...
I am definitely behind schedule.

Most likely closer to a pine box than to my high school locker, I fear I should have started quite some time ago ( years, decades ago..! ) if I really were to complete the Sisyphean task thrust upon me by 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.

Some of the novels (not really 'books') presented here I have already completed. Others I have sampled bits and pieces, snippets of the words and the tales: Robinson Crusoe by DeFoe. Swift's Gulliver's Travels. Candide by . . .you know! Frankenstein. The Pit and the Pendulum. And many more.

Others run together with other memories: 'Have I read 'the War of the Worlds'..? Or am I simply remembering a film adaptation..?'

Still others have teased me but never drawn me in: Rabbit, Run by Updike. Gone With the Wind by Mitchell. The Human Stain by Roth.

And there are many, many more that I have never heard of before. Even as an avid reader of book reviews on this site, there are many titles and authors that draw a blank.


Despite that 'ignorance' on my part, 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die can not hope to be a comprehensive and complete list. Even the length and form of 'the novel' is up for debate: what is a short story, what a novella, what a novel..?? The ultimate arbiter of what is in and what is out is General Editor Peter Boxall, a senior lecturer in English Literature at the University of Sussex.


Arranged in chronological order from Aesop's Fables to Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, each entry is a short summary of the novel, its time, its importance. Editor Boxall credits a contributor with coining the phrase a "micro-event" to convey what each mini-review might be. "A minituarized but complete reading experience that contains within it something of the boundlessness of the novel." With each review averaging but 300 words these are indeed 'lean-n-mean' impressions of the value of each selection.


Over a hundred individuals contributed reviews to this book. "Critics, academics, novelists, poets, literary journalists." Each entry is more, yet less, than a full critique, or an attempt to capture the 'taste' of the piece, or "...even a canned plot synopsis." Each of the 1001 entries instead seeks to deliver, ". . .with the cramped urgency of a deathbed confession, what makes each novel compelling, what it is about each novel that makes one absolutely need to read it."


With one to four novels per two page spread, some get a bit more explanation than others. Throughout the book are colorful illustrations of book covers, author portraits, movie posters (from the films of many books), and illustrations from the books. These all serve to make this book a visual treat as well as a 'thinking treat'.


Almost without fail, every two, three, or four paragraph 'micro-event' review captures the spirit of the novel. Checking many of the novels that I have read from this 'must read' list, I found the reviews really brought back the memory of the book, fanning my buried and smoldering memories of a character, a setting, a story, an author's 'voice'. If it delivers that tightly on the works I have read I can only believe that the reviews of those I have not read will be just as spot on.



The Bottom Line
I must admit that I will never finish many of these '1001 must read' novels. But I hope that by dipping repeatedly into this collection I might begin to get a taste of the great diversity of the novel form and its amazing journey that continues two thousand years later. Perhaps one of the titles, author names, illustrations, or reviews in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die might prompt me to pick up one of these stories in the future.

In the meantime I will have absorbed a sense of many of these novels and the stories they tell simply by reading the many excellent reviews found in this book.



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Certified 'Lean-n-mean' review.


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Other 'reading, 'riting, and arithmetic reviews' by sleeper54


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"Just the facts, ma'am"

Title: 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die
General Editor: Peter Boxall
Publisher: Universe
Copyright: 2006 Quintet Publishing Limited
Pages: 960
ISBN #: 0789313706
Ages recommended: teen through adult

 

Recommended: Yes