MobileRead April 2010 Mobile Read Book Club Vote

[beppe]

This is the Modern Library's 100 Best Novels (editor's list)

# ↓ Year ↓ Title ↓ Author ↓
1. 1922 Ulysses James Joyce
2. 1925 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. 1916 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce
4. 1955 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov
5. 1932 Brave New World Aldous Huxley
6. 1929 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner
7. 1961 Catch-22 Joseph Heller
8. 1940 Darkness at Noon Arthur Koestler
9. 1913 Sons and Lovers D. H. Lawrence
10. 1939 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck
11. 1947 Under the Volcano Malcolm Lowry
12. 1903 The Way of All Flesh Samuel Butler
13. 1949 Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell
14. 1934 I, Claudius Robert Graves
15. 1927 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf
16. 1925 An American Tragedy Theodore Dreiser
17. 1940 The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter Carson McCullers
18. 1969 Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut
19. 1952 Invisible Man Ralph Ellison
20. 1940 Native Son Richard Wright
21. 1959 Henderson the Rain King Saul Bellow
22. 1934 Appointment in Samarra John O'Hara
23. 1938 U.S.A. (trilogy) John Dos Passos
24. 1919 Winesburg, Ohio Sherwood Anderson
25. 1924 A Passage to India E. M. Forster
26. 1902 The Wings of the Dove Henry James
27. 1903 The Ambassadors Henry James
28. 1934 Tender Is the Night F. Scott Fitzgerald
29. 1935 Studs Lonigan (trilogy) James T. Farrell
30. 1915 The Good Soldier Ford Madox Ford
31. 1945 Animal Farm George Orwell
32. 1904 The Golden Bowl Henry James
33. 1900 Sister Carrie Theodore Dreiser
34. 1934 A Handful of Dust Evelyn Waugh
35. 1930 As I Lay Dying William Faulkner
36. 1946 All the King's Men Robert Penn Warren
37. 1927 The Bridge of San Luis Rey Thornton Wilder
38. 1910 Howards End E. M. Forster
39. 1953 Go Tell It on the Mountain James Baldwin
40. 1948 The Heart of the Matter Graham Greene
41. 1954 Lord of the Flies William Golding
42. 1970 Deliverance James Dickey
43. 1951-
1975 A Dance to the Music of Time (series) Anthony Powell
44. 1928 Point Counter Point Aldous Huxley
45. 1926 The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway
46. 1907 The Secret Agent Joseph Conrad
47. 1904 Nostromo Joseph Conrad
48. 1915 The Rainbow D. H. Lawrence
49. 1920 Women in Love D. H. Lawrence
50. 1934 Tropic of Cancer Henry Miller
51. 1948 The Naked and the Dead Norman Mailer
52. 1969 Portnoy's Complaint Philip Roth
53. 1962 Pale Fire Vladimir Nabokov
54. 1932 Light in August William Faulkner
55. 1957 On the Road Jack Kerouac
56. 1930 The Maltese Falcon Dashiell Hammett
57. 1924-
1928 Parade's End Ford Madox Ford
58. 1920 The Age of Innocence Edith Wharton
59. 1911 Zuleika Dobson Max Beerbohm
60. 1961 The Moviegoer Walker Percy
61. 1927 Death Comes for the Archbishop Willa Cather
62. 1951 From Here to Eternity James Jones
63. 1957 The Wapshot Chronicle John Cheever
64. 1951 The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger
65. 1962 A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess
66. 1915 Of Human Bondage W. Somerset Maugham
67. 1902 Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad
68. 1920 Main Street Sinclair Lewis
69. 1905 The House of Mirth Edith Wharton
70. 1957-
1960 The Alexandria Quartet Lawrence Durrell
71. 1929 A High Wind in Jamaica Richard Hughes
72. 1961 A House for Mr Biswas V. S. Naipaul
73. 1939 The Day of the Locust Nathanael West
74. 1929 A Farewell to Arms Ernest Hemingway
75. 1938 Scoop Evelyn Waugh
76. 1962 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark
77. 1939 Finnegans Wake James Joyce
78. 1901 Kim Rudyard Kipling
79. 1908 A Room with a View E. M. Forster
80. 1945 Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh
81. 1953 The Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow
82. 1971 Angle of Repose Wallace Stegner
83. 1979 A Bend in the River V. S. Naipaul
84. 1938 The Death of the Heart Elizabeth Bowen
85. 1900 Lord Jim Joseph Conrad
86. 1975 Ragtime E. L. Doctorow
87. 1908 The Old Wives' Tale Arnold Bennett
88. 1903 The Call of the Wild Jack London
89. 1945 Loving Henry Green
90. 1980 Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie
91. 1932 Tobacco Road Erskine Caldwell
92. 1983 Ironweed William Kennedy
93. 1965 The Magus John Fowles
94. 1966 Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys
95. 1954 Under the Net Iris Murdoch
96. 1979 Sophie's Choice William Styron
97. 1949 The Sheltering Sky Paul Bowles
98. 1934 The Postman Always Rings Twice James M. Cain
99. 1955 The Ginger Man J. P. Donleavy
100. 1918 The Magnificent Ambersons Booth Tarkington

[beppe]

@PilotBob
Greetings,
If you think that a less structured discussion might be more interesting, please feel free to erase my 2 last posts, or just let me know and I will do it myself.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Ea

Oh boy, didn't we have quite a discussion last time about what exactly constitutes a 'classic' ...

Yep.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by dreams

Jon, I wonder how you would classify Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum mysteries? Are they a smile or laugh out loud stories?

I've only read the first one and it wasn't a laugh out loud.

[WT Sharpe]

Could we perhaps define a Classic as something that has stood the test of time for at least 100 years if not more?

[pholy]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Could we perhaps define a Classic as something that has stood the test of time for at least 100 years if not more?

A classic is something written before I was born - for your own unique value of I

[thinkpad]

Originally Posted by beppe

* Vol. 18: Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Ugh, I read Crime and Punishment back in school. Not too keen on picking that one up again.

[beppe]

I have a newie question.

Could we have a classic book of the month candidate made just of a part of a book?

Examples:

1) I would like to propose a book, (undoubtedly a classic), a wonderful book, that everybody will receive huge benefits and gratifications galore from it. No it is not the Bible. Just few chapters of this book, that stand very well by themselves, while the whole book would be a huge concrete block of 10' on everybody's stomach. It is not fiction. One of the most admired author of all times has described it as a river of gold.

2) I would like to propose a book, (even more undoubtedly a classic), a wonderful book, that everybody will receive huge benefits, gratifications and emotional stimulations from it. No it is not the Bible. Just few chapters of this book, that stand very well by themselves. A recent poll of 125 contemporary authors by J. Peder Zane, published in 2007 in The Top Ten, has declared that this book is the "greatest novel ever written". But it will also be a big match for us, frantic readers as we are. Maybe too much.

We have both of these book on MR.

Please, do tell me something about this issue.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by beppe

I have a newie question.

Could we have a classic book of the month candidate made just of a part of a book?

Examples:

1) I would like to propose a book, (undoubtedly a classic), a wonderful book, that everybody will receive huge benefits and gratifications galore from it. No it is not the Bible. Just few chapters of this book, that stand very well by themselves, while the whole book would be a huge concrete block of 10' on everybody's stomach. It is not fiction. One of the most admired author of all times has described it as a river of gold.

2) I would like to propose a book, (even more undoubtedly a classic), a wonderful book, that everybody will receive huge benefits, gratifications and emotional stimulations from it. No it is not the Bible. Just few chapters of this book, that stand very well by themselves. A recent poll of 125 contemporary authors by J. Peder Zane, published in 2007 in The Top Ten, has declared that this book is the "greatest novel ever written". But it will also be a big match for us, frantic readers as we are. Maybe too much.

We have both of these book on MR.

Please, do tell me something about this issue.

What books are you thinking about that aren't the Bible? (This isn't the nomination thread, but I'm curious.)

As far as the Bible goes, I was considering nominating the Job, Ecclesiastes, or The Song of Songs.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

What books are you thinking about that aren't the Bible? (This isn't the nomination thread, but I'm curious.)

As far as the Bible goes, I was considering nominating the Job, Ecclesiastes, or The Song of Songs.

What? Not The Book of Revelations?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by beppe

I have a newie question.

Could we have a classic book of the month candidate made just of a part of a book?

Examples:

1) I would like to propose a book, (undoubtedly a classic), a wonderful book, that everybody will receive huge benefits and gratifications galore from it. No it is not the Bible. Just few chapters of this book, that stand very well by themselves, while the whole book would be a huge concrete block of 10' on everybody's stomach. It is not fiction. One of the most admired author of all times has described it as a river of gold.

2) I would like to propose a book, (even more undoubtedly a classic), a wonderful book, that everybody will receive huge benefits, gratifications and emotional stimulations from it. No it is not the Bible. Just few chapters of this book, that stand very well by themselves. A recent poll of 125 contemporary authors by J. Peder Zane, published in 2007 in The Top Ten, has declared that this book is the "greatest novel ever written". But it will also be a big match for us, frantic readers as we are. Maybe too much.

We have both of these book on MR.

Please, do tell me something about this issue.

Not sure what you're getting at here, but the nomination thread for next month will come around in a couple of weeks...

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by kennyc

What? Not The Book of Revelations?

Can't see it for the book club.

Job could be discussed as a morality tale, Ecclesiastes as philosophy, or the Song of Songs as erotic/love poetry.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Can't see it for the book club.

Job could be discussed as a morality tale, Ecclesiastes as philosophy, or the Song of Songs as erotic/love poetry.

But Revelations would be Sci-Fi!

(if not the entire book! )

[beppe]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Could we perhaps define a Classic as something that has stood the test of time for at least 100 years if not more?

This, to me, appears as a very reasonable definition. I do not consider myself rigidly stuck with this definition, I rather consider it as a very good Ansatz.

[beppe]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

What books are you thinking about that aren't the Bible? (This isn't the nomination thread, but I'm curious.)

As far as the Bible goes, I was considering nominating the Job, Ecclesiastes, or The Song of Songs.

Ah, I got you there! Before naming the books of which I would like to propose for nomination just a part, I would like to have an idea of the opinion of the Club on the issue of proposing just a part.

You guy, you are so smart. Are a Yankee by any chance?. Excuse the invasion of privacy.