Topic: Top 100 books...

[Silouan]

I found this interesting http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/the_complete_list.html

Of these I think one of the most interesting that I have read (and a little off the beaten path) is Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather.  It is a semi historical novel about Roman Catholic missionaries in the Southwestern United States.  It is slow moving at times, but an enjoyable read - and gives a little background to the area of the world I call home 

The book on that list that I detest is Their Eyes Were Watching God.  I had to read this for my Junior English class - perhaps part of my dislike of it, that was an unpleasant class.  I was more frustrated with the charactars at the end of the book than anything else.  Also the dialect that the was used for quotations made it annoying to read. 

Anyone else read some the lesser known works on the list that really struck them? 

Time to hit the library while I still have some free time left...

[Silouan]

Also I was a little dissapointed to not see some books on there:

Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton

The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury

[MaryCecilia]

Well, I'd say that I am surprised to see the Great Gatsby and To Kill a Mockingbird on that list, I had to read both of them in Highschool and I didn't understand either of them, one was about a rich guy who drank all the time and only wanted to party, the other I really don't know what the point of the book was.  I read 1984 after I met my husband, as well as The Lion, Witch, Wardrobe. I was going to read Animal Farm but haven't yet.  I have read Lord of the Rings, I'm glad that one is on the list at least.  All the others, I've never heard of before.  Looks like I have some reading to catch up on as well.  Thankyou for posting this btw

In Christ,
the sinner and struggler,
Mary
 

[Keble]

My "I have read" list

There hardly are any "lesser known" ones on the list. Which is a pity, because in various cases people would have picked other books. In Lewis's case the contrast is extreme: Til We Have Faces is an extraordinary, powerful book, but it has always been obscured by his other books because it is very subtle and definitely not for kids.

[Αριστοκλής]

Hmmmmm...I've only read 29 of these - so much for thinking myself well-read.

Surprised at no D.H. Lawrence who IMO out-classes Fitzgerald.

[ania]

Out of this list I have read:
Animal Farm (hated it)
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret (don't remember what it was about though, I read it in school).
The Catcher in the Rye
A Clockwork Orange
Gone With the Wind
The Grapes of Wrath (another school requirement)
The Great Gatsby (school, again)
I, Claudius (saw the movies, then read the book, sick stuff, but I enjoyed it).
the Lion, The Witch & the Wardrobe (all around great book, great series too, have read it many times).
Lolita
Lord of the Flies
The Lord of the Rings
1984
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Slaughterhouse-Five
To Kill a Mockingbird (one of my favorite books from my childhood, will have to reread to see if my impressions now would stay the same).

A lot of the books on there I'm not interested in, but some I'll have to make a point of looking up.

[BJohnD]

I've only read 11, but I've seen the film versions of a bunch more.ÂÂ  Doesn't that count?ÂÂ  8)ÂÂ  I tend to favor the Victorians, particularly Trollope and Dickens, and also Doestoyevsky.ÂÂ  

On the other hand, anyone notice that both the original Cyberpunk novel Neuromancer and the graphic novel Watchmen made the list?ÂÂ  Both are brilliant, IMHO.

Quick addition to say I also think Death Comes for the Archbishop is terrific.

[Αριστοκλής]

I've only read 11, but I've seen the film versions of a bunch more.  Doesn't that count?    I tend to favor the Victorians, particularly Trollope and Dickens, and also Doestoyevsky. 

I with you here adding Victor Hugo and Joseph Conrad, but this listing is perhaps American only?

[BJohnD]

I must confess to not liking Conrad very much.ÂÂ  I've read Heart of Darkness and The Secret Sharer, but he never grabbed me.ÂÂ  I've also given Turgenev's Fathers and Sons and Melville's Moby Dick the 100-page test several times apiece, but never managed to finish them.ÂÂ  But I have read (and liked) War and Peace!

As for 20th century novels, I absolutely loved Mark Helprin's A Soldier of the Great War, from around 1990.ÂÂ  Read it twice.

[Αριστοκλής]

But I have read (and liked) War and Peace!

Ya' got me there, BJohnD, I've owned a copy of War and Peace for 25 years and every time I get it down to read the monster I think of all the other things I'd rather read instead and put it back on the shelf.  .
Back in the mid 1980's a used bookseller offered me an incomplete set of Conrad's Complete Works (it lacked one novel) for $20 - about thirty novels. I did buy them and have only read 5 or 6.
 How can one person write so much?

[Silouan]

but this listing is perhaps American only?

I think the list is publications originally in English and first published whle Time Magazine was in operation. 

[Shankar]

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, Judy Blume
The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
I, Claudius, Robert Graves
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis
Lord of the Flies, William Golding
The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
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
Watchmen, Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons

Thats 13.  Of those, at least 9 but possibly 10 were orginally read for school.

[BJohnD]

[quote author=ÃŽ‘ριστοκλής link=topic=7427.msg96577#msg96577 date=1130262844]
Ya' got me there, BJohnD, I've owned a copy of War and Peace for 25 years and every time I get it down to read the monster I think of all the other things I'd rather read instead and put it back on the shelf.ÂÂÂ  .

[/quote]

One man's meat is another man's poison.    I loved it, though I disagreed with Tolstoy's idea that individuals do not influence history.   

I must have a thing for fat books.  I love Trollope's triple-deckers, and I read all 1300 pages of Shelby Foote's The Civil War: a Narrative History (which reads like a novel) during my last semester in law school/bar review.  Kept me sane.

[troy]

There hardly are any "lesser known" ones on the list. Which is a pity, because in various cases people would have picked other books. In Lewis's case the contrast is extreme: Til We Have Faces is an extraordinary, powerful book, but it has always been obscured by his other books because it is very subtle and definitely not for kids.

That's so true, unfortunately.

[Donna Rose]

so i've read 13 books on there, again many for school...besides lewis and tolkien makin the list which i of course approve of, other really good ones that are on there are Lord of the Flies, A Clockwork Orange, and One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest.

for the record, i actually prefer the Lion, Witch and Wardrobe to Til We Have Faces - i cant pinpoint why exactly, but it might be that i like the innocence of the Narnia children, which the main character of Faces doesn't quite have if my memory serves me...granted Faces is an awesome story and the main character is who she is because she is a bit darker than most kids in stories, but my tastes just tend towards Narnia in this respect.

as for the ones i havent read, while i may encounter many in the future, the only ones i may go outta my way to read are the Neuromancer and maybe Bridge of San Luy Rey, the 1st because i am pretty into cyberpunk when im in the mood and the 2nd cause i have a used copy of it and its quite slim. can anyone review either of em who has read em?

D

[Asteriktos]

I've read 3.  *puts dunce cap on*

[troy]

If you haven't read it, Lewis wrote a letter (http://www.montreat.edu/dking/lewis/TILWEHAV.htm) describing the point of Till We Have Faces, which is very interesting.

[Keble]

Theologically I don't think much of The Bridge of San Luis Rey, and its point is pretty much theological.

If you preferred Narnia to Til We Have Faces. I can pretty much guarantee that you'll find Neuromancer quite repugnant!

[Keble]

As for 20th century novels, I absolutely loved Mark Helprin's A Soldier of the Great War, from around 1990.  Read it twice.

Now that you mention it, I'm a little surprised not to have seen either that or Winter's Tale on the list.

I'm also surprised that anyone could have gotten through school and only read a couple of these.

[ozgeorge]

I'm also surprised that anyone could have gotten through school and only read a couple of these.

Why so?
When I went to school we had to cover poetry, Shakespeare, classic plays, contemporary plays, Chaucer, classic prose and modern fiction. We only studied 4 modern novels to my recollection.
Also this list was compiled by two critics I've never heard of before who work for (what is in my opinion), a practically defunct magazine.

[Donna Rose]

Theologically I don't think much of The Bridge of San Luis Rey, and its point is pretty much theological.

ah, good to know. the book is so slim though, and takes place in such a rich time and place, i may give it a gander anyway.

If you preferred Narnia to Til We Have Faces. I can pretty much guarantee that you'll find Neuromancer quite repugnant!

i read a whole load of cyberpunk this summer for a sci fi lit class, so i know what i'd be getting myself into. as i said, i like cyberpunk *when im in the mood* heh, and i do think it has a lot to offer to the world of sci fi (a world i am only recently getting aquainted to). Narnia on the other hand i can take at almost any time - im justa big kid at heart.

thanx for the reviews tho.

D

[ania]

DonnaRose...
I've read Bridge of San Luis Rey... flat out hated it.  The point is rather convoluted, and well, to be honest I just didn't like the way it was written.  I read it in 10th grade though, so maybe by opinion will change if I read it again. 
On a side note...  I think about the teacher who made us read it, and if he wasn't retired already, he'd be canned rather quickly now-a-days... The first thing we read that year was Paul's letters to the Corinthians regarding love.  Amazing how school policies change, this was only 8 years ago.

[Asteriktos]

I'm also surprised that anyone could have gotten through school and only read a couple of these.

Actually, I don't think government school had me read more than a half dozen books total, in all my years there. There was poetry and short stories and whatnot, but none of the books mentioned in the list except the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I was in Vo-Tech, but I still had English every year (including all 4 years of High School). I've also had 3 semesters of college English, but we didn't read any of the books listed.

[Ebor]

Well, I'd say that I am surprised to see the Great Gatsby and To Kill a Mockingbird on that list, I had to read both of them in Highschool and I didn't understand either of them, one was about a rich guy who drank all the time and only wanted to party, the other I really don't know what the point of the book was. ÂÂ  

Perhaps if you have a chance you could rent the movie of "To Kill a Mockingbird" with Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, it would help understand the book.  The book is about many things: growing up in a southern small town during the Depression, racism and treating people right even if they're 'different'.  It's semi-autobiographical too, as Harper Lee drew on her own hometown and father.

Ebor

[Ebor]

I found the list rather curious.  Why "UBik" by Philip K. Dick?  I've read it and there are others of his that are better, imho.  "Snow Crash" is in the cyber-SF like "Neuromancer", are those books counted as somehow landmark books?  Having read a very funny essay on having to read and review Joan Didion by Florence King (if I remember it correctly she imagined a literati "boot camp" with a drill sergent demanding "What is the theme?!?!"  "Anomie, Sir, Anomie!!!".)  I don't feel the need to read her. More then one William Faulkner? At least the Atwood wasn't "The Handmaid's Tale".  ÃƒÆ’‚  I just wonder what the background criteria were here.  

Ebor

[Arystarcus]

[quote author=Αριστοκλής link=topic=7427.msg96577#msg96577 date=1130262844]
Ya' got me there, BJohnD, I've owned a copy of War and Peace for 25 years and every time I get it down to read the monster I think of all the other things I'd rather read instead and put it back on the shelf.ÂÂ  .[/quote]

"I love sitting in front of a warm fire with a book like "War and Peace". A fat book like that will feed a fire for hours!" - Emo Philips       

[BJohnD]

That reminds me of Dorothy Parker's wicked line in an old New Yorker book review:  "This is not a book to be put down lightly.  It should be thrown with great force."

Seriously, it's a terrific book, even with all those ever-shifting Russian nicknames.   

Anyone here seen the Russian film version, from the 60s?  I've put it on our Netflicks cue -- 5, count 'em, 5 DVDs.     I hear the director had the services of entire Red Army divisions for the battle scenes.

[Ebor]

That reminds me of Dorothy Parker's wicked line in an old New Yorker book review:ÂÂ  "This is not a book to be put down lightly.ÂÂ  It should be thrown with great force."

Ah, her "Constant Reader" reviews.  She had a rapier wit.

Ebor

[Keble]

Now that I check it again, I see only three of those I read were read in class-- um, maybe only two. (I'm not sure whether I ever read the Orwell books in class.)

[Vasili Kosta]

Lets see here:

All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Death in the Family by James Agee
Deliverance by James Dickey
The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
I, Claudius by Robert Graves
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
Lolita byadimir Nabokov
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Naked Lunch by William Burroughs
1984 by George Orwell
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
Rabbit, Run by John Updike
Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Watchmen by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
------------------------------------------------------------

So, 33?
*note- These were for classes, mostly except Watchmen, which was entertainment given to me by my nephews.
I had alot of Literature courses thrown my way over the years and a lot of extensive reading came from them. Surprisingly I read alot on this list. Most of it was enjoyable, though dragging and boring at times. My favourite book on the list was Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five

VK.

[Asteriktos]

I've read 3.  *puts dunce cap on*

Nearly a decade later, and my number is now.... . . still 3. *facepalms self*

[hecma925]

Wow, eight.

[Arachne]

13 read, about as many on the to-read list. The rest fall between 'meh' and 'hell no'.

[Cyrillic]

Two read - Brideshead Revisited and The Lord of the Rings.

[Iconodule]

I read 9 from there. No Heart of Darkness? Pssshhht.

[Arachne]

No Heart of Darkness?

Nope. 24 years too early.

[Iconodule]

Ah, obviously I skipped the intro.

Read Crying of Lot 49 last month. A lot of fun... I wouldn't say it's a favorite though.