So much of what we read and listen to on a daily basis doesn’t add much (read: any) value to our lives. As you know, I consciously unfollow and get rid of the opportunity for useless content to come in my view, and have decided to have a standard for the books I read too (4 star and above on Goodreads, thank you very much).
Recently, I took it a step further and am reading the *best* books that everyone should read in their lifetime. There are tons of lists out there, and attempts at combining the lists to create an ultimate list. Instead of holding myself to a hard and fast list, I’m using one list as a starting point and picking books based on my interest and their availability at the library.
So far, I’ve read 15 out of the top 20 books in this list, and I’m currently working on 1984 and have To Kill a Mockingbird checked out. With hundreds of books on this list, there is little chance of me running out any time soon, and I may very well skip to another list if it strikes my fancy.
My all time favorite book is Bloody Jack by L. A. Meyer, and my favorite author, Edward Rutherfurd, certainly aren’t showing up on any of these lists, so I realize I can’t just stick to one method of choosing books to have the ultimate reading experience. However, now that I am not in school and reading classics/books that really, really make you think, I wanted to have a curriculum of sorts.
This post isn’t here to tell you that you have to do x, y, and z to be well read or that there are only certain books worth reading. What I am trying to say, in this roundabout way, is that challenging ourselves and making a sincere effort to expand the scope of our minds and what we would normally seek out is highly beneficial and fun! Who doesn’t love to check off a list and be able to join in conversations about these classics?
Here are a the books I’ve selected to tackle next:
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- Lord of the Flies
- Of Mice and Men
- and something by Tolkien – going to have to ask Ally on this one. She is legitimately an expert.
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