1001 Books to Read Before You Die

8   books reviewed in January
28  books reviewed in total
973 books to go

The second month of the year has zoomed by, even with the extra day. We have chipped away another eight books from our literary Mt. Everest, made up of as broad a range of books that you could hope from such a small number.

The month opened with a new reviewer to this blog, t from as long as i’m singing. With an opening confession of a man-crush, his review was in keeping with the humour of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. He also reviewed A Clockwork Orange, a novel of a dystopian future and the malcontents who occupy it. Bronwyn reviewed the children’s classic Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Quite appropriate as Bronwyn runs the 1001 Kids’ Books Reviews blog, an excellent resource for parents and lovers of children’s books. Enduring Love is a tale of one incident that sparks an obsession that taints the lives of those involved.

We also globe-trotted a bit with our reviews in February. Set during the 1857 Indian Mutiny, The Siege of Krishnapur is the story of British residents in Krishnapur. The Poisonwood Bible is also told from the perspective of Western residents, this time in 1960’s Belgian Congo. White Teeth is set in North London but has a cast of characters from Jamaica and Sri Lanka.

Another new reviewer, Readlearnwrite reviewed The Trial,  an example of Franz Kafka’s ideas around futility and fate.

A number of our books this month have been adapted to film. Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange is a cult classic. Recent adaptions of A Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy and Alice in Wonderland have exposed a yonger generation to these wonderfully quirky tales. Enduring Love, staring Daniel Craig was one that flew under the radar a bit but will be interesting to see how the celluloid version held up to it’s source material.

There is always the question of whether the book or the movie is better, but it is interesting to see how someone else’s vision is similar (or inferior) to what you pictured when you read it. If you are the type of reader who likes to compare, the following is a list of some of the books from the 1001 list that has a film counterpart.  All links are to IMDB and where there are more than one film version, the link is to the most recent.

#1 Never Let Me Go
#26 Everything is Illuminated
# 42  Atonement
#48 Choke
#89 The Hours
# 93 Memoirs of a Geisha
#95 Enduring Love
#143 The Virgin Suicides
#213The Black Dahlia
#227 Watchmen
#240 Less Than Zero
#241 Contact
#243 Perfume
#312 The Shining
# 320 Interview with the Vampire
#408 In Cold Blood
#428 The Graduate
#436 One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest
#437 A Clockwork Orange
#448 Solaris
#450 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
#456 To Kill a Mockingbird
#508 Lord of the Flies
#521 The Old Man and the Sea
#564 Animal Farm
# 570 The Razor’s Edge
# 599 The Big Sleep
#608 Of Mice and Men
#619 Gone with the Wind
#635 The Postman Always Rings Twice
# 652 The Thin Man
#672 Les Enfants Terribles
#699 The Great Gatsby a new version staring Leonardo de Caprio and directed by Baz Luhrman is due out later this year.
#747 Tarzan of the Apes
#752 Ethan Frome
#780 Heart of Darkness (in Apocalypse Now form)
#790 War of the Worlds
#795 Quo Vadis
#794 Dracula
#797 The Time Machine
# 840 Anna Karenina
# 867 Crime and Punishment
#868 Alice in Wonderland
# 876 Great Expectations
#902 Wuthering Heights
#904 Jane Eyre
#911 The Pit and the Pendulum
#913 A Christmas Carol
#931 Frankenstein
#936 Emma

These are only a few from quite an extensive list. If we have left off one that you feel should be mentioned because of how good (or bad) the adaptation is, please let us and our readers know.

And finally, we now have an email that you can contact us at – 1001booksbeforeyoudie@gmail.com. Flick us a review or even a “dibs” on a book on the list that you would like to review in the future.

Happy reading all.