30 Books to Read Before You Die (Pt. 27)

Okay, now we’re getting on. I think a celebration will be in order when we hit the number 900, don’t you? Well, for now, we’re going to celebrate the fact that we’ve just gotten past the number 800, and you really must have a lot to read! (Both of which call for a celebration really!) People normally say that you “waste your time” reading books. But they never really say that to people who watch too many of those silly daytime television shows, or people who stay up watching films all night. The reason for this is because people who don’t read are naturally afraid of the intelligence of the people who do read.

Films and television keep you stupid and books make you smart, it’s a proven and very well-known fact. I think it’s important to explore all of them though. The more you know, the better. Personally, I did my MA in Film and Literature, and I really enjoyed studying film a lot. The one thing I don’t like about film however, is the celebrity worship culture that surrounds it. Apart from the odd Shakespearean actors, most Hollywood actors are very bad at their jobs. I even did an article on the worst 10 Hollywood Actors and Actresses of all time. Modern Hollywood Actors, in my opinion, are very much worse at acting than the ones of old. Why? Well, because the older ones normally came out of a job at the theatre and the modern ones normally come out of the fact that they have lots of money and no brains.

Modern Hollywood acting, especially of the 21st Century, has become the McDonald’s standard of acting. Whereas, actors such as Eddie Redmayne, Ben Whishaw, and Benedict Cumberbatch etc., who have made a name for themselves with theatre acting are probably some of the only good actors left alive. Check out my articles on the worst and best actors of all time to learn about who I think should perform and who I think should leave the industry. It is true, when film goes down the drain, turn to books for your solace instead!

Now, we’re going to do this exactly the same way we do all of these lists. If you haven’t seen your favourite book yet, that probably means I haven’t read it yet and you can recommend it to me! I will never subject you, on these lists, to a book I haven’t read myself. I will mark my favourites with an (*) and talk about one or two throughout the article if they have memorable experiences behind them.

So let’s get on with it then. These are numbers 781-810!

781-790

781. On Life and Death by Cicero

782. The Major Works of Oscar Wilde*

783. Orestes and Other Plays by Euripides*

784. Parzival and Titurel by Wolfgang von Eschenbach*

785. Plays and Petersburg Tales by Nikolai Gogol*

I used to have a friend that adored Nikolai Gogol and used to recommend me his short stories all of the time. Admittedly, I read Dead Souls first and then I read the book Vladimir Nabokov wrote about him before I even made it on to the short stories. Needless to say, by the time I’d read the short stories, me and my friend had grown apart and we haven’t really seen each other since.

786. Sayings of the Buddha by Rupert Gethin

787. Repetition and Philosophical Crumbs by Soren Kierkegaard*

788. The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoevsky

789. Pot Luck by Emile Zola

790. Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen

791-800

791. Selected Letters by Seneca the Younger

792. On Murder by Thomas de Quincey

793. Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott

794. Selected Letters by Jane Austen

795. Poetry of the First World War by Tim Kendall

796. Selected Myths by Plato

797. Selected Poems by Guillaume Apollinaire

798. Selected Tales by The Brothers Grimm

799. Sentimental Education by Gustav Flaubert

800. On the Soul by Aristotle*

801-810

801. Persians and Other Plays by Aeschylus

802. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens*

I read this book back when I was a teenager because I thought I was going to study it at school since it was on the syllabus, and I didn’t end up studying it. So all in all, I read it initially for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Then, when I got to university, I was about to pick the film module for second year on Victorian texts on film. The reading list included this book so I read it again to refresh my memory. Then, as you can predict, I chose the Shakespeare module instead. Again, I read the book for no reason. I read that book not once, but twice, for absolutely no reason whatsoever. But it was still a brilliant book.

803. Selected Poems by Federico Garcia Lorca

804. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Keith Harrison

805. Selected Writing by John Ruskin

806. Piers Plowman by William Langland

807. She by H Rider Haggard

808. Selected Poems by RM Rilke

809. Pericles by William Shakespeare

810. Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto