50 Greatest books of all time.

My choice would be Peter Pan. Fantastic!

This list is a load of tosh. It is a reading list for the summer for someone about to go to university to read English, not the books that you pick up and become engrossed in.

I read some Chaucer and Milton when i was doing A level English. I would not otherwise have read then, nor any of the others on the Pre 17th century list. It is not clear whether these are meant be 50 greatest books in the world or in English - in which case why is the Iliad and several other books written in a foreign language included, and if it is world books, where are the great books of France, Germany or Russia on the list.

These books are also a matter of opinion. I am among quite a large group of people who think Wuthering Heights is far from being great literature, is only ever listed because a Bronte wrote it, and it is otherwise a very silly book.

These books are also just a cruise through books by well known writers, chosen by well known readers who want to show off by displaying their erudition.

I'll carry on reading what I enjoy, life's too short to wade through books because they are worthy.

My choice is The Water Babies, by Charles Kingsley, GrandmaT2010, which is allegorical and enjoyable too.

On the Telegraph list. 20 books and a half for Ulysses….I gave up on that.
My all time favourite is Jane Eyre.

Casdon

It’s very subjective I think- I don’t think that ten of the top fifty books of all time can have been written since 2000, that doesn’t make sense.

It was the point I was trying to make about the misleading title as if it’s a definitive list of must reads but it’s simply Kerridge’s choice of ten works from each of five time periods (and which combines 17C & 18C).

I think it’s a conversation piece more than anything else. Kerridge says ...

With the 21st century, the challenge was to identify the classics of the future … and

The fundamental criterion [for all the selected works] was that they’ve all made me think something, or feel something, or laugh at something, in a way that no other books have.

... so it’s very personal

There are some rather good books in his ten from the 21C.

I haven’t read the graphic novel Persopolis but the animated film version is very good.

Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, about the death of her husband was very moving. It was published not so very long before my own husband died. It helped to know I wasn’t the only one worried by the sometimes illogical way I was thinking and feeling. A year later I went to the see Vanessa Redgrave star in David Hare’s theatre adaptation.

It’s quite an international list. I enjoyed the titles by Olga Tokarczuk, Hisham Matar and Sarah Bernstein as well as the better known McCarthy, Everett and Mantel’s marvellous Wolf Hall.

Anyone looking for a very quirky read, one of Kerridge’s choices from the 20C The Hearing Trumpet by artist Leonora Carrington is … unusual. There’s an audio version read by the actor Sian Phillips.

I saw a Q&A with Maya Angelou once in which a young girl called her Maya and she was horrible to her because of it .

Just been listening to the Book Club podcast which features My Brilliant Friend. Decided to not listen to all of it because of spoilers; must admit that I’d never heard of it. They said that the author has chosen to remain anonymous and there is a lot of speculation about their identity. Book Club is one of my current favourite podcasts having somewhat taken over from Backlisted which is no longer producing new podcasts.

There are four books in the series, Maybee, made into four TV series, all exceptionally good imo.

Available on several streaming services. The least expensive is NOW for £4.99 a month.

Oh my- Ulysses. I had to read it as part of my degree and it was tedious and I wouldn’t put it up there with the greats. More that it was different with the stream of consciousness techniques.

I appreciate the list is subjective, the list was the inspiration for the thread, the questions are would you consider yourself well read and what book would you want to be added to the list.

Agree with others such lists are a bit subjective, I tend to check lists on waterstones etc to make my tbr even bigger. On my list of great books would be A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry its not a new book over 30 years old but has a an Indian Dickensian type atmosphere.

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There are four books in the series, Maybee, made into four TV series, all exceptionally good imo.

Available on several streaming services. The least expensive is NOW for £4.99 a month.

Thanks. I didn’t know about it. It’s on dvd too so I’ll get the first series to start off with. I’m afraid tv series have made me far too lazy to read books these days, even though I still buy them!

"I read some Chaucer and Milton when i was doing A level English."

I had to read some Chaucer and lso other books which I might never have looked at if left to choose. Chaucer was in fact interesting but I'd never have chosen any for enjoyment.

One English lecturer used to throw out a line from a book which he thought we probably had not read and expand on the story. Some of the results could be quite amusing.

nanna8

Oh my- Ulysses. I had to read it as part of my degree and it was tedious and I wouldn’t put it up there with the greats. More that it was different with the stream of consciousness techniques.

I made the mistake of going to see the film with a friend. 😴 We went to the pub afterwards, much better.

Midnights Children, The Satanic Verses. Both by Rushdie, Alice in Wonderland. The Road by Cormac McCarthy, The Life of Pi, Gravity’s Rainbow, Jane Eyre, Consider Phlebas.

JenniRen

nanna8

Oh my- Ulysses. I had to read it as part of my degree and it was tedious and I wouldn’t put it up there with the greats. More that it was different with the stream of consciousness techniques.

I made the mistake of going to see the film with a friend. 😴 We went to the pub afterwards, much better.

Yup - you could even have a Guinness!

Jonathan Seagull

I am working through the classics - free downloads on Amazon!
Not keen on lists of recommendations by reviewers and choices for book awards as nowadays it seems to be fashionable to go for bizarre writing styles or controversial content such as Ulysses. An exception was the excellent The White Hotel by D M Thomas which was a Booker prize contender years ago. It lost against Midnights Children by Salman Rushdie - I gather for reasons not connected with merit, which rather confirms my reservations!

M0nica

This list is a load of tosh. It is a reading list for the summer for someone about to go to university to read English, not the books that you pick up and become engrossed in.

I read some Chaucer and Milton when i was doing A level English. I would not otherwise have read then, nor any of the others on the Pre 17th century list. It is not clear whether these are meant be 50 greatest books in the world or in English - in which case why is the Iliad and several other books written in a foreign language included, and if it is world books, where are the great books of France, Germany or Russia on the list.

These books are also a matter of opinion. I am among quite a large group of people who think Wuthering Heights is far from being great literature, is only ever listed because a Bronte wrote it, and it is otherwise a very silly book.

These books are also just a cruise through books by well known writers, chosen by well known readers who want to show off by displaying their erudition.

Wow, so you have totally dissed 50 books!

“Wuthering Heights is a silly book” I think there are millions of people that would disagree with that statement.

I am assuming you have read the 50 listed books to be able to write them all off.

I am chuffed though that having read The Great Gatsby at 15 I am”erudite”

Surely the description "greatest" depends on one's definition of "greatest"? The Canterbury Tales and Wuthering Heights are both considered to be milestones in British literature because of how they were written. The Great Gatsby is considered to be a milestone in modern American literature. IMO the books on this list are there for reasons that have little to do with whether people enjoy reading them but because they mark a significant change or development in writing and that's what make them "great".

I’ve read quite a few, but such lists are very personal.
Also, the books are what people think they ought to have read, not actually read.

50 books is nothing in the grander scheme of things.
I have seven book-shelves with about a hundred books per shelf, and another ten shelves of around two hundred books per shelf.

I have no idea how many books I have read in the Universty library whilst studying, or borrowed from an ordinary library in the course of the seventy- odd years since I learned to read, Nor do I remember how many of my parents' books I have ever read, or how many I gave away after their deaths.

And I do not consider myself particularly well-read.

I am sure many of you have as many books as I do.

And I too feel that this kind of list is complied by a person who read English at university or teaching college, or sits in a ministry and therefore feels we ALL should have read the same books.

I could not access the list, but where there only books in English on it?

Many of us read books in other languages as well.

To my amazement I have read 9 of the 50 but have to say some of them were set texts for A Level or an English option at Uni. I enjoy reading (I was a librarian) but it's not a major part of my leisure time. One of my problems is that I speed read because of having to keep up with new childrens' literature when I was working. I would read maybe 2 or 3 books over a weekend. I can't get out of the habit of reading very quickly! It's not always relaxing.

I'm proud to say I made it all the way through Ulysses (more out of determination than anything else, mind).

I haven't checked the list but it's so objective. Who has the right to say which are the greatest books? Surely it depends on what anybody enjoys and thank goodness we don't all agree.