It has been 16 or 17 years since I first described my frustration and disdain differences with the list of “160 Books All Boys Should Read” by one of England’s most left-leaning newspapers, the
Guardian. But because a friend and mountain-climbing colleague recently asked me about books I might recommend for his son, I am posting an updated version of the piece I originally wrote in response to the
Guardian’s list. Here it is...
The Guardian’s list of “160 Books All Boys Should Read” was not only a very disappointing compilation, it was an absolutely terrible list, a compelling example of just how far Western cultural standards have devolved in these last decades of mediocrity, leftist political-correctness, and the wacky insistences of the woke crowd.
Out of that entire 160, there were just 8 books of their entire 160 that I, a lifelong reader, and one who holds a particular endearment for classic children’s literature, had read. No, that’s not exactly true. Make that only 7, because my version of
Kidnapped was, alas, not the “graphic novel in full colour” edition that made the Guardian’s list.
Those 7, by the way, were Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer also by Mark Twain.
Therefore, what was most significant (and sadly inexplicable)
was what the list left out. Here are just a few of the most serious omissions. Not only was the rest of JRR Tolkien’s classic
Lord of the Rings series nowhere to be found in that whole 160 books, there was not one Sir Walter Scott title that made the list. Not
Ivanhoe; not
Rob Roy; not even the moving poetry of
The Lady of the Lake. None! Furthermore, there were no Jack London titles. No G.A. Henty. No James Fenimore Cooper, John Buchan, Jules Verne, A.A. Milne, or Edgar Allan Poe. Unbelievably, there wasn’t any recommendation for Arthur Conan Doyle -- not
The White Company, not
The Lost World and, quite shockingly, none of the
Sherlock Holmes collections.
But, amazing as this has already been, that’s not all!
Watership Down didn’t make the list, nor did Kon-Tiki, Raffles, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Johnny Tremain, Robin Hood, Sink the Bismarck, The Iliad, or Knights of the Round Table, or any of the Hardy Boys or Tom Swift mysteries.
Even the Bible was absent!
Peter Pan author James Barrie was missing from the
Guardian list of “160 Books All Boys Should Read” of list. So too were James Herriot, O. Henry, Herman Melville, Rafael Sabatini, and the Brothers Grimm. And, though it’s really hard to believe, but the vapid and inane
Guardian list didn’t even recommend Charles Dickens or Alexander Dumas!
Almost needless to say then, Jonathan Swift wasn’t there. H.G. Wells wasn’t there. G.K. Chesterton, Erle Stanley Gardner, and Washington Irving were not there. A.E. W. Mason or H.E. Bates were not there. And even taller literary giants were inexplicably left cooling their heels in the Guardian’s outer office: George Orwell, Victor Hugo, Kenneth Grahame, C. S. Forester, and Horatio Alger.
Tarka the Otter was missing. So was
The Song of Roland and
Don Quixote and
Lorna Doone and
The Neverending Story and
The Wizard of Oz and
The Prisoner of Zenda, no
Ben-Hur…and none of the absolute gems from C.S. Lewis’s
Chronicles of Narnia.Of course, you can guess by now that such sparkling historians as Winston Churchill, Samuel Eliot Morison, Walter Lord, Shelby Foote, and John Toland were not in the list. That too is an inexcusable crime.
Going through this list of “160 Books That All Boys Should Read” was, to say the very least, a sad and very disconcerting experience. And, feeling that I need to respond in some way more positive than just running into the night screaming, I pass along these humble paragraphs with their reminders of what exceptional “boy’s books” are still there waiting to enlighten, thrill, and inspire to manly virtues.
