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There are some worthwhile books, but the list is largely slop, e.g., Valley of the Dolls, There are many authors who should be there, but they are not.
The following are just a few of the glaring omissions.
Homer
Herodotus
Virgil
Shakespeare
Gibbon
Goethe
Milton
Darwin
Spencer, Herbert
Locke
Mill
Smith, Adam
Calhoun
Poe
Lovecraft
Hitler
Haggard, H. Rider
Fielding
Jefferson
Hoover, Herbert
1984
Beloved
Angela's Ashes
Farenheit 451
Slaughterhouse 5
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
Devil in the White City
The Lord of the Rings
The Poisonwood Bible
The Shining
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Diary of a Young Girl
The Wind in the Willows
My least favorites were:
The Road
Catch 22
Love in the Time of Cholera
The Fault in our Stars
Unbroken
Actually, I didn't make it through any of the least favorites except for The Road and I regret I wasted that much precious time reading it till the very end. What a downer. The others had interesting topics but I didn't care for the writing styles.
I only counted 75 there....and I've read 31 of them.
Yes, when I clicked on the link, there were only 75 books listed (five in each horizontal row times fifteen). No matter, the list was pretty fascinating in its variety. I've read only 17.
The issue of the inclusion of children's books on the list
A few years ago I started a thread in this Book Forum entitled "Are some children's books so good they transcend their genre?". (That thread is no longer current). My own personal answer to the question is "yes, absolutely". On this current list I think The Giver by Lois Lowery is the prime example. The inclusion of some children's books plus some non-fiction books is what gives the list its surprising variety. Sure, a lot of classics are omitted - John Milton is one author who comes to mind - but then a comprehensive list of that type would have to be expanded to include 300 or 400 titles.
There are actually 60 books on that list. I don't see a link to the other 40 of them. Oh well...
I read 3 of those 60 and I wouldn't mind reading a few on that list that I haven't read yet. That wasn't my reading style. I like action, adventure, sci-fi.
There are definitely classics in that list, but also some duds and trendy/sensational ones that won't stand the test of time. There are also a lot that are not included, IMHO. I'm not sure that deep/profound thinkers like Emerson and Goethe are included.
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