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73 of 74 people found the following review helpful:
Reader's Treasure Chest, 31 Aug 2006
As a biblioholic this was guaranteed to have me slavering with anticipation: a book about the 1001 best(?) books ever, with each one receiving a eulogy of around 300 words. It's quite a hefty tome: a bookshelf-bending 2kg in fact, nearly half of which must be due to all the photographs. Someone even managed to find a snap of JD Salinger - extra kudos for that.
Inevitably everyone will quibble about the selection, so why should I be any different? The omission of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers is an unforgivable oversight. Other surprise absentees include Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess and anyone called Bradbury (there is no sign of The History Man, or Fahrenheit 451). And it's probably best not to mention Watership Down or Terry Pratchett - I don't envy the publishers having to deal with all those irate fans.
Maybe they were collateral damage in an editorial decision to avoid "children's" books - something which enabled them to sidestep Harry Potter, but also resulted in there being no place for Louis Sachar's Holes, or anything by Philip Pullman, Malorie Blackman or even Roald Dahl. (Is there a 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up in the pipeline I wonder? If so, can I be a compiler please?)
Such omissions are made harder to understand by the presence of quite a few insubstantial novels from recent years, and some of the choices make no sense at all. For example: two books by Paulo Coelho have been included, neither of which is The Alchemist; while BS Johnson is represented by three books, none of which is his legendary book-in-a-box (The Unfortunates). There is also a page where Youth by JM Coetzee sits next to Dead Air by Iain Banks, despite much stronger novels by both authors being absent. (I would have certainly included Coetzee's Age of Iron.)
The compiler also shows a treacherous predilection for the cinema: too many books seem to have been chosen because they spawned classic films. The Graduate and The Postman Always Rings Twice spring to mind. So The Third Man is here, but not Our Man In Havana; while Arthur C. Clarke is represented by the novelisation of 2001: A Space Odyssey rather than Childhood's End (or Rendezvous With Rama, or The Fountains of Paradise). Cassell also publish 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, but somehow I doubt the compiler of that book has chosen any mediocre films of great novels.
One more minor quibble: the title index at the front and the author index at the back are both riddled with errors and omissions, which seems sloppy. Despite all that it is a wonderful compendium to dip into over and over again - but beware: you will end up with lots more of books to add to your must-read list.
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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
1 Book You Must Read Before You Die, 14 Mar 2006
Even if you're not counting on dying any time soon, you should get reading immediately if you hope to get through every book included in this bibliophile's companion. Luckily though, you don't have to actually read all those classic and influential novels, because this superb reference book provides enough information in itself to give the reader an excellent literary overview. With this single volume, you can avoid feeling that you've read so much that dying might be a merciful release from all that goddamned literature; instead, each pleasantly brief entry provides enough to grasp the essence of the book in question, and allows the reader to decide if they want to read the novel itself. The little fact boxes reveal some interesting kernals of trivia too - for example, Anne Rice was christened Howard. And OK, there are a few mistakes in the index, but frankly that does little to mar an excellent, fascinating and useful book.
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57 of 59 people found the following review helpful:
19 and a quarter years, and then some, 21 May 2006
This is a splendid and much needed guide - the beautiful illustrations are worth the price. It should be stacked on your shelf next to "The Rough Guide to Cult Fiction" and "The salon.com Reader's Guide to Contemporary Authors" which are also recommended and which take completely different approaches. "1001 Books" presents you with The Really Great Stuff . Which is where the fun starts - this is a book all readers will want to argue passionately with. Almost at the same time as I'm finding authors I'd never heard of and making "must buy" lists, I'm shouting at the editors - "what's this? You've got three in here by Douglas Adams, and NONE by Roddy Doyle? What's all that about??" I mean, Douglas Adams is good for one, but not three... And if Douglas Adams, then Garrison Keillor...
Each book gets about 300 words which editor Peter Boxall describes like this : "What each entry does is to respond, with the cramped urgency of a deathbed confession, to what makes each novel compelling, to what it is about each novel that makes one absolutely need to read it." 1001 books - it's a lot. If you had the time and money to read every one at a rate of one per week, you'd need 19 and a quarter years, so you better get going. But seriously, you aren't going to do that. The pre-1700 section, in particular, is strictly for students of literature - I stick my neck out and say that very few will be reading "Euphues : The Anatomy of Wit" by John Lyly or "Aithiopika" by Heliodorus for fun. And then the dogged reader will be coming up against the rarely-scaled Everests of literature such as Dorothy Richardson's "Pilgrimage" (13 vols, thousands of pages) or Proust (likewise) or "Infinite Jest" (one volume, 1100 pages). Each of which are going to take you 6 months solid.
Odd things abound in this mighty guide. "Like Life" by Lorrie Moore is included - a collection of short stories, not a novel. So okay - why no Raymond Carver, America's greatest short story writer? And sometimes it's hard to see that the reviewer even likes the book in question - "The Secret History" is described as "quality trash for highbrows"! Or take this: "As with his other writing `The Book of Laughter and Forgetting' raises questions about the representation of female characters, and invites accusations of latent misogyny. These are valid objections that may engender fruitful considerations of this novel as a historical document as much as a work of experimental fiction." Well, that's hardly an enthusiastic endorsement. (And while on the subject of misogyny, I'm sad to see the loathsome `American Psycho' in here - the reviewer (and editor) has fallen for the old "it's ironic, it's not actually a book that revels in descriptions of butchering women" line. It may be ironic, but I'm sorry to say that Mr Ellis does, in fact, revel in vile descriptions of butchering women. So it is - extremely - misogynistic.)
Some authors are wildly over-represented, such as J M Coatzee, Ian McEwan and Paul Auster, all of which have more titles in here than Henry James. It's interesting to check if the Booker Prizewinners are included - 20 are out of 37 and there are some strange omissions - no room for "Vernon God Little" or "The True History of the Kelly Gang", "Sacred Hunger" (nothing at all by Barry Unsworth in fact - what's wrong with him?), "The Famished Road" or "Hotel du Lac".
So you can see this is a guide with enough in it to annoy everyone - tremendous fun for everyone, but particularly those who have just been sentenced to a long stretch of solitary confinement.
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
A great book for dipping into......., 31 May 2007
This is a great book for "dipping into" rather than reading from start to finish. One of the members of the reading group I belong to brought it along to one of our meetings and I knew I had to buy my own copy. Like many people I had to do a count of how many of the 1001 books I had actually read - it was about 140. So I have a long way to go......
However I don't think the purpose of the book is to spur us on to competitive reading or to demoralise us if we haven't read a lot of the books selected. What this book is great for is to alert you to works you may want to read at some time in the future but have simply never got around to - such as To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf or The Idiot by Dostoevsky (both sitting on my bookshelves gathering dust).
It is also a good reminder of some books read long ago - The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell, Germinal by Zola and The Razor's Edge by WS Maugham.
Obviously any list of this type is contentious and we all bring our own prejudices to such a venture. (No William Boyd? Shame on you! Six Margaret Attwoods....hooray)
And it is beautifully illustrated throughout with pictures of writers and original book covers.
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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
19 and one quarter years, and then some, 27 May 2006
This is a splendid and much needed guide - the beautiful illustrations are worth the price. It should be stacked on your shelf next to "The Rough Guide to Cult Fiction" and "The salon.com Reader's Guide to Contemporary Authors" which are also recommended and which take completely different approaches. "1001 Books" presents you with The Really Great Stuff . Which is where the fun starts - this is a book all readers will want to argue passionately with. Almost at the same time as I'm finding authors I'd never heard of and making "must buy" lists, I'm shouting at the editors - "what's this? You've got three in here by Douglas Adams, and NONE by Roddy Doyle? What's all that about??" I mean, Douglas Adams is good for one, but not three... And if Douglas Adams, then Garrison Keillor...
Each book gets about 300 words which editor Peter Boxall describes like this : "What each entry does is to respond, with the cramped urgency of a deathbed confession, to what makes each novel compelling, to what it is about each novel that makes one absolutely need to read it." 1001 books - it's a lot. If you had the time and money to read every one at a rate of one per week, you'd need 19 and a quarter years, so you better get going. But seriously, you aren't going to do that. The pre-1700 section, in particular, is strictly for students of literature - I stick my neck out and say that very few will be reading "Euphues : The Anatomy of Wit" by John Lyly or "Aithiopika" by Heliodorus for fun. And then the dogged reader will be coming up against the rarely-scaled Everests of literature such as Dorothy Richardson's "Pilgrimage" (13 vols, thousands of pages) or Proust (likewise) or "Infinite Jest" (one volume, 1100 pages). Each of which are going to take you 6 months solid.
Odd things abound in this mighty guide. "Like Life" by Lorrie Moore is included - a collection of short stories, not a novel. So okay - why no Raymond Carver, America's greatest short story writer? And sometimes it's hard to see that the reviewer even likes the book in question - "The Secret History" is described as "quality trash for highbrows"! Or take this: "As with his other writing `The Book of Laughter and Forgetting' raises questions about the representation of female characters, and invites accusations of latent misogyny. These are valid objections that may engender fruitful considerations of this novel as a historical document as much as a work of experimental fiction." Well, that's hardly an enthusiastic endorsement. (And while on the subject of misogyny, I'm sad to see the loathsome `American Psycho' in here - the reviewer (and editor) has fallen for the old "it's ironic, it's not actually a book that revels in descriptions of butchering women" line. It may be ironic, but I'm sorry to say that Mr Ellis does, in fact, revel in vile descriptions of butchering women. So it is - extremely - misogynistic.)
Some authors are wildly over-represented, such as J M Coatzee, Ian McEwan and Paul Auster, all of which have more titles in here than Henry James. It's interesting to check if the Booker Prizewinners are included - 20 are out of 37 and there are some strange omissions - no room for "Vernon God Little" or "The True History of the Kelly Gang", "Sacred Hunger" (nothing at all by Barry Unsworth in fact - what's wrong with him?), "The Famished Road" or "Hotel du Lac".
So you can see this is a guide with enough in it to annoy everyone - tremendous fun for everyone, but particularly those who have just been sentenced to a long stretch of solitary confinement.
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45 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
A Bibliophile's dream - or nightmare depending on how you view it..., 16 May 2006
I did a very naughty thing today. In fact I'm still hiding the evidence from my husband. I bought a book. Not any old book. An expensive "do I really need another?" book, aptly named "1001 books you must read before you die" - Preface by Peter Ackroyd, and general editing by Peter Boxall. Advertised as a comprehensive reference source, chronicling the history of the novel and it's an absolute beauty.
For a smallish book it's thick, weighing the equivalent to two, or three 1lb bags of sugar. (I don't know, I'm useless at things like that - they either heavy or they're not!) By the way, as it's so weighty it's definitely not for reading in bed when you are sleepy, unless you want to knock yourself out for a week!
Not only does it look good with a cover designed (in primary colours) by David Pelham for A Clockwork Orange, written by Anthony Burgess (1972), it's smooth, shiny and smells good, too!
I plan to go through the book and read every single novel the two Peter's recommend, and share my findings on my website. Starting from Aesop's Fables, (4BCE), which I own and have never read - to Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro (2005) that I admit to avoiding when it first came out because it sounded too pepped up by those wealthy critics I love to hate.
It's going to cost a fortune if I can't these recommended books in any of my local libraries, however, I'm a bibliophilist and it's the price I'm (almost) willing to pay! Anyway, I'm a reviewer. It's my job!
From what I have read so far, this is worth every penny.I'm not bothered if I do or don't agree with the two Pete's findings - it will be fun testing each and every book out.
This book alone gives a bibliophile a sense of direction, a new chance to discover critically acclaimed masterpieces, cult classics, and an introduction to some contemporary fiction titles that may have passed you by.
Featuring over 600 full-colour images of books covers and frontispieces, posters and other contextual images, this is a dream come true for me. It also supplies you with quotes from authors and their novels, which makes this even more of delight to read, considering this is a reference book. I gave this book five stars because just the thought of it gets me excited!
Incidentally, as I rushed out of the shop with my book clutched tightly to my chest, scanning the car park for my car (wishing I'd taken more notice where I parked), I couldn't help but wonder how ironic it would be if I died in a car crash on the way home, and they discovered this book "1001 books you must read before you die" in the boot of my car...
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37 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
Invaluable reference book but too many mistakes, 13 Feb 2006
I bought this book because I love novels and was interested to see how many of the 1001 covered here I'd read (about a tenth!) and it certainly is very aborsbing with lots of photos, critiques and data.I don't so much like the idea of anyone telling me what books I MUST read, but I suppose that is just the marketing they used to make people buy the book. A big quibble is that it doesn't seem to have been proof read or checked very thoroughly. After just a few hours of reading, I've come across several errors, spelling mistakes and omissions that makes one wonder how on earth it ever got to publication without someone noticing. Still, it will keep me, and anyone else interested in reading, entertained for quite a long time.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
There are some odd omissions in this compilation, 6 Aug 2007
The book lists several titles by Saul Bellow, but none by that marvellous (and Nobel prize-winning) writer Isaac Bashevis Singer. There is nothing by William Boyd. There is a general shortage of modern fiction in translation: Peter Hoeg's Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow is included, though the plot falls apart in the second half of the book, but there is nothing by Kerstin Ekman, whose literary thrillers Under The Snow and Blackwater are far better.
Also absent are the Nobel prizewinners Orhan Pamuk and Naguib Mahfouz. And Shiva Naipaul. And Bill Bryson.
I daresay I'll think of many other absentees in the next days and weeks ...
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18 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
A guide for the undecided, 11 April 2006
This book should not be seen as the definitive list of all the novels you MUST read but rather as a suggested reading list. Although the authors' credentials are certainly better than mine there are inclusions and omissions that I would disagree with (only one Stephen King book!) and I will continue to make my own choices.
However if, like me, you want to include some of the best books written over the last three hundred years in your reading experience but can never quite make up your mind when your browsing Amazon or your local book store then this could be the book for you. I certainly don't intend to read every book featured in 1001... but it will help me to decide what to spend my valuable reading time on and that's good enough for me.
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8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
Caution: unputdownable, 18 Jul 2007
Any book that encourages reading has got to be a good thing. Whilst generally not a fan of titles that try tell me how to spend my time before I croak - this actually covers a vast amount of literature that surely will enrich any life - even if you only tackle a small number of the offerings recommended here.
Like anything of this sort, such a list is always going to provoke reactions about what was included, and what was left out. There's a good mix here - something for everyone - and popular titles get a look in too, which is great. I doubt I would have read "The Shining" without the recommendation of this book - but I'm now glad I did.
This chunky, well-illustrated book of literary signposting should be on every book-lovers shelf I think. An ideal present for anyone who loves reading.
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