Man, I Can’t Die Anytime Soon

Just took a look at the list of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (an idea I got from In Apprehension, who in turn took the challenge from Bookslut). And all I can say is damn. At this rate, I sure as hell can’t afford to die anytime soon.

But what the hell — I’m more the movie type anyway. Now, 1001 Movies...? There I think I’ll concentrate my efforts (and I may post a follow-up on that soon).

So here are the ones I’ve read — and remember enough about to be sure. So high school English class readings may or may not count; there are a lot on the list I know I read, but didn’t retain enough to really consider them a part of my mental library (not that I can recount every detail of these, but at least they’re over my admittedly arbitrary line for inclusion).

1. Foucault’s Pendulum, by Umberto Eco
2. The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul, by Douglas Adams
3. Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, by Douglas Adams
4. Watchmen, by Alan Moore and David Gibbons
5. The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco
6. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
7. The Shining, by Stephen King
8. Interview With the Vampire, by Anne Rice
9. The Godfather, by Mario Puzo
10. 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke
11. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
12. The Once and Future King, by T.H. White
13. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
14. Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
15. Casino Royale, by Ian Fleming
16. The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway
17. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
18. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov
19. Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell
20. Animal Farm, by George Orwell
21. The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
22. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
23. The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien
24. The Thin Man, by Dashiell Hammett
25. The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett
26. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
27. Tarzan of the Apes, by Edgar Rice Burroughs
28. The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
29. The War of the Worlds, by H.G. Wells
30. Dracula, by Bram Stoker
31. The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells
32. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
33. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
34. War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy
35. Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens
36. Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville
37. The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas
38. A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens
39. The Fall of the House of Usher, by Edgar Allan Poe
40. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, by Victor Hugo
41. Last of the Mohicans, by James Fenimore Cooper
42. Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
43. Candide, by Voltaire
44. Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
45. Aesop’s Fables, by Aesopus

Man, just 45? At the very least, I’m going to have to go back and reread some of those classics that have evaporated from my recollection.

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