Do you read just for the sake of reading?

[fayefaye]

Like there's a book, and it's boring, and you're not learning anything from it, you're not getting anything out of it, and yet you just want to finish it anyway? *sidelong glance at On the Road, The Prince, War and Peace, Sun Tzu's The Art of War* yeah, they're supposed to be GREAT books, so insightful and brilliant, yada yada yada. But you haven't the faintest idea WHY you're reading them? I mean, realistically, when am I EVER going to have my own principality? Yeah, I know I joke about world domination... but my plans rarely come to fruition. :( ;)

[Koa]

Yeah somehow... I just can't stand not to finish a book, I think I didn't do that more than 3 or 4 times in my whole life...
Even if I hate it, like On The Road, I go to the end...well when I read that I still used to read everything even if it was boring cos I wanted to see if it improved at the end. Now with the experience of old age I know when it's unlikely, but I need to reach the end anyway...
Sometimes it's also because even if it's boring, I like it somehow... I really can't say I hate War&Peace, but i can't even say I like it, otherwise I'd grab it and read anxiously everytime I have 5 minutes... But I couldn't say why I 'like' it... :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[subterranean]

I'm trying to finish "The Age of Reason" by Jean Paul Sartre at the moment. Many essays about this book stated that you can really see Sartre's ideas about existansialism. I have read 2/3 of the book now, and still kinda confused about how the book (so far) depict his ideas :rolleyes:

Ussualy I won't force my self to finish books which for the sake of reading. I don't finish the Bleak House, The Awakening, The Jungle Book, and several other books.

[Dr Cynic]

Fayefaye

The Prince? Well you needn’t have a principality of your own to enjoy and learn from that one. It’s meant to show you what politics is all about and how it works, and therefore reading it could be as much fun as reading books like Animal Farm, 1984, Bread and Wine, …

For all I know, politicians of this world are just a bunch of inveterate Machiavellians, and this I realised only after reading The Prince!!

[Sindhu]

I HAVE to finish a book once I get started- positively neurotic about that! Sigh!
Dr Cynic is right about the Prince, anyway- and it's not just politicians. I can tell you from experience that there are multitudes in Academics who seem to have literally learnt the Prince by heart and practice its doctrines zealously!

[fayefaye]

Aren't you scared my megalomania will go too far?

[crisaor]

Originally posted by fayefaye
Like there's a book, and it's boring, and you're not learning anything from it, you're not getting anything out of it, and yet you just want to finish it anyway? *sidelong glance at On the Road, The Prince, War and Peace, Sun Tzu's The Art of War* yeah, they're supposed to be GREAT books, so insightful and brilliant, yada yada yada. But you haven't the faintest idea WHY you're reading them? I mean, realistically, when am I EVER going to have my own principality? Yeah, I know I joke about world domination... but my plans rarely come to fruition. :( ;)
Well, if you aren't getting anything out of a book (i.e. no fun, no wisdom, no homework done), my advise is that you quit reading it.

[IWilKikU]

If its new paperback comercial fiction and it sucks I ditch it. If it's a classic, I suffer through it.

[Koa]

good idea that, Iwilkiku

AAAAH i've just realised that the last 30 pages of war&peace are 30-pages-of-repeating-the-same-ideas-on-history-again... I'm tempted to avoid them, but I know I won't...:( I might read through them without too much attention, maybe while listening to the radio (which to me is a quite clear sign of despise of a book)... But I'm afraid I won't do even that...:rolleyes:

This just reminded me of an Italian classic I had to read for school twice in different years...the first time I think I read it all, or most of it, with the radio on... I don't remember a single word. The second time, some 3 years later, I didn't get to finish the first chapter. One of the few books I've dropped. Another classic by the same author (Verga), which is commonly considered more boring than that, I actually enjoyed a lot. :rolleyes:

I also read all of another Italian classic whic most students can't stand to read... ("Il piacere", by D'Annunzio, incase you're curious): 300 pages of the writer showing off how many wonderful images and metaphors he can create, and how many long complicated words he can use. Not too bad though, shows very well the features of the writer. (he's known for being an aesthete)

[Guber]

I would not say that I read for the sake of reading, I have simply fallen in love with the english language (unlike Danish that suddenly seem so dry)
but then why choose the classic, I am sure that others would agree that there is something about the way authors wrote back in time.
I get sucked into a world of words, lines, a whole different world.
at least that is how I start out with a book, I read for the language......

[fayefaye]

I always feel so inclined to read classics, just BECAUSE they're 'classics,' and I've given up a bit on that idea-because if you think about it, how stupid! maybe they've only been around for so long because of a lot of pretentious academics trying to be well-read, but reading things they don't even like, or get anything out of. Screw war and peace. I don't think I'll ever finish it. And I can say for the rest of my life. 'I haven't read war and peace. But then again, I found better things to do with my time' lol. I know eventually I'll get back to it... but not for a while. Pretentious? Yo!

[piquant]

War and Peace, me too! To hell with it!

One bit of advice on On the ROad though, I hated it at first, but then I realized it was something about the way I was reading it. They are not going anywhere, and they are never going to settle into a plot or get anywhere. As soon as they get accross the country they will turn around and come back for no reason whatsoever.

I kept waiting for the book to go somewhere, physically, accross the country to a destination, but it never did. The only plot is in the developement and transformation of the characters, especially Dean Moriarty.

It seams to question what not going anywhere or having anywhere to go does to a person, what sleep and drugs and booze and restlessness do to the soul.

I still have issues with the narration though, for some reason it never really cought me. It picks up toward the end in mexico, and I actually enjoyed the description in the last few cahpters (perhaps because I knew the end was near?). And don't worry if you don't like this one, a lot of critics question its status as a classic, and consider it more a representation of a generation.

[Munro]

Originally posted by fayefaye
I always feel so inclined to read classics, just BECAUSE they're 'classics,' and I've given up a bit on that idea-because if you think about it, how stupid! maybe they've only been around for so long because of a lot of pretentious academics trying to be well-read, but reading things they don't even like, or get anything out of. Screw war and peace. I don't think I'll ever finish it. And I can say for the rest of my life. 'I haven't read war and peace. But then again, I found better things to do with my time' lol. I know eventually I'll get back to it... but not for a while. Pretentious? Yo!

You've already come to the conclusion, but selecting books to read because they're considered classics doesn't make for good reading, I used to do that myself. Find an author you like that has written a 'definitive' or canonical work, and if you like them, read works of their related authors or someone from the same school of classics (eg. if you like Calvino, you'll probably like Jorge Luis Borges). Its the only sensible way I know to read canonical texts and enjoy them immensely at the same time.

As a classic, only read "The Art of War" if you're becoming interested in or studying Eastern Philosophy, not because the title is famous and you can tell people you've read it.
Just some friendly advice, as I've experienced that myself as I've read.

[Koa]

I found myself reading only calssics cos they're MUCH cheaper than newer books and I kept buying them cos they were cheap and still havent read them all...and there are so many I want to read, especially Russian ones.

I FINISHED WAR & PEACE!!!!
It took me exactly 4 months.
Shame I'm really in a hurry right now, I can't even promise I'll tell you my impressions about it (like anyone cared about that LOL!) cos I'm very busy in this period.

[fayefaye]

Can't remember the last time I touched that book! :D coupla weeks ago, perhaps? ;)

[Robert E Lee]

Originally posted by Koa
I found myself reading only calssics cos they're MUCH cheaper than newer books and I kept buying them cos they were cheap and still havent read them all...and there are so many I want to read, especially Russian ones.

I FINISHED WAR & PEACE!!!!
It took me exactly 4 months.
Shame I'm really in a hurry right now, I can't even promise I'll tell you my impressions about it (like anyone cared about that LOL!) cos I'm very busy in this period.

It took me about two months, and those were months during which I studied for and took the SATs (i got a 1580 :)) and three AP tests (I got two 5s, but a 4 in English lang. :confused: ).

War and Peace was not boring at all.

I can't stand not finishing books either. I made a post here about how I quit reading Howards End, but I resumed reading it and finished last week (it wasn't that bad).

[azmuse]

War and Peace needed to cut out the parlor tricks it bored the crap back into me.

[Scheherazade]

Like there's a book, and it's boring, and you're not learning anything from it, you're not getting anything out of it, and yet you just want to finish it anyway? I try very hard not to give up on any books (especially so if it is considered a classic). If I find really hard to plough through it then I will put it aside and read some other book to distract myself for a while but I always go back and try to finish it. I am not sure if this is reading for the sake of it... I just would like to read a book properly before I pass a judgement on it.

Of course there are exceptions to the rule. I couldn't read As I Lay Dying or Sophie's World.

[Fango]

Well, I never read for the sake of reading... if I find myself not enjoying or gaining anything from the book for an extended period of time (no matter what page I am in) I either ditch it or keep it for boring occasions. I mean... I do things if I enjoy them, not to add another accomplishment to the list. With that mentality I completed about 6 books and neglected 4.


Helena-- How many books are those!? :eek:
I don't think it's short attention span.. if you really had that I don't think you'd make it pass page 3. ;)

Edit; typo.

[mono]

Interesting thread.
If I begin a book, I try to stick to it, no matter how painful. Firstly, if I choose to check-out or purchase a book, I attempt diligently to choose wisely, including if others consider it a classic; for example, someone once recommended me the works of Ayn Rand, and, though many people love the writer's literature, I looked into it, and it just did not sound like my "cup of tea," so I never read it.
When I do find a book that sounds at least partially interesting, I seldom find myself setting it aside, despite a few occasions; for example, Creation by Gore Vidal looked very interesting at first glance, but read very differently in actually opening the book.
As for the actual concept of "reading for the sake of reading," I find difficulty in the most ideal, devoted reader performing; most readers, I have found, including myself, desire to get something out of reading, whether entertainment, knowledge, insight, history, to get a good grade on an exam, etc.

[PeterL]

Like there's a book, and it's boring, and you're not learning anything from it, you're not getting anything out of it, and yet you just want to finish it anyway? *sidelong glance at On the Road, The Prince, War and Peace, Sun Tzu's The Art of War* yeah, they're supposed to be GREAT books, so insightful and brilliant, yada yada yada. But you haven't the faintest idea WHY you're reading them? I mean, realistically, when am I EVER going to have my own principality? Yeah, I know I joke about world domination... but my plans rarely come to fruition. :( ;)

"The Prince" can be read for pleasure, as can "On the Road". I haven't read "The Art of War", but I am not an overt warrior, so there is no reason to read it. "The Prince" should be read in conjunction with "Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius". Macchievelli wrote "The Price" as a cover letter for a job application; it was directed at getting a good job, rather than at explaining how government can work well for everyone; the intended audience was one individual. "Discourses" was written after Macchievelli retired, and it probably expresses what he actually thought, rather than expressing what he thought would land him a job. The insights and conclusions in "Discourses" point toward the positive aspects of a free society with due consideration being given to the interests of all, and he strongly endorses democratic institutions.

At present I am reading Derrida's "Of Grammatology". In addition to being a mediocre translation (I should have picked up the original French), the reasoning is poor to non-existent, and the conclusions are inane. I am interested in finishing it so that I will be able to more fully criticize it. I have already written a short story the satirizes some of the conclusions that it contains, and I expect that the rest of it will provide me more more fodder for satire. This is an example of reading something to better know one's enemy.

[merrycollie]

I am reading the 100 greatest novels as defined by the Modern Library, and also taking some off the Radcliffe list and the readers list. They overlap at times. I have read over 40 of them.I want to be able to say I've read them all! Quirky, huh. But it's my thing, and I could have worse habits.I don't like them all, but I struggle through. I feel better after I finish a book no matter how slow it is. I also read books off "the lists". I am now reading The Naked and the Dead, by Norman Mailer. It's slow at times, but I will finish it. It's interesting to hear others describe their reading habits. It's nice to see so many younger people enjoying the classics.

[mono]

I am reading the 100 greatest novels as defined by the Modern Library, and also taking some off the Radcliffe list and the readers list. They overlap at times. I have read over 40 of them.I want to be able to say I've read them all! Quirky, huh. But it's my thing, and I could have worse habits.I don't like them all, but I struggle through. I feel better after I finish a book no matter how slow it is. I also read books off "the lists". I am now reading The Naked and the Dead, by Norman Mailer. It's slow at times, but I will finish it. It's interesting to hear others describe their reading habits. It's nice to see so many younger people enjoying the classics.
What an accomplisment! I think the closest I can contend to that occurred when I read the top 35 novels recommended by my high school, for which I received some silly certificate. :lol:
Have you had any favorites and greatest dislikes?

[baddad]

Yes, I will read just for the sake of reading. It is a gap filler, a time waster, a pleasure, a guilt, a need, an addiction, an annoyance, a distraction..............I will read anything, anytime, anywhere, and except for 3 books, always finish reading whatever 'it' is. Only then do I feel entitled to an opinion on the piece. I am compelled to read an entire piece (every word, including any forwards, etc ....*anal tendencies* ) before feeling competent to say "Yay" or "Nay" as to whether a piece of reading material has any redeeming qualities.

[scruffy_danny]

I always feel kind of arrogant if I don't finish a book because I always think one needs to appreciate a wide range of literature and even if you hate the damn book it still deserves to be read. Hmm, maybe I just don't like to be defeated. But some books I've genuinly disliked up until the very end. So, it pays off I guess.

[merrycollie]

I really disliked Portney's Complaint to the point it made me sick to my stomach! I love The Grapes of Wrath.

[Capnplank]

merrycollie - http://www.stanford.edu/~bkunde/best/bl-crank.htm#T
(I hope that works)

I like to peruse this list, as it lists the Modern Library, Radcliffe, and a couple other top lists and compiles them into a composite rank, giving more selection and a broader range of tastes, and you can also see which novels more groups of people agree on being worthwhile. I mean, Modern Library left To Kill a Mockingbird off the list while the other three put it in the top five, what's up with that?

[mono]

A few days ago, in a fairly more in-depth college psychology class, we had a long discussion regarding Sigmund Freud's seven defense mechanisms (repression, denial, projection, displacement, rationalization, sublimation, reaction formation), but went greatly in detail of displacement. Displacement defines as, for example, getting angry with a younger sibling, and venting on something entirely unrelated; but this unrelated 'thing' does not necessarily have to prove as a living thing - also an object.
As I admit myself of doing it, do any of you also, while angry, try to distract your minds with reading a book? I usually prefer poetry, which quickly seems to calm my mind from any turmoil, but I never noticed this tendency of mine until hearing this lecture; I read incessantly, regardless, but sometimes find reading a decent way of displacing any anger or frustration.
Anyway, I found it interesting. Does anyone else know what I mean, before I regret typing this? :D

[Sitaram]

merrycollie - http://www.stanford.edu/~bkunde/best/bl-crank.htm#T
(I hope that works)

I like to peruse this list, as it lists the Modern Library, Radcliffe, and a couple other top lists and compiles them into a composite rank, giving more selection and a broader range of tastes, and you can also see which novels more groups of people agree on being worthwhile. I mean, Modern Library left To Kill a Mockingbird off the list while the other three put it in the top five, what's up with that?

I find the list you posted very useful and interesting. I cut the page and pasted it into a spreadsheet, and it pastes nicely as rows and columns, allowing me to print and sort as I please.

In spreadsheet form, one may sort by other criteria, such as author.

I notice Thomas Pynchon is not there.

To Kill A Mockingbird should definitely be towards the top of any list.

The project which "merrycollie" has undertaken is admirable. I think I shall do likewise.
Thanks

[underground]

i used to read everything till the end no matter what, but after a while, i realized that the books i forced myself to finish i don't usually remember anyway, and so aftersince, i started to abandon books that are decidedly dull towards the beginning.

i also used to read only classics, but lately i've been switching gear and reading contemporary novels instead. occasionally i pick up a paperback novel or a chiclit.

the thing about paperback novels and chiclits is: after you read two or three of them straight, then you don't know what's the point at all, because overall their stories are pretty predictable and . . . non-pedantic? i don't know, but i often lose interest in reading in general after too much paperback novels and chiclits. they're okay every now and then, though. just a side note.

[merrycollie]

Yet another list with my favorites all over it!(and some of my not so favorites). thanks alot! I love to see how they compare. If I read them all I only have about 140 more to go, as I have read some of them. I'm going to share this list with a reading friend, who is also reading off "the List".

[merrycollie]

A few days ago, in a fairly more in-depth college psychology class, we had a long discussion regarding Sigmund Freud's seven defense mechanisms (repression, denial, projection, displacement, rationalization, sublimation, reaction formation), but went greatly in detail of displacement. Displacement defines as, for example, getting angry with a younger sibling, and venting on something entirely unrelated; but this unrelated 'thing' does not necessarily have to prove as a living thing - also an object.
As I admit myself of doing it, do any of you also, while angry, try to distract your minds with reading a book? I usually prefer poetry, which quickly seems to calm my mind from any turmoil, but I never noticed this tendency of mine until hearing this lecture; I read incessantly, regardless, but sometimes find reading a decent way of displacing any anger or frustration.
Anyway, I found it interesting. Does anyone else know what I mean, before I regret typing this? :D
Doesn't displacement occur towards another person or object? I mean as if to take out your anger on someone or something instead of who or what is causing it? I would think that reading would be a diversion or a means of settling your system. An example of displacement might be - You get yelled at by your boss, so you yell at your dog or someone near by. I don't think any question is ever worth regretting and can you can only learn from them. Now I may not be right with the answer to your question. It's been a while since my collage days.

[Sitaram]

I find what Mono said very exciting. I want to get a handle on Freudian displacement and see if I can put some ideas together.



A few days ago, in a fairly more in-depth college psychology class, we had a long discussion regarding Sigmund Freud's seven defense mechanisms (repression, denial, projection, displacement, rationalization, sublimation, reaction formation), but went greatly in detail of displacement. Displacement defines as, for example, getting angry with a younger sibling, and venting on something entirely unrelated; but this unrelated 'thing' does not necessarily have to prove as a living thing - also an object.
As I admit myself of doing it, do any of you also, while angry, try to distract your minds with reading a book? I usually prefer poetry, which quickly seems to calm my mind from any turmoil, but I never noticed this tendency of mine until hearing this lecture; I read incessantly, regardless, but sometimes find reading a decent way of displacing any anger or frustration.
Anyway, I found it interesting. Does anyone else know what I mean


I was reminded of something I read years ago, in the Biblical Prophet Ezekiel.
My NIV Student Bible entitles Chapter 4 as "Siege of Jerusalem Symbolized"



Take a clay tablet, put it in front of you and draw the city of Jerusalem on it. Then lay siege to it: Erect siege works against it, build a ramp up to it, set up camps against it and put battering rams around it. Then take an iron pan, place it as an iron wall between you and the city and turn your face toward it. It will be under siege, and you shall besiege it. This will be a sign to the House of Israel.



http://www.alexandria-press.com/online/online11_failing_to_go_under.htm



Writing something down provides a displacement from the anxiety, the
boredom or the confusion of the moment, and therefore, we believe, cannot have any direct relation to its lived reality. We would like our minds calm
and clear like the written thing but imagine it can never be. Yet this common
sense acceptance is contradicted on a daily basis. Responding to the need for clarity, shorthand journalistic cliché has infested our inner lives. We
understand our experience by attaching certain fashionable words to it.

Generally, this means we are unable to have respect for uniqueness of
experience because it is summed up, packaged, placed within the fashionable
word or phrase; anything else is out of order; separate from reality; it is
literary. The private self is thereby subsumed in limited, stylised words and
phrases developed and exploited by popular commentators who also happen to be the ones recommending fiction covering the ground of popular
commentators and journalists (Tom Wolfe being the favoured example).




[url]http://annotatedtimes.blogrunner.com/snapshot/D/4/6/427C619A08781246/



By the 1950's, here and in Western Europe, it was making less and less
sense to fashion the idiosyncratic, original inner and outer lives of a
character in a novel. His or her behavior was already accounted for by
the universal realities of id, ego, superego, not to mention the forces of
repression, displacement and neurosis.

Thus the postwar rise of the nouveau romance, with its absence of character, and of the postmodern and experimental novels, with their many strategies -- self-annulling irony, deliberate cartoonishness, montage-like ''cutting'' -- for releasing fiction from its dependence on character. For all the rich work published after the war, there's barely a fictional figure that
has the memorableness of a Gatsby, a Nick Adams, a Baron Charlus, a Leopold Bloom, a Settembrini. And that's leaving aside the magnificent 19th century, when authors plumbed the depths of the human mind with something on the order of clairvoyance. Of course, before that,
there was Shakespeare. And Cervantes.

And Dante. And . . . It seems that the further back you go in time, away from Freud, the deeper the psychological portraits you encounter in literary art. Nowadays, often even the most accomplished novels offer characters
that are little more than flat, ghostly reflections of characters. The author's
voice, or self-consciousness about voice, substitutes mere eccentricity for
an imaginative surrender to another life.


http://www.usask.ca/english/frank/psycrit.htm



The literal surface of a work is sometimes spoken of as its "manifest
content" and treated as a "manifest dream" or "dream story" would be treated by a Freudian analyst. Just as the analyst tries to figure out the "dream thought" behind the dream story--that is, the latent or hidden content of the manifest dream--so the psychoanalytic literary critic tries to expose the latent, underlying content of a work. Freud used the words condensation and displacement to explain two of the mental processes whereby the mind disguises its wishes and fears in dream stories. In condensation several thoughts or persons may be condensed into a single manifestation or image in a dream story; in displacement, an anxiety, a wish, or a person may be displaced onto the image of another, with which or whom it is loosely connected through a string of associations that only an analyst can untangle. Psychoanalytic critics treat metaphors as if they were dream
condensations; they treat metonyms--figures of speech based on
extremely loose, arbitrary associations--as if they were dream displacements. Thus figurative literary language in general is treated as something that evolves as the writer's conscious mind resists what the unconscious tells it to picture or describe. A symbol is, in Daniel Weiss's words, "a meaningful concealment of truth as the truth promises to emerge as some frightening or forbidden idea"

http://www.csun.edu/CommunicationStudies/class/632/97s/gloss.html

Is the converse of that last sentence useful?

Is truth a meaningful concealment of symbol?




Burke critiques Freud's notion of condensation, displacement, and
substitution. According to Freud:

It will perhaps not be though too rash to suppose that the impulses arising
from the instincts do not belong to the type of bound (italicized) nervous
processes but of free mobile (italicized) processes which press towards discharge. The best part of what we know of these processes is derived
from our study of the dream-work. We there discovered that the processes in the unconscious systems were fundamentally different from those in
the preconcious(or conscious) systems. In the unconscious, cathexes can easily be completely transferred, displaced, and condensed. Such treatment, however, could produce only invalid results if it were applied to prconscious material; and this accounts for familiar pecularities exhibited by manifest
dreams after the preconscious residues of the preceding day have been worked over in accordance with the laws operating in the unconscious" (Beyond the Pleasure Principle, 1961, pps.
40-41).


Burke suggests, "Freud laid great stress upon the two processes of "condensation" and "displacement." His observations are well taken. But, since we are here using the term "symbolism" in a wider sense,
we might remind ourselves that the processes of "condensation" and
"displacement" are not confined merely to the symbolism of dreams and neuroses, but are also as aspect of normal symbol systems. A fundamental resource "natural" to symbolism is substitution (italicized). Substitution is quite a rational resource of symbolism. Yet it is but a more genral aspect of what Freud meant by "displacement" (which is a confused kind of substitution" (Reader, 1997, p. 130).



http://www.colorado.edu/English/ENGL2012

Klages/freud.html




Dreams use two main mechanisms to disguise forbidden wishes: CONDENSATION and DISPLACEMENT. Condensation is when a whole set of images is packed into a single image or statement, when a complex meaning is condensed into a simpler one. Condensation corresponds to METAPHOR in language, where one thing is condensed into another. "Love is a rose,
and you'd better not pick it"--this metaphor condenses all the qualities of
a rose, including smell and thorns, into a single image. Displacement is where
the meaning of one image or symbol gets pushed onto something associated with it, which then displaces the original image. Displacement corresponds to the mechanism of METONYMY in language, where one thing is replaced by something corresponding to it. An example of metonymy is when you evoke an image of a whole thing by naming a part of it--when you say "the crown" when you mean the king or royalty, for example, or you say "twenty sails" when you mean twenty ships. You displace the idea of the whole thing onto a part associated with that thing. You might think of condensation and metaphor as being like Saussure's syntagmatic relations, which
happen in a chain (x is y is z), and displacement and metonymy being like
Saussure's associative relations.

[Sitaram]

Consider how Steinbeck uses the symbol of a turtle in a similar fashion:



Chapter Three presents a symbolic depiction of the farmers’ plights in the turtle that struggles to cross the road. Both chapters share a particularly dark vision of the world. As the relentless weather of Chapter One and the mean-spirited driver of Chapter Three represent, the universe is full of obstacles that fill life with hardship and danger. Like the turtle that trudges across the road, the Joad family will be called upon, time and again, to fight the malicious forces—drought, industry, human jealousy and fear—that seek to overturn it.

[Capnplank]

I notice Thomas Pynchon is not there.

I could have sworn he was on there, but I can't find him either. I have about a dozen different lists bookmarked, this one being my favorite as it does what I was doing anyways -- cross-checking the lists to see which titles/authors are represented over and over, giving me titles/authors that several groups/lists rank as very worthwhile reads -- and I know that "Gravity's Rainbow" is on at least one of them since I have apparently gone out and picked it up for a buck or two at some point and it sits on my shelf, waiting. The more I see a book or author appear on different lists, the more it sparks my interest to find out why so many different groups regard it so highly... so far I think I have been very well rewarded.
I've printed this list out at work and given it out to several co-workers, many of whom teach or have taught English literature, and they've all loved to sit and discuss what made or didn't make the list. Good stuff. So far nobody has had anything positive to say about "Ulysses".