Best Books of All time?

[welsh]

Because Kharn doesn't like Umberto Eco (pseudo-intellectual masturbatory waste of time!), this thread might be worth it.

Or not.

What are THE BEST BOOKS?

According to the the Modern Library- these are the best books as chosen by
(1) their board
(2) readers.

So what do you think?
Have you been reading these?

1. ULYSSES by James Joyce
1. ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand

Didn't care for Joyce, and I think Ayn Rand is a psuedo-intellectual blowhard.

2. THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand

Love Gatsby.
See above for Ayn Rand

3. A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce
3. BATTLEFIELD EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard

Battlefield Earth? Oh apparently the Scientologists are conspiring.
Portrait is the reason for comments above on Ayn Rand

4. LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov
4. THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkien

This is ok with me. Love Lolita. Gave me all sorts of pedophile fantasies. Lord of the Rings- kind of gay, but hey I'm comfortable with it.

5. BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
5. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee

Ok here.

6. THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner
6. 1984 by George Orwell

Ditto

7. CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller
7. ANTHEM by Ayn Rand

Heller is great. I suspect the Libertarians have a better conspiracy going than the Scientologists, though getting Battlefield Earth to 3 is simply shocking.

8. DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler
8. WE THE LIVING by Ayn Rand

Maybe the person who made this list really likes Ayn Rand (and should be shot).

9. SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence
9. MISSION EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard

Holy Fuck! Hubbard again?

10. THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck
10. FEAR by L. Ron Hubbard

Let's see, Steinbeck vs. Hubbard.

11. UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry
11. ULYSSES by James Joyce

12. THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by Samuel Butler
12. CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller

13. 1984 by George Orwell
13. THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald

14. I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves
14. DUNE by Frank Herbert

15. TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf
15. THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS by Robert Heinlein

16. AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser
16. STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND by Robert Heinlein

17. THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers
17. A TOWN LIKE ALICE by Nevil Shute

18. SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut
18. BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley

19. INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison
19. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger

Love Salinger.

20. NATIVE SON by Richard Wright
20. ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell

21. HENDERSON THE RAIN KING by Saul Bellow
21. GRAVITY'S RAINBOW by Thomas Pynchon

22. APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA by John O'Hara
22. THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck

23. U.S.A. (trilogy) by John Dos Passos
23. SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut

24. WINESBURG, OHIO by Sherwood Anderson
24. GONE WITH THE WIND by Margaret Mitchell

25. A PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M. Forster
25. LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding

26. THE WINGS OF THE DOVE by Henry James
26. SHANE by Jack Schaefer

Shane was cool but this is overrated.

27. THE AMBASSADORS by Henry James
27. TRUSTEE FROM THE TOOLROOM by Nevil Shute

28. TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald
28. A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY by John Irving

Not Irving's best.

29. THE STUDS LONIGAN TRILOGY by James T. Farrell
29. THE STAND by Stephen King

30. THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford
30. THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN by John Fowles

31. ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell
31. BELOVED by Toni Morrison

32. THE GOLDEN BOWL by Henry James
32. THE WORM OUROBOROS by E.R. Eddison

33. SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser
33. THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner

34. A HANDFUL OF DUST by Evelyn Waugh
34. LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov

35. AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner
35. MOONHEART by Charles de Lint

36. ALL THE KING'S MEN by Robert Penn Warren
36. ABSALOM, ABSALOM! by William Faulkner

37. THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder
37. OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham

Of Human Bondage is a must read for all teenage guys. And better than the Bridge of San Luis Rey

38. HOWARDS END by E.M. Forster
38. WISE BLOOD by Flannery O'Connor

39. GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN by James Baldwin
39. UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry

40. THE HEART OF THE MATTER by Graham Greene
40. FIFTH BUSINESS by Robertson Davies

41. LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding
41. SOMEPLACE TO BE FLYING by Charles de Lint

42. DELIVERANCE by James Dickey
42. ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac

On the Road is overrated. Deliverance is pretty cool.

43. A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME (series) by Anthony Powell
43. HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad

But Heart of Darkness is better than both.

44. POINT COUNTER POINT by Aldous Huxley
44. YARROW by Charles de Lint

45. THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway
45. AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS by H.P. Lovecraft

Hoot! Mountains of Madness.... Cool!

46. THE SECRET AGENT by Joseph Conrad
46. ONE LONELY NIGHT by Mickey Spillane

Spillane is awful. But the Secret Agent is a great read for anyone interested in terrorism and political violence. A great novel.

47. NOSTROMO by Joseph Conrad
47. MEMORY AND DREAM by Charles de Lint

48. THE RAINBOW by D.H. Lawrence
48. TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf

49. WOMEN IN LOVE by D.H. Lawrence
49. THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy

50. TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller
50. TRADER by Charles de Lint

51. THE NAKED AND THE DEAD by Norman Mailer
51. THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY by Douglas Adams.

Hitchhiker's Guide is probably better than the Naked and the Dead.

52. PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT by Philip Roth
52. THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers

53. PALE FIRE by Vladimir Nabokov
53. THE HANDMAID'S TALE by Margaret Atwood

54. LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner
54. BLOOD MERIDIAN by Cormac McCarthy

Blood Meridian is a damn cool read. There's another by McCarthy I like better, but I can't recall the title.

55. ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac
55. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess

56. THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett
56. ON THE BEACH by Nevil Shute

Maltese Falcon is way better than Spillane

57. PARADE'S END by Ford Madox Ford
57. A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce

58. THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith Wharton
58. GREENMANTLE by Charles de Lint

59. ZULEIKA DOBSON by Max Beerbohm
59. ENDER'S GAME by Orson Scott Card

60. THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy
60. THE LITTLE COUNTRY by Charles de Lint

61. DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather
61. THE RECOGNITIONS by William Gaddis

62. FROM HERE TO ETERNITY by James Jones
62. STARSHIP TROOPERS by Robert Heinlein

Jones' The Thin Red Line is also a great read. Better than both films.

63. THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLES by John Cheever
63. THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway

64. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger
64. THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP by John Irving

Garp is better than Owen Meany. Better movie too.

65. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess
65. SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES by Ray Bradbury

66. OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham
66. THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE by Shirley Jackson

Jackson's is a classic horror story. Actually these are pretty good picks.

67. HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad
67. AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner

68. MAIN STREET by Sinclair Lewis
68. TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller

69. THE HOUSE OF MIRTH by Edith Wharton
69. INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison

70. THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET by Lawrence Durell
70. THE WOOD WIFE by Terri Windling

71. A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA by Richard Hughes
71. THE MAGUS by John Fowles

72. A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS by V.S. Naipaul
72. THE DOOR INTO SUMMER by Robert Heinlein

73. THE DAY OF THE LOCUST by Nathanael West
73. ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE by Robert Pirsig

74. A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway
74. I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves

This reminds me that I have to finish watching the series.

75. SCOOP by Evelyn Waugh
75. THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London

The Seawolf is better than The Call of the Wild.

76. THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE by Muriel Spark
76. AT SWIM-TWO-BIRDS by Flann O'Brien

77. FINNEGANS WAKE by James Joyce
77. FARENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury

I would bet that this Bradbury is better than this Joyce. Maybe I am being too harsh on Joyce. I did like The Dead.

78. KIM by Rudyard Kipling
78. ARROWSMITH by Sinclair Lewis

79. A ROOM WITH A VIEW by E.M. Forster
79. WATERSHIP DOWN by Richard Adams

There goes one of Kharn's favorites.

80. BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh
80. NAKED LUNCH by William S. Burroughs

81. THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH by Saul Bellow
81. THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER by Tom Clancy

Clancy, in the top 100? That's fucked up. This list is shit.

82. ANGLE OF REPOSE by Wallace Stegner
82. GUILTY PLEASURES by Laurell K. Hamilton

83. A BEND IN THE RIVER by V.S. Naipaul
83. THE PUPPET MASTERS by Robert Heinlein

84. THE DEATH OF THE HEART by Elizabeth Bowen
84. IT by Stephen King

85. LORD JIM by Joseph Conrad
85. V. by Thomas Pynchon

Ok, Lord Jim is pretty cool. Lots of Conrad on this list.

86. RAGTIME by E.L. Doctorow
86. DOUBLE STAR by Robert Heinlein

87. THE OLD WIVES' TALE by Arnold Bennett
87. CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY by Robert Heinlein

88. THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London
88. BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh

89. LOVING by Henry Green
89. LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner

90. MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie
90. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST by Ken Kesey

Kesey's is another great read.

91. TOBACCO ROAD by Erskine Caldwell
91. A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway

92. IRONWEED by William Kennedy
92. THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles

93. THE MAGUS by John Fowles
93. SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION by Ken Kesey

94. WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys
94. MY ANTONIA by Willa Cather

95. UNDER THE NET by Iris Murdoch
95. MULENGRO by Charles de Lint

96. SOPHIE'S CHOICE by William Styron
96. SUTTREE by Cormac McCarthy

This is not the McCarthy. But Sophie's Choice is a good read.

97. THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles
97. MYTHAGO WOOD by Robert Holdstock

98. THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain
98. ILLUSIONS by Richard Bach

Cool, James Cain.

99. THE GINGER MAN by J.P. Donleavy
99. THE CUNNING MAN by Robertson Davies

100. THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS by Booth Tarkington
100. THE SATANIC VERSES by Salman Rushdie

What? No Tolstoy?
Bullshit.

But there has to be a better list.

Ok, so top ten?

Montez, you literary snob (- your words boobie, not mine-) What is your list?

Oh an Montana State University's list is quite different-
http://www.montana.edu/wwwpb/univ/msu100.html

 

[welsh]

As I suspect corruption in the Modern Library List- (L. Ron Hubbard? - Fuck!) Here is the BBC list-

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

So, name your books!

 

[John Uskglass]

That is the worst list in the history of lists.


Ayn Rand...oh Jesus.....why?

 

[welsh]

To be fair, Ayn Rand has a lot of fans. Pseudo-Intellectual nonsense if you ask me.

 

[John Uskglass]

Ayn Rand.

And L. Ron. Hubbard.

Good God. My eyes, the computer screen does nothing!

 

[Brother None]

That first list better not be called "Best books of all time" but "Best books of English origin of all time"

It positively stinks of Americanism. It doesn't only miss Tolstoy, it misses the other Russian Greats (Dostoevskij and Turgenev) and seems to be missing a rather significant amount of German and French writers.

Harry Potter on the BBC list is funny, though

Just goes to show you can't take such lists seriously.

At least find a list of reputable international origin, welsh

 

[welsh]

I'm looking Kharn, but damn if it isn't hard to find one on the web.

To be fair, the BBC list isn't much better.

Folks, a list?

 

[Montez]

Ayn Rand.

And L. Ron. Hubbard.

Good God. My eyes, the computer screen does nothing!

Seriously, that made my head hurt. And "The Great Gatsby", while a good book, should never be anywhere near a list of the greatest books of all time.

"Best books of all time" is a hard topic to tackle though. Since there will never be a list that can be unanimously agreed on it's pretty much impossible. Beyond that, what criteria do you even use? Do you include everything ever written, whether science or philosophy or religious or fiction? Your favorite books? Books that you might not really love or even like but that you know are "masterpieces", or historically important, or are epic or groundbreaking? Books that you think everyone should read, even though chances are they are not going to appeal to them in any way and are going to have less effect and be a drier experience than a high school reading assignment?

So with that said, I'm going to cop out and not post a list until the topic gets narrowed down.

 

[Montez]

Well, I'll post a list of what I think the 10 best fiction books are. "Best" meaning that you are better off for having read them, whether you enjoyed them or not or whether you realize it or not.

"The Odyssey" - Homer
"The Illiad" - Homer
"Theogony" - Hesiod
"The Aeneid" - Virgil
"The Divine Comedy" - Dante
"Don Quixote" - Cervantes
Collected Works - Shakespeare (It's just one book!)
"Gulliver's Travels" - Swift
"Candide" - Voltaire
"The Brothers Karamazov" - Dostoevsky

Yes, it's an odd list. I worked on it for ten minutes, so sue me.

Edit: Got "Theogony" and "Works And Days" confused.

 

[John Uskglass]

It's a good list. I've read a few, and I saw Roberto Banigni read The Divine Comedy live.

Personally, I'm not fond of making lists of the 'best books'. I'm generally too tempted to put in books that I just like, or peronally think are money.

 

[Sander]

First thought: 'Where the hell are the Russians'
Second thought: 'Eh, English only, it seems'

Third thought: 'Muaha, Harry Potter on 22-24 on the BBC list. Not to be taken seriously'

To be honest, greatest books of all time is a very hard topic to tackle because it's both heavily dependant on the individual's culture and upbringing and on which books he has read, and I doubt a lot of people have read all the books mentioned in this thread, for instance.

 

[Brother None]

Montez; I'm pretty sure by "books" they mean "novels", so no Shakespeare. And one could argue no Homer either.

It's hard to scrap Virgil and Homer out of any greatest-books list. Then again, I've read Homer's Odyssee in "original" Hellenic Greek (not all of it, mind), and I probably wouldn't list it. It's too far away, it's too old. It isn't dated, it still works, but it doesn't click as powerfully as, say, the Brothers Karamazov.

Good call on Gulliver's Travels. That book's easy to miss, but I remember very well reading it and actually being awestruck at some of the anologies in there. Same goes for Don Quixote.

Sander, since you're here, I'm curious; what do you think the greatest Dutch book ever is? Name a few if you want. I'd go for either Multatuli's Max Havelaar for historical importance or A. Den Doolaard's Small people in the large world for literary value.

 

[Montez]

Personally, I'm not fond of making lists of the 'best books'. I'm generally too tempted to put in books that I just like, or peronally think are money.

I agree. All art is subjective, and it's most important aspect is the effect it has on you, not on some mainly imaginary "universal" worth. The only good effect that lists have is that they sometimes get you to read things that you might not have read otherwise, and most of the time that is a good thing in and of itself.

 

[Sander]

Sander, since you're here, I'm curious; what do you think the greatest Dutch book ever is? Name a few if you want. I'd go for either Multatuli's Max Havelaar for historical importance or A. Den Doolaard's Small people in the large world for literary value.

Havelaar, easily. It's a really good novel, with an interesting structure and, obviously, historical significance. But, to be honest, I have yet to read Den Doolaard. In fact, I haven't read any novel in the past year or so. Should get back to it.
From the books I've read, I'd probably select Mulisch' Siegried, which has a really interesting premise and a reasonable story.

 

[Montez]

It's hard to scrap Virgil and Homer out of any greatest-books list. Then again, I've read Homer's Odyssee in "original" Hellenic Greek (not all of it, mind), and I probably wouldn't list it. It's too far away, it's too old. It isn't dated, it still works, but it doesn't click as powerfully as, say, the Brothers Karamazov.

I had the opposite experience with The Odyssey; I don't know if it was just a great translation or what, but it really sucked me in and I still re-read it every once in a awhile, more often than a lot of more modern novels, Dostoevsky included. The Aeneid, on the other hand, was pure pain.

 

[John Uskglass]

Slightly off topic, but has anyone any good books on the Weimar Republic? I just got the Cabaret soundtrack and read an absolutley amazing graphic novel called Berlin: City of Stones by Jason Lutes.

 

[The Man From Utopia]

Lists like these are completely ridiculous. No one can come up with a number one book of all time. These lists aren't really about what's included but what they left out. Why didn't these people make an essential reading list? That would have been a much nobler cause.

I found the Time Magazine list for best English language novels since 1923. It doesn't attach number values so already it's a step forward.

Check it: The "Complete" List.

 

[DirtyDreamDesigner]

No Kafka? See, that's just wrong...

 

[welsh]

Gosh Montez- best books doesn't necessarily mean "the history of the book."

Ok, how about this list from MSU- a fairly conservative but not all that outstanding state university?

MSU’s Top 100 Books

1. The Collected Works of Shakespeare

2. The Bible

3. Don Quixote-Cervantes

4. Homer's Iliad/Odyssey

5. Ovid's Metamorphoses

6. Finnegans Wake-James Joyce

7. Oresteia of Aeschylus

8. Tao Te Ching-Lao Tzu

9. The Brothers Karamazov--Dostoevsky

10. Alice in Wonderland-Lewis Carroll

11. To the Lighthouse-Virginia Woolf

12. 100 Years of Solitude----Garcia Marquez

13. Pale Fire--Nabokov

14. Divine Comedy--Dante

15. Poems of Wallace Stevens

16. Arabian Nights

17. War and Peace--Tolstoy

18. Beloved-Toni Morrison

19. Collected Fictions of Jorge Luis Borges

20 Heart of Darkness--Conrad

21. Anecdotes of Destiny-Isak Dinesen

22. Oedipus Trilogy--Sophocles

23. Marriage of Cadmus & Harmony-Roberto Calasso

24. Katasaratsagura (Oceans of Story) Somadeva

25. Chekhov's Short Stories

26. Bhagavad Gita

27. Ulysses James Joyce

28. Grimm's Fairy Tales

29. Invisible Man Ralph Ellison

30. Absalom Absalom Wm Faulkner

31 Women in Love DH Lawrence

32. Lolita Vladimir Nabokov

33. Plato: Dialogues

34. Remembrance of Things Past Marcel Proust

35. The Tin Drum- Gunter Grass

36. Flannery O'Connor: Short Stories

37. Great Expectations-Charles Dickens

38. Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable Samuel Beckett

39. Interpretation of Dreams- Freud

40. Canterbury Tales-Chaucer

41. Four Quartets-TS Eliot

42. Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert

43. Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie

44. Tristram Shandy Lawrence Sterne

45. Yeats: Collected Poems

46. Golden Bough James Frazer

47. Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame

48. Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen

49. The Black Prince Iris Murdoch

50. Manuscript found at Saragossa Jan Potaki

51. Bacchae Euripides

52. Vanity Fair Wm Thackery

53. Metamorphosis: Kafka

54. Aeneid-Virgil

55. Tristan & Iseult

56. Collected Poems of William Blake

57. Golden Ass of Apuleius

58. Waiting for Godot/Endgame Samuel Beckett

59. Collected Poems of Emily Dickenson

60. Moby Dick Herman Melville

61. Speak, Memory Vladimir Nabokov

62. Phaedre- Jean Racine

63. Poetics of Aristotle

64. Fathers and Sons Ivan Turgenev

65. Lysistrata (Aristophanes)

66. A Doll's House Henrik Ibsen

67. Importance of Being Earnest- Oscar Wilde

68. Farewell to Arms-Ernest Hemingway

69. Charlotte's Web EB White

70. Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain

71. Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman

72. If On a Winter's Night Italo Calvino

73. Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte

74. Storyteller Maria Vargos Llosa

75. Heraclitus-Fragments

76. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)

77. Epic of Gilgamesh

78. The Idiot of Dostoevsky

79. Tess of the Durbervilles Thomas Hardy

80. Tale of Genji--Lady Murisaki

81. Montaigne's Essays

82. Walden Henry David Thoreau

83. Native Son- Richard Wright

84. On Nature-Emerson

85. Dr. Faustus Christopher Marlowe

86. To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee

87. Gargantua and Pantagruel Rabelais

88. Paradise Lost John Milton

89. Tom Jones Henry Fielding

90. Native Son, Richard Wright

91. The Art of Memory-Frances Yates

92. Middlemarch-George Eliot

93. At Play in the Fields of the Lord- Peter Matthiessen

94. All the Pretty Horses Cormac McCarthy

95. Candide-Voltaire

96. Genealogy of Morals- Fredrich Nietzsche

97. Passage to India-EM Forster

98. The Sea the Sea-iris Murdoch

99. Tristes Tropiques-Claude Levi-Strauss

100. Their Eyes were Watching God---Zora Neale Hurston

Note- Russians! Kafka!

(you guys are such a bunch of pseudo-intellectual snobs.... Where did I hear that before?)

 

[frissy]

Hmm...good books. I know that these books aren?t the best ones, because in my brain Tolstoi, Dante, etc. are the best by civilization standards not that I?ve read them (well I did read Inferno).

But for my own taste. The only books that have given me something to enjoy (now that I?ve actually read some books and no longer celebrate my 10th birthday) are probably written by Terry Pratchett. They arent serious, but they give me a laugh and relax me. It?s the perfect humour form. Watching a movie with similar humour would probably make the top10 of crappiest movies ever.

It?s like humour packed into a book, not a book about humour. I love they way they explain physics and how things generally work. They are totally crazy, but they have a certain point in them "Why not? It could be explained like that"

I also read "normal" books, but those don?t give me that much. It?s a storie, with characters and backgrounds. Nothing more. Pratchett books are something more.

Simply. I just enjoy them. No need to grow my brain, it?s big enough already.
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Boiling Food