Books You Must Read Before You Die

So while cruising the net, I ran across this article which lists the top 30 books that all people should read before they die. I've included the list here for your viewing ease!

1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
2. The Bible
3. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien
4. 1984 by George Orwell
5. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
6. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
7. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
8. All Quite on the Western Front by E M Remarque
9. His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman
10. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
11. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
12. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
13. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
14. Tess of the D'urbevilles by Thomas Hardy
15. Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne
16. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
17. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
18. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
19. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
20. The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
21. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
22. The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
23. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
24. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
25. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
26. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
27. Middlemarch by George Eliot
28. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
29. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
30. A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzenhitsyn

My thoughts...

Hmmm, The Bible is #2?! Okay... So anyhow, I think I should change the title of this list to, "Books I'm Ashamed to Say I've NEVER Read!" Some of those books in fact (like #13,) I've never even heard of! Yikes! Actually, I have read parts of the Bible (all of the New Testament and part of the Old,) and I've read Jane Eyre, Lord of the Flies, and Great Expectations in their entirety. The last three I read all in high school. Jane Eyre was indeed one of the best books remember reading. What's funny is that I found my old copy a couple of months ago and tried to read it again and put it back down after just 5 minutes! The story itself was still wonderful, but you have to totally change your mindset to prepare for the langauge and writing style used in books of that time. I wasn't ready to exert that much mental energy that day! Maybe I'll try again sometime. Lord of the Flies I remember quite well and agree it is a great book. Great Expectations...hmm, I'm sure it's great, but honestly, can't remember a darn thing about it! Anyhow, I guess I have a lot of other books to start reading!

There are some books I was surprised to not see on the list. How about the Adventures of Huckelberry Finn? Is that not one of the greatest works of American literature? Hmmm. Oh well. I know this next book is a pretty current book, but it's one that I think should make the list -- The Kite Runner by Khalled Hosseini. What books do you think should make the list?