NinieB's 1001 Reading

I am an avid reader, with my current favorite categories being classics, mysteries, and selected fiction of the 20th century. These reading choices have led me to read a number of books already from this list. As long as the book is in one of the English-language editions, I count it. I wouldn't mind expanding my reading a bit to include more contemporary fiction, but for now the classics are keeping my 1001 numbers ticking up. I'm looking forward to tracking my numbers along with the group!

Read before 2019 (listed in order by publication date)
1. The Princess of Clèves (1678) by Madame de La Fayette
2. Tom Jones (1749) by Henry Fielding
3. The Adventures of Caleb Williams (1794) by William Godwin
4. The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) by Ann Radcliffe
5. Pride and Prejudice (1813) by Jane Austen
6. Emma (1816) by Jane Austen
7. Northanger Abbey (1817) by Jane Austen
8. Persuasion (1817) by Jane Austen
9. The Red and the Black (1831) by Stendhal
10. Eugene Onegin (1833) by Aleksandr Pushkin
11. Oliver Twist (1838) by Charles Dickens
12. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1839) by Charles Dickens
13. The Fall of the House of Usher (1839) by Edgar Allan Poe
14. A Christmas Carol (1843) by Charles Dickens
15. The Pit and the Pendulum (1843) by Edgar Allan Poe
16. Martin Chuzzlewit (1844) by Charles Dickens
17. The Purloined Letter (1844) by Edgar Allan Poe
18. Agnes Grey (1847) by Anne Brontë
19. Jane Eyre (1847) by Charlotte Brontë
20. Wuthering Heights (1847) by Emily Brontë
21. Vanity Fair (1847) by William Makepeace Thackeray
22. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) by Anne Brontë
23. Mary Barton (1848) by Elizabeth Gaskell
24. Shirley (1849) by Charlotte Brontë
25. David Copperfield (1850) by Charles Dickens
26. The Scarlet Letter (1850) by Nathaniel Hawthorne
27. Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) by Harriet Beecher Stowe
28. Bleak House (1853) by Charles Dickens
29. Cranford (1853) by Elizabeth Gaskell
30. Hard Times (1854) by Charles Dickens
31. North and South (1855) by Elizabeth Gaskell
32. Madame Bovary (1857) by Gustave Flaubert
33. Adam Bede (1859) by George Eliot
34. The Woman in White (1860) by Wilkie Collins
35. The Mill on the Floss (1860) by George Eliot
36. Castle Richmond (1860) by Anthony Trollope
37. Great Expectations (1861) by Charles Dickens
38. Uncle Silas (1864) by J. S. Le Fanu
39. The Last Chronicle of Barset (1867) by Anthony Trollope
40. Little Women (1868) by Louisa May Alcott
41. The Moonstone (1868) by Wilkie Collins
42. Phineas Finn (1869) by Anthony Trollope
43. Anna Karenina (1877) by Leo Tolstoy
44. The Portrait of a Lady (1881) by Henry James
45. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) by Mark Twain
46. The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) by Thomas Hardy
47. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson
48. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892) by Arthur Conan Doyle
49. Jude the Obscure (1895) by Thomas Hardy
50. The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) by Arthur Conan Doyle
51. The Way of All Flesh (1903) by Samuel Butler
52. The House of Mirth (1905) by Edith Wharton
53. The Forsyte Saga (1906) by John Galsworthy
54. The Secret Agent (1907) by Joseph Conrad
55. The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915) by John Buchan
56. Main Street (1920) by Sinclair Lewis
57. The Age of Innocence (1920) by Edith Wharton
58. A Passage to India (1924) by E. M. Forster
59. The Great Gatsby (1925) by F. Scott Fitzgerald
60. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926) by Agatha Christie
61. The Thin Man (1932) by Dashiell Hammett
62. Gone with the Wind (1936) by Margaret Mitchell
63. The Hobbit (1937) by J. R. R. Tolkien
64. Rebecca (1938) by Daphne du Maurier
65. The Grapes of Wrath (1939) by John Steinbeck
66. Farewell My Lovely (1940) by Raymond Chandler
67. Animal Farm (1945) by George Orwell
68. Brideshead Revisited (1945) by Evelyn Waugh
69. The Plague (1947) by Albert Camus
70. Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) by George Orwell
71. The Catcher in the Rye (1951) by J. D. Salinger
72. Day of the Triffids (1951) by John Wyndham
73. Invisible Man (1952) by Ralph Ellison
74. The Old Man and the Sea (1952) by Ernest Hemingway
75. Casino Royale (1953) by Ian Fleming
76. Bonjour Tristesse (1954) by Françoise Sagan
77. The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955) by Patricia Highsmith
78. To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) by Harper Lee
79. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963) by John Le Carré
80. The Bell Jar (1963) by Sylvia Plath
81. One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) by Gabriel García Márquez
82. The Color Purple (1982) by Alice Walker
83. White Noise (1985) by Don DeLillo
84. The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987) by Tom Wolfe
85. Possession (1990) by A. S. Byatt
86. The Shipping News (1993) by E. Annie Proulx
87. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994) by Haruki Murakami
88. Beloved (1997) by Toni Morrison

Read in or after 2019 (listed in order read)
89. The Maltese Falcon (1930) by Dashiell Hammett
90. Evelina (1778) by Frances Burney
91. Cold Comfort Farm (1932) by Stella Gibbons
92. Ethan Frome (1911) by Edith Wharton
93. A World of Love (1955) by Elizabeth Bowen
94. The Castle of Otranto (1764) by Horace Walpole
95. Quartet in Autumn (1977) by Barbara Pym
96. The House of the Spirits (1982) by Isabel Allende
97. Murder Must Advertise (1933) by Dorothy L. Sayers
98. The Nine Tailors (1934) by Dorothy L. Sayers
99. Cecilia (1782) by Frances Burney
100. Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) by Jean Rhys
101. Mansfield Park (1814) by Jane Austen
102. Camilla (1796) by Frances Burney
103. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) by Lewis Carroll
104. Through the Looking Glass (1871) by Lewis Carroll
105. The Diary of a Nobody (1892) by George & Weedon Grossmith
106. Excellent Women (1952) by Barbara Pym
107. The Big Sleep (1939) by Raymond Chandler
108. The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719) by Daniel Defoe
109. Quicksand (1928) by Nella Larsen
110. The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934) by James M. Cain
111. The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders (1722) by Daniel Defoe
112. Oscar and Lucinda (1988) by Peter Carey
113. Sense and Sensibility (1811) by Jane Austen
114. The Diviners (1974) by Margaret Laurence
115. Red Harvest (1929) by Dashiell Hammett
116. Gulliver's Travels (1726) by Jonathan Swift

Welcome! Looks like you have a good start :)

Welcome to the group! A great list of books there. Hope you discover some more great books as you progress.

>2 Yells: Thank you! I'm surprised every time that I've read so many without really trying.

>3 puckers: Thank you! They have been great books and I'm looking forward to discovering more.

I read Oliver Twist quite a long time ago, but I discovered on a re-read that I had forgotten most of the major plot points!

The story starts with Oliver's birth in a workhouse. His unknown mother dies in childbirth. Oliver has a miserable upbringing, and finally at age 11 he runs away to London. There he gets mixed up with a group of thieves. When Oliver is separated from the gang, kind Mr. Brownlow takes an interest in his past--but the thieves also have a special interest in Oliver and are not willing to let him go so easily.

Coincidence and anti-Semitism mar the story but somehow, while the plot shouldn't hang together for a minute, Dickens makes it all work. Dickens's incredibly vivid portrayal of London in the 1830s is a special bonus for the reader.

117. Pamela (1740) by Samuel Richardson

I finished Pamela in December. This novel is one of those that is still read because of its position in the history of the English novel. In the 18th century, readers were fascinated. The most common reaction in online reviews by today's readers is appalled horror.

Pamela is a 15-year-old maidservant whose "master," Mr. B----, develops a lust for her that she has extreme difficulty deflecting.

While I can't say Pamela is enjoyable, there is something about the first half or two-thirds that fascinates. The latter half gets rather dull, though, what with Mr. B---- talking at length about the many rules good wives should follow. Moreover, Richardson was not an experienced writer, and his sense of pacing was poor. He was also inclined to repetition. The 18th-century style generally makes for difficult reading. It's a period piece of academic interest. In short, don't read this book unless you're tracking the development of the English novel--or reading the 1001 books list.

118. Eugénie Grandet (1833) by Honoré de Balzac

Eugénie is the daughter of Monsieur Félix Grandet, a miserly, avaricious, businessman who does not hesitate to use shady business practices to build up his fortune. He, his wife, and his daughter live under penurious conditions as he pretends to have little money to spare. When Monsieur Grandet's brother commits suicide in the belief that he has failed in business, Monsieur sees an opportunity to benefit financially while sending the brother's son Charles abroad to the West Indies to try to recoup his fortunes. Eugénie, however, falls in love with Charles.

Overall I found this 19th century French classic quite interesting and with plenty of plot despite its brevity. I had some trouble understanding Monsieur Grandet's business dealings, which Balzac explains in some detail, but I think I got enough to make sense of the story.

You have The Castle of Otranto twice on your list, numbers 3 and 95. I see that the list is separated in read pre-2019 and post so it’s possible you just reread it but I thought I’d mention it in case it messes with your 1001 count.

>8 lilisin: Thank you for noticing this!