My reading project

[book_jones]

I was getting tired of reading the same old authors so I came up with an interesting way to read a bunch of new ones. I am trying to read all the books on the Modern Library top 100 English language books of the 20th century. Right now I'm up to 25. That number is a little deceptive because a few of the books on the list are actually series. I'm not sure how long the whole thing is going to take, but I imagine it will at least be another year or two. I sure hope I'm not making a horrible mistake!

Right now I'm reading An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser (#16) and it is going very slowly. I want it to be over soon so I can read Call of the Wild. I'll let you know how it goes.

[DecemberSun]

Good luck with the project :)

[JBI]

That's the list with Ulysses as #1? Probably not a good idea, as those books build horribly on what came before them. You're better off going to a university's English department's website, and picking things off of there.

[kasie]

Good luck with your project - you have to start somewhere and one list is as good as another! You needn't stick to the order of the list - pick and mix, as the fancy takes you. Leave the one you're on at the moment if it is a bit dry, come back to it later. I'm sure you will enjoy the Jack London as a contrast. Oh, and remember to keep notes about your reactions so you can hunt out more titles by that author (or avoid them, as the case may be!).

[stlukesguild]

That's the list with Ulysses as #1? Probably not a good idea, as those books build horribly on what came before them. You're better off going to a university's English department's website, and picking things off of there.

Yes... artists often build upon the achievements of their predecessors. Some art is almost dependent upon a knowledge/understanding of such. Without a grasp of what was being attempted in Cubism and the Automatism of Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism leaves most people puzzled at best. I would always recommend a solid foundation experienced in a chronological manner. After this, however... I personally jump around quite a bit... allowing myself to be led by whim... or by the previous book.

[JBI]

That's not exactly what I meant (my fault, I awkwardly phrased my sentence), since it is unclear of what and whatnot this reader has read. I just meant that you cannot read Ulysses without The Odyssey in hand, or without reading Shakespeare and Dante. The fact remains that reading a list like that (personally I dislike the choices on the list because the list is "typically American") you will run into problems of interest, as to understand the entire list, you must read about 300 or so other books of note, giving historical, political, and literary backdrop.

[book_jones]

Well so far it's been a lot of fun. I've been reading styles of books that I wouldn't normally read. I got a head start because I had read many of the books already, Ulysses included. I'm also sure that there are some books on the list that don't belong, but how am I ever going to know if I don't read them?

I see what you're saying though. The average person might have trouble with a few of the books, but I think most of them can stand alone. Ulysses might be a little tough, but I think most people read The Odyssey in Junior High. Besides, the whole idea is so I can branch out and read other related books.

The list was limited to books written in English so it makes sense that they would be "typically American." Besides, I love American novels.

[Dark Muse]

I think I might have the same list. Currently I am reading The Ambasadors and I just finnished Catch-22. I really enjoyed that one.

So far I have read up to 23 of the books.

[book_jones]

I haven't had the courage to read any of the James books yet. Hopefully I will get to them soon. I think The Ambassadors is the shortest of the three so that's probably the best one to start with. I'm a big Henry James fan so I'm really hoping that his novels are as good as his shorter fiction.

[Dark Muse]

Right now I am only two chapters into it, I just started it. It is the first of his novels from the list for me. Though I have read his short fiction.

[Scheherazade]

Here is the list for those who are interested (I have read only 24 of the books :sick:):

ULYSSES by James Joyce

THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald

A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce

LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov

BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley

THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner

CATCH-22

DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler

SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence

THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck

UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry

THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by Samuel Butler

1984 by George Orwell

I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves

TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf

AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser

THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers

SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut

INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison

NATIVE SON by Richard Wright

HENDERSON THE RAIN KING by Saul Bellow

APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA by John O'Hara

U.S.A. (trilogy) by John Dos Passos

WINESBURG, OHIO by Sherwood Anderson

A PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M. Forster

THE WINGS OF THE DOVE by Henry James

THE AMBASSADORS by Henry James

TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald

THE STUDS LONIGAN TRILOGY by James T. Farrell

THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford

ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell

THE GOLDEN BOWL by Henry James

SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser

A HANDFUL OF DUST by Evelyn Waugh

AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner

ALL THE KING'S MEN by Robert Penn Warren

THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder

HOWARDS END by E.M. Forster

GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN by James Baldwin

THE HEART OF THE MATTER by Graham Greene

LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding

DELIVERANCE by James Dickey

A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME (series) by Anthony Powell

POINT COUNTER POINT by Aldous Huxley

THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway

THE SECRET AGENT by Joseph Conrad

NOSTROMO by Joseph Conrad

THE RAINBOW by D.H. Lawrence

WOMEN IN LOVE by D.H. Lawrence

TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller

THE NAKED AND THE DEAD by Norman Mailer

PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT by Philip Roth

PALE FIRE by Vladimir Nabokov

LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner

ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac

THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett

PARADE'S END by Ford Madox Ford

THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith Wharton

ZULEIKA DOBSON by Max Beerbohm

THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy

DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather

FROM HERE TO ETERNITY by James Jones

THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLES by John Cheever

THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess

OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham

HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad

MAIN STREET by Sinclair Lewis

THE HOUSE OF MIRTH by Edith Wharton

THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET by Lawrence Durell

A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA by Richard Hughes

A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS by V.S. Naipaul

THE DAY OF THE LOCUST by Nathanael West

A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway

SCOOP by Evelyn Waugh

THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE by Muriel Spark

FINNEGANS WAKE by James Joyce

KIM by Rudyard Kipling

A ROOM WITH A VIEW by E.M. Forster

BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh

THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH by Saul Bellow

ANGLE OF REPOSE by Wallace Stegner

A BEND IN THE RIVER by V.S. Naipaul

THE DEATH OF THE HEART by Elizabeth Bowen

LORD JIM by Joseph Conrad

RAGTIME by E.L. Doctorow

THE OLD WIVES' TALE by Arnold Bennett

THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London

LOVING by Henry Green

MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie

TOBACCO ROAD by Erskine Caldwell

IRONWEED by William Kennedy

THE MAGUS by John Fowles

WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys

UNDER THE NET by Iris Murdoch

SOPHIE'S CHOICE by William Styron

THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles

THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain

THE GINGER MAN by J.P. Donleavy

THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS by Booth Tarkington

[aeroport]

I haven't had the courage to read any of the James books yet. Hopefully I will get to them soon. I think The Ambassadors is the shortest of the three so that's probably the best one to start with. I'm a big Henry James fan so I'm really hoping that his novels are as good as his shorter fiction.

Those three certainly are.

This sounds like a really fun project, actually...

[book_jones]

Yeah, I just hope I have time to read once I start working and going to school again. It will probably take a little bit longer, but I'll probably be alright.

[WICKES]

I agree with some of the above posts. You should try and read in some kind of rough chronological order. The problem is that most of the great 20th century writers are responding to the literature and ideas that have gone before. Before working your way through the 20th century novels you should at least try and read the Illiad and Odyssey, Genesis, Exodus and the Gospels and Shakespeare's greatest plays.

My own present reading list is:

Epic of Gilgamesh

The Tao Te Ching

The Illiad and Odyssey

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Gospels and some of Pauls's letters (King James version)

Plays of the Greek Tragedians- especially Sophocles

Plato's Death Of Socrates (and something else by Plato, but not the Republic- need to think about that)

Apuleuis: The Golden ***

Beowulf

Gawain and the Green Knight

All Shakespeare's plays

Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience and the Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Selected poems of Wordsworth, Shelley and Keats



I realise that this is pretty feeble and merely scratches the surface, but these are the works I'm aiming to read (and in some cases re- read) in the coming year or so.

[Drkshadow03]

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Gospels and some of Pauls's letters (King James version)


I was about to say, no Job, no Song of Songs, no Psalms, no Samuel and Book of Kings (at least covering from David to the end of Solomon's reign)?

The reason I bring this up is that if you ever expand your reading list to other classics you'll probably want to have read some of those other books; Moby Dick by Herman Melville draws on Job and many other Biblical allusions, Absolom! Absolom! by Faulkner, etc.

[book_jones]

Phew, well I got An American Tragedy out of the way now. It was a good book, but very long and slow. That may have been the single book that takes the longest to read on the whole list. I sure hope so!

[book_jones]

Well, I can cross The Call of the Wild off the list. It was very easy to read and quite enjoyable as well. I'm already making up for lost time!

[Akeldama]

The reader's list is amusing to me, considering that there are 4 Ayn Rand books and 3 L. Ron Hubbard books within the top 10. Not a particularly diverse set of tastes those readers have, whoever they are.

[Drkshadow03]

The reader's list is amusing to me, considering that there are 4 Ayn Rand books and 3 L. Ron Hubbard books within the top 10. Not a particularly diverse set of tastes those readers have, whoever they are.

Scientologists and Objectivists, duh!

[Dark Muse]

Well, I can cross The Call of the Wild off the list. It was very easy to read and quite enjoyable as well. I'm already making up for lost time!

I loved that book. I really enjoy Jack London, and once read a big on him, and he seemed to be very interesting.

[book_jones]

Yeah it seems like he had an interesting life. I didn't know he died so young. He wrote a lot of stuff in his short life. I used to love the Disney Channel White Fang movie when I was a kid, and I was really looking forward to reading this one. Of course there was also that time where Jack London was on Star Trek: The Next Generation. I think he worked at the hotel where Data was staying after he got warped back through time. Mark Twain convinced him to go up to Alaska and start writing. I sure wish that story was true!

[Dark Muse]

I loved the White Fang movie

[_Shannon_]

What a great project!! LOL! Some are even more than trilogies--A Dance to the Music of Time is a set of 12 books :eek:

And by gracious- it is possible to read novels, even read them well, without reading every piece of writing which has ever come before it. I read tons of American fiction before I ever went back and read the Ancients--and while I might not have been in a position to write a doctoral thesis on those books- I was able to appreciate them, and grow from them.

[book_jones]

Yeah I think the actual total is 115 books. Still, I've been able to knock out many more than I thought I would be able to in such a short time. I really need to get reading A Dance to the Music of Time though. I'm sure it would be easier if I split the books up in between other ones. I sure hope I can find it at my library.

[PabloQ]

BJ,
We need an update. Either you're back to school and job and your pace has slowed OR :D you finally opened up some Henry James.

[merrycollie]

I started reading books off "the list" (Modern Library) about 5 years ago and have proudly read 64 of them. I just read the first movement of A Dance To The Movement Of Time and really liked it. I will at a later date read the rest of the series. My favorite(of many) is D.H. Lawrence. I am also reading books in between that aren't on "the list", so this will continue to take a while. But I'm in no hurry and enjoy reading the books that I might never otherwise pick up. I keep a list of the ones I have read and write a brief critique about each of them, even the ones off "the list". I'm so glad there is someone else with this brilliant idea to read so many classic books. Merry

[AuntShecky]

The original poster has created quite an ambitious yet highly commendable project for himself/herself. A quick suggestion is that if you have access to a local Public Library you could see if the library carries a collection such as the Library of of America series. I think that was the original title. They are a series of handsomely-bound, black-covered books that are small enough to hold in one's hand. Each volume contains works of a specific
American author: Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne,
Henry James, Henry Adams, etc.

This entire thread, with its varied and extremely useful replies,
is a "keeper," in that I am going to save the link in my computer file cabinet.
This is just another example of what the Literature Network Forum does so well. It's the best of its kind on the web.

[andave_ya]

Gosh, I've only read five of those. Weird!

[Ghuyuran]

Literature Network should try making their own reading list. All those possessing a certain amount of knowledge about literature would be working together to make a list that gives a taste of everything there is.

[Tallon]

That is already happening! Top 100 novels is stickied in this very forum, go vote.

i like the look of this project, i attempted something similar myself with the BFI and AFI top 100 films.

[Petya]

I came across the exact same list when I started reading not to long ago and have been using it as a reference, although straying off into some other lists and some random picks but definitely a good way to go I think. Nice idea OP.

[PabloQ]

Literature Network should try making their own reading list. All those possessing a certain amount of knowledge about literature would be working together to make a list that gives a taste of everything there is.

G.
Our very own Dark Muse is doing just that. A brief search for LitNet Top 100 ought to help you find it. She's taking the folks' top 10-15 titles. Join in the fun.

[Ghuyuran]

Don't ask me how I managed to miss it. :D

The list in this thread sure looks interesting aswell. But on to Dark Muse's thread!

[book_jones]

Well I have finished reading Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow and Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. They were both very good and somewhat short. I also read the first book in A Dance to the Music of Time and didn't find it nearly as interesting as I had expected. I sure hope the other books in the series get better or else I'm in for a long read!

[book_jones]

Phew, I just got done with Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad. That book took a long time to read! That's probably the longest time I've ever spent with a 300 page book I think. It looks like I got a couple books behind on here so I will post about those later. Right now my total is at 33. I'm making good progress!

[country doctor]

well that's been a semi-reading project for me as well, but i was starting around number 20 and working my way up. i've got 19 of them read already, but that counts the ones that were finished before i thought of working on 'my project'. i wasn't working so much in an order, but what was grabbing my fancy at the time.
i've been derailed for about a year now, but i do have a few of those books up at the cabin for summer reading. i figure this is a lifetime achievement goal, anyways.
(well i'm working on proust right now, and i read more non-fiction than fiction so it better be a lifetime goal. anyways, i usually have two books going, non and fiction but i run into spurts where i'm reading non-fiction for weeks before i pick up a fiction book again.)
portrait of an artist as a young man? i've began this three different times and the closest i've gotten to the end is about 50 pages away. i enjoy it at first, but there's something about that book that always bogged me down and i'd set it aside. the last time was about seven years ago and it's been packed in some box with other books that has become a casualty of a move, (it's somewhere, i just have to find it.) so i don't know if i'd still have the same problem with it...but back then i just couldn't finish it.
(and, it's very rare for me not to finish a book i've started.)
so the number one book on that list doesn't have me that excited to get to, if you know what i mean.

[book_jones]

I guess I'm just one of the lucky ones who naturally takes to James Joyce. I read Portrait of the Artist easily and read Ulysses in about a month. These are both books that I read a long time ago before I started this project. Honestly I think they're a couple of the all time great books. You should definately give them another chance.

[blondiemcfi]

I'm ashamed of how few quality books I've actually read!I've saved the top hundred and printed it out and will have to work my way through it!lol although I'm extra excited to start reading Henry James though as I know he's supposed to be brilliant!