November 16, 2005

• Read 19, enjoyed 17. Catcher in the Rye was disappointing, and I found Animal Farm to be an overworked analogy. But I read A.F. when I was ten or eleven, so maybe I missed something. Not that I'd bother to go back and check.
• (Oh, and 16 on the reader's list, enjoyed 15. Toni Morrison was never my bag.)
• Read about 25 in total. Was glad to see Watership Down on the list. I only read it a few months ago. It's fucking aces! Go Fiver! But yeah, some strange choices in there...
• is this like, my grandmothers list?
• I've read about 22, though I would honestly say I've only truly enjoyed probably half that number. I'm always mystified that Joyce's Ulysses often seems to top out the "100 best books..." lists. I've tried to read it half a dozen times, and I can only guess that it must become a hell of a book somewhere after the first few chapters, because that's all I've ever been able to read before glazing over and looking for something else.
• Methinks the Randians and Scientologists turned out to vote.
• is this like, my grandmothers list? Lol, I probably should have included in the post something like: And what's missing from the list, that you think deserves a place alongside other great works of fiction?
• Methinks the Randians and Scientologists turned out to vote. It's hard not to get that impression, isn't it? I'd disagree with both of them being on a top 100 list because neither of them, in my opinion, were good storytellers. And for 8 out of the top 10 to go to just those 2 authors smacks of some kind of disproportionate influence.
• For those that like the SF genre, this is a really neat list.
• I've read at least 24, maybe more. There are only two books on the list that I can say I truly love- Watership Down and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. I found many of the others moving or thought provoking, but I wouldn't say I loved them. What's missing? Tom Wolfe
• I've read 10 in the board's list (enjoyed *one*), and 18 in the reader's list (enjoyed six). Two questions: 1) Why are "important" books so darn depressing? 2) As much as I really like Laurel K. Hamilton's books, how did she sneak onto this (mostly pompous, depressing) list.
• Ayn who? It's just a marketing list. That said, I have read about a third of the titles on the left, and have no plans to read the remainder.
• What has the board got against Pynchon and Nevil Shute? Why doesn't Nicolas Freeling get a mention in either list? OTOH I was surprised to see Robertson Davies in the readers' list. Good on them. 24/19.
• And what's missing from the list, that you think deserves a place alongside other great works of fiction? The list is just 20th cent. lit. in English, right? Offhand, "Fear and Loathing", which isn't just alt-cult lit, but a great book in and of itself. Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle", Frank Norris' "The Pit" (or "Octopus", perhaps), "Remains of the Day" (which has to be the most delicate English I've read this side of Austen), Ondaatje's "Running in the Family" (or if you don't consider that a novel as such, then "In the Skin of a Lion"), Vonnegut's "Timequake" (I'll attach "Breakfast" to SH5 like everybody else), and Welsh's "Glue". And Barbara Gowdy's "The White Bone", which is terribly underrated. I'll come up with more.
• Stop showing off.
• After you, mister twenty-five books.
• When I said I'd read them, I meant I'd seen them in bookshops.
• They have bookshops in Liverpool?
• No, I was on holiday wherever it is you live, Perfesser!
• Course they do. That's where the Scousers bet on the 'orses.
• Yay for Lolita high on the list. It is my favorite book, mostly for the opening paragraph and the way Nabakov makes portmanteau words. I highly recommend it-- I've read it many times and notice something new every time. As to the pretentious factor, this list does seem to have it in spades, and they also just pick a canonical author and then work in all his major works. (Like 3 E.M. Forster novels? I love a room with a view, but couldn't slog through the other two on that list)
• 38 on the official list, 45 on the reader's choice. I presume that the reader's choice list was the result of an online survey? The heavy presence of science-fiction and cultish pseudo-philosophy (Rand, Hubbard) on that list suggests an Internet audience. And the fact that fantasy writer Charles de Lint (who I'd never heard of before this moment) has 9 entries out of 100 on the reader's list suggests that the vote may have been, uh, influenced. That's more even than Heinlein, a man who has his own cultish followers, yet who only got seven titles on the list (including, I'm pleased to see, "Citizen of the Galaxy", which was always my favorite). On the other hand, I wonder how many of those who voted to include "Finnegan's Wake" in the official list actually managed to finish it. "Ulysses" is tough enough going for most readers. Out of the titles on the official list that I have read, the ones I'd most want to re-read would be "The Magus", "As I Lay Dying", "Heart of Darkness" and "Under the Volcano", plus perhaps "Nostromo" and "I, Claudius". "Of Human Bondage" and "A House for Mr Biswas" are also excellent. And I want to read or re-read all the Faulkner and Steinbeck on that list. The one book I really didn't like on that list is "A High Wind in Jamaica", which I read as a child and which depressed the hell out of me. Is it worth commenting that close to 90% of the books on the official list are by (mostly Dead) White Males? Salman Rushdie, V.S. Naipaul and James Baldwin look like the only non-white writers, and women are also little represented.
• Hey perfesser, check out this brainiac!
• God, where are the discworld books? And the pornography?
• NNNNNNNNEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRDDDDDDDDDD!!! And n00000000000000000000000000b!
• (But seriously, angusm, Welcome to the Monkey House!)
• Read 58 of The board's List and 61 of The Reader's List. Enjoyed many, indifferent to some and disliked others. Enjoy pretty much anything by Conrad and Vonnegut. Heinlein, Laurence Durrell, Flann O'Brien and Robert Pirsig are favorites. "The World According to Garp" and "Zen and The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance" are treasures, as is "Catch 22" - which I make a practice of taking with me on long plane journeys. I would say "C22" is still top of my list. Robert Holdstock's Mythago Wood also stands out. Anything by Willa Cather and Wharton are a must. Evelyn Waugh, Nevil Shute and Joseph Heller have been repeat reads, as is William Burroughs. Recently acquired a copy of Ayn Rand's, 'Atlas Shrugged', Great stuff! I note that Rand has become 'trendy' again in the USA. I missed Tom Wolfe also, as well as Joseph Wambaugh and Tom Sharpe. (L Ron Hubbard - ick!) "Is this like, my grandmothers list?" Hey! Most of these are CLASSICS, dammit! (Philistines! Mutter, mutter, grumbles! The young of today! Tch!)
• oh, and looking at angusm's response reminds me of a geeky story-- when I was in high school I checked "of human bondage"out of the library and lost it on a bus after having read it. eventually the library sent a bill to the house and my mother opened it. She then got mad at me for checking smut out of the library. heh.
• Damn, how could I have forgotten .. anything by Terry Pratchett. Add Dorothy L Sayers of course, as well as P D James and Kathy Reichs.
• Not a single R. A. Salvatore?
• I was interested to see Alan Moore's "Watchmen" on the Times list. I don't know if that's inspired insight, or pandering to the "more pictures than words" crowd, but it's a damn good read, all the same. Probably one of the best in its genre, though not sure if that exactly qualifies it for a best 100 entry. I suspect "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" will one day appear on top 100 lists. It wouldn't surprise me if Proulx's "The Shipping News" also found its way onto the lists. Marquez's "Love In The Time Of Cholera" probably deserves a mention. As a Steinbeck fan, I find it hard to decide whether "The Grapes Of Wrath" or "East Of Eden" would qualify as his best work. I agree with jeraboam, "Catch 22" is probably my favorite work of fiction, for many, many reasons (Yossarian Lives!). I was very surprised that "To Kill A Mockingbird" didn't make it onto Random's Board list. One of the rare books where the movie adaption is almost as moving as the work it was taken from.
• I have started five of them. I have finished three. Sadly, I am not even kidding. On the plus side, I have read 15-20 Star Wars novels this year.
• I've read 34 on the board's list, 42 on the readers' list. I didn't enjoy the Ayn Rand books for the reasons many people have mentioned--the subjugation of story to philosophy, and the philosophy itself being fairly repellent. I didn't enjoy The Moviegoer either, mainly because it bored me to tears. But maybe I wasn't in the right frame of mind for it when I read it. I don't have any real gripes with the list (except maybe Wide Sargasso Sea--I mean, it was okay, but best of all time? And how does that get on there but Jane Eyre doesn't?)--many of the books aren't to my taste, and it does skew toward the early 20th century dead-white-guy demographic, but I think that's largely a factor of age and changign attitudes--i.e., it's hard to say a novel published in the last 10 or 15 years is "one of the greatest of all time" and pretend to any kind of perspective on it, and with the older ones you can get some of that perspective and reflection on their influence. And in the old days diversity in publishing was not a concern, so there you go. Make this list in another 100 years and I imagine it will be much more diverse. Lastly, and apropos of not much, I agree with the board that Midnight's Children is Rushdie's masterpiece, much as I loved Satanic Verses as well. (On preview, I realized I'd probably add at least Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. And give me a while and I'll probably come up with more. Tristram Shandy, anyone?) Oh, and in closing, yay for having The Maltese Falcon on there. A book I enjoyed the first time, and the second time through realized what a literary achievement it really was. One of my faves.
• On the board's list I've read 21 and enjoyed barely half of them, while on the readers' list I've read 22 and enjoyed 15. The whole exercise left me feeling jaded and bilious. JOYCE, FAULKNER AND LAWRENCE ARE ALL WANKERS AND CAN FUCK OFF. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. If I had one to add to the list, it would be Jeanette Winterson, probably Sexing the Cherry. And Ursula LeGuin, who puts on soccer spikes and dances all over L Ron Hubbard's decomposing corpse. /takes antacid for bile, hastens away
• Board 28, Readers 24. Most of what is listed is good stuff and worth reading. HOWEVER..any "best" list which includes L. Ron Hubbard but omits the most delightful novel ever written in English, Henry Fielding's "Tom Jones," has absolutely no meaning for me.
• Don't really see the point to such lists. However, I've read 70 from the first list, enjoyed 27. Read 73 from the second, enjoyed 33. I've picked up and read two or three chapters from nearly all the rest except Spillane, Heinlein, Hubbard, and Rand (for the law firm of your nightmares!), only to hurl them aside. Grumble. Growl. My choice for enjoyable, in today's subkective order of choice, would be: At Swim-Two-Birds Finnegan's Wake The Lord of the Rings Kim I, Claudius Watership Down The Catcher in the Rye Catch-22 Dune A Town Named Alice An Old Wives Tale The Moviegoer A Dance to the Music of Time The Heart of the Matter As I Lay Dying The omission of some authors, such as Terry Pratchett, is unforgivable and beyond my understanding. For example, if Wharton can be on thise disaml lists, why not Mark Two? And if Darkness at Noon can be on the list, why not other nonfictional titles? Me, I must fling the poo at these lists.
• Mark Two is more conventionally known in this universe as Mark Twain. D'uh! The Mark Three will be out next year, I'm told. Don't I wish!
• 3 from the board list, 5 from the readers' list. It goes without saying that I should probably read more.
• The first time I read Joyce, I got through the first quarter or so of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man before giving up in despair. About a year later, I picked up the book again, enjoyed it thoroughly, and started on his other works. I can't explain how I went from dislike to admiration in such a short time. I suspect that the truth is that books, like films or music, suit a particular time and emotional state.
• rocket88 and I are tied for the worst readers here. I have read less than rocket88 on the reader's list, however. In 8th grade we were supposed to be reading "Across Five Aprils." Needless to say, I did not. I received half credit on a fill-in-the-blank test by making up answers that had to do with a plotline that involved the main characters living in cardboard boxes and being beamed aboard space ships. Still haven't read the book.
• I have read about half of each. Surprisingly, mostly before my 30's. I can't read fiction anymore even though I acknowledge its great value. I'm strictly non-fiction. And L. Ron Hubbard? Really?
• 44 board/42 readers. I've read the Rand & Heinlein mostly to be able to argue with idiots. Why they'd be so overrepresented on the list does speak to the validity of reader's polls. My guess is that Cruise & Travolta voted more than once. Who's missing from the list? Why, Big Jim Thompson, of course, Pop. 1280 and The Killer Inside Me at least. Brilliant Noir. Spillane? yuck. Gimme Charles Willeford or James M. Cain instead. Upton Sinclair's Jungle seconded. If this is your grandmother's list, she's a pretty hip gal. Pale Fire like Ulysses can be a struggle, but are worth it for the experience. Pale Fire is a cybernetic masterpiece. Why no Bocaccio or Rabelais? Things Fall Apart would be on my list (Chinua Achebe) and Mosquito Coast (Theroux) would be there, too. Maybe something from MIchener, just for the sweeping historical view, and I'd like to see Doris Lessing represented, too. I'd find it hard to say which are my absolute favorites, but Donleavy would be there with Heller and Nabokov; I enjoyed the hell out of Watership Down when I read it 30 years ago or so, and it's been longer than that for Gatsby, Hemingway, Faulkner; add Turgenev and Dostoevsky to the list of stuff read in early college when I probably didn't get half of the experience I could have had. Surprised that no Brontes or Jane Austen made either list, but I guess that's what Forster is for.
• Across Five Aprils!1111!r0x0r!!! Though I have to say, I read it in 4th grade & did my book report on it. And geez--did we all get so thumped with Dickens in gymnasium that even Tale of Two Cities couldn't outpoll Robert Freakin' Heinlein?!?!?!
• The American literary canon of today and the American literary canon of tomorrow. I score low on both accounts and feel doomed to educated middle-class cultural inferiority. Then again, I needed to read 650+ pages of Pierre Bordieu to be able to say that...maybe I don't feel that inferior.
• 10 on the left, 12 on the right. Didn't enjoy Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, but the rest -- few that they were -- were enjoyable. John Gardner's Grendel and Being There by Jerzy Kosinski are superb books which didn't make the list. I thought at least one of Gardner's books would be on there.
• 3 of the board's list and 6 of the readers selection. But I've seen almost all the movies! I'm so illiterate. Especially (or maybe because) since my father had a PhD in literature and we had about 100000 books in our house. I literally slept between bookcases.
• If the list included novels not originally in English, I'd put a big second of Dostoyevsky up there too, Deconstructo. I read Crime and Punishment in honors English in high school, and it's still probably my favorite novel. I've read somewhere by some famous critic (so famous that I can't remember his name) said Dostoyevsky was better in translation than in the original Russian. I don't know if that's true--how could I?--but man, what a book.
• A reader's list of the 100 worst novels would be interesting too, if only to see how much overlap there was with the 100 best.
• I don't do these kinds of lists.
• Do movie versions count? If so my 11 read goes to 28 (for the readers list, otherwise my 6 read goes to 13).
• A reader's list of the 100 worst novels would be interesting too, if only to see how much overlap there was with the 100 best. I know "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance" would fit that description for me. Ugh!
• Ditto.
• A reader's list of the 100 worst novels would be interesting too, if only to see how much overlap there was with the 100 best Probably Kerouac's "On The Road" would make my "why the hell do they put it on best 100 lists" list. And I'm already on record about Ulysses, and anything by Ayn Rand and Mother L Ron Hubbard.
• Terry Pratchett is, was, and always will be SHITE! Sub Douglas Adams twoddle (and I like DA)
• I tried to read "Hard Sell" by Pratchett recently, cuz I found it at a yard sale for a quarter. Couldn't finish it. But I'm willing to allow it might not be representative. At least I hope it's not.
• 42 & 38. Enjoyed, maybe even loved most, but for many I think I just read them at the right time. I waited anxiously, for example, for each book of Durrell's Alexandrian Quartet to be published after that was unbanned. However, when I tried re-reading them a few years ago I found them less than entrancing.
• Whoops! Just realized Hard Sell is by Piers Anthony, and not Terry Pratchett. Mea Culpa. Anyway, it's crap.
• Whoops! Just realized Hard Sell is by Piers Anthony, and not Terry Pratchett. You almost gave me a panic attack, you know that, right? Something by Pratchett not being worth finishing? Don't scare a guy like that... I've never enjoyed Piers Anthony. Something about how he always goes to great lengths to create "impossible to solve" situations, and then his characters coincidentally have whatever talent or ability just happens to be required to solve them. Like Hubbard's fiction, it's formulaic to the point of being mindless.
• TP, I've got some Pratchett I can loan you. You'd probably like "Good Omens", an Armageddon comedy he cowrote with Neil Gaiman. Also, I believe I owe you the next couple of Lemony Snickets.
• Random books that I love: King Rat Out of Africa One Hundred Years of Solitude Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Praying for Sheet-rock Up in the Old Hotel Geek Love Confederates in the Attic Everything Joseph Conrad ever wrote, crazy for Carl Hiaasen, fascinated by Elaine Pagels.
• Uh oh. I was joking about pratchett being on the top 100 list. I mean, he's funny and all, but...
• One guy's list of guy novels: A Fan's Notes by Frederick Exley A Feast of Snakes by Harry Crews California Gothic by Denis Johnson Purple America by Rick Moody The Verificationist by Donald Antrim A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes Money by Martin Amis A Flag for Sunrise by Robert Stone Independence Day by Richard Ford Pale Fire by Vlad Nabokov The Names by Don DeLillo The Crying of Lot 49 by Pynchon Gargoyles by Thomas Bernhard Love in the Ruins by Walker Percy
• I worship the Exley novels, HawthorneWingo. I am originally from Baldwinsville, New York, which is just over an hour from Watertown. I was disappointed when I learned he is dead. I fantasized about meeting him in some bar and listening to him bitch for a while. I need to re-read those. It has been about thirteen years, and I really only barely remember them.
• One guy's list of guy novels: I'm going to have to give my masculinity an overhaul, because I didn't recognize a single title on your list. Uh oh. I was joking about pratchett being on the top 100 list. I mean, he's funny and all, but... I agree he's not listworthy for any one book, but if you could put a body of work on the list, that might be another thing. Mind you, that would probably put Stephen King on the list as well, so never mind...
• Oh, I gotta add Split Image by Elmore Leonard, too. Simply for setting a scene in my buddy Art Lyzak's bar, Lili's 21, Hamtramck, Michigan 48212. Artie was about 20 when Dutch immortalized him in print. You could look it up. And yes! yes! yes! to Gardner's Grendel, and I would probably even add William Goldman's Princess Bride.
• how odd. 13 and 26. Enjoyed The Sound and the Fury enough to reread it several times. Pale Fire is also very rewarding, but it's not something to breeze through. The Day of the Locust was amazing. Dostoevsky better in translation than in the original? Oy. The Pevear translations are the only ones that even fairly represent his work.
• Hmm. I'm worst of the bunch so far - 0 read of the left side, and only 5 on the right (though I've had my eye on about 10-15 of them for some years now). Dostoevsky better in translation than in the original? Oy. The Pevear translations are the only ones that even fairly represent his work. That's an interesting point, patita. For those unfortunate monolinguists like myself, how do we determine which translation of a classic is best to read? Is there a list of recommended translations out there somewhere? Or should we just go for any translation available via the local library or Gutenberg? To be honest, the fact that I don't know which translations are available, and which to choose, has led me to hold off on reading many of the foreign classics...
• Um, and by "foreign" I meant non-English, in my incredibly anglocentric way. Mea culpa, and apologies to all those Monkeys hailing from non-Western lands... No offence intended :)
• (For the record I've read 48 of the "official" list, and 45 of the readers' list.)
• 23/38 (second list due in part to having read all of the Heinleins) Quite like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, read it thrice. [start rant]And I firmly believe that at least one Pratchett should be up there. Small Gods would be a fav, possibly Good Omens, (although that was a collaborative effort with Gaiman). Night Watch was very good, and I was fairly impressed by The Truth as well. Beyond the sharp humour, there's a great deal of philosophical thought going on in Pratchett's novels, which is why I usually finish one or two Pratchett novels every week. /end rant And L. Ron Hubbard??? *brain asplodes*
• 19 (and I have a lit degree)
• I agree with whoever said that Room with a View is a great book but other Forester novels are not so fun. (I carried a copy of RwaV in my backpack for about 5 years, and would just open it up and read for a bit whenever I got bored. I then replaced that book with Jane Eyre. The book before RwaV was Little Women. The book before that was A Wrinkle in Time.) Taking another look at the list, it does seem pretty boy-centric. Why no Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights? Why no Austen? In fact, maybe this list is just anti-me (or anti-anything I've read). Why no Hardy? (I was mildy obsessed with Tommy Hardy for a year in high school, and was egged on a great deal by my English teacher.) Maybe what I'm trying to say (in a veiled way) is "I read! Really I do! Honest! Just not this stuff."
• angusm and others are right: the "Reader's List" was done by online vote in maybe 1999. I remember voting. I don't remember what I voted for, though. There was a lot of conversation at the time about how $cientology mailing lists and Ayn Rand newsgroups and bulletin boards were gaming the results. I believe the Tolkien message boards (esp the Usenet newsgroups) were also known to have lobbied their members to get Lord of the Rings higher on the list. I read books like the ones on the "Board's List", but maybe not those exact books... I haven't really read that many of them. & like someone else said - come on, has anyone actually read and understood Finnegans Wake? FWIW, I've read maybe 1/3 of the Reader's List and maybe 1/10 of the Board's List. Anyone else should remember that this isn't supposed to be an "all time" list, just a "twentieth-century" list. Otherwise things like Tom Jones would certainly be there. (I have looked at most of the "read the great books!" books: my fave is The New Lifetime Reading Plan by Fadiman and Major, but some ppl prefer the list in Adler's How to Read A Book.)
• Oh, and At Play in the Fields of the Lord by Peter Matthiessen.
• Gestas, you bring up a good point. Generally now you can look up online reviews and get an idea of what's out there, and even find academic discussions. You can also ask folks--there are several monkeys who would love to suggest a good translation :) Pedantic example: Doing a search for "dostoevsky translations" brings up this page that lists his works and the available translations, even indication which one is the standard (not necessarily the newest or the best, but what other folks have read). That combined with a check at Amazon (where you can sometimes read a bit of the book) should give you a quick orientation of the current state of an author's work. If you have access to a decent library, you can also ask the librarian--they can usually point you to the standard edition. now I know what that comparative literature degree was for!
• When are we going to start a bookswap?
• Terry Pratchett is possibly the finest satirist in modern literature. His books are masterpieces in observation and comment on both human behaviour and motivation, with the added bonus of being immensely readable, and very funny. "Good Omens", written in collaboration with Neil Gaimon (also a superb writer)is one of the most deliciously subtle and malicious books in the annals of literature. "Jingo" ranks as one of T.P's funniest, and is possibly the most biting exposition of blustering patriotism known to mankind. It might be interesting to note that when Heller's "Catch 22" was first published, it was severally and thoroughly derided by literary critics everywhere, USA critics in particular. It is now considered a masterpiece. Similarly much of the so-called 'good' and 'classic' literature we are advised now to read was, at the time of it's writing, derided by the intelligentsia of the day. Shakespeare for instance, wrote for the theatre and thus to appeal to the "hoi polloi" of his day. He had to write that which would appeal to a popular audience, and in order to "put the bums on seats" who would pay to see his 'plays'. I too am distrustful, in the main, of these kinds of lists. Those who compile them tend to choose books designated as "good literature" - and often those with the following criteria: They are almost impossible to understand (for even the most erudite of intelligence). They have content featuring disillusion/degradation of human kind. They are hideously boring and require the dedication of an accountant going over a bootlegger's books to nit-pick through, and they tout the ultimate futility of dreams and/or aspirations. Kafka's, "The Trial" is a case in point. I found this to be a shallow and two dimensional work; it's plot superficial, the main character illformed and the writing dull. Yeah, I know, it's suposedly a superb piece of existentialist literature .. (Quotes Monty Python) "Say no moahhh!"
• One of the things I've been mildly curious about for several years is the (alleged?) mythos surrounding Salinger's "The Catcher In The Rye". Will Smith's character in "Six Degrees Of Separation" mentions several connections between the novel and (in)famous murders. Mel Gibson's character in "Conspiracy Theory" is obsessed by the book. And the American Library Association lists it at 13th on the top 100 frequently challenged books of the 90s [1]. I've read it twice, both times a number of years ago, and I don't remember it as being all that impressive a novel. I'm wondering if I missed something, that others didn't? [1] Depressingly, "Of Mice And Men" is at #6, "To Kill A Mockingbird" is at #41, "Slaughterhouse-Five" is at #69, "Lord Of The Flies" is at #70. I'm sure others would probably identify books on the list that are equally depressing to see challenged.
• From planetthoughtful's link: 88. Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot???
• 11 of each, though most of them a long time ago when I was doing English A level. Has anyone read Ulysses???
• Has anyone read Ulysses??? Yes.
• I also once heard that Anthony Burgess had read Finnegan's Wake. Possibly just a rumour.
• I think Joyce read it once.
• What, my aunty's read Ulysses? I'll have to get her to do that in charades this Christmas!
• I'll have to get her to do that in charades this Christmas! She should be able to do a decent job of it, since I think she wrote it too.
• Has anyone read Ulysses?? I have as well--but only while I was attending a series of lectures on it. I don't think I'd have been able to get through it without the ongoing support of explanatory lectures. I opened Finnegan's Wake once and read the first paragraph. I woke up 3 hours later with a black eye in a pool of my own fluids. And I admit I had forgotten this was limited to the 20th Century. That explains the lack of Brontes and Twain.
• 26/22 Two of my fave books evah, Scoop and The Magus made the list, and big big yay for Robertson Davies and Douglas Adams, but can't say I enjoyed many of the rest of them that much. And, really, L. Ron Hubbard? Zen and the Art of Pretentious Hooey? Pfff. Glaring omissions that leap to mind that haven't been mentioned earlier in the thread: Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm, and, unless the list is limited to 'books first published in English', Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Italo Calvino really should be on there somewhere. And what Argh said.
• I found that I read 18 of the Board's recommendation. I enjoyed all of them, actually, but there were some that were a little slower than the others. On the other hand, I read 42 of the Reader's list. A lot were less weighty...especially Hubbard and Bach, but enjoyable for what they were worth.
• monkeyfilter: Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot???
• The heavy presence of science-fiction and cultish pseudo-philosophy (Rand, Hubbard) on that list suggests an Internet audience. Whud yew cawl me?