There’s a Hole In My Bucket List

Patrick Kurp fields a question from a reader on the topic of which books a person must read before dying. I realize that such questions are more like conversation-starters than literal requests for a prescription, but even so, I think Lin Yutang conclusively answered this one in The Importance of Living: There can be, therefore, no books that one absolutely must read. For our intellectual interests grow like a tree or flow like a river. So long as there is proper sap, the tree will grow anyhow, and so long as there is fresh current from the spring, the water will flow. When water strikes a granite cliff, it just goes around it; when it finds itself in a pleasant low valley, it stops and meanders there a while; when it finds itself in a deep mountain pond, it is content to stay there; when it finds itself traveling over rapids, it hurries forward. Thus, without any effort or determined aim, it is sure of reaching the sea some day. There are no books in this world that everybody must…