30 Going on 30
This weekend, Flavorwire posted a list of “30 Books Everyone Should Read Before They Turn 30.” I love lists of recommended books, books I “need” to read, “greatest books EVER,” etc. But this seemed like a strange categorization. Why 30? When you turn 30, are you no longer allowed to expand your reading horizons? If you haven’t read a certain classic, are you destined to lament it for the rest of your shriveled, sad, old life? Is your character and intelligence cemented forever when you turn 30, so that no matter what you read after that fateful birthday, it’s not going to have any impact on your worldview?
Of course, I may be extra-sensitive to this seemingly arbitrary designation because I turned 30 just last month, and it’s galling t think that I’ve somehow “missed out” on all of these books I haven’t yet read. Just for kicks, here’s a list of the books, with those I haven’t read yet bolded.
- The Iliad and the Odyssey: Homer
- The Secret History: Donna Tartt
- Jesus’ Son: Denis Johnson
- The Complete Stories: Flannery O’Connor
- Much Ado about Nothing: William Shakespeare
- The Sun Also Rises: Ernest Hemingway
- The Road: Cormac McCarthy
- Maus: Art Spiegelman
- Ender’s Game: Orson Scott Card
- Pride and Prejudice: Jane Austen
- Middlesex: Jeffrey Eugenides
- Ghost World: Daniel Clowes
- On the Road: Jack Kerouac
- Their Eyes Were Watching God: Zora Neale Hurston
- Cat’s Cradle: Kurt Vonnegut
- Lolita: Vladimir Nabokov
- The Lord of the Rings: J.R.R. Tolkien
- 1984: George Orwell
- The Catcher in the Rye: J.D. Salinger
- The Great Gatsby: F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Beloved: Toni Morrison
- Infinite Jest: David Foster Wallace
- Lord of the Flies: William Golding
- Don Quixote: Miguel de Cervantes
- The Trial: Franz Kafka
- To the Lighthouse: Virginia Woolf
- Fahrenheit 451: Ray Bradbury
- Invisible Man: Ralph Ellison
- To Kill a Mockingbird: Harper Lee
- Treasure Island: Robert Louis Stevenson
I’m always a fan of “Who cares what people tell me to do”, but I do highly recommend “Cat’s Cradle” (Kurt Vonnegut is one of my absolute favourite authors!) as well as “Their Eyes Were Watching God”. I hope you do, and I hope you love them.
Thanks Jessica! I love Vonnegut as well, but I haven’t gotten around to Cat’s Cradle yet. And I’ve always wanted to read Their Eyes Were Watching God. Thanks for the recs!
Hmm, I love a good book list, but this seems like a kind of arbitrary group. I also take exception with #1 on the list. After slogging through both The Iliad and The Odyssey in college, I’d say they deserve credit as two separate books, not one!
Amen! It seems like a copout to just lump them together…they’re two totally different stories! Just pick one. Geez.
I’ve only read 10 of these books and I just turned 35, unscathed all these years. Lists like this do hold a lot of appeal, if only because crossing things off of them brings me great satisfaction, but really–who is coming up with this stuff?! I second Jessica’s recommendation of Their Eyes Were Watching God. It’s a quick read and oh, what a love story. My dad adores Tolkein and has read the LOTR trilogy multiple times, so I read the first book a few years ago, after the movies had started coming out. I appreciated Tolkein’s skill, but good lord, those battle scenes were tedious to read! I got halfway through the second book and abandoned it. I couldn’t wade through all the descriptions and details and names and sidelines. Enough, J.R.R. We get it. You created a whole world.
Yeah, I can’t see myself dealing well with the LOTR stuff…I haven’t even gotten around to seeing the movies, and I think I’m one of the few people in the world who can say that. I appreciate that he’s good at what he does (did…), but it’s just not my thing. I won’t apologize for that.
Ugh, I spelled Tolkien wrong.
I’m 43 and I’ve only read 14 of those books. There are a few that I think I’d like to read, but I’ve been purposely avoiding Lord of the Flies since I was a teen.
I would say…keep avoiding it. It’s relevant when you’re a teenager, but if you didn’t have to read it for school, your reading time can be better spent.
i have read like 13 of these books and i think i am pretty well read! i am posting about this tomorrow and totally reference you so check it out! incidentally, i thought the secret history was very well written but i don’t get why its on the list and not 100 years of solitude or in cold blood? what the hell??
xo
sami
Yeah, this list has some very huge flaws. I would make my own list if I wasn’t so put off by the idea of the list in the first place!
Oh Jill, don’t you know that by the time you’re 30 you are irrelevant and no one gives a shit what you do ever again and you should just give up and crawl into a hole and hide in shame at being THIRTY OR OLDER?
In case you didn’t pick up on it, I was wearing my sarcasm hat while saying that. Of course, it’s a hat anyone under the age of 30 would decry as being FRUMPY.
I’ve realized that any list of “things you must do by XX age” usually tends to be pretty stupid, because we’re all individual and move at our own pace. Not all of us need to do the same things or move at the same pace or read the same books in order to self-actualize, have meaningful experiences, or contribute to the world. Bah, says the 31-year-old-spiritual-85-year-old-curmudgeon!
Also, publications seem to regurgitate these meaningless lists when they have nothing else relevant to say. They must be over the age of 30 then!
That IS a funny designation. Perhaps it should be more aptly titled with something having to do with what to read before embarking on motherhood… as I’m (sadly) learning from friends who are new moms, magazines are the new novels. That is not allowed to happen to me…. hold me to it, please?