Sunday, November 29, 2009

My List of "100 Great Books"

So, I finally sat down and made my list of 100 great books, referencing the lists in my last post (as well as the one so kindly provided by Rikki). At least I can say I accomplished something over Thanksgiving break — other than eating and lounging at my parents' house. I'm already feeling a bit overwhelmed about reading all of these, but I'm also excited.

Anyway, to the list itself. Some obvious books are not included because I've read them fairly recently or the thought of reading them again makes me want to vomit. I feel that way about a few of the books on my list, but hopefully those won't be as much of a chore as I expect. I've read some of the books before, but I included them on the list because I'd like to reread them. I didn't allow any author to appear more than twice (12 do). I intentionally avoided poetry and drama (though a few are included), and at first I avoided philosophy and fantasy but eventually caved near the end.

In no particular order, Jenny's 100 Great Books:

1. THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov
3. BELOVED by Toni Morrison
4. THE GOLDEN ASS by Apuleius
5. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE by Jane Austen
6. THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV by Fyodor Dostoevsky
7. THE AWAKENING by Kate Chopin
8. ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand
9. THE DIVINE COMEDY by Dante Alighieri
10. DON QUIXOTE by Miguel de Cervantes
11. THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner
12. ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
13. ULYSSES by James Joyce
14. THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck
15. 1984 by George Orwell
16. SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut
17. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee
18. A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway
19. THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD by Zora Neale Hurston
20. NATIVE SON by Richard Wright
21. ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac
22. THE JUNGLE by Upton Sinclair
23. SOPHIE'S CHOICE by William Styron
24. ETHAN FROME by Edith Wharton
25. TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf
26. THINGS FALL APART by Chinua Achebe
27. WOMEN IN LOVE by D.H. Lawrence
28. WIDE SARAGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys
29. RABBIT, RUN by John Updike
30. MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie
31. WAR AND PEACE by Leo Tolstoy
32. THE NAKED AND THE DEAD by Norman Mailer
33. POINT COUNTER POINT by Aldous Huxley
34. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess
35. UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry
36. THE HANDMAID'S TALE by Margaret Atwood
37. ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE by Robert Pirsig
38. FAHRENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury
39. MY ANTONIA by Willa Cather
40. THE CANTERBURY TALES by Geoffrey Chaucer
41. GULLIVER'S TRAVELS by Jonathan Swift
42. MIDDLEMARCH by George Eliot
43. GONE WITH THE WIND by Margaret Mitchell
44. CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller
45. CONFESSIONS by St. Augustine
46. PARADISE LOST by John Milton
47. LEAVES OF GRASS by Walt Whitman
48. KIM by Rudyard Kipling
49. FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Shelley
50. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST by Ken Kesey
51. THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers
52. HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad
53. NIGHT by Elie Wiesel
54. THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS by Kenneth Grahame
55. THE COLOR PURPLE by Alice Walker
56. THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO by Karl Marx
57. A TALE OF TWO CITIES by Charles Dickens
58. BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S by Truman Capote
59. THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY by Oscar Wilde
60. THE TURN OF THE SCREW by Henry James
61. THE OUTSIDER by Albert Camus
62. LES MISERABLES by Victor Hugo
63. THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE by Philip K. Dick
64. THE SCARLET LETTER by Nathaniel Hawthorne
65. THE NAME OF THE ROSE by Umberto Eco
66. THE COURAGE TO BE by Paul Tillich
67. MAN'S SEARCH FOR MEANING by Viktor Frankl
68. THE SOCIAL CONTRACT by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
69. THE PRINCE by Niccolo Machiavelli
70. THE LEVIATHAN by Thomas Hobbes
71. THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK by W.E.B. DuBois
72. A DEATH IN THE FAMILY by James Agee
73. JANE EYRE by Charlotte Bronte
74. WUTHERING HEIGHTS by Emily Bronte
75. BABBITT by Sinclair Lewis
76. THE CRUCIBLE by Arthur Miller
77. UNCLE TOM'S CABIN by Harriet Beecher Stowe
78. ALICE IN WONDERLAND by Lewis Carroll
79. A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE by Tennessee Williams
80. THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by Samuel Butler
81. THE DARK TOWER series by Stephen King
82. HIS DARK MATERIALS by Philip Pulman
83. THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkein
84. INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison
85. PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT by Philip Roth
86. STATE OF FEAR by Michael Crichton
87. HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY by Douglas Adams
88. SELECTED POETRY OF ADRIENNE RICH
89. FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS by Ernest Hemingway
90. ANNA KARENINA by Leo Tolstoy
91. AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner
92. SONG OF SOLOMON by Toni Morrison
93. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT by Fyodor Dostoevsky
94. OF MICE AND MEN by John Steinbeck
95. THIS SIDE OF PARADISE by F. Scott Fitzgerald
96. A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce
97. ORLANDO by Virginia Woolf
98. LILA by Robert Pirsig
99. THE STAND by Stephen King
100. CAT'S CRADLE by Kurt Vonnegut

Oh, and I've decided against the Kindle. Instead, I'm going to buy all these books at the cheapest used price I can find to build my paper library even more. :) (And I already own 21 of them, so I'm over one-fifth of the way there.)

I'll come back and italicize as I complete books.

1 comment:

  1. thinking about you bolding all those titles makes me haz a sad

    but fun!

    happy holidays,
    your favorite mscne friend

    ReplyDelete