This is Peter Boxall's list of "1001 Books to Read Before You Die."  I was excited to find this on the internet yesterday and can't believe I didn't have it before, so I figured I'd share.  Some authors are severely overrepresented, and some of them are reading-for-reading's-sake (see i.e., Tristam Shandy, yech).  It's a good review of "English literature from the 1700's to 2005."  It does lack international diversity, but what can you do?  This list comes in a handy Excel spreadsheet format, so you can keep track of the number you've read.

johnandsheena.co.uk/books/

Doh.  I've read ten.  That's one percent.

Guess I'd better get reading.

The spreadsheet is really darn swell, too.

Darn! Couldn't open it since I don't have Excel.

Thanks for the link.  I've read 27, better get crackin.

http://portableapps.com/

If you don't have Excel, go to the link above and get OpenOffice for free.

I'm at about 10% ('course, if I could remember more of what I read in college, it might be higher...sigh...)  There's an interesting mix of books - many from the Pulitzer or the Booker prize, NY Times "100 best" , Radcliffe Publishing 100 best, Harvard Book Store top 100 favorites.  Too many darn lists...aargh!

28...if you count the Black Dahlia and The Story of O, which I started but hated and did not finish, and Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol that I read condensed versions of as a child. (I did read all of Great Expectations).

May favorites on that list were Contact, The Handmaid's Tale, and Tono Bungay - which I was suprised and very happy to see. It's one of H G Wells lesser known books, but really good.

Jessica,

Thanks so much for posting the spreadsheet link. I've been having fun with it & had not heard of this list before.

What a great idea! I'd never heard of a lot of them, but there were a lot on there that I've always meant to read, and never got around to. Now I have all the titles in one place - thanks!

19% - though if you asked me if I remembered a lot of those books, I'd have to say no! Being an English major contributed to that total!

alex

wow, that's really neat. i was surprised at how many books i've read. and i was surprised that trainspotting was on there. <3 that book. ^^

2.4% and only one of those books is on my WL or TBR list.  How sad :(

I've read 23.

I have this book as well!  It is definately not a "perfect" list, but I don't think such a thing exists anyway, and it certainly does have a lot of interesting things on there.  Now I have more things than every on my TBR pile!  Currently, I'm at 5%.  I hope to get a lot higher someday, although I'm not actually shooting to get to 100%!

I saw this list about 6 months ago and had read 5 or so.  I read a lot, but none of those books.  I am up to 10 now, which means I have a long way to go, but I have about 30 on my TBR pile.  This is a great way to get some culture.  I love to read books and see how many books from this list are mentioned.  I need to pick up the pace though, to keep up with the 18 books a year, I have to read.

Thanks for the link. There's a group at Goodreads attempting to read them all but I've never found the list until now, LOL!

I've read 20 and I have 23 on my bookshelves to be read, some day.