Saturday, September 05, 2009

read away

This is actually a lazy kind of post. Read it before and saw it via Adrian's blog, so I thought I would kinda do the same thing. Best novels of all time according to a poll by the Modern Library Editorial Board. I have read TIME mag's best list and skimmed through 2 versions of Peter Boxall's 1000 books you must read before you die, but then I guess this should do for now. These are really classic classics. I found some titles in super-cheap booksales before, which I expect to still find if said sale resumes. The will read are books that have been in my shelf for like a thousand years already. I remembered this incident when the editor of the college paper I used to write said that I was too reading too slow. In my hand was a copy of the first Lord of the Rings (which I never finished). I had it for a week already and I barely managed a few chapters. So many, too little time to read (especially if you consider Boxall's list). But anyway, this might interest.

BOARD's LIST:
  1. ULYSSES by James Joyce
  2. THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald (have read)
  3. A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce
  4. LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov
  5. BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
  6. THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner
  7. CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller
  8. DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler (will read)
  9. SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence (have read)
  10. THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck (will read)
  11. UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry
  12. THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by Samuel Butler
  13. 1984 by George Orwell (have read)
  14. I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves
  15. TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf (have read)
  16. AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser
  17. THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers
  18. SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut (will read)
  19. INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison
  20. NATIVE SON by Richard Wright
  21. HENDERSON THE RAIN KING by Saul Bellow
  22. APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA by John O'Hara
  23. U.S.A. (trilogy) by John Dos Passos
  24. WINESBURG, OHIO by Sherwood Anderson
  25. A PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M. Forster
  26. THE WINGS OF THE DOVE by Henry James
  27. THE AMBASSADORS by Henry James
  28. TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  29. THE STUDS LONIGAN TRILOGY by James T. Farrell
  30. THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford
  31. ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell
  32. THE GOLDEN BOWL by Henry James
  33. SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser
  34. A HANDFUL OF DUST by Evelyn Waugh
  35. AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner
  36. ALL THE KING'S MEN by Robert Penn Warren (have read)
  37. THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder
  38. HOWARDS END by E.M. Forster
  39. GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN by James Baldwin
  40. THE HEART OF THE MATTER by Graham Greene
  41. LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding (have read)
  42. DELIVERANCE by James Dickey
  43. A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME (series) by Anthony Powell
  44. POINT COUNTER POINT by Aldous Huxley
  45. THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway (will read)
  46. THE SECRET AGENT by Joseph Conrad
  47. NOSTROMO by Joseph Conrad
  48. THE RAINBOW by D.H. Lawrence
  49. WOMEN IN LOVE by D.H. Lawrence
  50. TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller (will read)
  51. THE NAKED AND THE DEAD by Norman Mailer
  52. PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT by Philip Roth (have read)
  53. PALE FIRE by Vladimir Nabokov
  54. LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner
  55. ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac (reading)
  56. THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett
  57. PARADE'S END by Ford Madox Ford
  58. THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith Wharton (will read)
  59. ZULEIKA DOBSON by Max Beerbohm
  60. THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy
  61. DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather
  62. FROM HERE TO ETERNITY by James Jones
  63. THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLES by John Cheever
  64. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger (have read)
  65. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess (have read)
  66. OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham
  67. HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad
  68. MAIN STREET by Sinclair Lewis
  69. THE HOUSE OF MIRTH by Edith Wharton
  70. THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET by Lawrence Durell
  71. A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA by Richard Hughes
  72. A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS by V.S. Naipaul
  73. THE DAY OF THE LOCUST by Nathanael West
  74. A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway
  75. SCOOP by Evelyn Waugh
  76. THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE by Muriel Spark
  77. FINNEGANS WAKE by James Joyce
  78. KIM by Rudyard Kipling
  79. A ROOM WITH A VIEW by E.M. Forster
  80. BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh
  81. THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH by Saul Bellow
  82. ANGLE OF REPOSE by Wallace Stegner
  83. A BEND IN THE RIVER by V.S. Naipaul
  84. THE DEATH OF THE HEART by Elizabeth Bowen
  85. LORD JIM by Joseph Conrad
  86. RAGTIME by E.L. Doctorow
  87. THE OLD WIVES' TALE by Arnold Bennett
  88. THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London
  89. LOVING by Henry Green
  90. MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie
  91. TOBACCO ROAD by Erskine Caldwell
  92. IRONWEED by William Kennedy
  93. THE MAGUS by John Fowles
  94. WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys
  95. UNDER THE NET by Iris Murdoch
  96. SOPHIE'S CHOICE by William Styron (have read)
  97. THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles
  98. THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain
  99. THE GINGER MAN by J.P. Donleavy
  100. THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS by Booth Tarkington
You should also check out the reader's list (in the same website) which has Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead and Stephen King's The Stand, both of which I have read too.

6 comments:

Visual Velocity said...

1984 and ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell were required readings back when I was in high school. I've read SOPHIE'S CHOICE by William Styron and two chapters of BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh; didn't really enjoy both so I gave them away. I've been meaning to buy THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger, but still haven't because of budget constraints. I'd love to read THE WINGS OF THE DOVE by Henry James. I love the film, and I have a hunch I'll love the book too.

Karren Alenier said...

Although I'm pleased to see The Sheltering Sky, Ulysses, The Sound and the Fury, and Finnegans Wake, what's missing is Gertrude Stein's The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas and her magnum opus The Making of Americans. OK, I know few know how to read The MoA so here's a leg up, visit Scene4.com where I just wrote a guide to reading the 900 page plus novel by the first Modernist who is also a Post-Modernist.
http://tinyurl.com/ny6g6j.

jayclops said...

Nakita ko na rin yung The Wings of the Dove, Ands, though I have not read it. I like Sophie's Choice but I still haven't seen the film.

jayclops said...

Hi Karen, thanks for dropping by.

Adrian Mendizabal said...

hmmm... Thanks for reposting this one. I like their list but i crave for more Europeans and Asian titles like the great Russians (walang kamatayan since highschool pa): Tolstoy and Doestoevsky, French: Flaubert and Balzac, and Asians like the one who wrote SOUL MOUNTAIN --- Gao Xingjian, and Kawabata.

I am so glad that you have read Virginia Woolf's TO THE LIGHTHOUSE! I thought i am the only one who have read it --- almost all my friends gave up, my cousins too. I know it is such a difficult read for those who haven't been immersed to the modernist pile but it is the only book from that era that made a big impact on me and maybe to other people.

I just finished reading Ulysses, boy o boy, i want to recommend it to anyone. But, for beginners, one must also have a copy of Harry Blamires' guide to Ulysses or you get lost in it. Anyway, thanks again for reposting this. --- ad

jayclops said...

actually, thinking about it now ad, I really can't remember anything about To The Lighthouse. I read when I was freshman and I picked it up from a very slim selection of our college library because it was new. It is the only Woolf novel I read. Maybe when I google it I'll remember how it started and ended, hehe.

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family, Choose a f—king big television. Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed-interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose a three piece suit on hire purchased in a range of f—king fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the f—k you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing f—king junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, f—ked-up brats you have spawned to replace yourself. Choose a future. Choose life . . . But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin’ else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you’ve got heroin?

Renton, Trainspotting