📚 The New LitNet Top 100 Books 📕📗📚📒📘📖📙📕📚

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Drkshadow03

Given that you live in the United Kingdom (yes?), I'm failing to see how your suggestion that Hardy and Dickens should be higher doesn't reflect a UK bias.

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I was comparing this list to other lists, including American critics like Harold Bloom and Clifford Fadiman, not just to my own list based on the novels I've read. Can you name one major critic who would put Gatsby ahead of Dickens' major novels? I think I've read all his major novels, and can probably list ten that I prefer to Gatsby, here's four I'd recommend to Gatsby fans for starters: Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Great Expectations, Nicholas Nickleby. Challenge: read one of these "back to back" with Gatsby, and ask yourself, honestly, which is the better experience.

Just keeping to the other side of the pond, I can't see why Gatsby is ahead of Moby Dick or Huck Finn, two novels fit to stand near Dickens, although still obviously inferior, to me, and other top critics :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

I was comparing this list to other lists, including American critics like Harold Bloom and Clifford Fadiman, not just to my own list based on the novels I've read. Can you name one major critic who would put Gatsby ahead of Dickens' major novels? I think I've read all his major novels, and can probably list ten that I prefer to Gatsby, here's four I'd recommend to Gatsby fans for starters: Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Great Expectations, Nicholas Nickleby. Challenge: read one of these "back to back" with Gatsby, and ask yourself, honestly, which is the better experience.

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Sure, I could see some critics ranking Bleak House, Copperfield, and Expectations higher than Gatsby, but I doubt many "top critics" (by which you really seem to mean popular ones) would rank Nicholas Nickleby or Oliver Twist or 10 of Dickens novels higher than Gatsby.

I've read all those novels you mentioned and the only Dickens novel that made it into my top 10 was Bleak House. I rank The Great Gatsby higher than any of those works.

Is there a link to the previous list?
I'm curious to see the differences.

1. The Bible
2. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
3. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
4. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
5. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
6. Ulysses by James Joyce
7. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
8. Don Quixote by Cervantes
9. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
10. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
11. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
12. The Odyssey by Homer
13. Paradise Lost by John Milton
14. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
15. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
16. Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire
17. The Illiad by Homer
18. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez
19. Essays by Montaigne
20. The Stranger by Albert Camus
21. The Oresteia by Aeschylus
22. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
23. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
24. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
25. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
26. The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
27. Emma by Jane Austen
28. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
29. The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
30. Eugene Onegin by Pushkin
31. Watership Down by Richard Adams
32. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
33. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
34. Walden by Henry David Thoreau
35. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
36. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
37. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
38. Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
39. The Trial by Franz Kafka
40. Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien
41. Shahnameh by Ferdowsi
42. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
43. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
44. Fictions by J.L. Borges
45. El Aleph by J.L. Borges
46. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
47. Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
48. The Magus by John Fowles
49. Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman
50. Testament by R.C. Hutchinson
51. Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis
52. A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin
53. Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche
54. Oedipus the King by Sophocles
55. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
56. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
57. The Story of the Stone by Cao Xueqin
58. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
59. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake
60. Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
61. Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
62. Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
63. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
64. No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre
65. Othello by William Shakespeare
66. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
67. Vanity Fair by William Thackerey
68. Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy
69. Voss by Patrick White
70. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
71. Manfred by Lord Byron
72. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
73. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
74. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
75. Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy
76. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty
77. 1984 by George Orwell
78. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
79. The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by Jose Saramago
80. Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
81. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
82. Tristam Shandy by Laurence Sterne
83. The Tree of Man by Patrick White
84. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
85. A Dream of Red Mansions by Cao Xueqin
86. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
87. 2666 by Robert Bolano
88. Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino
89. If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino
90. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
91. The Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad
92. The Recognitions by William Gaddis
93. The Castle by Franz Kafka
94. I Canti by Giacomo Leopardi
95. Man’s Fate by André Malraux
96. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
97. Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell
98. Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth
99. Confessions by Rousseau
100. The World as Will and Representation by Arthur Schopenhauer

A decent list of books... a great many that I have certainly read and would have no problem deeming as "great" reading. Perhaps I'll offer a few alternatives later... but I'm on my way to my studio. Got to get to work on my latest painting.

Yes, a decent list, from what I've read.

1. The Bible
2. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
3. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
4. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
5. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
6. Ulysses by James Joyce
7. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
8. Don Quixote by Cervantes
9. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
10. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
11. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
12. The Odyssey by Homer
13. Paradise Lost by John Milton
14. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
15. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
16. Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire
17. The Illiad by Homer
18. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez
19. Essays by Montaigne
20. The Stranger by Albert Camus
21. The Oresteia by Aeschylus
22. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
23. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
24. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
25. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
26. The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
27. Emma by Jane Austen
28. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
29. The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
30. Eugene Onegin by Pushkin
31. Watership Down by Richard Adams
32. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
33. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
34. Walden by Henry David Thoreau
35. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
36. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
37. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
38. Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
39. The Trial by Franz Kafka
40. Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien
41. Shahnameh by Ferdowsi
42. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
43. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
44. Fictions by J.L. Borges
45. El Aleph by J.L. Borges
46. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
47. Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
48. The Magus by John Fowles
49. Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman
50. Testament by R.C. Hutchinson
51. Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis
52. A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin
53. Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche
54. Oedipus the King by Sophocles
55. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
56. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
57. The Story of the Stone by Cao Xueqin
58. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
59. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake
60. Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
61. Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
62. Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
63. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
64. No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre
65. Othello by William Shakespeare
66. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
67. Vanity Fair by William Thackerey
68. Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy
69. Voss by Patrick White
70. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
71. Manfred by Lord Byron
72. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
73. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
74. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
75. Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy
76. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty
77. 1984 by George Orwell
78. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
79. The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by Jose Saramago
80. Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
81. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
82. Tristam Shandy by Laurence Sterne
83. The Tree of Man by Patrick White
84. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
85. A Dream of Red Mansions by Cao Xueqin
86. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
87. 2666 by Robert Bolano
88. Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino
89. If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino
90. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
91. The Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad
92. The Recognitions by William Gaddis
93. The Castle by Franz Kafka
94. I Canti by Giacomo Leopardi
95. Man’s Fate by André Malraux
96. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
97. Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell
98. Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth
99. Confessions by Rousseau
100. The World as Will and Representation by Arthur Schopenhauer

61/100

Forty four read. Not many remembered in any detail and not many of my favourites



1. The Bible
2.Hamlet by William Shakespeare
3. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
4. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
5. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
6. Ulysses by James Joyce
7. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
8. Don Quixote by Cervantes
9. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
10. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
11. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
12. The Odyssey by Homer
13. Paradise Lost by John Milton
14. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
15. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
16. Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire
17. The Illiad by Homer
18. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez
19. Essays by Montaigne
20. The Stranger by Albert Camus
21. The Oresteia by Aeschylus
22. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
23. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
24. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
25. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
26. The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
27. Emma by Jane Austen
28. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
29. The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
30. Eugene Onegin by Pushkin
31. Watership Down by Richard Adams
32. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
33. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
34. Walden by Henry David Thoreau
35. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
36. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
37. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
38. Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
39. The Trial by Franz Kafka
40. Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien
41. Shahnameh by Ferdowsi
42. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
43. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
44. Fictions by J.L. Borges
45. El Aleph by J.L. Borges
46. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
47. Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
48. The Magus by John Fowles
49. Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman
50. Testament by R.C. Hutchinson
51. Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis
52. A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin
53. Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche
54. Oedipus the King by Sophocles
55. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
56. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
57. The Story of the Stone by Cao Xueqin
58. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
59. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake
60. Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
61. Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
62. Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
63. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
64. No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre
65. Othello by William Shakespeare
66. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
67. Vanity Fair by William Thackerey
68. Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy
69. Voss by Patrick White
70. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
71. Manfred by Lord Byron
72. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
73. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
74. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
75. Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy
76. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty
77. 1984 by George Orwell
78. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
79. The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by Jose Saramago
80. Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
81. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
82. Tristam Shandy by Laurence Sterne
83. The Tree of Man by Patrick White
84. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
85. A Dream of Red Mansions by Cao Xueqin
86. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
87. 2666 by Robert Bolano
88. Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino
89. If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino
90. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
91. The Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad
92. The Recognitions by William Gaddis
93. The Castle by Franz Kafka
94. I Canti by Giacomo Leopardi
95. Man’s Fate by André Malraux
96. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
97. Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell
98. Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth
99. Confessions by Rousseau
100. The World as Will and Representation by Arthur Schopenhauer

The Bible!!!! That's just silly.

Why is placing the Bible on this list... or even at or near the top silly? I would certainly place it within my top ten as well as would a great many other well-read readers.

Some others that I would add as personal favorites from just a perusal of the original list and my library would be:

Anon.- Gilgamesh
Euripides- Medea
Virgil- Aeneid
Anon.- Beowulf
Dante Alighieri- La Vita Nuova
Petrarch- Il Canzoniere
Rabelais- Gargantua and Pantagruel
Cervantes- Don Quixote
Anon.- The Arabian Nights
Spenser- Amoretti and Epithalimion
Donne- poetry
Christopher Marlowe- The Tragicall History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus
Shakespeare- King Lear, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest
Milton- Paradise Lost
Thomas Traherne- poetry
Robert Herrick- poetry
Molière- Tartuffe and The Misanthrope
Voltaire- Candide
Gibbons- Decline and Fall or the Roman Empire
Thomas De Quincey- Confessions of an English Opium Addict and Selected Prose
Pierre Choderlos de Laclos - Les Liaisons dangereuses
Goethe- The Sorrows of Young Werther, Faust, Italian Journey, selected poems
Novalis- Hymns to the Night
Hölderlin- Poetry
William Blake- Collected Writings
Byron- Don Juan
Wordsworth- Selected poetry
Coleridge- Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan, Cristabel
Keats- Collected Poetry
Shelley- Collected Poetry
John Clare- Selected Poetry
Victor Hugo - Notre Dame de Paris, poetry
Théophile Gautier - Mademoiselle de Maupin, tales, poetry
Nathaniel Hawthorne- Tales
Charles Dickens- Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities
Emily Brontë- Wuthering Heights
Alexandre Dumas - The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers
Gerard Nerval- poetry, selected prose
Guy de Maupassant- Tales
E.T.A. Hoffmann- Tales
Thomas Hardy- selected poetry
Tennyson- In Memoriam, selected poetry
Robert Browning- Selected Poetry
Edgar Allen Poe- Tales
Dante Gabriel Rossetti- Selected Poetry
Oscar Wilde- The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Importance of Being Earnest
Walter Pater- The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry
Lewis Carroll- Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass
Joris-Karl Huysmans- À rebours
Rimbaud- Le bateau ivre, Une Saison en Enfer, Illuminations
Walt Whitman- Leaves of Grass
Emily Dickinson- Collected Poems
Émile Zola- Nana
Heinrich von Kleist- The Broken Jug, The Prince of Homburg, Penthesilea, The Marquise of O
Heinrich Heine- Selected Poetry
Paul Verlaine- Poèmes saturniens, Fêtes galantes, seleceted poetry
Stéphane Mallarmé- Selected Poetry
Mark Twain- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer
Henry James- Turn of the Screw
Ambrose Bierce- Short Stories
Leo Tolstoy- Short Stories
Anton Chekhov- Stories
Nikolai Gogol- Stories
Anna Akhmatova- Poetry
Ibsen- An Enemy of the People
Yeats- Poetry
Boris Pasternak- My Sister-Life, poetry
Mikhail Bulgakov- The Master and Margarita
Marina Tsvetaeva- Poetry
Isaak Babel- Stories
Hemingway- Short Stories
Franz Kafka- Tales, Stories, Fables, Aphorisms, The Trial
Rilke- The Book of Images, New Poems, Duino Elegies, Sonnets for Orpheus, Uncollected Poems
Hermann Hesse- Steppenwolf, The Glassbead Game
Thomas Mann- The Magic Mountain, Doctor Faustus, A Death in Venice
T.S. Eliot- The Wasteland and other Poems, Four Quartets
Faulkner- As I Lay Dying
Nathaniel West- Miss Lonelyhearts
Paul Valery- Selected Poems/Prose
Bertolt Brecht- Life of Galileo, Mother Courage and Her Children
Günter Grass- The Tin Drum
Heinrich Böll- Billiards at Half Past Nine, The Clown
Paul Celan- Poetry
Max Frisch- Firebugs
Friedrich Dürrenmatt- The Physicists, The Meteor, The Visit
Ingeborg Bachmann- Selected Poems
Jean Genet- The Maids
Federico Garcia Lorca- Selected Poems
Antonio Machado- Selected Poems
Raphael Alberti- Selected Poetry, Concerning the Angels
Jorge Guillen- Cantico
Miguel Hernandez- Selected Poems
Pablo Neruda- Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, The Captain's Verses, Residence Earth, Selected Poetry
Pessoa- Selected Prose and Poetry
J.L. Borges- Dreamtigers, Selected Non-Fictions, Collected Poetry, Other Inquisitions
Eugenio Montale- Cuttlefish Bones, The Occasions, The Storm
Italo Calvino- Invisible Cities, Baron in the Trees
Julio Cortazar- Hopscotch, Blow-Up and other Stories
Augusto Monterroso- Complete Works and Other Stories
Octavio Paz- Sunstone
Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis- The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas
Yves Bonnefoy- The Curved Planks
Virginia Woolf- Orlando
Flannery O'Conner- Stories
Gore Vidal- Myra Breckenridge
Tennessee Williams- Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Eugene O'Niel- The Iceman Cometh, Desire Under the Elms, Mourning Becomes Elektra, A Long Day's Journey into Night
Arthur Miller- The Crucible
Geoffrey Hill- New and Collected Poems, The Triumph of Love...

And I'll leave off here. Mortalterror will likely show up to fill in all the gaps with regard to Roman writers and JBI with the Chinese. While my library and reading has been quite multicultural/multinational, I must admit a bias for Anglo-American literature (as an English language reader), and for Western literature as one raised in a Western culture. I have a fascination for Japanese, Indian, Persian and Arabic especially... but must admit to being limited by that which is available in quality translations. Of the non-English language writers I have read, I will also admit to a bias for French, German, Italian... and more recently Spanish. Again, these are literary traditions that have been well served in translation into English. They are also nations that have a history intimately tied to that of England and America... at least more so than Poland, Hungary, or even Russia... and thus I have a greater grasp of these cultures and histories beyond the literature alone. Beyond that... I will admit that the OP offered far too little in terms of plays, short stories, and poetry... especially poetry... another personal bias... or rather passion.

Well, being a list-maniac that has created a book list site ... here is a list with religious and literature texts across the globe ... of course many good / great works are left out ... but hopefully in some balanced way. There are some canonical anthologies here too. Details in my site. 67 texts here. Full list includes history and philosophy works making a total list of 150.

Rg Veda*
Iliad Homer
Lyrical Poems* Sapphos
Early Upanisads
Theban Plays Sophocles
Samyutta Nikaya
Mahabharata
Ramayana
On Duties Cicero
Aeneid Virgil
Metamorphoses Ovid
Asvaghosa's Buddhacarita*
Bible Multiple
Vimalakirtinirdesasutra
Wang Bi Ji* Wang Bi
Kalidasa's Works
Pancatantra
Bhartrhari's Satakatraya*
Avesta* Anonymous*
"Hala's" Sattasai
Wenxuan Xiao Tong
Quran Muhammad (reciter)
Maoshi Zhengyi Kong Yingda
Bana's Kadambari
Muallaqat
Diwan Abu Nuwas
Sahih al-Bukhari al-Bukhari
Bhagavata Purana
Manikkavachakar's Tiruvacakam
Shahnama* Ferdowsi
Genji Monogatari Murasaki Shikibu
Somadeva's Kathasaritsagara
Dongpo Quanji Su Shi
Maqamat al-Hariri al-Hariri
Chongyang Quanzhen Ji Wang Zhe
Hemacandra's Trisastisalakapurusacaritra/ Parisistaparvan
Kaviraja's Raghavapandaviya
Arthurian Romances Chretien de Troyes
Jayadeva's Gita Govinda
Huaan Cixuan Huang Sheng
Gulistan Sadi
Masnavi Rumi
Xixiang Ji Wang Shifu
Commedia* Dante
Amir Khusrau's Works
Canzoniere Petrarch
Shuihu Zhuan Shi Naian
Divan Hafez
Tangshi Pinhui Gao Bing
Cantebury Tales Chaucer
Epic of Layla and Majnun Fuzuli*
Lusiads Luis de Camoens
Essays Montaigne
Adi Granth
First Folio Shakespeare
Don Quixote Cervantes
Paradise Lost Milton
Works Matsuo Basho
****ou Ji Cao Xueqin
Lyrical Ballads Wordsworth / Coleridge
Pride and Prejudice Austen
Faust Goethe
Pan Tadeusz (in Polish) Mickiewicz
Les Miserables Hugo
War and Peace Tolstoy
Ghalib's Divan
Leaves of Grass Whitman

All right, I give in. Here is mine:

1. The Bible
2. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
3. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
4. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
5. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
6. Ulysses by James Joyce
7. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
8. Don Quixote by Cervantes
9. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
10. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
11. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
12. The Odyssey by Homer
13. Paradise Lost by John Milton
14. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
15. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
16. Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire
17. The Illiad by Homer
18. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez
19. Essays by Montaigne
20. The Stranger by Albert Camus
21. The Oresteia by Aeschylus
22. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
23. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
24. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
25. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
26. The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
27. Emma by Jane Austen
28. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
29. The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
30. Eugene Onegin by Pushkin
31. Watership Down by Richard Adams
32. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
33. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
34. Walden by Henry David Thoreau
35. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
36. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
37. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
38. Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
39. The Trial by Franz Kafka
40. Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien
41. Shahnameh by Ferdowsi
42. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
43. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
44. Fictions by J.L. Borges
45. El Aleph by J.L. Borges
46. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
47. Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
48. The Magus by John Fowles
49. Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman
50. Testament by R.C. Hutchinson
51. Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis
52. A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin
53. Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche
54. Oedipus the King by Sophocles
55. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
56. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
57. The Story of the Stone by Cao Xueqin
58. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
59. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake
60. Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
61. Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
62. Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
63. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
64. No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre
65. Othello by William Shakespeare
66. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
67. Vanity Fair by William Thackerey
68. Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy
69. Voss by Patrick White
70. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
71. Manfred by Lord Byron
72. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
73. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
74. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
75. Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy
76. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty
77. 1984 by George Orwell
78. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
79. The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by Jose Saramago
80. Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
81. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
82. Tristam Shandy by Laurence Sterne
83. The Tree of Man by Patrick White
84. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
85. A Dream of Red Mansions by Cao Xueqin
86. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
87. 2666 by Robert Bolano
88. Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino
89. If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino
90. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
91. The Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad
92. The Recognitions by William Gaddis
93. The Castle by Franz Kafka
94. I Canti by Giacomo Leopardi
95. Man’s Fate by André Malraux
96. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
97. Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell
98. Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth
99. Confessions by Rousseau
100. The World as Will and Representation by Arthur Schopenhauer

1. The Bible
2. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
3. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
4. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
5. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
6. Ulysses by James Joyce
7. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
8. Don Quixote by Cervantes
9. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
10. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
11. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
12. The Odyssey by Homer
13. Paradise Lost by John Milton
14. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
15. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
16. Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire
17. The Illiad by Homer
18. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez
19. Essays by Montaigne
20. The Stranger by Albert Camus
21. The Oresteia by Aeschylus
22. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
23. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
24. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
25. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
26. The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
27. Emma by Jane Austen
28. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
29. The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
30. Eugene Onegin by Pushkin
31. Watership Down by Richard Adams
32. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
33. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
34. Walden by Henry David Thoreau
35. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
36. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
37. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
38. Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
39. The Trial by Franz Kafka
40. Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien
41. Shahnameh by Ferdowsi
42. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
43. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
44. Fictions by J.L. Borges
45. El Aleph by J.L. Borges
46. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
47. Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
48. The Magus by John Fowles
49. Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman
50. Testament by R.C. Hutchinson
51. Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis
52. A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin
53. Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche
54. Oedipus the King by Sophocles
55. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
56. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
57. The Story of the Stone by Cao Xueqin
58. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
59. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake
60. Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
61. Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
62. Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
63. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
64. No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre
65. Othello by William Shakespeare
66. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
67. Vanity Fair by William Thackerey
68. Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy
69. Voss by Patrick White
70. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
71. Manfred by Lord Byron
72. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
73. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
74. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
75. Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy
76. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty
77. 1984 by George Orwell
78. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
79. The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by Jose Saramago
80. Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
81. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
82. Tristam Shandy by Laurence Sterne
83. The Tree of Man by Patrick White
84. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
85. A Dream of Red Mansions by Cao Xueqin
86. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
87. 2666 by Robert Bolano
88. Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino
89. If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino
90. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
91. The Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad
92. The Recognitions by William Gaddis
93. The Castle by Franz Kafka
94. I Canti by Giacomo Leopardi
95. Man’s Fate by André Malraux
96. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
97. Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell
98. Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth
99. Confessions by Rousseau
100. The World as Will and Representation by Arthur Schopenhauer

I need to read more.

1. The Bible
2. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
3. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
4. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
5. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
6. Ulysses by James Joyce
7. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
8. Don Quixote by Cervantes
9. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
10. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
11. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
12. The Odyssey by Homer
13. Paradise Lost by John Milton
14. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
15. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
16. Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire
17. The Illiad by Homer
18. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez
19. Essays by Montaigne
20. The Stranger by Albert Camus
21. The Oresteia by Aeschylus
22. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
23. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
24. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
25. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
26. The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
27. Emma by Jane Austen
28. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
29. The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
30. Eugene Onegin by Pushkin
31. Watership Down by Richard Adams
32. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
33. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
34. Walden by Henry David Thoreau
35. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
36. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
37. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
38. Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
39. The Trial by Franz Kafka
40. Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien
41. Shahnameh by Ferdowsi
42. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
43. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
44. Fictions by J.L. Borges
45. El Aleph by J.L. Borges
46. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
47. Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
48. The Magus by John Fowles
49. Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman
50. Testament by R.C. Hutchinson
51. Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis
52. A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin
53. Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche
54. Oedipus the King by Sophocles
55. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
56. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
57. The Story of the Stone by Cao Xueqin
58. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
59. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake
60. Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
61. Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
62. Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
63. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
64. No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre
65. Othello by William Shakespeare
66. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
67. Vanity Fair by William Thackerey
68. Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy
69. Voss by Patrick White
70. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
71. Manfred by Lord Byron
72. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
73. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
74. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
75. Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy
76. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty
77. 1984 by George Orwell
78. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
79. The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by Jose Saramago
80. Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
81. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
82. Tristam Shandy by Laurence Sterne
83. The Tree of Man by Patrick White
84. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
85. A Dream of Red Mansions by Cao Xueqin
86. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
87. 2666 by Robert Bolano
88. Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino
89. If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino
90. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
91. The Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad
92. The Recognitions by William Gaddis
93. The Castle by Franz Kafka
94. I Canti by Giacomo Leopardi
95. Man’s Fate by André Malraux
96. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
97. Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell
98. Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth
99. Confessions by Rousseau
100. The World as Will and Representation by Arthur Schopenhauer

Thanks for making this list. I found a few interesting looking books that I hadn't heard of before.

For whomever wanted to compare the new list with the old one.

For the sake of comparison and because I'm bored here is the top 10 of the new list with a number in parenthesis indicating where it placed in the old list:

1. The Bible (10)
2. Hamlet by William Shakespeare (4)
3. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (23)
4. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (7)
5. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (3)
6. Ulysses by James Joyce (42)
7. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (68)
8. Don Quixote by Cervantes (12)
9. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (9)
10. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1)

• At least four works in the new top 10 didn't place in the top 10 on the old list (Dante, Joyce, Cervantes, and Melville). Three of those four didn't even place in the top 20 last time.
• The Bible and Crime and Punishment switched spots on the two lists (#1 and #10).
• Hamlet moved up to the coveted 2nd spot replacing 1984 on the old list, which dropped all the way down to # 77 on the new list.
• War and Peace, which some people complained should've been up higher, had the # 9 spot on both lists.
• The only author with two titles in the top 10 is Dostoevsky, however, both of his works dropped down in ranking from the original list.
• On the old list the first novel by Dickens appears at # 14: A Tale of Two Cities, which now dropped down to # 72 on the new list. The first novel by Dickens to appear on the new list is a Christmas Carol at #46.
• On the new list, Montaigne’s essays hold the 19th spot, breaking the top 20. Montaigne’s essays were only # 92 on the old list.
• Four books that were in the top ten on the old list didn’t even make the top 20 on the new list: 1984 (went from # 2 to 77), Les Miserables (went from # 5 to 33), To Kill A Mockingbird (went from # 6 to 25), Pride and Prejudice (went from # 8 to 37).

Very interesting, Darkshadow. I think on the whole our tastes have improved. :)

1) How many people submitted to the new list, and does anyone know how many did to the old list?

2) If whoever compiled the old list is still around, are the point totals still available, so the two lists can be merged?

The list has been revised very slightly to fix the mix-up with the Cao Xueqin book. Sorry it took so long. Everything after (I think) #24 has been moved up one place, and Julius Caesar by Shakespeare has been added.

Noone did mention Christopher Marlowe?

Thanks for the link darkshadow!

I honestly prefer the old one...

1. The Bible
2. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
3. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (although, never finished Paradise)
4. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
5. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
6. Ulysses by James Joyce
7. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
8. Don Quixote by Cervantes
9. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
10. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (currently reading)
11. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
12. The Odyssey by Homer
13. Paradise Lost by John Milton
14. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
15. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
16. Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire
17. The Illiad by Homer
18. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez
19. Essays by Montaigne
20. The Stranger by Albert Camus
21. The Oresteia by Aeschylus
22. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
23. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
24. The Story of the Stone by Cao Xueqin
25. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
26. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
27. The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
28. Emma by Jane Austen
29. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
30. The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
31. Eugene Onegin by Pushkin
32. Watership Down by Richard Adams
33. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
34. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (although I skipped a lot of the historical stuff)
35. Walden by Henry David Thoreau
36. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
37. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
38. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
39. Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
40. The Trial by Franz Kafka
41. Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien
42. Shahnameh by Ferdowsi
43. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
44. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
45. Fictions by J.L. Borges
46. El Aleph by J.L. Borges
47. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
48. Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
49. The Magus by John Fowles
50. Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman
51. Testament by R.C. Hutchinson
52. Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis
53. A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin (only read the first three books so far)
54. Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche
55. Oedipus the King by Sophocles
56. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
57. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
58. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
59. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake
60. Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
61. Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
62. Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
63. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
64. No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre
65. Othello by William Shakespeare
66. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
67. Vanity Fair by William Thackerey
68. Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy
69. Voss by Patrick White
70. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
71. Manfred by Lord Byron
72. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
73. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
74. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
75. Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy
76. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty
77. 1984 by George Orwell
78. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
79. The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by Jose Saramagos
80. Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
81. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
82. Tristam Shandy by Laurence Sterne
83. The Tree of Man by Patrick White
84. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
85. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
86. 2666 by Robert Bolano
87. Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino
88. If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino
89. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
90. The Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad
91. The Recognitions by William Gaddis
92. The Castle by Franz Kafka
93. I Canti by Giacomo Leopardi
94. Man’s Fate by André Malraux
95. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
96. Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell
97. Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth
98. Confessions by Rousseau
99. The World as Will and Representation by Arthur Schopenhauer
100. Julius Caesar by Shakespeare

Let's see, how many of these have I read? Probably not near enough. Ok, my list.
1. The Bible (the whole thing, took me way more than a year, but I did it!)
2. Hamlet by Shakespeare
12. The Odessy by Homer
17. The Iliad by Homer
38. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
40. The Trial by franz kafka
the other shakespeare's listed.

1. The Bible
2. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
3. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
4. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
5. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
6. Ulysses by James Joyce
7. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
8. Don Quixote by Cervantes
9. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
10. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
11. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
12. The Odyssey by Homer
13. Paradise Lost by John Milton
14. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
15. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
16. Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire
17. The Illiad by Homer
18. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez
19. Essays by Montaigne
20. The Stranger by Albert Camus
21. The Oresteia by Aeschylus
22. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
23. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
24. The Story of the Stone by Cao Xueqin
25. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
26. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
27. The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
28. Emma by Jane Austen
29. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
30. The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
31. Eugene Onegin by Pushkin
32. Watership Down by Richard Adams
33. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
34. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
35. Walden by Henry David Thoreau
36. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
37. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
38. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
39. Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
40. The Trial by Franz Kafka
41. Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien
42. Shahnameh by Ferdowsi
43. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
44. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
45. Fictions by J.L. Borges
46. El Aleph by J.L. Borges
47. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
48. Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
49. The Magus by John Fowles
50. Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman
51. Testament by R.C. Hutchinson
52. Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis
53. A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin
54. Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche
55. Oedipus the King by Sophocles
56. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
57. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
58. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
59. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake
60. Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
61. Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
62. Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
63. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
64. No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre
65. Othello by William Shakespeare
66. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
67. Vanity Fair by William Thackerey
68. Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy
69. Voss by Patrick White
70. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
71. Manfred by Lord Byron
72. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
73. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
74. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
75. Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy
76. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty
77. 1984 by George Orwell
78. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
79. The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by Jose Saramagos
80. Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
81. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
82. Tristam Shandy by Laurence Sterne
83. The Tree of Man by Patrick White
84. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
85. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
86. 2666 by Robert Bolano
87. Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino
88. If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino
89. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
90. The Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad
91. The Recognitions by William Gaddis
92. The Castle by Franz Kafka
93. I Canti by Giacomo Leopardi
94. Man’s Fate by André Malraux
95. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
96. Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell
97. Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth
98. Confessions by Rousseau
99. The World as Will and Representation by Arthur Schopenhauer
100. Julius Caesar by Shakespeare

I'd say 50 read, but a couple of these I've only started and have not got through yet, like Infinite Jest and the Recognitions

No mention of Dostoevsky's The Idiot anywhere on thread. Fancy that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gladys

No mention of Dostoevsky's The Idiot anywhere on thread. Fancy that.

---

I really liked it, but I'd probably put Crime and Punishment and Brothers Karamazov above it.

No offense to anybody but this list is absolutely ATROCIOUS compared to the last one that was up back in like 2008. In my opinion half the books are complete trash, Tolkien although a legend should not have any of his books in the top 10,000 of all time and it is patently obvious that most of you equate quantity with quality. As one poster said, The Idiot was not listed and that book buries most of the crap here with aesthetic style, ascetic characters, intriguing plot, unprecedented dialogue and climactic conclusion. That is just my view. Sorry if I offended anyone but I needed a cathartic outlet. I've been too stressed lately and this was just the lump of solid coal on top of the abysmally baked cake.

Could you be specific about the "trash" and why? "Most of you"? Quantity.? "Like 2008"?

Top 3 of the top 10 are just ridiculous IMO. Though the rest of the top 10 are OK for me. There are some unexpected interesting books throughout the list like Essays by Montaigne and two Borges masterpieces along with If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino, Meditations and some other stuff. But many atrocious choices as well: Ayn Rand, Ferdowsi (who even knows Ferdowsi here, his book is extremely childish and barbaric), Patrick White, Tolkien?

Perhaps you do not know White yet. I would recommend you tackle him. Saying "who even knows" is an admission of ignorance not a critical judgement. I didn't know him but I assume that those who chose him must find something of value in him. But if you have found him barbaric then you have found him barbaric. Homer is barbaric. So is McCarthy. So is Shakespeare in some texts. It ain't really about being nice and civilised either in language or morality.

1. The Bible
2. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
3. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
4. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
5. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (own it)
6. Ulysses by James Joyce
7. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
8. Don Quixote by Cervantes (own it)
9. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (own it)
10. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (own it)
11. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (own it)
12. The Odyssey by Homer
13. Paradise Lost by John Milton
14. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
15. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
16. Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire
17. The Illiad by Homer
18. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez (own it)
19. Essays by Montaigne
20. The Stranger by Albert Camus
21. The Oresteia by Aeschylus
22. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
23. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
24. The Story of the Stone by Cao Xueqin
25. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
26. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
27. The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
28. Emma by Jane Austen
29. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (own it)
30. The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio (own it)
31. Eugene Onegin by Pushkin
32. Watership Down by Richard Adams
33. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
34. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
35. Walden by Henry David Thoreau
36. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
37. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
38. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (own it)
39. Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
40. The Trial by Franz Kafka (own it)
41. Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien
42. Shahnameh by Ferdowsi
43. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
44. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (own it)
45. Fictions by J.L. Borges (own it)
46. El Aleph by J.L. Borges
47. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
48. Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
49. The Magus by John Fowles
50. Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman
51. Testament by R.C. Hutchinson
52. Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis
53. A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin
54. Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche (own it; have read pieces here and there)
55. Oedipus the King by Sophocles
56. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
57. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
58. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
59. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake (own it)
60. Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
61. Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
62. Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky (own it)
63. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
64. No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre
65. Othello by William Shakespeare
66. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
67. Vanity Fair by William Thackerey
68. Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy
69. Voss by Patrick White
70. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
71. Manfred by Lord Byron
72. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (own it)
73. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
74. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
75. Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy
76. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty
77. 1984 by George Orwell
78. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (own it; have read The Fountainhead)
79. The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by Jose Saramagos
80. Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
81. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
82. Tristam Shandy by Laurence Sterne
83. The Tree of Man by Patrick White
84. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
85. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (own it)
86. 2666 by Robert Bolano
87. Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino
88. If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino (own it)
89. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
90. The Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad
91. The Recognitions by William Gaddis
92. The Castle by Franz Kafka (own it)
93. I Canti by Giacomo Leopardi
94. Man’s Fate by André Malraux
95. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
96. Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell
97. Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth
98. Confessions by Rousseau
99. The World as Will and Representation by Arthur Schopenhauer (own it; have read bits)
100. Julius Caesar by Shakespeare (own it)

Amazing how many I own but have not read!

Question: are the George R. R. Martin books really that good? I don't read a lot of popular fiction, but I see it made this list.

Some other lists I've used to guide my reading choices:

• http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_100...ks_of_All_Time
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Mond...of_the_Century

I would add Virgil, Ovid, and Goethe to the list.

Just looked up the French list there. Like all lists there is something to appeal to a male's inherent autism and often there are new considerations to feed the brain but Asterix the Gaul at number 23! I think that is carrying Francocentrism a wee bit far. I'd have put it at number 49.

"Popular fiction" sometimes gets a bad name but what exactly is unpopular fiction - to gloss Mr Shaw a bit. Some very good books don't sell well when they come out: some do. What can we say about that. Not much probably. My young fellow reads fairly widely and I recently saw a Martin novel in his room. He said he was enjoying it. Should I be worried doc?

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Originally Posted by ennison

Just looked up the French list there. Like all lists there is something to appeal to a male's inherent autism and often there are new considerations to feed the brain but Asterix the Gaul at number 23! I think that is carrying Francocentrism a wee bit far. I'd have put it at number 49.

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That LeMonde list is based on a poll conducted at French reseller Fnac. I was in Lyon back in December, at a Fnac, purchasing a Houellebecq novel, when a fellow approached me and started raving about these ultimate French culture comics. He then proceeded to lead me to a section filled with Asterix books, pulling them from the shelves and giving me hyperenthusiastic discourses on the background of each and why they are so entertaining to the French people. It was quite amusing and educational!

Interesting German list of the top 100 books. I am glad to see The Jungle Books is up there.

http://www.abebooks.de/Buecher-Highl...-Buecher.shtml

I'm between readng Austin's Persuasin and Mansfield Park

Wunderbar Kev. Verfall und Untergang des Romischen Reiches is there but no Aufstieg und Fall des Dritten Reiches

The ones I have read:

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Originally Posted by Desolation

1. The Bible
2. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
3. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
4. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
5. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
6. Ulysses by James Joyce
7. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
8. Don Quixote by Cervantes
9. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
10. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
11. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
12. The Odyssey by Homer
13. Paradise Lost by John Milton
14. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
15. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
16. Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire
17. The Illiad by Homer
18. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez
19. Essays by Montaigne
20. The Stranger by Albert Camus
21. The Oresteia by Aeschylus
22. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
23. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
24. The Story of the Stone by Cao Xueqin
25. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
26. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
27. The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
28. Emma by Jane Austen
29. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
30. The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
31. Eugene Onegin by Pushkin
32. Watership Down by Richard Adams
33. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
34. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
35. Walden by Henry David Thoreau
36. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
37. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
38. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
39. Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
40. The Trial by Franz Kafka
41. Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien
42. Shahnameh by Ferdowsi
43. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
44. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
45. Fictions by J.L. Borges
46. El Aleph by J.L. Borges
47. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
48. Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
49. The Magus by John Fowles
50. Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman
51. Testament by R.C. Hutchinson
52. Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis
53. A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin
54. Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche
55. Oedipus the King by Sophocles
56. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
57. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
58. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
59. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake
60. Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
61. Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
62. Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
63. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
64. No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre
65. Othello by William Shakespeare
66. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
67. Vanity Fair by William Thackerey
68. Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy
69. Voss by Patrick White
70. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
71. Manfred by Lord Byron
72. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
73. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
74. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
75. Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy
76. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty
77. 1984 by George Orwell
78. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
79. The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by Jose Saramagos
80. Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
81. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
82. Tristam Shandy by Laurence Sterne
83. The Tree of Man by Patrick White
84. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
85. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
86. 2666 by Robert Bolano
87. Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino
88. If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino
89. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
90. The Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad
91. The Recognitions by William Gaddis
92. The Castle by Franz Kafka
93. I Canti by Giacomo Leopardi
94. Man’s Fate by André Malraux
95. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
96. Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell
97. Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth
98. Confessions by Rousseau
99. The World as Will and Representation by Arthur Schopenhauer
100. Julius Caesar by Shakespeare


Thank you for voting, everyone. It's been great working with your favorite books.

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A number of the books I've read don't belong on the list (Ayn Rand, Proust, The Stranger, among others) Some I have read major parts of (Proust, Chaucer, Dante, Decameron), but not beginning to end. I have probably read The Arrow of Gold by Conrad, since I pretty much read all of his fiction. I just don't have any particular memory of it.

Wow! Very impressive mr WyattGwyon. I'm reading kids' books at the moment and reinforcing what I thought. There ain't no such thing as adult literature

The Iliad, Wuthering Heights and Canterbury Tales should really be higher on the list. Rand should not be on it. Don't think I would put Gatsby that high. Thucydides and Herodotus ought to be on there somewhere. Same with Stendhal. Other than that the list is pretty decent. Happy to see Marquez and Camus in the top 20.

For me number 1 is "Wuthering Heights". I am reading now. It`s my 5 time:)

If it comes to "Great Gatsby", I am going to see the film today.

The absence of D.H. Lawrence depresses me.

what did you guys get out of war and peace, and how difficult a read is it?

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Originally Posted by hypatia_

what did you guys get out of war and peace, and how difficult a read is it?

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To me, War and Peace is a very fun, light read with a tendency to meander. It isn't entirely deserving of its length, but if you're curious, by all means read it. I would put Anna Karenina ahead of it, however.