poll asked 2,413 US Adults to name their favorite book. Apparently these are the “Ten Books to Read Before You Die“.
- The Bible
- Gone With The Wind
- Lord of the Rings
- Harry Potter
- The Stand
- The Da Vinci Code
- Kill a Mockingbird
- Angels & Demons
- Atlas Shrugged
- Catcher in the Rye
While I have read four of these (1,3,5,6), I would never have described them as my favorites or even as a “book to read before you die”. Indeed, I am under no rush to read the rest.
No non-fiction. No “classics” (Sophocles, Dante, anyone?). Two Dan Brown works. And Ayn Rand. We’re doomed, I tell ya, doomed.
What would your “Three books to read before you die” be?
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Fiction:
1=Zorba the Greek
2=Tom Jones
3=Don Quixote
Non-fiction:
1=On the Origin of Species
2=Darwin’s Dangerous Idea
3=Montaigne’s Essays
Fiction:
1. Count of Monte Cristo – Unabridged
2. Slaughterhouse Five
3. Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide
Non
1. Origin of Species
2. Freakonomics
3. Maus
With the element of arbitrariness that comes in choosing just 3 books…
Fiction:
-The Hunchback of Notre Dame (the real unabridged version)
-Lolita
-Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide (Kenny, I was also heavily considering Count of Monte Cristo!)
Non Fiction:
-The Selfish Gene
-Malcolm X’s Autobiography
-The Blank Slate
catch 22
slaughterhouse 5
kavalier & clay
Only 1 so far that I think would qualify for ‘read before you die’ status.
1) Beyond Good and Evil – Friedrich Nietzsche
I have a large number of other, favorite, much-loved books. They don’t quite cut it.
Actually, I’ll amend that.
1) Beyond Good and Evil – Friedrich Nietzsche
2) Apology – Plato
Still can’t think of a third, though.
I would’ve loved to get my hands on Gorgias’ On Nature or the Non-Existent.
A Brief History of Time Stephen Hawkings
Ludwig von Wolfgang Vulture Dolph Sharp
Those are the two I recommend you read before you die.
Ok, I’m going to break with tradition and offer books you should read before you die… once you’ve read all those other classics.
Fiction:
1. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver
2. Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges
3. House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski
Non:
1. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn
2. The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker
3. On the Genealogy of Morality by Nietzsche
three books?
Damn, only three ?
I have been thinking ecologically lately…
A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold
Turtle Island by Gary Snyder
Who hasn’t read Catcher in the Rye!? I thought that was a national requirement to pass the 10th grade…
And really, Dan Brown wouldn’t have made this list if they asked responders how many books they’ve read in their life, and thrown out everyone who said under 10.
What an absurd list! I’ve only read 1, 7, and 10, and have no intention at all of reading the others. Could have done without 1, too.
I don’t know if I could make a list of just three books. Maybe if I divvied it up by category:
Philosophy:
Plato’s Republic
Hume’s Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil
Science:
Darwin’s Origin of Species
Einstein’s Relativity: The Special and General Theories
Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Fiction:
Cervantes’ Don Quixote
Twain’s Huckleberry Finn
Tolstoy’s War and Peace
Poetry:
Dante’s Divine Comedy
Milton’s Paradise Lost
Whitman’s Leaves of Grass
Drama/Stage:
Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus
Shakespeare’s MacBeth
Aristophanes’ The Clouds
History:
Thucydides’ Pelopennesian War
Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Sarton’s History of Science
Short fiction collections:
Kafka’s complete works
Poe’s complete works
Faulkner’s Go Down Moses
Political writings:
The US constitution and the Federalist Papers
Hobbes’ Leviathon
Rawl’s Law of Peoples
Religious writings:
Augustine’s Confessions
Hume’s Dialogue Concerning Natural Religion
The Upanishads
Still, looking at each of these lists, they seem woefully incomplete. So my ultimate conclusion is: You need to read a LOT more than three books before you die.