The 100 greatest novels of all time?

1. Don Quixote Miguel De Cervantes
The story of the gentle knight and his servant Sancho Panza has entranced readers for centuries.


2. Pilgrim's Progress John Bunyan
The one with the Slough of Despond and Vanity Fair.


3. Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe
The first English novel.


4. Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift
A wonderful satire that still works for all ages, despite the savagery of Swift's vision.


5. Tom Jones Henry Fielding
The adventures of a high-spirited orphan boy: an unbeatable plot and a lot of sex ending in a blissful marriage.


6. Clarissa Samuel Richardson
One of the longest novels in the English language, but unputdownable.


7. Tristram Shandy Laurence Sterne
One of the first bestsellers, dismissed by Dr Johnson as too fashionable for its own good.


8. Dangerous Liaisons Pierre Choderlos De Laclos
An epistolary novel and a handbook for seducers: foppish, French, and ferocious.


9. Emma Jane Austen
Near impossible choice between this and Pride and Prejudice. But Emma never fails to fascinate and annoy.


10. Frankenstein Mary Shelley
Inspired by spending too much time with Shelley and Byron.



11. Nightmare Abbey Thomas Love Peacock
A classic miniature: a brilliant satire on the Romantic novel.


12. The Black Sheep Honore De Balzac
Two rivals fight for the love of a femme fatale. Wrongly overlooked.


13. The Charterhouse of Parma Stendhal
Penetrating and compelling chronicle of life in an Italian court in post-Napoleonic France.


14. The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas
A revenge thriller also set in France after Bonaparte: a masterpiece of adventure writing.


15. Sybil Benjamin Disraeli
Apart from Churchill, no other British political figure shows literary genius.


16. David Copperfield Charles Dickens
This highly autobiographical novel is the one its author liked best.


17. Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte
Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff have passed into the language. Impossible to ignore.


18. Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte
Obsessive emotional grip and haunting narrative.


19. Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray
The improving tale of Becky Sharp.


20. The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne
A classic investigation of the American mind.


21. Moby-Dick Herman Melville
'Call me Ishmael' is one of the most famous opening sentences of any novel.


22. Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert
You could summarise this as a story of adultery in provincial France, and miss the point entirely.


23. The Woman in White Wilkie Collins
Gripping mystery novel of concealed identity, abduction, fraud and mental cruelty.


24. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland Lewis Carroll
A story written for the nine-year-old daughter of an Oxford don that still baffles most kids.


25. Little Women Louisa M. Alcott
Victorian bestseller about a New England family of girls.


26. The Way We Live Now Anthony Trollope
A majestic assault on the corruption of late Victorian England.


27. Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy
The supreme novel of the married woman's passion for a younger man.


28. Daniel Deronda George Eliot
A passion and an exotic grandeur that is strange and unsettling.


29. The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky
Mystical tragedy by the author of Crime and Punishment.


30. The Portrait of a Lady Henry James
The story of Isabel Archer shows James at his witty and polished best.


31. Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain
Twain was a humorist, but this picture of Mississippi life is profoundly moral and still incredibly influential.


32. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson
A brilliantly suggestive, resonant study of human duality by a natural storyteller.


33. Three Men in a Boat Jerome K. Jerome
One of the funniest English books ever written.


34. The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde
A coded and epigrammatic melodrama inspired by his own tortured homosexuality.


35. The Diary of a Nobody George Grossmith
This classic of Victorian suburbia will always be renowned for the character of Mr Pooter.


36. Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy
Its savage bleakness makes it one of the first twentieth-century novels.


37. The Riddle of the Sands Erskine Childers
A prewar invasion-scare spy thriller by a writer later shot for his part in the Irish republican rising.


38. The Call of the Wild Jack London
The story of a dog who joins a pack of wolves after his master's death.


39. Nostromo Joseph Conrad
Conrad's masterpiece: a tale of money, love and revolutionary politics.


40. The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame
This children's classic was inspired by bedtime stories for Grahame's son.


41. In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust
An unforgettable portrait of Paris in the belle epoque. Probably the longest novel on this list.


42. The Rainbow D. H. Lawrence
Novels seized by the police, like this one, have a special afterlife.


43. The Good Soldier Ford Madox Ford
This account of the adulterous lives of two Edwardian couples is a classic of unreliable narration.


44. The Thirty-Nine Steps John Buchan
A classic adventure story for boys, jammed with action, violence and suspense.


45. Ulysses James Joyce
Also pursued by the British police, this is a novel more discussed than read.


46. Mrs Dalloway Virginia Woolf
Secures Woolf's position as one of the great twentieth-century English novelists.


47. A Passage to India E. M. Forster
The great novel of the British Raj, it remains a brilliant study of empire.


48. The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
The quintessential Jazz Age novel.


49. The Trial Franz Kafka
The enigmatic story of Joseph K.


50. Men Without Women Ernest Hemingway
He is remembered for his novels, but it was the short stories that first attracted notice.


51. Journey to the End of the Night Louis-Ferdinand Celine
The experiences of an unattractive slum doctor during the Great War: a masterpiece of linguistic innovation.


52. As I Lay Dying William Faulkner
A strange black comedy by an American master.


53. Brave New World Aldous Huxley
Dystopian fantasy about the world of the seventh century AF (after Ford).


54. Scoop Evelyn Waugh
The supreme Fleet Street novel.


55. USA John Dos Passos
An extraordinary trilogy that uses a variety of narrative devices to express the story of America.


56. The Big Sleep Raymond Chandler
Introducing Philip Marlowe: cool, sharp, handsome - and bitterly alone.


57. The Pursuit Of Love Nancy Mitford
An exquisite comedy of manners with countless fans.


58. The Plague Albert Camus
A mysterious plague sweeps through the Algerian town of Oran.


59. Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell
This tale of one man's struggle against totalitarianism has been appropriated the world over.


60. Malone Dies Samuel Beckett
Part of a trilogy of astonishing monologues in the black comic voice of the author of Waiting for Godot.


61. Catcher in the Rye J.D. Salinger
A week in the life of Holden Caulfield. A cult novel that still mesmerises.


62. Wise Blood Flannery O'Connor
A disturbing novel of religious extremism set in the Deep South.


63. Charlotte's Web E. B. White
How Wilbur the pig was saved by the literary genius of a friendly spider.


64. The Lord Of The Rings J. R. R. Tolkien
Enough said!


65. Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis
An astonishing debut: the painfully funny English novel of the Fifties.


66. Lord of the Flies William Golding
Schoolboys become savages: a bleak vision of human nature.


67. The Quiet American Graham Greene
Prophetic novel set in 1950s Vietnam.


68 On the Road Jack Kerouac
The Beat Generation bible.


69. Lolita Vladimir Nabokov
Humbert Humbert's obsession with Lolita is a tour de force of style and narrative.


70. The Tin Drum Gunter Grass
Hugely influential, Rabelaisian novel of Hitler's Germany.


71. Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe
Nigeria at the beginning of colonialism. A classic of African literature.


72. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark
A writer who made her debut in The Observer - and her prose is like cut glass.


73. To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee
Scout, a six-year-old girl, narrates an enthralling story of racial prejudice in the Deep South.


74. Catch-22 Joseph Heller
'[He] would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; if he didn't want to he was sane and had to.'


75. Herzog Saul Bellow
Adultery and nervous breakdown in Chicago.


76. One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A postmodern masterpiece.


77. Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont Elizabeth Taylor
A haunting, understated study of old age.


78. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy John Le Carre
A thrilling elegy for post-imperial Britain.


79. Song of Solomon Toni Morrison
The definitive novelist of the African-American experience.


80. The Bottle Factory Outing Beryl Bainbridge
Macabre comedy of provincial life.


81. The Executioner's Song Norman Mailer
This quasi-documentary account of the life and death of Gary Gilmore is possibly his masterpiece.


82. If on a Winter's Night a Traveller Italo Calvino
A strange, compelling story about the pleasures of reading.


83. A Bend in the River V. S. Naipaul
The finest living writer of English prose. This is his masterpiece: edgily reminiscent of Heart of Darkness.


84. Waiting for the Barbarians J.M. Coetzee
Bleak but haunting allegory of apartheid by the Nobel prizewinner.


85. Housekeeping Marilynne Robinson
Haunting, poetic story, drowned in water and light, about three generations of women.


86. Lanark Alasdair Gray
Seething vision of Glasgow. A Scottish classic.


87. The New York Trilogy Paul Auster
Dazzling metaphysical thriller set in the Manhattan of the 1970s.


88. The BFG Roald Dahl
A bestseller by the most popular postwar writer for children of all ages.


89. The Periodic Table Primo Levi
A prose poem about the delights of chemistry.


90. Money Martin Amis
The novel that bags Amis's place on any list.


91. An Artist of the Floating World Kazuo Ishiguro
A collaborator from prewar Japan reluctantly discloses his betrayal of friends and family.


92. Oscar And Lucinda Peter Carey
A great contemporary love story set in nineteenth-century Australia by double Booker prizewinner.


93. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Milan Kundera
Inspired by the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, this is a magical fusion of history, autobiography and ideas.


94. Haroun and the Sea af Stories Salman Rushdie
In this entrancing story Rushdie plays with the idea of narrative itself.


95. La Confidential James Ellroy
Three LAPD detectives are brought face to face with the secrets of their corrupt and violent careers.

96. Wise Children Angela Carter
A theatrical extravaganza by a brilliant exponent of magic realism.


97. Atonement Ian McEwan
Acclaimed short-story writer achieves a contemporary classic of mesmerising narrative conviction.


98. Northern Lights Philip Pullman
Lyra's quest weaves fantasy, horror and the play of ideas into a truly great contemporary children's book.


99. American Pastoral Philip Roth
For years, Roth was famous for Portnoy's Complaint . Recently, he has enjoyed an extraordinary revival.


100. Austerlitz W. G. Sebald
Posthumously published volume in a sequence of dream-like fictions spun from memory, photographs and the German past.

Who did we miss?

So, are you congratulating yourself on having read everything on our list or screwing the newspaper up into a ball and aiming it at the nearest bin?

Are you wondering what happened to all those American writers from Bret Easton Ellis to Jeffrey Eugenides, from Jonathan Franzen to Cormac McCarthy?

Have women been short-changed? Should we have included Pat Barker, Elizabeth Bowen, A.S. Byatt, Penelope Fitzgerald, Doris Lessing and Iris Murdoch?

What's happened to novels in translation such as Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, Hesse's Siddhartha, Mishima's The Sea of Fertility, Süskind's Perfume and Zola's Germinal?

Writers such as J.G. Ballard, Julian Barnes, Anthony Burgess, Bruce Chatwin, Robertson Davies, John Fowles, Nick Hornby, Russell Hoban, Somerset Maugham and V.S. Pritchett narrowly missed the final hundred. Were we wrong to lose them?

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/revie...061037,00.html


Your thoughts? Well, at least mine is that the list should be rearranged a little bit but it seems good to me at least...I have to confess I haven't read at least half of those especially the ones below 50...

This list only serves to remind me of how many great books I have yet to read. So sad.

Where is Doctor Zivago?

The Board's list-----------------------The reader's list

1. ULYSSES by James Joyce 1. ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand
2. THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald 2. THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand
3. A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce 3. BATTLEFIELD EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard
4. LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov 4. THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkien
5. BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley 5. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee
6. THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner 6. 1984 by George Orwell
7. CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller 7. ANTHEM by Ayn Rand
8. DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler 8. WE THE LIVING by Ayn Rand
9. SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence 9. MISSION EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard
10. THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck 10. FEAR by L. Ron Hubbard
11. UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry 11. ULYSSES by James Joyce
12. THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by Samuel Butler 12. CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller
13. 1984 by George Orwell 13. THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
14. I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves 14. DUNE by Frank Herbert
15. TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf 15. THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS by Robert Heinlein
16. AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser 16. STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND by Robert Heinlein
17. THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers 17. A TOWN LIKE ALICE by Nevil Shute
18. SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut 18. BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
19. INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison 19. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger
20. NATIVE SON by Richard Wright 20. ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell
21. HENDERSON THE RAIN KING by Saul Bellow 21. GRAVITY'S RAINBOW by Thomas Pynchon
22. APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA by John O'Hara 22. THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck
23. U.S.A. (trilogy) by John Dos Passos 23. SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut
24. WINESBURG, OHIO by Sherwood Anderson 24. GONE WITH THE WIND by Margaret Mitchell
25. A PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M. Forster 25. LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding
26. THE WINGS OF THE DOVE by Henry James 26. SHANE by Jack Schaefer
27. THE AMBASSADORS by Henry James 27. TRUSTEE FROM THE TOOLROOM by Nevil Shute
28. TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald 28. A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY by John Irving
29. THE STUDS LONIGAN TRILOGY by James T. Farrell 29. THE STAND by Stephen King
30. THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford 30. THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN by John Fowles
31. ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell 31. BELOVED by Toni Morrison
32. THE GOLDEN BOWL by Henry James 32. THE WORM OUROBOROS by E.R. Eddison
33. SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser 33. THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner
34. A HANDFUL OF DUST by Evelyn Waugh 34. LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov
35. AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner 35. MOONHEART by Charles de Lint
36. ALL THE KING'S MEN by Robert Penn Warren 36. ABSALOM, ABSALOM! by William Faulkner
37. THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder 37. OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham
38. HOWARDS END by E.M. Forster 38. WISE BLOOD by Flannery O'Connor
39. GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN by James Baldwin 39. UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry
40. THE HEART OF THE MATTER by Graham Greene 40. FIFTH BUSINESS by Robertson Davies
41. LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding 41. SOMEPLACE TO BE FLYING by Charles de Lint
42. DELIVERANCE by James Dickey 42. ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac
43. A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME (series) by Anthony Powell 43. HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad
44. POINT COUNTER POINT by Aldous Huxley 44. YARROW by Charles de Lint
45. THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway 45. AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS by H.P. Lovecraft
46. THE SECRET AGENT by Joseph Conrad 46. ONE LONELY NIGHT by Mickey Spillane
47. NOSTROMO by Joseph Conrad 47. MEMORY AND DREAM by Charles de Lint
48. THE RAINBOW by D.H. Lawrence 48. TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf
49. WOMEN IN LOVE by D.H. Lawrence 49. THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy
50. TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller 50. TRADER by Charles de Lint
51. THE NAKED AND THE DEAD by Norman Mailer 51. THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY by Douglas Adams
52. PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT by Philip Roth 52. THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers
53. PALE FIRE by Vladimir Nabokov 53. THE HANDMAID'S TALE by Margaret Atwood
54. LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner 54. BLOOD MERIDIAN by Cormac McCarthy
55. ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac 55. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess
56. THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett 56. ON THE BEACH by Nevil Shute
57. PARADE'S END by Ford Madox Ford 57. A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce
58. THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith Wharton 58. GREENMANTLE by Charles de Lint
59. ZULEIKA DOBSON by Max Beerbohm 59. ENDER'S GAME by Orson Scott Card
60. THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy 60. THE LITTLE COUNTRY by Charles de Lint
61. DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather 61. THE RECOGNITIONS by William Gaddis
62. FROM HERE TO ETERNITY by James Jones 62. STARSHIP TROOPERS by Robert Heinlein
63. THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLES by John Cheever 63. THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway
64. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger 64. THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP by John Irving
65. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess 65. SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES by Ray Bradbury
66. OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham 66. THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE by Shirley Jackson
67. HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad 67. AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner
68. MAIN STREET by Sinclair Lewis 68. TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller
69. THE HOUSE OF MIRTH by Edith Wharton 69. INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison
70. THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET by Lawrence Durell 70. THE WOOD WIFE by Terri Windling
71. A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA by Richard Hughes 71. THE MAGUS by John Fowles
72. A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS by V.S. Naipaul 72. THE DOOR INTO SUMMER by Robert Heinlein
73. THE DAY OF THE LOCUST by Nathanael West 73. ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE by Robert Pirsig
74. A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway 74. I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves
75. SCOOP by Evelyn Waugh 75. THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London
76. THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE by Muriel Spark 76. AT SWIM-TWO-BIRDS by Flann O'Brien
77. FINNEGANS WAKE by James Joyce 77. FARENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury
78. KIM by Rudyard Kipling 78. ARROWSMITH by Sinclair Lewis
79. A ROOM WITH A VIEW by E.M. Forster 79. WATERSHIP DOWN by Richard Adams
80. BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh 80. NAKED LUNCH by William S. Burroughs
81. THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH by Saul Bellow 81. THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER by Tom Clancy
82. ANGLE OF REPOSE by Wallace Stegner 82. GUILTY PLEASURES by Laurell K. Hamilton
83. A BEND IN THE RIVER by V.S. Naipaul 83. THE PUPPET MASTERS by Robert Heinlein
84. THE DEATH OF THE HEART by Elizabeth Bowen 84. IT by Stephen King
85. LORD JIM by Joseph Conrad 85. V. by Thomas Pynchon
86. RAGTIME by E.L. Doctorow 86. DOUBLE STAR by Robert Heinlein
87. THE OLD WIVES' TALE by Arnold Bennett 87. CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY by Robert Heinlein
88. THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London 88. BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh
89. LOVING by Henry Green 89. LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner
90. MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie 90. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST by Ken Kesey
91. TOBACCO ROAD by Erskine Caldwell 91. A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway
92. IRONWEED by William Kennedy 92. THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles
93. THE MAGUS by John Fowles 93. SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION by Ken Kesey
94. WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys 94. MY ANTONIA by Willa Cather
95. UNDER THE NET by Iris Murdoch 95. MULENGRO by Charles de Lint
96. SOPHIE'S CHOICE by William Styron 96. SUTTREE by Cormac McCarthy
97. THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles 97. MYTHAGO WOOD by Robert Holdstock
98. THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain 98. ILLUSIONS by Richard Bach
99. THE GINGER MAN by J.P. Donleavy 99. THE CUNNING MAN by Robertson Davies
100. THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS by Booth Tarkington 100. THE SATANIC VERSES by Salman Rushdie

Here is another list, again, haven't read some of those....

http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlib...estnovels.html

Originally Posted by RexNecros

The Board's list-----------------------The reader's list


Here is another list, again, haven't read some of those....

Reader's list seems like it was hit up by fanboys big time, L. Ron Hubbard 3 of top 10?

3. Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe
The first English novel.

4. Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift

10. Frankenstein Mary Shelley

20. The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne

73. To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee

24. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland Lewis Carroll

32. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson

1. Don Quixote Miguel De Cervantes

14. The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas

done those...

may I also recommend and these are very very good reads:

3 musketeers - alexander dumas
The Affair of Diamond Necklace - same author

where is:

Moby Dick?
you cannot even consider yourself a "reader" , if you have never read moby-dick at least once, but twice wouldn't hurt.

Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - (Sir Conan Doyle) ??????
I have read all his adventures, some of them I have read at least 3 times.

The Lost World - (same author) ??

For Whom the Bell Tolls -E. Hemingway
The Old Man And The Sea - E. Hemingway

..also

Any of you have read

Jurassic Park? (M. Crichton)

NOT the one that came out just before or after the movie, but the one about 5 years before any movie was announced?

I have read it back in 1990 (IIRC), and it had a small note from S.Spielberg at the last page:"I will make a movie out of it".

Actually if you would read the book, all 3 movies flow into this one book and you can see how the book got ripped apart to have 3 movies instead of one epic movie.
Forget about the damn movies. This is the real deal. a 100 times better than the movies.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/034...lance&n=283155

Crichton's novel is far darker than its 1993 film adaptation, with more nods to Stephen King than to Steven Spielberg, with more scenes of gore and violent death than would have been viable for a PG-13 film.

What I'm thinking about getting my hands on:

The Knight of Sainte-Hermine (Le Chevalier de Sainte-Hermine) - A. Dumas

an unfinished historical novel by Alexandre Dumas. It is believed to be Dumas' last major work, and the story was lost until 2005, when it was announced that an almost-complete copy had been found in the form of a newspaper serial. While a number of his previously forgotten works have been unearthed, this is the largest at 900 pages. The story is a swashbuckling tale set during the rise of the Napoleonic Empire. A key scene features the Battle of Trafalgar, and the death of the British admiral Horatio Nelson.

I personally think Lord of the Rings should be higher. Tolkien created a genre. He was a genious plan and simple. Many of his imitators were bad, but that is because they lack his inspiration and skill.

Brave New World and Anthem were on those lists. Definatly great works for the futuristic thrillers.

And I also dont like how an author really only gets one place. The Lord of the Rings are good, but so is the Hobbit.

Count of Monte Cristo was definatly one of my top, but why not the Three Musketeers?

Any of you have read

Jurassic Park? (M. Crichton)
[/QUOTE] dude i love that book soo much better than the movie, no comparison

Romance of the three kingdoms and the Three Musketeers should be on there and be very low numbers.

Originally Posted by Archer

done those...

Jurassic Park? (M. Crichton)

NOT the one that came out just before or after the movie, but the one about 5 years before any movie was announced?

I have read it back in 1990 (IIRC), and it had a small note from S.Spielberg at the last page:"I will make a movie out of it".

Actually if you would read the book, all 3 movies flow into this one book and you can see how the book got ripped apart to have 3 movies instead of one epic movie.
Forget about the damn movies. This is the real deal. a 100 times better than the movies.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/034...lance&n=283155

I know I read the original and I seriously feared the creatures in the book, unlike how when I watch the movie (especially the third) I laughed. Ya gotta admit my pulse raced in the book especially the river scene.

Originally Posted by Lt.Bradford

I know I read the original and I seriously feared the creatures in the book, unlike how when I watch the movie (especially the third) I laughed. Ya gotta admit my pulse raced in the book especially the river scene.

I loved how the book was broken down into Dr. Malcolms' Chaos theory and with an illustration how it comes from a simple thing into a predictable curve and as it was introduced is how the story was changing parallel with the theory.
And yet in the movie, they only mentioned it once or twice but it was completely left out, even though the damn story was based on the dragon curve and as a proof to the theory itself.

What about 1984, Animal Farm, The Odyssey, and the Illiad? Dune?

Edit: The new list has Orwell.

It's your typical 'safe' list of classic works, that is ignoring vast parts of literature. Personally I consider Hyperion/Fall of Hyperion some of the finest works I ever read, both by the richness of language and explosion of creative world-worldbuilding, and the brilliant re-working of one of man's earliest myths.

'The Discovery of Heaven' isn't in it either, which doesn't really surprise me as it's a Dutch book. Mostly a commentary of the human condition, it starts out a bit stupidly for the first few pages, but then it'll grip you in a maelstrom of events. The language, metaphors and the narrative itself are far above pretty much everything.

I dont agree with most of it having read only 5 books on that list. I dont know what they base it on but anyways, we all have our books.

Where's War and Peace? My favourite novel ever, despite the insane amount of words and pages or Captains and the Kings, two excellent novels overlooked in these lists. More importantly, where is Dante's The Divine Comedy or Milton's Paradise Lost?

Originally Posted by Eric

Where's War and Peace? My favourite novel ever, despite the insane amount of words and pages

Seconded!

All those lists are absolutely terrible. The belief that books are great because they're old, long and lauded as "intelligent" is preposterous. Catch-22 should be much higher on the list - in my opinion it is THE greatest novel on that list - and there is a massive dearth of simply brilliant modern authors, like Neil Gaiman.

Also, Ayn Rand's work is highly overrated. Atlas Shrugged is a very long book about very little.

Originally Posted by Justinian

Also, Ayn Rand's work is highly overrated. Atlas Shrugged is a very long book about very little.

Can you measure liberty and justice?! Objectivism rules.

By the way. Most of those books are quite terrible.

Erik

Well, at least Catch - 22 made the list. Its one of the best books I've ever read. I should re read it, I hardly read fiction anymore, I read to much history books on the Middle East....

I personally will admit the list is too "anglo-centric", including the americans...