Lit Nets Top 100 Books

The great Gatsby-Francis Scott Fitzgerald
The sun also rises-Ernest Hemingway
The Dharma bums-John Louis Kerouac
The catcher in the rye-Jerome David Salinger
A confederacy of dunces-John Kennedy Toole

Out of pure respect, I include the following:

Fear & loathing in Las Vegas- Hunter Steadman Thompson
Breakfast of champions-Kurt Vonnegut
Big two-hearted river parts 1&2-Ernest Hemingway (form the Nick Adams stories)
To kill a mockingbird-Nelle Harper Lee
Fight club-Chuck Palhanuik

Feel free to comment...

Hehe glad to see at least one other person went for Catcher In The Rye

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Originally Posted by thedharmabum

The great Gatsby-Francis Scott Fitzgerald
The sun also rises-Ernest Hemingway
The Dharma bums-John Louis Kerouac
The catcher in the rye-Jerome David Salinger
A confederacy of dunces-John Kennedy Toole

Out of pure respect, I include the following:

Fear & loathing in Las Vegas- Hunter Steadman Thompson
Breakfast of champions-Kurt Vonnegut
Big two-hearted river parts 1&2-Ernest Hemingway (form the Nick Adams stories)
To kill a mockingbird-Nelle Harper Lee
Fight club-Chuck Palhanuik

Feel free to comment...

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All American literature? Do you mostly keep only to America or do you just prefer American novels among those you've read?

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Originally Posted by thedharmabum

Fear & loathing in Las Vegas- Hunter Steadman Thompson


Feel free to comment...

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The S in Hunter S Thompson stands for Stockton not Steadman

I think you're getting confused with Ralph Steadman :D

Actually have become more of an American literature fan over the years and years of reading.
As for the HST mistake,
I stand corrected it is Stockton and not Steadman
How many of you knew that J.D. Salinger's name was Jerome David?

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Originally Posted by wessexgirl

Yay, I wondered if I was going to be the only one who chose L'Assomoir. :thumbs_up

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Of all the great novels that Zola wrote, L'assommoir is his masterpiece; just as Buddenbrooks is Thomas Mann's. If they don't touch your heart, then you haven't got one.

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Originally Posted by kilted exile

Hard Times - Dickens
The Idiot - Dostoevsky
Paradise Lost - Milton
Beowulf
Moll Flanders -Defoe

**Edit: Can we also include five books we feel should not be included? A kind of minus point for each book as well.....**

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It could be the start World War Three

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Originally Posted by Brian Bean

Of all the great novels that Zola wrote, L'assommoir is his masterpiece; just as Buddenbrooks is Thomas Mann's. If they don't touch your heart, then you haven't got one.

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I agree about Zola. I think some people misunderstand him, with all the social observation/experimentation he was aiming for with his realism. The clear-eyed observer of society may tell it how it is, but as you say, if he doesn't move you, you must be made of stone. I'm collecting all his Rougon-Macquart novels. I haven't read Mann, but I was considering reading Death in Venice recently. Too many books, not enough time...:)

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Originally Posted by wessexgirl

I agree about Zola. I think some people misunderstand him, with all the social observation/experimentation he was aiming for with his realism. The clear-eyed observer of society may tell it how it is, but as you say, if he doesn't move you, you must be made of stone. I'm collecting all his Rougon-Macquart novels. I haven't read Mann, but I was considering reading Death in Venice recently. Too many books, not enough time...:)

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I have read most of the Rougon-Macquart series and I enjoyed all of them, as they contain some of the finest writing in French literature. An interesting point about them is that each book, although an integral part of the series,
is able to stand alone. If you enjoy them as much as I did, you have much to look forward to.
As for Death in Venice, it is an excellent introduction to Thomas Mann and I can also recommend Felix Krull, which is light-hearted and very amusing.

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Originally Posted by Etienne

All American literature? Do you mostly keep only to America or do you just prefer American novels among those you've read?

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I'm really into American literature at the moment :)

sometimes a great notion--kesey
sound and the fury--faulkner
absalom absalom--faulkner
catch 22---heller
in search of lost time---proust

i'm a big faulkner fan!

Sense this thread had seemed to have quieted down, I decided to start to work on putting together the list. And after taking the books with the highest number of nomminations and adding them to the offical list, there are still openings on the list left.

So this is going to make some of you very happy.

Everyone may now have an additional 10 nomminations.

You may nomminate something which has already been nomminated, but you may not duplicate your own nomminations.

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Originally Posted by Dark Muse

Sense this thread had seemed to have quieted down, I decided to start to work on putting together the list. And after taking the books with the highest number of nomminations and adding them to the offical list, there are still openings on the list left.

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I thought the list you were making was LN's top 100? After 92 posts you don't have 100 titles? Or am I missing something?

Well I am trying to make this the most representive list I can. So I do have more than 100 nominations, but I do not wish to just randomly pick several books which have only been nominated once and add them to the list. I have taken all those which have had multiple nomminations and added them, but they did not total 100

Ok so my 10 other top:

Tolstoy - War and Peace
Borges - Fictions
Dostoevsky - The Brothers Karamazov
Garcia Marquez - 100 Years of Solitude
Rulfo - Pedro Paramo
Döblin - Berlin Alexanderplatz
Gide - The Counterfeiters
Nabokov - Lolita
Gonbrowicz - Bakakaï
Gontcharov - Oblomov
Valery - Monsieur Teste.

That's not 11, only 10, trust me on faith.

Ok what about 20 more?

LOL, at least I am giving you all some additional picks.

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Originally Posted by Dark Muse

Well I am trying to make this the most representive list I can. So I do have more than 100 nominations, but I do not wish to just randomly pick several books which have only been nominated once and add them to the list. I have taken all those which have had multiple nomminations and added them, but they did not total 100

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I see. I am too tired to add more to my five this evening, and I'd have to go back and find my post...wait, I think I can manage five more:

The Tin Drum, Grass
The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hugo
The Wild Palms, Faulkner
Tristram Shandy, Sterne
The Man Without Qualities, Musil

And I knew I got a lot of people thinking I should have allowed more the first time around, so I thought I would open it up a bit more for them

Well... if we're adding an additional 5 (or in some cases an additional 10+) I would follow my first 5..

The Bible
The Divine Comedy- Dante
Don Quixote- Cervantes
King Lear- Shakespeare
The Odyssey- Homer

with the following:

Shakespeare- MacBeth
Shakespeare- Hamlet
Homer- The Odyssey
Milton- Paradise Lost
Chaucer- Canterbury Tales
J.L. Borges- Labyrinths/Ficciones
Laurence Sterne- Tristam Shandy
William Blake- Collected Poems
Baudelaire- Flowers of Evil
Proust- In Search of Lost Time
Montaigne- Essays
Spencer- Amors (Sonnets and Epithalimion)
Shakespeare- A Midsummers' Night Dream
Goethe- Faust
Whitman- Leaves of Grass

That's my top 20... for today. Tomorrow might be quite different... although the first 10 would probably be quite consistent... only the order would change.

Äargh!! It's so difficult to pick just 5!! I must think more about this!
Oops, can we give more? These are the ones that jump out to me a the moment:

Shakespeare: "Hamlet"
Dostevsky: "Crime and Punishment"
Camus: "The Myth of Sissyphus" (sp?)
Gogol: "Dead Souls"
Shaw: "Plays Pleasant"
Orwell: "Nineteen Eighty-Four"
Milton: "Paradise Lost"
Dostoevsky: "Notes From the Underground"
Camus: "The Stranger"
Sartre: "Nausea"

I how I wish I could add more!

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Originally Posted by kelby_lake

Sounds fun:
Lolita
The Great Gatsby
Of Mice and Men
A Tale of Two Cities
The Glass Menagerie (are we allowed plays, by the way? If not, I'll edit)

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And I'll add:
Metamorphosis
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Brideshead Revisited
Les Enfants Terribles
1984
Animal Farm
Giovanni's Room
The Last Tycoon
Vanity Fair
The Devil's Dictionary

my additional ten

crime and punishment
wuthering heights
jane eyre
the picture of dorian gray
the master and margarita
lolita
the sun also rises
dracula
north and south
great expectations

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Originally Posted by papayahed

I'm thinking we should have a larger list as well 10-20.

100 years of Solitude
Crime and Punishment
The Sound and the Fury
Junky
On the Road

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My next 5:

In Cold Blood
The Old Man and the Sea
Blindness
Jurrasic Park
Henry IV Part 1

Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë
Animal Farm - George Orwell
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer - Patrick Süskind
Candide - Voltaire
Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
Changes: A Love Story - Ama Ata Aidoo
Jerusalem - Selma Lagerlöf

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Originally Posted by PabloQ

1. A Prayer for Owen Meany
2. To Kill a Mockingbird
3. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
4. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
5. The Octopus by Frank Norris

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To my original submission, I'll add.
The Odyssey Homer
Hamlet Shakespeare
Moby-Dick Melville
Of Mice and Men Steinbeck
As I Lay Dying Faulkner
Dead Souls Gogol
The House of Mirth Wharton
The Divine Comedy Dante
The Bible
The Old Man and the Sea Hemingway

Slaughter-House Five- Vonnegut
The Giver-Lowry
The Gambler-Dostoyevsky
The Trees of Pride- Chesterton
Tale of Two Cities- Dickens

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Originally Posted by Dark Muse

Haha maybe ok here are my own nominations

1. Siddhartha
2. Catcher in the Rye
3. The Magus
4. The Fountianhead
5. No Exit

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Well I am still working on my 10, but here is what I have so far.

1. Middlesex
2. The House of Mirth
3. The Red Tent
4. The Legend of Nightfall
5. The Stranger
6. Ashes of a God
7. Decent of Inanna
8. The Divine Comedy

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Originally Posted by Brian Bean

The Moon and Sixpence - Maugham
The Great Gatsby - Scott Fitzgerald
Bel Ami - Maupassant
Buddenbrooks - Mann
L'assommoir - Zola

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If you need another 10, then I suggest:

L'Education Sentimentale - Flaubert
Les Celibataires - de Montherlant
The White Gaurd - Bulgakov
Une Vie - Maupassant
Of Human Bondage - Maugham
Therese Desqueyroux - Mauriac
La Bete Humaine - Zola
McTeague - Norris
Sister Carrie - Dreiser
Oblomov - Goncharov
The Da Vinci Code - Brown


Oops! That makes eleven, so I guess the last one will have to be left out.

Leave the Da Vinci Code out, what's it doing there anyways?

Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things - Jon McGregor
The Beach - Alex Garland
An Artist of the Floating World - Kazuo Ishiguro
The Catcher in the Rye - J D Salinger

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Originally Posted by Etienne

Leave the Da Vinci Code out, what's it doing there anyways?

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I know a lot of people really hate that book, and though I would not rank among the best things I ever read, I enjoyed it, and for me it was a real page turner. Once I started reading I did not want to put it down again.

Alright, I can concede that someone might enjoy reading it, but there is a distance between that and a top list, especially that the rest of the list was nice.

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Originally Posted by Etienne

Alright, I can concede that someone might enjoy reading it, but there is a distance between that and a top list, especially that the rest of the list was nice.

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And finally we agree. :)

To Kill a Mockingbird - Lee
The Great Gatsby - Fitzgerald
The Catcher in the Rye - Salinger
The Scarlet Letter - Hawthorne
Othello - Shakespeare

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Originally Posted by Etienne

Leave the Da Vinci Code out, what's it doing there anyways?

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British humour

read the rest of his list

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Originally Posted by Hank Stamper

British humour

read the rest of his list

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What i was wondering, makes sense :lol:

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Originally Posted by Annamariah

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
The Count of Monte-Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Watership Down by Richard Adams
The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery

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Those were the first five I chose, now I'll get to pick ten more (thank you so much!)

I really have to think about this - maybe I'll do this in two parts.

I'll add at least these to my list:

The Holy Bible
These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
A Little Princess by F.H. Burnett
Eight Cousins by L.M. Alcott

Hmmmh

For five, for starters, I guess

"Dictionary of the Khazars: A Lexicon Novel" by Milorad Pavić.
"Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov.
"The Visit" by Dürrenmatt
"The Hours" by Cunningham
"Song of Ice and Fire" series by Martin

ok ten this time

War and Peace - Tolstoy
The Subteraneans - Kerouac
Pere Goriot - Balzac
The Story of the Stone - Xueqin
Hamlet - Shakespeare
Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky
The Bell Jar - Plath
Cat's Cradle - Vonnegut
The Wings of the Dove - James
Brave New World - Huxley

I won't post my top 5 yet because I have to give it a bit more thought but guys, I have to say, these lists are awesome! I'm so amazed to see that there are an abundance of so-called "classic" works. Usually when you go to a bookstore these days all you see are the new thrillers or murder mysteries or romances, while all the "classics" and great works are tucked away somewhere in the back.