30 Books to Read Before You Die (Pt. 7)

As we come up to Part 7, you may have noticed that you have heard of less or more of these books (depending on what you read!), and you may have also noticed that your own reading list is growing (hopefully!) with it.

I may have said this one hundred times by now, but if you haven't been here before, you may want to know that I love to read a wide array of books and I will never ever recommend you something on a list that I haven't tried and tested out already. Basically, I won't recommend or list a book I haven't read. I love reading old and new, and so you'll find many books from many eras from different countries and cultures! Hopefully this expands your own reading tastes, and if you think of any books you like that you haven't seen on the lists (regardless of their genre or time), my social media handles are in my bio if you'd like to recommend them to me or tell me about them.

As per usual... If I have loved a book a lot I will mark it with a (*), and the ones I've had fond memories of will be explained intermittently throughout the article. Let us get on with the article then!

181-190

181. All Souls by Javier Maras

182. Literature and Evil by Georges Bataille

183. I Want It Now by Kingsley Amis

184. Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby Jr.

185. A Rage in Harlem by Chester Himes*

186. Scent of a Woman by Giovanni Arpino

187. The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter*

188. 100 Artist Manifestos by Alex Danchev*

189. The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald

190. The Plague by Albert Camus

191-200

191. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller*

192. A View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller

193. Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada

194. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

195. Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo

196. 'Why Read the Classics?' by Italo Calvino*

I read this book whilst in university, not because I had to, but because again, I found it mentioned somewhere else and I wanted to see if it was provocative as I had first thought. Of course, it was. Italo Calvino makes a great argument for why classic literature is considered classic and a number of things that qualify a book as a classic. He also goes through why people bother to still read the classics at all and how it portrays them to society. It is psychological in study and categorises the classics and plays upon the standard of literature that is required to be considered classic. Ironically enough, this book became a classic of Calvino's writings and a classic of literary criticism—I highly recommend it.

197. London Belongs to Me by Norman Collins

198. Amadeus by Peter Schaffer

199. The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon

200. Rabbit Run by John Updike

201-210

201. The Book of Daniel by E.L. Doctorow

202. Guys and Dolls by Damon Runyon

203. 'My Autobiography' by Sir Charlie Chaplin*

I read this book only last year and it was absolutely amazing. I thought that reading Charlie Chaplin's autobiography was going to ruin the legend for me because, well, he is one of my personal heroes, and I do have a massive canvas of him in my room. But the book actually shows you where he came from and how he did things back before he was famous, and it is a real eye-opener. It shows you his life through his own words and his struggles through his own eyes. He is such an incredible human being, and this book, if anything, solidifies and intensifies the legend of Charlie Chaplin.

204. The Complete Poems by Robert Graves

205. Zeno's Conscience by Italo Svevo

206. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

207. Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh

208. Seize the Day by Saul Bellow

209. An Inspector Calls and Other Plays by J.B. Priestley

210. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers.