Tuesday, September 29, 2009

100 Best Novels

Today I stumbled upon (literally, check out stumbling here) a list of the 100 Best Novels, as chosen by Random House and Modern Library. I'm embarrassed to say that I had read pathetically few out of the list - that being said, there were a lot of classics. Among the ones that I have read:


THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence
1984 by George Orwell
SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut
A PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M. Forster
AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner
LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding
PALE FIRE by Vladimir Nabokov
ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac
THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger
HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad
A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS by V.S. Naipaul
A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway
THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London
15 out of 100. I'm embarrassed. But then I checked out the Reader's List - and I fared much better, I'm happy to say. Because seriously, how many D.H. Lawrence novels can one person read? So here are my reads from a list of books that didn't all get originally published while the dinosaurs still roamed the earth:

ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand
THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkien
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee
1984 by George Orwell
ULYSSES by James Joyce (ok, sort of..)
THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger
SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut
LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding
A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY by John Irving
THE STAND by Stephen King
BELOVED by Toni Morrison
ON THE ROAD by Jack Keouac
HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad
THE HANDMAID'S TALE by Margaret Atwood
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP by John Irving
SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES by Ray Bradbury
AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner
THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London
FARENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury
WATERSHIP DOWN by Richard Adams
IT by Stephen King
ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST by Ken Kesey
A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway
A respectable 25 - click here to see how many you've read...

1 comment:

  1. I'm even more embarrased:
    6 on the Board's List and 10 on the Reader's List. I always get excited about these lists until I tally up how many I've actually read.

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