Time's 100 best novels
Let's play the books we've read game! This is based on the Time list of 100 best novels etc etc... link: http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/the_complete_list.html. I'm going to highlight the ones I've read and stuff. (Click to read what I mean by "and stuff," if you want. For one thing, one can assume that if I haven't read it, I'll probably give it a shot at SOME point. okay, and now I've finished the list and I must say that for the most part, I believe they chose books that're socially significant, not so much based on their artistry. This is disappointing while still a sound (imo) way to make a list. Anyway.
A - B
The Adventures of Augie March
Saul Bellow
I suppose then I'll start my Bellow-reading right here
All the King's Men
Robert Penn Warren
American Pastoral
Philip Roth
An American Tragedy
Theodore Dreiser
Animal Farm
George Orwell
still haven't read this one, though we did a lotta distopia reading in hs
Appointment in Samarra
John O'Hara
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
Judy Blume
i should buy a copy to read repeatedly.
(some books i've never heard of:)
The Assistant
Bernard Malamud
At Swim-Two-Birds
Flann O'Brien
Atonement
Ian McEwan
Beloved
Toni Morrison
yes.
The Berlin Stories
Christopher Isherwood
The Big Sleep
Raymond Chandler
hm, did i? this is why i'm keeping a list now.
The Blind Assassin
Margaret Atwood
quite pleased this one's on here.
Blood Meridian
Cormac McCarthy
Brideshead Revisited
Evelyn Waugh
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
Thornton Wilder
C - D
Call It Sleep
Henry Roth
Catch-22
Joseph Heller
couldn't make it through this one. i don't know if i'll try again.
The Catcher in the Rye
J.D. Salinger
yes.
A Clockwork Orange
Anthony Burgess
do i even want to? i don't know.
The Confessions of Nat Turner
William Styron
The Corrections
Jonathan Franzen
really hated the narrator way too much to read the whole book. maybe i should try the audiobook--or would that be WORSE?
The Crying of Lot 49
Thomas Pynchon
A Dance to the Music of Time
Anthony Powell
The Day of the Locust
Nathanael West
Death Comes for the Archbishop
Willa Cather
A Death in the Family
James Agee
The Death of the Heart
Elizabeth Bowen
Deliverance
James Dickey
Dog Soldiers
Robert Stone
F - G
Falconer
John Cheever
The French Lieutenant's Woman
John Fowles
The Golden Notebook
Doris Lessing
Go Tell it on the Mountain
James Baldwin
i don't think i've ever heard this particular baldwin being the most recommended. haven't read it.
Gone With the Wind
Margaret Mitchell
oh dear, seventh grade flashbacks!
The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck
hated it then loved it. can i read it again? dunno.
Gravity's Rainbow
Thomas Pynchon
another one that befuddled me to the point of not finishing.
The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald
yes, a few times. much fun to examine at length, especially the weird visual imagery.
H - I
A Handful of Dust
Evelyn Waugh
The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter
Carson McCullers
yes
The Heart of the Matter
Graham Greene
Herzog
Saul Bellow
Housekeeping
Marilynne Robinson
A House for Mr. Biswas
V.S. Naipaul
I, Claudius
Robert Graves
Infinite Jest
David Foster Wallace
2x, not lately. want to read again.
Invisible Man
Ralph Ellison
2x and again could read it several more times to get it for real.
L - N
Light in August
William Faulkner
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
C.S. Lewis
long ago
Lolita
Vladimir Nabokov
yes
Lord of the Flies
William Golding
yes
The Lord of the Rings
J.R.R. Tolkien
not really. my stepdad used to read this to us at night. i couldn't concentrate. i'm not really into other worlds unless they're interior worlds or, you know, invisible man worlds or stuff like that. not fantasy worlds--perhaps sadly.
Loving
Henry Green
huh?
Lucky Jim
Kingsley Amis
The Man Who Loved Children
Christina Stead
Midnight's Children
Salman Rushdie
yes
Money
Martin Amis
The Moviegoer
Walker Percy
Mrs. Dalloway
Virginia Woolf
(did i? or was it just suffering through "the hours" that made me think i did?)
Naked Lunch
William Burroughs
Native Son
Richard Wright
Neuromancer
William Gibson
Never Let Me Go
Kazuo Ishiguro
yes, but why is it on this list? i've been meaning to talk about this one.
1984
George Orwell
yes
O - R
On the Road
Jack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Ken Kesey
yes, would like to read it again.
The Painted Bird
Jerzy Kosinski
Pale Fire
Vladimir Nabokov
A Passage to India
E.M. Forster
yes
Play It As It Lays
Joan Didion
Portnoy's Complaint
Philip Roth
um, i think so. i think my dad gave it to me. i love my dad in a way because he tries to give me books but ends up giving me very male books.
Possession
A.S. Byatt
yes
The Power and the Glory
Graham Greene
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Muriel Spark
Rabbit, Run
John Updike
not sure
Ragtime
E.L. Doctorow
yes
The Recognitions
William Gaddis
yes
Red Harvest
Dashiell Hammett
Revolutionary Road
Richard Yates
S - T
The Sheltering Sky
Paul Bowles
Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut
mais oui et deux temps
Snow Crash
Neal Stephenson
indeed. surprised?
The Sot-Weed Factor
John Barth
The Sound and the Fury
William Faulkner
The Sportswriter
Richard Ford
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
John le Carre
The Sun Also Rises
Ernest Hemingway
yes
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston
embarrassed to admit no
Things Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe
yes thanks to seth
To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee
oh yeah
To the Lighthouse
Virginia Woolf
hm, maybe this is the woolf i read...
Tropic of Cancer
Henry Miller
U - W
Ubik
Philip K. Dick
Under the Net
Iris Murdoch
Under the Volcano
Malcolm Lowry
Watchmen
Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
White Noise
Don DeLillo
White Teeth
Zadie Smith
second attempt got me further than the first but i'm still flailing
Wide Sargasso Sea
Jean Rhys
A - B
The Adventures of Augie March
Saul Bellow
I suppose then I'll start my Bellow-reading right here
All the King's Men
Robert Penn Warren
American Pastoral
Philip Roth
An American Tragedy
Theodore Dreiser
Animal Farm
George Orwell
still haven't read this one, though we did a lotta distopia reading in hs
Appointment in Samarra
John O'Hara
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
Judy Blume
i should buy a copy to read repeatedly.
(some books i've never heard of:)
The Assistant
Bernard Malamud
At Swim-Two-Birds
Flann O'Brien
Atonement
Ian McEwan
Beloved
Toni Morrison
yes.
The Berlin Stories
Christopher Isherwood
The Big Sleep
Raymond Chandler
hm, did i? this is why i'm keeping a list now.
The Blind Assassin
Margaret Atwood
quite pleased this one's on here.
Blood Meridian
Cormac McCarthy
Brideshead Revisited
Evelyn Waugh
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
Thornton Wilder
C - D
Call It Sleep
Henry Roth
Catch-22
Joseph Heller
couldn't make it through this one. i don't know if i'll try again.
The Catcher in the Rye
J.D. Salinger
yes.
A Clockwork Orange
Anthony Burgess
do i even want to? i don't know.
The Confessions of Nat Turner
William Styron
The Corrections
Jonathan Franzen
really hated the narrator way too much to read the whole book. maybe i should try the audiobook--or would that be WORSE?
The Crying of Lot 49
Thomas Pynchon
A Dance to the Music of Time
Anthony Powell
The Day of the Locust
Nathanael West
Death Comes for the Archbishop
Willa Cather
A Death in the Family
James Agee
The Death of the Heart
Elizabeth Bowen
Deliverance
James Dickey
Dog Soldiers
Robert Stone
F - G
Falconer
John Cheever
The French Lieutenant's Woman
John Fowles
The Golden Notebook
Doris Lessing
Go Tell it on the Mountain
James Baldwin
i don't think i've ever heard this particular baldwin being the most recommended. haven't read it.
Gone With the Wind
Margaret Mitchell
oh dear, seventh grade flashbacks!
The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck
hated it then loved it. can i read it again? dunno.
Gravity's Rainbow
Thomas Pynchon
another one that befuddled me to the point of not finishing.
The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald
yes, a few times. much fun to examine at length, especially the weird visual imagery.
H - I
A Handful of Dust
Evelyn Waugh
The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter
Carson McCullers
yes
The Heart of the Matter
Graham Greene
Herzog
Saul Bellow
Housekeeping
Marilynne Robinson
A House for Mr. Biswas
V.S. Naipaul
I, Claudius
Robert Graves
Infinite Jest
David Foster Wallace
2x, not lately. want to read again.
Invisible Man
Ralph Ellison
2x and again could read it several more times to get it for real.
L - N
Light in August
William Faulkner
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
C.S. Lewis
long ago
Lolita
Vladimir Nabokov
yes
Lord of the Flies
William Golding
yes
The Lord of the Rings
J.R.R. Tolkien
not really. my stepdad used to read this to us at night. i couldn't concentrate. i'm not really into other worlds unless they're interior worlds or, you know, invisible man worlds or stuff like that. not fantasy worlds--perhaps sadly.
Loving
Henry Green
huh?
Lucky Jim
Kingsley Amis
The Man Who Loved Children
Christina Stead
Midnight's Children
Salman Rushdie
yes
Money
Martin Amis
The Moviegoer
Walker Percy
Mrs. Dalloway
Virginia Woolf
(did i? or was it just suffering through "the hours" that made me think i did?)
Naked Lunch
William Burroughs
Native Son
Richard Wright
Neuromancer
William Gibson
Never Let Me Go
Kazuo Ishiguro
yes, but why is it on this list? i've been meaning to talk about this one.
1984
George Orwell
yes
O - R
On the Road
Jack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Ken Kesey
yes, would like to read it again.
The Painted Bird
Jerzy Kosinski
Pale Fire
Vladimir Nabokov
A Passage to India
E.M. Forster
yes
Play It As It Lays
Joan Didion
Portnoy's Complaint
Philip Roth
um, i think so. i think my dad gave it to me. i love my dad in a way because he tries to give me books but ends up giving me very male books.
Possession
A.S. Byatt
yes
The Power and the Glory
Graham Greene
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Muriel Spark
Rabbit, Run
John Updike
not sure
Ragtime
E.L. Doctorow
yes
The Recognitions
William Gaddis
yes
Red Harvest
Dashiell Hammett
Revolutionary Road
Richard Yates
S - T
The Sheltering Sky
Paul Bowles
Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut
mais oui et deux temps
Snow Crash
Neal Stephenson
indeed. surprised?
The Sot-Weed Factor
John Barth
The Sound and the Fury
William Faulkner
The Sportswriter
Richard Ford
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
John le Carre
The Sun Also Rises
Ernest Hemingway
yes
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston
embarrassed to admit no
Things Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe
yes thanks to seth
To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee
oh yeah
To the Lighthouse
Virginia Woolf
hm, maybe this is the woolf i read...
Tropic of Cancer
Henry Miller
U - W
Ubik
Philip K. Dick
Under the Net
Iris Murdoch
Under the Volcano
Malcolm Lowry
Watchmen
Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
White Noise
Don DeLillo
White Teeth
Zadie Smith
second attempt got me further than the first but i'm still flailing
Wide Sargasso Sea
Jean Rhys