Sanddancer's 1001 List

I've read just over 100 books in the list, but considering I'm in my 30s and have a degree in English Literature, this seems a pretty poor total.

This is taken from the first version of the book.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Mark Haddon
Everything is Illuminated Jonathan Safran Foer
Dead Air Iain Banks
Atonement Ian McEwan
Life of Pi Yann Martel
Ignorance Milan Kundera
How the Dead Live Will Self
Intimacy Hanif Kureishi
Amsterdam Ian McEwan
The Talk of the Town Ardal O’Hanlon
The God of Small Things Arundhati Roy
Enduring Love Ian McEwan
Cocaine Nights J.G. Ballard
Morvern Callar Alan Warner
The Shipping News E. Annie Proulx
Trainspotting Irvine Welsh
Complicity Iain Banks
What a Carve Up! Jonathan Coe
The Virgin Suicides Jeffrey Eugenides
The Crow Road Iain Banks
Black Dogs Ian McEwan
American Psycho Bret Easton Ellis
Time’s Arrow Martin Amis
The Buddha of Suburbia Hanif Kureishi
A Prayer for Owen Meany John Irving
London Fields Martin Amis
Oscar and Lucinda Peter Carey
The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul Douglas Adams
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency Douglas Adams
The Child in Time Ian McEwan
The New York Trilogy Paul Auster
Beloved Toni Morrison
Less Than Zero Bret Easton Ellis
Perfume Patrick Süskind
White Noise Don DeLillo
The Wasp Factory Iain Banks
The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera
Money: A Suicide Note Martin Amis
The Comfort of Strangers Ian McEwan
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams
The Cement Garden Ian McEwan
The Shining Stephen King
Interview With the Vampire Anne Rice
Dead Babies Martin Amis
Crash J.G. Ballard
The Book of Daniel E.L. Doctorow
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Hunter S. Thompson
The French Lieutenant’s Woman John Fowles
Portnoy’s Complaint Philip Roth
A Kestrel for a Knave Barry Hines
The Joke Milan Kundera
In Cold Blood Truman Capote
The Crying of Lot 49 Thomas Pynchon
Manon des Sources Marcel Pagnol
The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Ken Kesey
A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess
Franny and Zooey J.D. Salinger
Catch-22 Joseph Heller
To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
Billy Liar Keith Waterhouse
Breakfast at Tiffany’s Truman Capote
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning Alan Sillitoe
On the Road Jack Kerouac
Lolita Vladimir Nabokov
Bonjour Tristesse Françoise Sagan
Lord of the Flies William Golding
Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis
Casino Royale Ian Fleming
The Catcher in the Rye J.D. Salinger
The End of the Affair Graham Greene
Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell
The Heart of the Matter Graham Greene
Animal Farm George Orwell
The Power and the Glory Graham Greene
Brighton Rock Graham Greene
To The Lighthouse Virginia Woolf
The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Hound of the Baskervilles Arthur Conan Doyle
The Turn of the Screw Henry James
Dracula Bram Stoker
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Arthur Conan Doyle
New Grub Street George Gissing
The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson
The Water-Babies Charles Kingsley
Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë
Oliver Twist Charles Dickens
Frankenstein Mary Shelley
Mansfield Park Jane Austen
Gulliver’s Travels Jonathan Swift

And these are the ones I've read in 2008 since becoming aware of the 1001 Book.

Saturday Ian McEwan
The Sea John Banville
Drop City T. Coraghessan Boyle
The Light of Day Graham Swift
Choke Chuck Palahniuk
City of God E L Doctorow
Whatever Michel Houellebecq
The Shipping News E. Annie Proulx
Hideous Kinky Esther Freud
The Sea, The Sea Iris Murdoch
The Graduate Charles Webb
The Third Man Graham Greene

Is there a different British edition of this book? I see a couple names on your list I don't recognise. I thought for sure I would have remembered Ardal O'Hanlon if he had been in my edition.

Not that I'm aware of - this is taken from the first version of the spreadsheet.

I thought I'd give my opinion on each of my recent reads in terms of whether I think they merit inclusion on the list (highly subjective of course!).

Saturday Ian McEwan
Really disliked this one. I could see what he was trying to do but I hated the smug characters so much that I wanted something bad to happen to them. Not worthy of a place in the list.

The Sea John Banville
I quite enjoyed this one, very beautifully written although not much happens at all. Unsure about whether it deserves a place on the list

Drop City T. Coraghessan Boyle
I really enjoyed this but that is because I love anything to do with hippies and that period of time. But not sure it is that amazing a book for anyone not interested in that era.

The Light of Day Graham Swift
Loved this. So different from anything else I've read. A twist on the detective novel. Definitely deserves to be on the list.

Choke Chuck Palahniuk
Another book I loved. Warped characters and circumstances but still oddly believeable. Not one for everyone but should be on the list.

City of God E L Doctorow
An ambitious idea for a book, made up of different fragments of ideas. Inevitably some parts were better than others. Deserves to be on the list for the idea, if not the execution.

Whatever Michel Houellebecq
I admit parts of this went right over my head, but other bits (particularly the parts about modern workplaces) were so astute. A modern version of The Outsider. Should be on the list

The Shipping News E. Annie Proulx
I wasn't as enthralled by this as I'd expected to be. I lost interest in it part way through, but I can see what others love about it, so it should probably be on the list.

Hideous Kinky Esther Freud
Not convinced by this one at all. It wasn't that I hated it - it was a fairly engaging read, but I just didn't think it was brilliant and I wasn't convinced by the child narrator - I've read much better examples of things from a child's point of view then this. Don't think it should be on the list.

The Sea, The Sea Iris Murdoch
The only Iris Murdoch book I've read so not much to compare it too. I hated it at first, but then it grew on me. Struck me as a book about ideas rather than realistic characters. Probably should be on the list.

The Graduate Charles Webb
I enjoyed this, but then I love the film and this isn't that different. So hard to not think about the film, which certainly should be in the top 1001 films, but not sure about the book

The Third Man Graham Greene
Another one with a more famous film version. Graham Greene himself thought the film was better and I think this was only written as a starting point for the film. I've read better novels by Graham Greene, namely Travels with My Aunt and Our Man in Havana which I think deserve to be on the list more than this.

Finished another one over the weekend.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt
I found this so engrossing for the first 400 or so pages. Even though I don't know much about Greek and the Classics, I liked that it didn't patronise the reader. The characters were pretty much all awful but it was still compelling. But then it really dipped towards the end - just where the tension should have been building, it became rather routine. Verdict: Despite my disappointment, I've not read anything else like this so it should be on the list.

I hope you continue to post your comments on the books. I like reading why you liked/disliked a book. I always thought of myself as a well-read person until I looked through the 1001 books list and realised that I was in my 40s and had only read about 10%. After a concerted effort over the past year, I've now read about 15% (I don't want to think about the second edition as my book tally is even less).

Socialpages - thank you for your comment. I'm going to continue to comment on each book on the list that I read.

Last week I finished:
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
A woman recounts her childhood in a beautiful school in England in the recent past, but this a slightly different, somewhat sinister version of England and there is an immediate feeling of things not being quite right. I was blown away by this book, I couldn't put it down, I could go on writing cliches about how much I loved this book. It was disturbing but in such a clever subtle way, but besides dystopian element, it was an accurate dipiction of childhood friendships. I loved it. Definitely deserves its place on the list, and would now be in my own all time favourite reads list too (which is somewhat less than 1001 books)

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
This is in the second version of the book. A very simple but effective idea - a monologue by a young Pakistani who was educated and working in the USA before becomig disillusioned with the American dream. Very powerful and a welcome inclusion on the list, even if I am somewhat resentful of the second version of the list for giving me an even harder target!

>8 sanddancer: I 100% agree with you! I read that this year, and it still moves me when I think about it. I tagged it "disturbing" and I'm always wondering what happens (how it happens) after the end of the book. It's definitely on my all time favorite list.

And separately, I enjoyed reading your reviews of recently read 1001 books. I have a number of them on my 999 Challenge, and I think I will start a thread here like yours.

Lisa - I look forward to hearing your thoughts on your 1001 reads and hope you will start a similar thread. I wish I could remember enough about my older reads to review them all but my memory isn't that good.

Timbuktu by Paul Auster
I must admit my bias here. I love dogs. So a book where the main character is a dog was pretty much always going to be a winner for me. It is a pretty simple story, and a lot more straightforward from what I understand Auster's usual style to be, but he perfectly captures what I imagine it feels like to be a dog; loyal and intelligent, but frustrated by the inability to speak and an imperfect understanding of the human world. Lovely original idea that earns its place on the list, although I for one wouldn't mind more books by dogs!

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
I absolutely loved this. I can't believe it has taken me so long to get around to reading it. I read it in a few hours. It was much more accessible than I expected - it is a really easy read. It hasn't dated at all either. It also has a lot more humour in it than I was expecting, particularly in the first part of the novel. It isn't as bleak a portrayal of society as in other dystopian novels as the society here is supposed to be a utopia. The pursuit of empty happiness and constant consumerism seem pretty much like how Western society has turned out. The happiness drug "soma" is very close to society's dependence on anti-depressents and how we are afraid to be unhappy. Great book and certainly should be on this list.

must say your memory is quite sharp and impressive too. i am an avid reader, but being asked, i might not be able to recall the number of books i have finished as of now.!

It wasn't so hard with the list of 1001 books in front of me. If you asked me to name books off the top of my head, I wouldn't remember that many titles and probably fewer of the authors names.

>5 sanddancer:. Thanks for posting this list, it will certainly help me in deciding which books I want to read. I already have The Sea and Choke on my 2009 list to read.

#8 & #10 Absolutely agree with you about Never Let Me Go. Fantastic book.
#12 Good review. This is one book which I reread every few years and enjoy it more each time.

Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg
I have mixed feelings about this one. I really enjoyed the early part of the novel where Smilla investigates the boy's death, but once the story moves on board a ship headed for Greenland, I found it implausible and I didn't think it worked well as a thriller. The background for the novel, about Greenlanders relationship with the Danish and Europe was very interesting and the book deserve its place on the list for that aspect, but sadly not for the main plot.

Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates
A very short book that is a fictional version of the Ted Kennedy incident where a young girl died when he crashed his car, told from the point of view of the drowning girl. I thought it was brilliantly written and very moving. Excellent and worth its place on the list.

The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien
A very odd book. It was absurd - in parts I found the absurdity funny, in others just irritating. However what sets this book apart from other weird books (of which there are plenty) are the footnotes. The narrator is obsessed with a man called de Selby - a sort of philosopher/scientist, and he thinks about de Selby's works often, so there are footnotes provided that explain his work and what various commentators on his work have written. De Selby is a fictional character, but the author has made up a whole body of work for him and his critics. I loved this part of the book - the ideas of de Selby are ridiculous but imaginative and the amount of detail about different schools of thought relating to him was impressive. On the whole I didn't really enjoy the main body of the novel, but the de Selby parts are a work of genius.

I also love your comments on each of the books you read. Please keep it up.
I will put Black Water on my list of 1001 books to read this year. It sounds good.

Lenereadsnok - thank you.

Slow Man by J M Coetzee
An old man has an accident on his bike and has to have part of his leg amputated. He becomes besotted with the Croatian nurse who tends to him. Lots of musings on his feelings for her and getting old, then an author called Elizabeth Costello turns up unexpectedly and it gets a bit stranger. This was the first book by Coetzee I've read and I really didn't know what to expect. It was quite an easy read, but the turn it takes is strange. I understand the author is a character from another of his books and I wonder if I missed something from not already being familiar with her. I did still quite enjoy it though and there are lots more of his books on the list, so I will certainly return to him again. Not sure if this is list-worthy - I'm reserving judgment until I've read something else by him. Any suggestions welcome.

I haven't made much progress with this list at all (I've been distracted by Gloabal reading and quite a bit of non-fiction)

The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M Cain
A classic piece of noir and as such it earns its place on the list. However, personally it left me rather cold. The "passionate" dialogue struck me as funny which kind of ruins the mood. Probably very shocking and original at the time, but not for me.

Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
Fantastic book. It seems so modern still and asks big questions about how people react to situations, rather than just being about a plague of murderous plants. Those plants were still rather chilling though. I'll be reading the rest of Wyndham's books on the list soon.

I loved Day of the Triffids when I read it many years ago. I came across a "sequel" written by someone else (forget their name) not long ago called The Night of the Triffids. It was Awful! Truly bad!

Judy - I've just read a review of the sequel and it doesn't appeal to me at all. What made the original so good was that it wasn't just about fighting scary plants, but it sounds like that is exactly what the sequel is.

Another John Wyndham book from the list The Midwich Cuckoos.
Not quite as great as The Day of the Triffids, it took me a little longer to get into it, but the second half of the book was great. In a similar way to Triffids, it has the spooky children at the centre of the novel, but it asks some big questions about the survival of the species and morals.

See this is odd - I loved Cuckoos but just couldn't get into Triffids.... must go back and try again!

And me - I loved them both!

And me - I loved both the Wyndham books you mention plus I recommend The Chrysalids though it's not on the 1001 list. I have put Chocky on my wish list.

Socialpages - I'd heard that The Chrysalids is great. I'm curious about Chocky too - there was a children's television adaptation of it when I was young and it terrified me. I can't remember that much more about it though.

Just finished another from the list
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Another one that exceeded my expectations. The world of the book is truly disturbing, but always believeable. Its impact was lessened slightly for me as having read Never Let Me Go quite recently and this was similar in some ways, although obviously this was written first and I wish that I had read this first.

Quite a few more read over the past couple of months:

Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Brilliantly written, so subtle, but effective, the way the story gradually unfolds. Brilliant and I want to read everything else he has written.

The Successor by Ismail Kadare
This failed to excite me despite having a number of things I normally like - political intrigue, dictator, multiple narrators, but somehow I didn't find any heart to it.

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Another of those books that I wonder why I'd put off reading it for so long. Unusual characters and plot, and imaginative narration, but ultimately good old fashioned storytelling.

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
An interesting read more for the fact that it set a template for future dystopian novels, but I found the later part of the book hard to take in and not as engaging as it started out. But deserves its place on the list for being one of the earliest dystopian fictions.

In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan
Possibly Brautigan's most famous novel, I still found it too weird for my tastes...

Willard and His Bowling Trophies by Richard Brautigan
This one I loved. Short, surreal and weird but with real heart and an actual plot, albeit an absurd one.

A couple more

Mr Vertigo by Paul Auster
A yarn about an orphan who learns to fly! I loved the imagination, the characters and the dialogue in this book. The latter part about his adult life wasn't quite so good, but still a worthy inclusion.

World's End by T C Boyle
This book covers three time periods, the 17th century, 1940s and 1960s, with the actions of ancestors on their descendents. It is an ambitious novel in its scope and I did enjoy much of it, but it isn't my favourite of Boyle's.

Some quick reads from the list.

The Pigeon by Patrick Suskind
Nonsense about a man whose world is turned upside down by the appearance of a pigeon in his building. Not sure if this was supposed to be menacing or laughable - I inclined towards the latter response. Apparently it is rather like Kafka, whom I'm ashamed to say I've not read (I think I may have attempted something by him in the original language once only to fail miserable). I'm reserve judgment on this until I've read some Kafka - if it isn't just a Kafka rip-off then it can have a place in the list for sheer oddness.

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
Another strange one. Very serious subjects tackled in an absurd way - possibly the opposite of the book above. I enjoyed this and it certainly struck me as unique, although I've not read anything else by Vonnegut yet.

the Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
A complete change from the two books above. The revelation was not a revelation to me as I had read "whodunnit" on this site before. Much of it is what we take a standard murder-mystery fayre - country house, everyone has a secret, suspects gathered together - and the list is supposed to chart the development of the novel. Without wanting to ruin it for anyone else, there is also something else which I think would have been a novelty when it was written.

I've neglected this thread and the list somewhat in recent months. Time for an update.

Book of Illusions by Paul Auster
When a man's family die, he finds some solace in the films of a forgotten silent movie star, who disappeared years ago. This book is brilliant, not only for the intriguing story but for the detailed descriptions of the films - so vivid, I actually had to check that it wasn't a real actor. Fantastic.

Music of Chance by Paul Auster
Another imaginative weird story from Paul Auster. This one is about a man who stakes his last money on a poker game. Again, I loved the imagination here and although I thought it was a great book, I'm not sure that there should be quite so many by one author on the list and I'd keep the one above in, over this.

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Well-written, but bleak. Yes, it deserves to be on the list and yes, it made me cry.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson
Delightful. And good to see something on the list that isn't depressing or difficult. A simple story about a spinster who finds happiness late in life by having a day filled with fun in the company of an amoral nightclub singer. Essentially a fluffy piece of romantic comedy from the 930s, but it has such charm and my book had the lovely original illustrations too.

I loved Miss Pettigrew too! It's one of my friends favourite which she forced me to read kinda against my will but when I actually read it I really enjoyed it.

BekkaJo - I think I will probably buy it/force my female friends to read it too.

A pair of short books from the list

The Time Machine by H G Wells
For something written over 100 years ago, this has aged pretty well. It was more about a pessimistic vision of the earth's future than time travel than I was expecting, but these bleak predictions still seem relevant now. Modern sci fi and the Back to the Future films in particular had me expecting stuff about the implications of time travel which were lacking here, but there were good descriptions of how it feels to hurtle through time.

The Summer Book by Tove Janssen
I loved this and can see why it is considered a Scandinavian classic. The book consists of lots of short pieces about a young girl and her grandmother on a little island in the Gult of Finland over the summer months. There isn't plot as such, so anyone who demands a linear narrative should avoid it, but I loved the time spent in their world. The tales are filled with whimsy and humour, as well as moments of tenderness and melancholy. It managed to perfectly capture both childhood days and how it feels to grow old.

Chocky by John Wyndham
Matthew's parents are worried when he starts talking to himself and asking questions beyond his years. It turns out he isn't going mad, but is communicating with Chocky, a strange being from another planet. Like all of Wyndham's books. this is well-written, engaging with some interesting ideas, but it is a much slighter work than The Chrysalids I would put on this list over this one.