Museums, Libraries, and Archives Society's "30 Books Every Adult Should Read Before They Die"

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Archive Society 30 Books Everyone should read before they die

  1. 1.
    To Kill a Mockingbird
    by Harper Lee
  2. 2.
    The Bible

  3. 3.
    The Lord of the Rings: 50th Anniversary, One Vol. Edition
    by J.R.R. Tolkien
  4. 4.
    Nineteen Eighty-Four (Penguin Modern Classics)
    by George Orwell
  5. 5.
    A Christmas Carol
    by Charles Dickens
  6. 6.
    Jane Eyre (Penguin Classics)
    by Charlotte Brontë
  7. 7.
    Pride and Prejudice (Bantam Classics)
    by Jane Austen
  8. 8.
    All Quiet on the Western Front
    by Erich Maria Remarque
  9. 9.
    Birdsong: A Novel of Love and War
    by Sebastian Faulks
  10. 10.
    The Grapes of Wrath (Centennial Edition)
    by John Steinbeck
  11. 11.
    The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
    by Mark Haddon
  12. 12.
    Tess of the d'Urbervilles (Bantam Classics)
    by Thomas Hardy
  13. 13.
    Winnie-the-Pooh (Pooh Original Edition)
    by A. A. Milne
  14. 14.
    Wuthering Heights (Norton Critical Editions)
    by Emily Brontë
  15. 15.
    The Wind in the Willows
    by Kenneth Grahame
  16. 16.
    Gone with the Wind
    by Margaret Mitchell
  17. 17.
    Great Expectations (Penguin Classics)
    by Charles Dickens
  18. 18.
    The Time Traveler's Wife
    by Audrey Niffenegger
  19. 19.
    The Lovely Bones
    by Alice Sebold
  20. 20.
    The Prophet
    by Kahlil Gibran
  21. 21.
    David Copperfield (Penguin Classics)
    by Charles Dickens
  22. 22.
    The Alchemist
    by Paulo Coelho
  23. 23.
    The Master and Margarita
    by Mikhail Bulgakov
  24. 24.
    Life of Pi
    by Yann Martel
  25. 25.
    Middlemarch (Penguin Classics)
    by George Eliot
  26. 26.
    The Poisonwood Bible
    by Barbara Kingsolver
  27. 27.
    One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch (Signet Classics)
    by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
  28. 28.
    Lord of the Flies
    by William Golding
  30. 30.
    A Clockwork Orange
    by Anthony Burgess
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Created by Misty on Mar 28, 2006.
 

Comments

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erikfish

Yesterday and Today — 27 weeks ago

This list tries something daring (although I think it fails ultimately): to combine the classics of yesterday with predictions about the classics of tomorrow. The whole concept of a classic is that you can’t really know today what will have relevance and staying power 25 or 50 years from now. I’m guessing that in 50 years, Life of Pi and The Lovely Bones will be as forgotten as James Gould Cozzens’ Pulitizer Prize winning novel Guard of Honor (a big hit in its day), but I could be wrong. What is 2012’s Moby Dick – a book that was trashed by contemporary reviewers and is now usually in every top 100 list?

Nov 15, 07:13AM | 0 comments | Reply to this

JohnVKaravitis

I've read 3 of these and seen the a few as movies. — 1 year ago

This list brings back memories of high school. I’ve read To Kill a Mockingbird, Pride & Prejudice, and Great Expectations. A few of these I’ve seen on film, e.g. A Christmas Carol, Lord of the Flies and A Clockwork Orange. The one entry that really astounds me is The Bible. As another poster noted, it’s the most published book, yet seriously, how many people in the world can stand up and truthfully claim that they’ve read The Bible??? I’m betting most priests in most Christian religions haven’t read the entire Bible. And the list seems skewed to Western works. No Bhaghavad Gita? No I Ching? No Art of War? Seems to me that this list needs to broaden its horizons. Just my two cents. John V Karavitis

Jan 05, 02:35PM | 0 comments | Reply to this

andrewhodkinson

MLA — 2 years ago

In North America, the MLA acronym is commonly related to the Modern Language Association (of America) and its crushingly influential Style Guide — so I changed MLA to its full version.

Jan 29, 04:04PM | 0 comments | Reply to this

perkyanda

Someone has altered the list — 3 years ago

The MLA list claims to have 30 books, yet there are only 29 on the list…

Jul 09, 08:08AM | 2 comments | Reply to this

bradb3992

No — 3 years ago

Nobody should have to read Jane Austen. GARBAGE!

Jun 03, 02:25PM | 7 comments | Reply to this

Balkonskiy_a

Untitled — 4 years ago

Well, Bible is number one bestseller of all times so that one should stay, but how did Lord of the Rings or Gone with the Wind made it on the list over so many others I can not understand.

Nov 18, 07:33AM | 3 comments | Reply to this

whollycrusader

Religious texts? — 4 years ago

If the Bible is going to make the list, I don’t see why the Koran, the Torah, or the Bhagavad Gita aren’t on here as well.

Oct 26, 02:27PM | 6 comments | Reply to this

TheCatcherOfTheFlies

Untitled — 4 years ago

Dostoevsky, Nabokov and Gogol are all well and good but actually if you asked people nowadays which ones they have read, Lolita or the curious incident, the diary of a madman or the time travellers wife then chances are it would the the latter.

Yes, they are classics but curious incident is a modern classic and is actually a very good book.

Although I agree this list isn’t that good at all.


JD Salinger, DH Lawrence, Nick Hornby…where are they? Ok I’ll admit Nick Hornby…not so much but you know.

But it was the majority that claimed these are the top 30 so who are we to question really?

Could be better (:

Oct 02, 11:26AM | 0 comments | Reply to this

MoogleFan

Untitled — 4 years ago

…no Oscar Wilde? o_O;

Sep 28, 01:16AM | 0 comments | Reply to this

DarkRhapsody

Untitled — 4 years ago

Wow.. the Bible?

Really?

Jul 18, 07:12PM | 2 comments | Reply to this


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