50 books to read before you die discussion

If you were going to make your own '50' list, which book (that is not in our list) would you put at the top and why? What made it such a great read for you?

‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ without a doubt. I have never read anything so well written, a book that made you feel whole once you finish it. The creation of not only suspense, but characters which you feel you know better than you would in any other book. Characters that stay with in times when you need bravery, bravado, slyness, hope, and many more, without making them feel like heroes. But simple people fighting for a great cause.

Please do read my review on my page.

For Whom the Bell Tolls is my favourite Hemingway, it should have been on the '50' list instead of his 'Man Without Women'.

Christine wrote: "For Whom the Bell Tolls is my favourite Hemingway, it should have been on the '50' list instead of his 'Man Without Women'."

Yes, absolutely.

Would definitely add "The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner. It's a masterpiece that hits you somewhere you haven't been hit before. Difficult but worth it.

Nancy wrote: "Would definitely add "The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner. It's a masterpiece that hits you somewhere you haven't been hit before. Difficult but worth it."

That's on the Guardian 1000 list so I will get around to reading it someday.

I haven't read any Faulkner or Hemingway yet.

Linda wrote: "I haven't read any Faulkner or Hemingway yet."

I've read most of Hemingway's novels. Some are quite good. The Sound and the Fury is my only Faulkner so far.

My personal list of 50 doesn't have 50 books on it yet. And, unlike ours, it does have some repeat authors. For Whom the Bell Tolls is the only Hemingway.

For me The World According to Garp is one that really stood out. I thought The Sound and the Fury very good, but not really easy. I love Hemingway Ernest.
Recentely I just loved Warlight .

Two books that would be on my '50' list are The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell and The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon. I read them both when I was a teenager, never to be forgotten. The House of the Mosque by Kader Abdolah is also one I would add which I read earlier this year.

I'd second The Wretched of the Earth. I'd also add James Baldwin's Another Country and Ursula K Le Guin's Earthsea (ideally the trilogy but that might be cheating!)