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Monday 15 July 2013

Bibliophile Challenge: 1

So the challenge begins! I've looked at the list of 1000 books that everyone should read by everyone's favourite lefty rag and I have only read the following:

Categories are: Comedy; CrimeFamily & Self; Love; Science Fiction; State of the Nation; and War & Travel

  1. Lucky Jim by Martin Amis
  2. Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes
  3. Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm
  4. Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding
  5. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
  6. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon
  7. Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
  8. The Thirty Nine Steps by John Buchan
  9. A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle
  10. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
  11. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
  12. Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood
  13. Les Enfants Terrible by Jean Cocteau
  14. The Bell Jar by Silvia Plath
  15. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend
  16. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
  17. Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
  18. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (current)
  19. Persuasion by Jane Austen
  20. Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote
  21. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  22. Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
  23. Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer
  24. The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford
  25. Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
  26. Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan 
  27. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
  28. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
  29. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
  30. The Master & Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
  31. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
  32. The Man who was Thursday by G K Chesterton
  33. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
  34. The Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
  35. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J K Rowling
  36. The Hobbit by J R R Tolkein
  37. The Lord of The Rings Trilogy by J R R Tolkein (I feel like I've been mugged of two extra here)
  38. The Time Machine by H G Wells
  39. When the Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs
  40. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
  41. Cold Mountain by Charles Fraser
It's pretty easy to see where my prejudices lie: feelings, farce and fantasy. I've not read a single State of the Nation selection. Although in my defence I have read 3/4 of Vanity Fair as a thirteen year old but that book is a beast of a doorstop. 

If my readings were to be the pillars of the English Language then I lack the columns to uphold the structure. There are a few books like Brideshead Revisted which I love and yet aren't featured. Props to the British education system though, as five of those were forced upon me at some point, in varying states of willingness.

So in short, 41 down 959 to go. 

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