The Guardian, the best paper to read if you like literature, has published a list of librarians’ must-read books.

Librarians were asked by the Museum, Libraries, and Achives Council, “Which book should every adult read before they die?”

The complete list, with those I’ve read in bold (those I’ve read parts of are marked with a single asterisk):

1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
   
2. The Bible*
3. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien
   
4. 1984 by George Orwell
5. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
6. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
7. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
   
8. All Quiet on the Western Front by E M Remarque
9. His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman*
10. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
11. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
12. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
13. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
14. Tess of the D’urbevilles by Thomas Hardy
15. Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne
    
16. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
    
17. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
    
18. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
    
19. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
    
20. The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
21. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
22. The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
23. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
    
24. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
25. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
26. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
27. Middlemarch by George Eliot
28. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
29. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
30. A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzenhitsyn

If we include the two I’ve read parts of, I’m halfway through the list, with a strong emphasis on the classics.

Granted, it’s clear from this list that books originally written in English and those written by Brits themselves get a higher priority than on lists that other groups would create. But that’s still okay. Because it’s fun to see what others recommend.