100 Best

[Theologian in Training]

If you had to compile a list of the 100 best novels and/or classics that everyone should read what would they be?

I found this [url="http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html"]http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html[/url] and found it very interesting, not to mention the fact that I wished I had read at least some of them.

So, if you had to do the same, what would some of your best be? BTW, no non-fiction, just novels and classics of literature.

[Lil Red]

i just wish i have read more books. but there's never enough time. and right now, i'm working on reading encyclicals and apostolic letters and such.

[rachael]

I do love 1984, Animal Farm, most of Ayn Rand's work, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Mere Christianity

and um....

Harry Potter

Edited August 29, 2007 by rachael

[Theologian in Training]

[quote name='Lil Red' post='1373258' date='Aug 29 2007, 01:31 AM']i just wish i have read more books. but there's never enough time. and right now, i'm working on reading encyclicals and apostolic letters and such.[/quote]

Well, that is part of my motivation for creating this thread, I was in Borders tonight and looking through the books that are required reading for schools and some of the classics that they recommended, and realized I have deprived myself of some of the greatest classics of literature and want to start to try and remedy that and get back to reading. I read so little anymore it annoys me...

So, based on the above list and what you guys compile I think I am going to start trying to read some of these great books and classics of literature.

BTW, to add on to this a bit, if you had to recommend one of these books that should be first on the list, which would it be?

Edited August 29, 2007 by Theologian in Training

[Era Might]

Brave New World - great book. Nice to see Brideshead Revisited on there too, I love that book.

[rachael]

[quote name='Theologian in Training' post='1373265' date='Aug 29 2007, 12:38 AM']BTW, to add on to this a bit, if you had to recommend one of these books that should be first on the list, which would it be?[/quote]
I don't know, but personally I'm just a big Orwell and Rand fan.

[Theologian in Training]

[quote name='Era Might' post='1373270' date='Aug 29 2007, 01:44 AM']Brave New World - great book. Nice to see Brideshead Revisited on there too, I love that book.[/quote]

That was randomhouse Radcliffe did a "rival" list found here [url="http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100rivallist.html"]http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100rivallist.html[/url] a lot of the same

[missionarybelle]

oh wow. I could go on forever about books. if I had the time to....

I LOVE classics!!!

[Theologian in Training]

[quote name='missionarybelle' post='1373284' date='Aug 29 2007, 02:09 AM']oh wow. I could go on forever about books. if I had the time to....

I LOVE classics!!![/quote]

Ok, what would you put on the top of your list?

[missionarybelle]

OK those lists are written by men. that's all I will say. they ar missing out on some of the bst books life has to offer.

[Theologian in Training]

[quote name='missionarybelle' post='1373287' date='Aug 29 2007, 02:13 AM']OK those lists are written by men. that's all I will say. they ar missing out on some of the bst books life has to offer.[/quote]

Like? I said if you had to compose a 100 best list what would yours be? I was just showing those as an example of what I am looking for. And, I don't know that the list was created by men, they were voted on by all different people of both sexes.

Under the "About Lists"

[i]Since the "100 Best" story first broke in The New York Times on Monday, July 20, 1998, all kinds of opinions about the list - and theories about the Modern Library's purpose in concocting such a contest of sorts - emerged.

The goal of the "100 Best" project was to get people talking about great books. We succeeded beyond our wildest imaginings -- more than 400,000 avid readers rushed online to cast votes for their favorite books and the students of the Radcliffe Publishing Course quickly responded with rival list of 100 Best Novels.

The reader's poll for the best nonfiction published in the English language since 1900 opened on April 29, 1999 and closed on September 30, 1999 with a total of 194,829 votes cast.

The readers' poll for the best novels published in the English language since 1900 opened on July 20, 1998 and closed on October 20, 1998, with 217,520 votes cast.

To jumpstart your own, more structured discussion of the books, try using a few talking points as a guide.[/i]

Edited August 29, 2007 by Theologian in Training

[missionarybelle]

Pride and Prejudice -Jane Austen
Persuasion-Jane Austen
An Old Fashioned Girl - Alcott
Anne of the Island -L. M. Montgomery
A Girl of the Limberlost -Porter
Little Women -Alcott
Death Comes for the Archbishop -Willa Cather
The Secret Garden -Burnett
THe Scarlet Pimpernel -Baroness Orczy
The Witch of Blackbird Pond -Speare
Jane Eyre -Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights -Emily Bronte
My Antonia -Cather
Pollyanna
To Kill a Mockingbird


ah. I could go on and on.

Edited August 29, 2007 by missionarybelle

[hoosieranna]

I found it a little amusing that Battlefield Earth was number 3 on the reader's list. It got eviscerated by critics.

[Theologian in Training]

[quote name='Nadezhda' post='1373291' date='Aug 29 2007, 02:21 AM']I found it a little amusing that Battlefield Earth was number 3 on the reader's list. It got eviscerated by critics.[/quote]

Those are two separate lists, one is from the board and the other is from the readers, which is why some of the choices vary so greatly.

[Lil Red]

[quote name='Nadezhda' post='1373291' date='Aug 28 2007, 11:21 PM']I found it a little amusing that Battlefield Earth was number 3 on the reader's list. It got eviscerated by critics.[/quote]
i thought that was kinda funny too

[Theologian in Training]

I have a question though, since I never read it, why is "Lolita" on all of the lists? Isn't it about a person attracted to an underage girl?

[Lil Red]

boy, i feel very uneducated because i have read like 2 books on the whole list

i'll post my favs tomorrow.

[kateri05]

lolita is about that, but also considered a literary classic.

go figure

[Starets]

I don't read novels anymore. My major was English and History so I have certainly read a lot of novels.
Some of my favourites, in no particular order:
Morte D'Arthure = Malory
Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Leaf by Niggle = Tolkein
Space Trilogy = Lewis
Lord of the Flies, The Inheritors, Darkness Visible = Golding
Excalibur (an arthurian fantasy set in Mobile, Alabama) = Laubenthal
The Man who was Thursday = Chesterton
Charles Williams
Lovecraft
Magic Kingdom for Sale series = Brooks
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The Driver's Seat, The Comforters = Muriel Spark
Rasselas, The Fountains = Sam Johnson
The Collector = fowles
A Handful of Dust = Waugh

That's all I can think of right now. there are certainly others.

[Farsight one]

[quote name='Theologian in Training' post='1373298' date='Aug 29 2007, 01:32 AM']I have a question though, since I never read it, why is "Lolita" on all of the lists? Isn't it about a person attracted to an underage girl?[/quote]
Yes. He's attracted to underage girls in general, and he goes on a road trip with lolita, who then "leaves" him for another grown man, etc, etc. It's fairly detailed in some places, so if you don't have a strong stomach, don't read it, but it is an excellent book all the same.


Also, why are there short stories on the list? Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is excellent, but it's not a book.

And War of the Worlds should be high on that list. Excellent book.

Finnegan's Wake clearly has something to do with Ireland. I must read it.

Edited August 29, 2007 by Farsight one