The books listed include:
- Eucalyptus / Murray Bail
- Ulysses / James Joyce
- Cloudstreet / Tim Winton
- The Dice Man / Luke Rhineheart
- Catch 22 / Joseph Heller
- To The Lighthouse / Virginia Woolf
- The Slap / Christos Tsiolkas
- Twilight / Stephanie Meyer
- On The Road / Jack Kerouac
- The Metamorphosis / Franz Kafka
- Midnight's Children / Salman Rushdie
- Oscar & Lucinda / Peter Carey
- My Sister's Keeper / Jodi Picoult
- Sons and Lovers / D H Lawrence
- We Need To Talk About Kevin / Lionel Shriver
- 50 Shades of Grey / E L James
- Crime and Punishment / Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- Eat, Pray, Love / Elizabeth Gilbert
- Shantaram / Gregory David Roberts
- Tess of the D'Urbervilles / Thomas Hardy
- Charlie and The Great Glass Elevator / Roald Dahl
- Memoirs of a Geisha / Arthur Golden
- The Devil Wears Prada / Lauren Weisberger
- The Secret / Rhonda Byrne
- The Celestine Prophecy / James Redfield
There's a comment from Grant of Melbourne right at the end that
neatly sums up a lot about how I feel about this article....
I [am] so glad that we
have someone like this reviewing books who is clearly more intelligent than the
multitudes who have enjoyed these books or the people who as a group have
reviewed the books and deemed them worthy [of] recognition. Sorry Kerry but many of
us have progressed beyond the Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham, have laid
down the crayons from our colouring books and can follow stories that have
multiple threads, moral dilemma, convolutions or the other issues that seem to
plague you with these books. The reason that people enjoy them or that they are
deemed classics is that they reflect in many regards our lives. You inability
to connect to this either indicates a bland life or some other disconnection
with the world around you... rather sad either way,
Moving
on.
There
are various ways of looking at this list - one is to take the list at face
value and consider the merits (or not) of each title, another is to consider
the act of list making itself (after all who am I or anyone else to tell others what
to read and what not to? I honestly dislike lists that state "100 books to
read before you die", or "100 places to visit before you die",
and so on - seriously, a slow reading year for me is roughly 100 books, does this mean my death is imminent?).
I
guess the chief part of this article that I truly take umbrage to, before I
even get to the books listed are the words .... "I'd like to relieve you
of some literary pressure and reveal the titles life's just far too short to
waste time on". Since when is life too short to read whatever takes your fancy? Since when is life too short to read what has won an award? Since when is life too short to read outside your comfort zone and push the boundaries of what reading (and indeed writing) is?
I personally have no intention of reading beyond Twilight or 50 Shades of Grey - I've read both those titles and have no inclination to read the remainder of either series. Whilst I consider both books to have some literary flaws I also see great merit in both. I will continue to hold up 50 Shades as an example of writing that has got locale descriptions down perfectly - R L James certainly knows how to describe a room, what people look like, what they are wearing. The rest of the book didn't do a lot for me personally but I do recognise and accept the appeal to others. Aside from what I think, both books got people reading and the bottom line is that it's all about "bums on seats".
I have read Ulysses by James Joyce. It's not an easy read but I do believe it's worth it. Reading Ulysses forced me to reconsider the experience of reading and to be challenged to accept that a story can be told in oh so many ways - all within the one novel. I am also a serious fan of train-of-thought (as anyone who knows me well will attest) so the ending pages were an absolute delight where lack of punctuation fought hard against the flow of words - I loved it!
I personally cannot stand Thomas Hardy, but I put a lot of that down to a bad experience reading Tess of the D'Urbervilles during high school. Being forced to read a book and choosing to read one can really influence how you go on to feel about that book and this one is certainly a case in point. Here I was frustrated by the number of pages Hardy spent describing the heath yet leaving me simply with a feeling that it was low and a green-purplish colour.... But, I am an impatient reader - I want to know now what is happening and certainly as a 17 year old I had no patience at all for the casual meanderings that established the scenery. Now I see the cleverness, now I see the beauty in the prose, now I see the clever use of language, now I see that the pages were worth it .... I'm still an impatient reader but I'm a lot more forgiving these days.
I could discuss each and every title on this list but it will only and always be my own opinion, to which you are very welcome to disagree. There is no definitive list, there will never be any agreement. Disparity is as natural as agreement. I adore Shakespeare. I like dark vibrant colours. I prefer Fantasy fiction over World fiction. I am me. You are you. And to be blunt, thank goodness for that for if we were all the same it would be a jolly boring world we live in!
I remain however, vehemently opposed to anyone who tells me that I shouldn't waste my time on a particular book. After all, it's my time to do with as I please. Reading is a personal experience and one which should be respected. I don't think there can ever be a list which definitively gathers those books which are worthy of reading and those which are not. You need only look at any title listed on GoodReads to see the sheer variance in rating and opinion for each and every title there. And I for one think that the difference of opinion is what adds to the discussion and to the value of each reading experience.
Oh and by the way, I've only not read 6 out of the 25 books listed ...
