I recently purchased the book, 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, ed. Peter Boxall. I have some thoughts on it, and I'm planning on writing a series of posts related to it. (We'll see if this plan pans out any better than my previous blog attempts).

With a BA, MA, and PhD in English as well as teaching college English for more than 25 years, I think I have read far more than the average person. Still, to the best of my memory, I've 0nly read 117 of those included. (There were several I was unsure if I had read a long time ago or if I had merely learned about, started but didn't finish, or saw the movie of the book. I didn't include these in the count, so it might be slightly higher).

While I found the list interesting, I can say I completely agree that these are the 1001 books that everyone really should read. First, there are the books that I think don't deserve a place in the book. It included that I have either read or started that I believe aren't worth the time of almost anyone to read. There were only three books assigned during my many long years receiving my degree that I didn't finish during the semester they were assigned: Great Expectations, Moby Dick, and Ulysses. I finished Great Expectations later, but have never and will never finish Moby Dick and Ulysses. All three of these are included in the book, and I don't believe anyone need bother reading any of them. I think Charles Dickens is way overrated, and not only is Great Expectations in the book, but ten other works by Dickens are also included. No one needs to read this much Dickens unless you happen for reasons I can't comprehend, you really like Dickens. Maybe one Dickens at most, and Great Expectations would certainly not be the one I'd choose.

I was assigned Moby Dick twice and tried to read it. While reading the first about 150 pages, I wondered why so many people complained about the book. It didn't seem that bad to me. As I continued reading, it became unbearably tedious and I understood the complaints. I ended up stopping about 1/3 of the way through the book, and I won't waste the limited time I have left in life finishing it. Billy Bud is also in there, and I think that's plenty of Melville for anyone.

Ulysses is simply intellectual masturbation. It is Joyce trying to prove he's smarter and more clever than anyone else. Finnegan's Wake, which is also in the book, is even worse. I would recommend to anyone to read either of these. The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is better, but the Joyce book I'd recommend is Dubliners, and it isn't even included in the book.

While the above isn't a comprehensive list of the books I wouldn't include and I will likely expand on it in later posts, there are some glaring admissions. The most glaring of these on first look through is Willa Cather. Only one of her books, The Professor's House, is included. Including eleven books by Dickens and only one by Cather seems strikes me as bias. To make matters worse, The Professor's House is far from Cather's best novel and happens to be the only one, to my recollection, with a male protagonist, which causes me to question if some (possibly unconscious) misogyny is behind the choice. To include The Professor's House and not My Antonia is incomprehensible. I know I'm prejudiced because Cather was one of the authors I focused on in my dissertation, but My Antonia absolutely deserves to be in this book far, far more than many of the others included. It's exclusion is criminal. If I were choosing, a couple others by Cather would likely make the list, but The Professor's House isn't one of them.

I will also probably include more admission in future posts as well.

I'm going to pick other books included, read them, and comment on them in future posts. My first choice is The Golden Ass by Lucius Apuleius, a Roman novel written in approximately 260 CE. I'll let you know how it goes, or at least I intend to.

What are your thoughts of any of the above books? What would you included if the choose were yours? I'd love to hear your answers.