So, ultimately, I agree with everyone who has said that one should be the arbiter of what one “has” to read before one dies.

And I agree with your larger point. You don’t have to be well-read to be a writer, great or not.

Though I do think the more you read the more you realize that following so-called writing/story rules do not make a piece of something worth reading. After all, it’s impossible to insist that MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN has a three act build with a straight face – though I’m sure some will try.

One can sit in a Starbucks, unwashed, unshaven, pretending to absorb the atmosphere and insipid talk around one, for use in the masterpiece one is typing away on a laptop while waiting for a barista to call out one’s name, or you can get your ass home and read something that will open your mind to knew ideas that will eventually shed different angles of light onto the crap you write, thus improving your scope.

Not be well-read? It’s no wonder our children are 20% stupider these days.

I am a philosophy undergrad, law degree and now I am a financial analyst – make of that what you will.

To be honest, I again think this isn’t that good a list, as the way to “score high” is to have read the whole oeuvre of the top writers on it. Greene will score you like, 8, and Dickens the same. If you happen to like Calvino, well there’s another 5. Pynchon 5 etc. I really don’t think you need to have read everything Evelyn Waugh, or VS Naipaul wrote to be well read. Something from each will do, more if you like it.

Also, there’s a problem with weighting. Does anyone really think Middlesex is the equal of Middlemarch? I’ve read both, and I’m fairly confident I can predict which one people will be talking about in another hundred years.

@Grapeshot – Excellent point about certain books not being novels. Kesey, Angelou etc. Keysey did write novels. And if you’re going to put in adventure books, why not OBrien indeed, or why not Lonesome Dove? It’s surely as adventurous as Master of Ballentrae. Also, no Robertson Davies? Not one? And yes, all the Phillip Marlowe stories as one, and not all Ellroy? Or the 3 Neuromancer books, not just one? Is Count Zero really inferior to Douglas Adam’s Dirk Gently? And do any of them, beyond Neuromancer, maybe, belong on a 1000 best list? I mean, if someone said “Get me the 1000 best novels ever!”, would you really send so much Saul Bellow, or BE Ellis’ “Glamorama”? If you’re going to include so much Iain Banks, why not “the culture” as a series instead of his good, but in my opinion, not great, modern fiction. And so on…

Of course, I was a bookworm and a nerd, so the the “classic” stuff was easy.

Wish I was better off in the modern era.

I recently read Steinbeck’s “Cannery Row” for the first time and noticed a big influence on Frank Miller’s writing (of “300″ and “Sin City” fame). I also could see a parallel between Steinbeck’s structure — short stand-alone vignette chapters followed by a running ‘mythology’ chapter that continues a narrative thread — and modern serial dramas like The X-Files or Lost. Ya know? Anyone?

Really great books — and I don’t mean just those on this list — put you deep into another place and time, or inside another person’s head. This allow you to “walk a mile in their shoes”. Of course, you also get that same effect from great works of non-fiction. Into Thin Air puts you right in the middle of a desperate expedition climbing Mount Everest and The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition puts you right in the middle of a desperate expedition to the south pole. Both of these are not only great adventure stories, but also are studies on leadership under adverse conditions. It seems to me that if you’re interested in STORYTELLING, which after all, is what a screenwriter does, then you should be interested in STORIES. And it shouldn’t matter that these stories are written on a page, or that they play out on a screen in front of you. Either way, it’s the story and what you get from that story that counts. I find that it’s the telling and the re-telling of these stories that inspires me in my writing – whether it’s by sparking an idea in my head, or by spurring me to see if I can’t do something similar.

Of course, the (almost) surprising thing about this list is how many of these works have been made into movies, miniseries, or television shows. But then, that just proves the point about how central STORY is to movie making.

I agree with most who commented about being surprised by how many separate works by authors were cited. If all 12 books of A Dance To The Music of Time counted as one, and all seven volumes of Remembrance of Things Past count as one, why would Hemingway, Faulkner, or Dickens, or even Austen get separate listings for each of their major works? If this list purports to show the development of the novel, then what differentiates each separate listing of Hemingway’s works to show how novels have developed? Or each citing of Dickens’ novels, or Austen’s? Or more to the point, why does each Dirk Gently book by Adams get a separate listing — they’re both very similar, and it could fairly be said that one is a continuation of the other. Or the three separate citations for Raymond Chandler — all three of which feature the same protagonist. All of these are great books that I can heartily recommend for reading, but it’s not clear to me that each of them need a separating listing. It would be fairer to simply say read anything by Raymond Chandler, anything by Douglas Adams, anything by Dashiell Hammett, anything by Jane Austen, anything by any of the Brontes, and so on.

Other puzzling things:

Like someone else mentioned above, I’m surprised that there’s no Ring Lardner on the list. There isn’t anyone who has done a better job of writing dialog in the American vernacular.

Also surprising is to see nothing listed by Patrick O’Brian, an author who A) is incomparable for putting the reader smack into another world and another time, B) masterfully handles an enormous cast of characters, and C) is that rare male author who creates believable female characters. Oh, and let’s not forget, he’s adept at writing gripping stories. I mean, if Kidnapped, The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo makes the list, then why not Master and Commander?

Surely Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas isn’t a novel? (I haven’t read it, but it seems to me that it’s about a personal journey.) And I have read The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, and in as much as it describes real people and real events, I don’t see how it could be called a novel. Dispatches isn’t a novel, either, but a book about the author’s experiences as a war correspondent. Maya Angelou’s I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings is an autobiography. But then again, the premise here in these comments is that IT’S THE STORY, STUPID, so by that criteria these books do belong. (Two of these were made into movies, and one of these was used as premises for two movies and a TV show.)

On the other hand, if this is about the development of the novel (and not, as we’re discussing, about STORYTELLING), then why isn’t Mallory’s King Arthur on this list? This was one of the first books published by William Caxton, making it the forerunner to all mass produced novels (at least in the English speaking world!) Or Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales?

For the record, I was trying to say that I scored 39. Let’s see if it lets it through this time.

And to think there was a time I considered myself a bibliophile!! I’m slightly consoled that a score over 100 seems to be rare–and usually held by those with English degrees and teaching certificates–going by the comments here. And that there are heaps of books on my shelf that didn’t make the list.

Still, I’m with the contingent steeling themselves to pay off library fees. I’m embarassed by the number of titles that made me say, “Well, gee, I always meant to read that….”

Does a writer, any writer, screenwriter, playwright, poet or novelist, need to be well read? Not necessarily. A writer best serves his craft by writing, but any time spent reading (think of it as studying)is also time well spent.