s/o books 100 Best Novels of 20th Century

[ttt]

I guess this is English language only?

[taratru]

I haven't heard of quite a few of those, but the ones listed? Yep. I wish there were more modern titles, but I suppose it takes time.

[ttt]

I'm sligtly embarrassed that I've never even heard of some of those.

[secretlyevil]

I haven't heard of several of these and haven't read most of them. I'm supposed to be reading the Great Gatsby for my IRL book club on Wednesday but it's been two weeks of not really reading. Hoping to get it in this weekend.

[EllieArroway]

There are a lot there I haven't read, but those that I have read have all been excellent. The others I was thinking were missing aren't English language, so I guess that's why. I would put Gatsby at #1 though.

The reader's list has four Ayn Rands and three L. Ron Hubbards in the top ten... 8-D

[msmerymac]

Jun 22, 2012 10:59:40 GMT -5 ttt said:

I guess this is English language only?

Yes. I've been working on this list on and off since high school (when it came out?) and I remember one iteration specifically saying they were the top 100 English-language novels of the 20th century.

Anyway, I've probably only read 15-20 of them. So I'll get back to guys in a few years... I've only read 4 of the top 10.

One of my reading goals for next year is to concentrate on this list more.

I will say that I think these lists concentrate heavily on well known and well respected authors. For example, there's a list of the 1001 books you must read before you die, going back to ancient Greece, organized by time period. Of the books on the list from the last decade... does anyone REALLY think Salman Rushdie did his best work then? No, but because he's Salman Rushdie, all of his freaking books are on the list!

If you look up the "people's choice" of the best 100 books of the last century, there's a lot of Ayn Rand on it. :/

[MrsAxilla]

Jun 22, 2012 11:00:50 GMT -5 taratru said:

I haven't heard of quite a few of those, but the ones listed? Yep. I wish there were more modern titles, but I suppose it takes time.

Aren't we in the 21st century now? When did that start? I'd like to see John Irving up there, but he published starting in the 70's so maybe he's considered 21st century?

[msmerymac]

In that "1001 books you must read before you die" list I referenced, here are the books from the last decade:

Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
Saturday – Ian McEwan
On Beauty – Zadie Smith
Slow Man – J.M. Coetzee
Adjunct: An Undigest – Peter Manson
The Sea – John Banville
The Red Queen – Margaret Drabble
The Plot Against America – Philip Roth
The Master – Colm Tóibín
Vanishing Point – David Markson
The Lambs of London – Peter Ackroyd
Dining on Stones – Iain Sinclair
Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
Drop City – T. Coraghessan Boyle
The Colour – Rose Tremain
Thursbitch – Alan Garner
The Light of Day – Graham Swift
What I Loved – Siri Hustvedt
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon
Islands – Dan Sleigh
Elizabeth Costello – J.M. Coetzee
London Orbital – Iain Sinclair
Family Matters – Rohinton Mistry
Fingersmith – Sarah Waters
The Double – José Saramago
Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer
Unless – Carol Shields
Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami
The Story of Lucy Gault – William Trevor
That They May Face the Rising Sun – John McGahern
In the Forest – Edna O’Brien
Shroud – John Banville
Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
Youth – J.M. Coetzee
Dead Air – Iain Banks
Nowhere Man – Aleksandar Hemon
The Book of Illusions – Paul Auster
Gabriel’s Gift – Hanif Kureishi
Austerlitz – W.G. Sebald
Platform – Michael Houellebecq
Schooling – Heather McGowan
Atonement – Ian McEwan
The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen
Don’t Move – Margaret Mazzantini
The Body Artist – Don DeLillo
Fury – Salman Rushdie
At Swim, Two Boys – Jamie O’Neill
Choke – Chuck Palahniuk
Life of Pi – Yann Martel
The Feast of the Goat – Mario Vargos Llosa
An Obedient Father – Akhil Sharma
The Devil and Miss Prym – Paulo Coelho
Spring Flowers, Spring Frost – Ismail Kadare
White Teeth – Zadie Smith
The Heart of Redness – Zakes Mda
Under the Skin – Michel Faber
Ignorance – Milan Kundera
Nineteen Seventy Seven – David Peace
Celestial Harmonies – Péter Esterházy
City of God – E.L. Doctorow
How the Dead Live – Will Self
The Human Stain – Philip Roth
The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood
After the Quake – Haruki Murakami
Small Remedies – Shashi Deshpande
Super-Cannes – J.G. Ballard
House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski
Blonde – Joyce Carol Oates
Pastoralia – George Saunders


I've only read Never Let Me Go (pretty good), Cloud Atlas (really good), Everything is Illuminated (LOVE), and part of Middlesex (couldn't finish).

[msmerymac]

OH, here's a link:

www.listology.com/ukaunz/list/1001-books-you-must-read-you-die

[Brie]

Of the ones I've read, I agree.

I adore Winesburg, Ohio. Need to reread that one soon.

[Deleted]

Oy. I've read 16 of the top 100 and only two of the next list. Too bad my summer is full of thesis writing and Stephen King

[ladybrettashley]

I've read 33 of the top 100, but only a handful of the other list. I guess I'm not up to date with the more recent literature.

[laladypoet]

as Peter Griffin would say, that list insists upon itself.

[moreace01]

Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro - I agree this was very good (sad) and really made you think.

Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer - I don't know about this one. I feel like Foer tries to be overly clever and it comes across forced. The farting dog was funny maybe the first time...

Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides - I'm probably one of the only people here who liked Middlesex.

House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski - This book makes lists solely because of the interesting printing I think - it was two stories told at the same time. One was linear. And the other was told in the margins of the other story and you had to flip back and forth through the book to follow it. So the idea was interesting, but the actual story fell short.

On the top 100 list - Native Son is one of my all-time favorite books. I haven't re-read it in years though - maybe time to pick it back up.

[laladypoet]

House of Leaves is sitting on my bookshelf. I bought it seven years ago, and the bookmark is still on page 58. maybe I gave up too soon.

I've read Lonesome Dove about five times. I'm surprised it didn't make the list.

and a big groan to The Great Gatsby. that book was the bane of my existence in English class, I hated it so much.

[aurora]

I've only read 14 of the books on the top 100 (English, 20th century) list and though I appreciate many of them I wouldn't rank them in my top 100 for sure. Probably my favorite of those 14 was The Call of the Wild!

I've read even fewer of the second list (last decade) but I thought The Blind Assassin (Margaret Atwood) was excellent.

[Deleted]

I've only read 11 and started another 3-4 that I never finished.

The list left off some books I preferred but the same authors--East of Eden, Dubliners and Ethan Frome. And I prefer Hocus Pocus to Slaughterhouse Five.

Lolita, Animal Farm and Winesberg, Ohio stand out as among the best books I've ever read.

Howard's End was one of the dullest books I've read. And Farenheit 451 seems like it belongs on the list.

[zelda25]

James Joyce can fuck the fuck off, and he can take Henry James with him, as far as I'm concerned.

I agree that it would be nice to see more entries from the late 20th and into the 21st centuries. This feels like a compulsory college fresham reading list from the 1970s ^o)