Unfortunately, I've only read 18 books on the list, so i have got to get a move on this!
Unfortunately, I've only read 18 books on the list, so i have got to get a move on this!
Dispater, you really are a Blasphemer.Originally Posted by DisPater
At thunder and tempest, At the world's coldheartedness,
During times of heavy loss And when you're sad
The greatest art on earth Is to seem uncomplicatedly gay.
To get things clear, they have to firstly be very unclear. But if you get them too quickly, you probably got them wrong.
If you need me urgent, send me a PM
interesting list
very very pleased to see Sometimes a Great Notion by kesey on. one of the best books i have ever read.
surpised absalom absalom by faulkner didn't make it along with sound and the fury.
i've read a total of 59, 17 of the top 20, 34 of the top 40
for those dostoevsky fans try The Eternal Husband---interesting short dostoevsky
I have read 22 of these books. I think Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time should be in there somewhere as well.
I've read 17 off the list. I was really pleased to see As I lay dying on there
I've read 26 of the books, most of them a long (ahem) time ago. But I already knew I "should" read better literature. I confess that nowadays I mostly read for relaxation. Is there any way we could do a book club and work our way through the list? That sounds like fun!
Oh, and thank you, Dark Muse. The results are interesting. It was a big job and I appreciate you taking it on!!!
"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its' own reason for existing." ~ Albert Einstein
"Remember, no matter where you go, there you are." Buckaroo Bonzai "Some people say I done alright for a girl." Melanie Safka
What's with putting Coelho next to the name of Garcia Marquez? Coelho is horrible, but Garcia Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude (which is the only on I've read by him) is great. Are you telling me he's some kind of rubbish mainstream gimmick like Coelho? You can't be serious?
Et l'unique cordeau des trompettes marines
Apollinaire, Le chantre
I've read 11. -.-
Congrats DM! Interesting list. I've read 45 of those.
Through the darkness of future past
the magician longs to see
one chance out between two worlds
'Fire walk with me.'
Twin Peaks
J.D.Salinger before Victor Hugo. He's good but not that good.
ill have to get started on these. lots of reading to do
This is a great list indeed. I see a good mix of classic and modern works here. I would have liked to seen some titles by my beloved genre of Bellow, Updike, Roth, or Mailer, but there seems to be more veneration for those timeless works of yore. I was however delighted to see moderns like Kerouac, Kesey and Vonnegut, but would like to note that Capote's "In Cold Blood" is a work of nonfiction and seems a little out of place here.
So - everyone has their favorites and their opinions on what should or shouldn't have been included. However, and I may come to this forum with bias as this writer is my favorite, but the fact that Jack London is not on this list is astounding. Actually it approaches "appalling". I can see why there is limited Hesse, and no Kipling or Verne, as this subject thread is populated by mostly Americans, but this is precisely why I am so dumbstruck at the omission of a man whom I regard as the most essential and vital writer in American history. To not speak Mr. London's name in the same breath as Twain, Faulkner, Hemmingway and Steinbeck is very curious to me.
Perhaps some of the more seasoned patrons of this literary online community could help to enlighten me as to the paradoxal abscence of London in their discussions and regards?
Last edited by phoenix151; 02-11-2009 at 02:24 PM.
Great list... I have read 50 of the 100, and am reading Les Mis. and Divine Comedy right now... plus own about 7 of the books listed, but have not gotten around to reading them yet
I gotta get started on this
"All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so, give them the power to pull ours." -Aldous Huxley
"Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires." -William Blake
This list is really fantastic, and now I know exactly where to come whenever I need a good suggestion for a book to read. I'm surprised that some books are not on the list and also surprised that some are on the list. Though, in general, I find this list to be a wonderful representation of loved literature.
This is just the beginning.
I know the list is a bit of fun but (grrrr)... it is also fun to get angry at these lists and argue about them
On the Road (a very mediocre novel at best which is really a book about and for America) higher than King Lear, Proust and Montaigne?!!!
Also, 'The Cather In the Rye', 'The Old Man and the Sea' and 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' shouldn't be on there (American bias)
Brideshead Revisited is not as good (imo) as Decline and Fall or the Sword of Honour Trilogy
No P G Wodehouse?
To Kill A Mockingbird number 6!!!! Higher than 'War and Peace' and 'Brave New World'? Too much American bias- though there are great American novels that do deserve a place... Grapes of Wrath, Moby Dick, Huck Finn etc
Oh and what about Middlemarch? I have heard critics call it one of the 10 greatest novels in the english language
D H Lawrence's Sons and Lovers? No Virginia Woolf? Huxley's Point Counter Point? Hesse's 'Glass Bead Game'? Thomas Mann?
Last edited by WICKES; 02-26-2009 at 10:30 AM.
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