a list look

Sometimes lists can be a beneficial tool to help you discover things to experience before death. There’s a list of places to see, foods to eat and even things to do all before your name is called up yonder. It might seem a bit morbid, but imagine how much a person would miss out on without the guidance of these lists. Recently my friend Cee and I were talking about books. She mentioned the list of 1,001 books you must read before dying. The list is split up into time periods with the largest cluster from the 1900s.

At first thought it seemed like a decent list to follow. Quite a few of the books I can already check off from a combination of required readings from school and an overall interest in the written word. There are also several books I have yet to never but know the basic premise thanks to Wikipedia and Cliffnotes (I have a fondness for spoilers). That still leaves at least more than 900 books to go on the list.

Reading that many books before dying is quite a lofty goal. This is something I should have started the day I learned how to read. I’m not a spring chicken anymore. It would take me almost 20 years to finish that list if I read one book a week. Somewhere in there I would have to find the time to read other books not on the list.

I’m not too sure I will complete the list. Most of those books don’t even appeal to me. Perhaps I am narrow-minded, but I read what I like. There are only two books out of 69 on the list from the 2000s I am even remotely interested in reading, “Middlesex” and "The Human Stain." I feel like I know “Robinson Crusoe” so well that I’ll probably never pick it up. And I know “The 120 Days of Sodom” is not for me in the least. Life is too short to read books that don’t interest me. There are too many others to read. The same goes for trying things from those other lists. I’ll simply compile a list of books I want to read before dying.