Saturday, October 22, 2005

Time's 100 Best Novels

I was just reading Time magazine's list of the 100 best novels. I thought I'd look to see which I had read and compiled the list below.
It is amazing to see how many of them I HAD to read because of a course requirement (high school or college). Also amazing to me was how many of the books I hadn't read, I HAD seen the movie. Several of the books that I haven't read, I do actually own, or have checked out from the library to try and read (like Neuromancer) but have failed.

Kinda interesting dontcha think?

How about you, have you read many of the TIME100?

Animal FarmGeorge Orwell
Are You There God? It's Me, MargaretJudy Blume
The AssistantBernard Malamud
BelovedToni Morrison
The Big SleepRaymond Chandler
The Blind AssassinMargaret Atwood
Catch-22Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the RyeJ.D. Salinger
The Grapes of WrathJohn Steinbeck
The Great GatsbyF. Scott Fitzgerald
Invisible ManRalph Ellison
The Lion, The Witch and the WardrobeC.S. Lewis
LolitaVladimir Nabokov
Lord of the FliesWilliam Golding
The Lord of the RingsJ.R.R. Tolkien
Naked LunchWilliam Burroughs
Native SonRichard Wright
1984George Orwell
On the RoadJack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's NestKen Kesey
Rabbit, RunJohn Updike
Slaughterhouse-FiveKurt Vonnegut
The Sun Also RisesErnest Hemingway
Their Eyes Were Watching GodZora Neale Hurston
To Kill a MockingbirdHarper Lee
To the LighthouseVirginia Woolf
Tropic of CancerHenry Miller
UbikPhilip K. Dick

Only 28 out of 100. Hmmm.
But c'mon, NO John Irving, Margaret Atwood, Anne Tyler, Umberto Eco, etc...are on the 100.
I can see excluding Anne Rice, Stephen King, Michael Crichton and other "trashy" novelists since the list is compiled by the book critics and all.
Guess these top 100 lists are truly only good for one thing, getting people to read the magazine!

1 comment:

Deb R said...

I've only read 5 of the books on their list all the way through. Yep, 5...that's all! Several others I've tried and didn't bother finishing. And several I've seen the movies based on the book but not read the book itself.

I don't care though. I decided a long time agao that the sorts of books that most book critics consider "great" are not my cup of tea! I'll stick with entertaining "trash", thanks. ;-)