1001 (Minus 976) Books to Read Before You Die

I am grateful to technology because it has given the world another reason to realize that the act of reading will never be a dying past time (thank you Kindle, thank you Nook). Reading is a fundamental gift that all humans can be blessed to learn. Reading provides the brain stimulation, inspiration, confidence, information and enlightenment. I enjoy reading because it helps me be a better writer. The stories I love to read are of humanity; stories of people like me or like people I know who struggle and in the least make it through difficult times with some sort of grace and accomplishment.

I recently took a book out from the library: “501 Great Writers,” a comprehensive guide to the giants of literature. I was just curious, for my writer and reader ego, to see how many of these writers I have read. I am very much into classic literature. It was a Shakespeare class in college, actually, that inspired me to become a writer.  So I continually read the “classics” of literature, from “The Great Gatsby” to “The Bell Jar” to my current huge undertaking of “Atlas Shrugged,” the philosophical and political opus by Ayn Rand.

Just looking at the table of contents in “501 Great Writers,” I already am overwhelmed and my ego is feeling bruised. First off, I know I don’t have time in my life now, and who knows if ever, to get through each of these writers; even if they each wrote a short story for me to pick up. My free time for reading is seldom these days. But the table of contents….from A to Z….I shocked myself….I have read a round 100 of the writers listed in this book. One fifth! But the ego is still bruised – not that I even want to read the remaining 401 writers necessarily….what hurts is that from all my years interested in writing and reading and studying, there are so many writers that I haven’t heard of.  Then I boost myself back up off the floor by realizing there are so many writers I do know that I think belong in this book. 

I mean, these lists are subjective. The Oscars are subjective. And political. But that’s beside the point.  Lists like this, there are obvious picks, and controversial picks (which help with the marketing of this book – give the readers something to discuss and they will be more likely to read it). There are historical picks and contemporary picks. These lists are [hopefully] made for people like us to think. 

What I wanted to do with this book, besides fuel my education, see what “score” I had in the current literary world, and make a new list of books I want to and need to read….what I want to do is put together my own list for my friends and followers based on suggestions from this book plus suggestions from my little literary world and mind.  (Unfortunately, I have decades to catch up on modern-age authors that are not included in this book.)

Here are my top 25 suggestions of excellent writers, and a good selection from each writer that you should read (in no particular order):

1. William Shakespeare (read and see King Lear)
2. Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar)
3. Jack Kerouac (On the Road – read it before the movie comes out)
4. Margaret Atwood  (Wilderness Tips – Short Stories; read “Hairball”)
5. F. Scott Fitzgerald (Tender is the Night)
6. William Faulkner (As I Lay Dying)
7. Maya Angelou (I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings)
8. Hermann Hesse (Steppenwolf)
9. Franz Kafka (Metamorphosis)
10. Aldous Huxley (Brave New World)
11. John Milton (Paradise Lost)
12. Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451)
13. William Burroughs (Naked Lunch)
14. Alexandre Dumas (The Count of Monte Cristo)
15. D.H. Lawrence (Sons and Lovers)
16. Philip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
17. J.D. Salinger (Franny and Zooey)
18. Vladimir Nabokov (Lolita)
19. Niccolo Machiavelli (The Art of War)
20. Edgar Allen Poe  (The Fall of the House of Usher)
21. Henry David Thoreau (Walden)
22. John Steinbeck (East of Eden)
23. Rainer Maria Rilke (Letters to a Young Poet)
24. David Mamet (American Buffalo)
25. Joseph Heller (Catch-22)

 Not on the list but worth my mention:

1. Christopher Isherwood
2. Balthazar Gracian
3. Joan Didion
4. Augusten Burroughs
5. Ayn Rand

What would make your list? I would love to get recommendations from people (other than “People” magazine).