Time Magazine's Top 100 Novels
 

In English, that is. And since 1923:

http://www.time.com/time/2005/100boo...lete_list.html

Did I just complain in another thread that top 100 lists are woefully boring? I think I'll amend that to say that book lists are the exception. It usually takes so much longer for literature, as opposed to films or music or entertainers in general, to become remotely "canonized," that these kinds of book lists tend to remain interesting and different year after year. There's always bound to be a bunch of new titles you've never heard of. And on the flip side, of course, it's always fun to see which ones you've already read. I've got 13 under my belt, although there's a lot on there that I'd really love to read at some point:

Atonement, Ian McEwan
The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen
The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
A Passage to India, E.M. Forster
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

I've also read parts of Gravity's Rainbow and On the Road (and that aloud, with two friends, on a road trip across western America, because, well, there's no shame in being as cliche as possible).

All truly great books, though, I don't think I can argue with any of them being on there. Well, maybe Naked Lunch. Though I suppose it is very important historically.

Interestingly, only 6 of the books on my list (Grapes, Dalloway, Lunch, Cuckoo, Passage and Mockingbird) are books I read for the first time as part of a class in either high school or college.

I originally checked out the list to see if Ulysses was on there. But I suppose it's sort of de facto #1 since they chose to begin their list in 1923. Yes.

I've read 15 on that list which surprised me. Some were school reading though, I must admit.

Nothing wrong with that, that's what English class is for, right? Actually, there are a number on the list that I'm surprised I was never assigned in school (like Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies).

Which ones have you read that aren't on my list, and what do you think of them?

These are the ones I've read:

Animal Farm by George Orwell
Are You There God? It's Me Margaret by Judy Blume (every schoolgirl read that)
The Catcher In The Rye - JD Salinger
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
The Grapes Of Wrath - John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
Gone With The Wind- Margaret Mitchell
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Lord Of The Flies - William Golding
The Lord Of The Rings- J.R.R. Tolkein
Naked Lunch - William Burroughs
1984 - George Orwell
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys


Thanks for replying to the "chick music" issue by the way.
I hate arguing with people, as you know.

So your list is basically most of mine, plus a few of the ones I feel like I should have read but haven't. I wonder if most folks have read most of the same 20 or so books on the list...

What is Wide Sargasso Sea? I don't think I've ever heard of it.

I've only read 9 of them. I've got a lot of catching up to do.

It's kind of a prequel to Jane Eyre. That's another I read at school.
It's great, very atmospheric, sweaty and claustrophobic, set in Jamaica. It's basically the story of Mr Rochester and what happened with his first wife.

I've read 11 but I love a good book so this is a good reading list! The ones I read are below:

Animal Farm

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret

Beloved

The Catcher in the Rye

Gone with the Wind

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

Lord of the Flies

The Lord of the Rings

1984

Their Eyes Were Watching God

To Kill a Mockingbird

Here are the books off the list that I've read:

All the King's Men- Robert Penn Warren
Animal Farm- George Orwell
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret- Judy Blume
Atonement-Ian McEwan
Beloved- Toni Morrison
The Blind Assassin- Margaret Atwood
Brideshead Revisited- Evelyn Waugh
Catch-22- Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the Rye- J.D. Salinger
A Clockwork Orange- Anthony Burgess
The Corrections- Jonathan Franzen
Gone With the Wind- Margaret Mitchell
The Grapes of Wrath- John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby- F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter- Carson McCullers
The Heart of the Matter- Graham Greene
I, Claudius- Robert Graves
Invisible Man- Ralph Ellison
Light in August- William Faulkner
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe- C.S. Lewis
Lolita- Vladimir Nabokov
Lord of the Flies- William Golding
The Lord of the Rings- J.R.R. Tolkein
Mrs. Dalloway- Virginia Woolf
Naked Lunch- William Burroughs
Never Let Me Go- Kazuo Ishiguro
1984- George Orwell
On the Road- Jack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest- Ken Kesey
Play It As It Lays- Joan Didion
Posession- A.S. Byatt
The Power and the Glory- Graham Greene
Rabbit, Run- John Updike
Slaughterhouse-Five- Kurt Vonnegut
The Sound and the Fury- William Faulkner
The Sportswriter- Richard Ford
The Sun Also Rises- Ernest Hemingway
Things Fall Apart* Chinua Achebe
To Kill a Mockingbird- Harper Lee
To the Lighthouse- Virginia Woolf
Tropic of Cancer- Henry Miller
Under the Net- Iris Murdoch
Watchmen- Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
Wide Sargasso Sea- Jean Rhys

I think it's kind of amazing and totally weird that they put Watchmen on the list. It deserves to be there, but it still seems disingenuous for Time to jump on the "graphic novels have literary merit too!" bandwagon.

Yes it IS weird. It is probably one of the best, though. I think they should've included Maus, and The Dark Knight Returns.

I don't read this contemporary fiction.

I read only criticism, science & essayistic/explicative/hortatory paraphernalia.

Advice: Don't read "Ulysses" alone. Read it in tandem with Stuart Gilbert's study, which is available in an easy-to-flip-around-it paperback.

If you read "Gatsby," make sure you have the corrected edition (Matthew Broccoli or something -- the authorized text) out from Scribner. No greater a critic than Edmund Wilson Himself -- the towering Olympian among plebs -- messed up some of Fitzgerald's language in the editing: "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future . . ." edited Wilson, when in fact Fitzgerald wanted "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future . . ." The two words mean different things.

The corrected Scribner edition also replaces space breaks that were deleted in earlier editions; Fitzgerald used space breaks here & there in order to signal shifts in time or narrative.

You're missing out!

And if you're only reading criticism...you're basically reading opinions from either learned or possibly unlearned sources. Can that be more interesting that something completely unique from someone's imagination...like say, Chronicles of Narnia?

I've missed out Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell and The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkein on my list!

Whatever you say, boss. I read only German fiction these days. Fun times.

I own Gilbert's study, but I haven't read it or used it yet. I was weaned on Don Gifford's book of annotations, so I usually use that . It's bigger than Ulysses itself and ain't all that easy to flip around in sometimes, but it's an invaluable resource if you don't let yourself get too bogged down by it.

But yes (I said yes I will Yes), don't read Ulysses for the first time alone, kids. You could put your brain out with that thing. (And of course it never hurts to read Portrait first, either.)

As I listed these novels, I realized there is very little remember about many of the books I have read. Time to reread them, I guess.
I am not sure I think "Ubik" is Dick's best. And, Where's Truman Capote? I guess that's just how these lists are. I am more of a short story reader, so I don't read many novels. I am about to read "Atonement", and I have had "Pale Fire" by my bedside for months, but I can't seem to begin it.


***For School***
Lord of the Flies-William Golding
Animal Farm-George Orwell
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret-Judy Blume
Beloved-Toni Morrison
1984-George Orwell
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest-Ken Kesey
A Clockwork Orange-Anthony Burgess
The Catcher in the Rye-J.D. Salinger
Things Fall Apart-Chinua Achebe
The Great Gatsby-F. Scott Fitzgerald
The French Lieutenant's Woman-John Fowles

***On my own***
On the Road-Jack Kerouac
The Sheltering Sky-Paul Bowles
A Handful of Dust-Evelyn Waugh
Lord of the Flies-William Golding
Catch-22-Joseph Heller
Lolita-Vladimir Nabokov
The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter-Carson McCullers
Gone With the Wind-Margaret Mitchell
To Kill a Mockingbird-Harper Lee
White Noise-Don DeLillo ------!!!!One of my favorite books, ever!
The Lord of the Rings-J.R.R. Tolkein
Naked Lunch-William Burroughs
The Berlin Stories-Christopher Isherwood
The Corrections-Jonathan Franzen
A House for Mr. Biswas-V.S. Naipau

Animal Farm by George Orwell
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis
Lord of the Flies by Willian Golding
Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
1984 by George Orwell
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
White Noise by Don DeLillo

That's it, and all those in bold were assigned reading from class.

Thanks for the tip on Ulysses, guys.

Thanks for this information! I should reread "Gatsby", and I had no idea there was an authorized version. Is that E. O. Wilson, of the New Yorker? I didn't realize he edited the version I probably read in high school.

In Cold Blood isn't technically a novel, since it's not fiction, so they probably didn't even consider it.

But apparently you're reading the good ones, judging by your list!

I thought Atonement was really enchanting, but I know some people have thought the beginning of the book is very slow. Stick with it if it doesn't grab you right off the bat, though.

If you want any help with it or have any questions, I usually get very excited at the prospect of discussing it. I don't have my Gifford with me, but PM me anytime...

Yes, but I thought "Breakfast at Tiffany's" might be considered. Isherwood's "Berlin Stories" is very similar in some ways. Capote's short stories are his best work anyway.

I am looking forward to it. I enjoyed his novella, "The Comfort of Strangers". He has an ability to convey a sense of forboding and dread like Bowles, and I dig that.

Oops, I removed my complaint about the list not having Wharton on it. I just failed the close reading test, since the first post of this thread says after 1923! I figured this out when I realized Twain wasn't on it either. Doh!

Cool, thanks for the offer! I will definitely take you up on that once I start it again. :)

Where is THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand?

This is crap.

FABULOUS BOOK AND MOVIE!!!!!

I have read most on that list and there are some glaring omissions :cool:

I'm trying to read that one. I think it's highly annoying so far :shrug:

Damn, you're just firing on all cylinders in the heavy readfing department, aren't you?

LOL. I suppose so. I'm trying to challenge myself right now.

Well, as I mentioned in the other reading thread, when you sit down with Ulysses again, be sure to give it your full attention. It demands it.

Now, where's ol' Brown Eyes? I want to know his thoughts on Ms. Rand.

I prefer Atlas Shrugged by quite a margin, but your point still holds.

I have 18:

Animal Farm
Are you there god, it's me margaret
Beloved
The Big Sleep
The Blind Assassin (strange little book, I love Atwood)
Brideshead Revisited
The Catcher in the Rye
Gone With the Wind
The Grapes of Wrath
The Great Gatsby
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (which is soooo not the best book in the series)
Lolita
Lord of the Flies
Naked Lunch
On the Road
To Kill a Mockingbird
Tropic of Cancer
White Noise


I agree tons of good books are missing.

Highly annoying? I thought it was good, as a story, but again I much prefer Atlas Shrugged.
Hmm, I guess it could be highly annoying. She does pound you over the head with her point. hahahaha. :laugh:

And regardless what you think of her philosophical or literary merits, Ayn Rand made her living from being highly annoying. Woman was a total bitch, and probably one of the worst misappropriators of her own philosophy.

I've only read six of these. :o I don't read much.

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
The Catcher in the Rye
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
Lord of the Flies
Things Fall Apart
To Kill a Mockingbird

I also agree that there are some really good books missing from the list.

mmm....From what I've seen of her, which is some interviews and a biographical documentary...and I've read a few things...she seems really smart. And no, I don't agree with her philosophy as a political system.
What's the part about her being a bitch? What do you mean, specifically? I know she cheated on her husband or something, but meh. :)

Why not alone? I did it and it was a great experience.

About the list, I've read:
American Pastoral - Philip Roth
Animal Farm - George Orwell
Beloved - Toni Morrison
The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen
The Day of the Locust - Nathanael West
The French Lieutenant's Woman - John Fowles
The Golden Notebook - Doris Lessing
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby . F. Scott Fitzgerald
I, Claudius - Robert Graves
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
Naked Lunch - William Burroughs
On the Road- Jack Kerouac
A Passage to India- E.M. Forster
The Power and the Glory - Graham Greene
Red Harvest - Dashiell Hammett
The Sheltering Sky - Paul Bowles
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold - John LeCarre
Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller
Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowrey

Romy

Let's see.... I have 18. Certainly didn't love them all.

Animal Farm
Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret
Atonement
Beloved
The Blind Assassin
The Catcher in the Rye
The Corrections
The Great Gatsby - most unfavourite book everrrrr
A Handful of Dust
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Lord of the Flies
1984
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
A Passage to India
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Rabbit, Run
Things Fall Apart
To Kill a Mockingbird

Let me retract that injunction, then, because I think that reading "Ulysses" without consulting criticism, analysis or other explanation is certainly preferable to not reading it at all, & even very satisfying to some people, as you say it was to you. But to the thousands of others who have found Joyce's language, themes & references to be too great a strain on their attention or endurance, I'd say that Stuart Gilbert's book (written with Joyce's assistance) is just about the best aid a reader could find.

I taught undergrads at U.C. Davis as a graduate assistant, & we all read "Ulysses" along with Gilbert's book, & I think without Gilbert, the students would have been quite lost -- little sheep wandering among Joyce's towering crags. Gilbert helped us all understand the structure & symbolism of "Ulysses," as well as its thousands of literary, political, scientific, aesthetic, metaphysical & even anatomical references. For example, I remember how useful the discussion was of the "Oxen of the Sun" episode in the hospital, with its esoteric parody of the various phases of literary style -- from Anglo-Saxon to mediaeval Latin to Middle English to 17th century to 18th century . . . echoes of Carlyle, De Quincey, Malory, Browne, Pepys, Swift, Addison, Walpole, etc. etc. Even if we had been capable of recognizing these stylistic allusions, I think we'd have still been totally unaware of what it all had to do with the development of an embryo. And we'd have been fairly lost in the great "Nighttown" sequence, with its black magic & animism & specters & more arcane references, this time to Balaam's ass or Flaubert's "Saint Antoine" or God-knows-what-all.

"Ulysses" is so chock-a-block full of life & art & knowledge that to anyone who tells me he or she wants to read it, I just habitually recommend starting with the Gilbert book -- or even reading it in tandem with Joyce. It's actually set up so you can do that. It's still in print in a good Vintage paperback, & it will unlock so many treasures in "Ulysses" for you that you're bound to find your "voyage to Ithaca" so much richer for it.

I'm sorry you don't like it! Did an English class ruin it for you, by any chance?
I finally read this Spark novella about ten years ago because I was such a fan of the Ronald Neame film. I think the movie did the book full justice & then some, even though Neame is a mostly conventional director.

I think that's weird, too, Gatsby is one of my very, very favorite books.
I just want to say I have this desire to say "uh, Rabbit, Run - you got through that okay?" But I don't remember when I read it, or if I really read it. I think I may have, in highschool, picked it up, read a bit, and saw that it was boring. I'm not sure, though. But I did enjoy "Brazil" by Updike, so maybe "Rabbit, Run" isn't as bad as I'm thinking.
I also think "Witches of Eastwick" should be on there.

Maggie Smith is just brilliant in that movie, inspiring and vain, piteable and monstrous. I should read the novella.

When is she not?
Just saying.:D Maggie Smith is greatness. She was heartbreaking in Quartet.
How weird, I thought Lillian Hellman wrote the play/movie. Hmm, perhaps I should read that.

Very true:nod:
Oh, I had forgotten about that movie. I want to see that again.
I saw The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie on TV when I was a child, and I just thought she was silly and enthusiastic, and I liked her brogue; it was only a few years ago, when I showed the film to someone else, that I "got" how controlling and desperate she was all contained within her love for "Her Gairrrls". It gave me chills this last time. That must be in the book.