The 100 Best Novels

[Paul Whybrow]

We all like lists, right?

The top 100 novels:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/oct/12/features.fiction

The compiler of the list Robert McCrum reflects on his choices:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/16/100-best-novels-bunyan-to-carey-robert-mccrum

Mark Twain said that "A classic is something everybody wants to have read, but no one wants to read."

I've read 46 of the novels on the list, though were I asked questions about them I would find it hard to recall any details - except for 'The Wind In The Willows', which is one of my favourite books that I've read many times

Were I asked to name my favourite 100 novels, it would be very different to this list, with only three titles making the cut. But my list would be based on books that have a personal meaning to me. There's a difference between judging something as critically worthy and actually liking it.

For instance, I admire Orson Welles' 'Citizen Kane' movie, for all sorts of reasons, but I don't enjoy watching it.

Lists of things are an ideal way for newspapers and magazines to fill their pages, and they're highly subjective things, often reflecting the tastes and the age of the compiler. I remember, some years ago, a well-known British motorcycle magazine conducted a survey of which bikes motorcycle journalists actually owned themselves. Almost none of them had in their possession, bikes which were reckoned to be the best on any of the lists that their magazine had made.

What novels do the Colonists think should have made the list - for personal or academic reasons?

 

[Nicole Wilson]

Welp, I've read a grand total of 8 on that list, my favorite being a tie between The New York Trilogy and 1984. I was a little surprised to see that The Jungle by Upton Sinclair and Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky weren't on here. Those are two of my all time favorite classics, and I've read all four mentioned numerous times.

 

[Bernard Stacey]

What, no Dance to the Music of Time?
Clearly not a serious list.

 

[Meerkat]

For my part, I consider The Great Gatsby to be the Great American Novel. So subversive for its time, and still is today.

 

[Meerkat]

Aw, I've only read 21 of the books!

I definitely consider Portrait of a Lady, The Trial, Anna Karenina, Wuthering Heights, and The Great Gatsby to be among the best books I've ever read.

The Once and Future King, Ender's Game, The End of the Affair, and Stranger in a Strange Land should be on there, though.

 

[Steven McC]

Franzen's 'The Corrections' should have been there. So much better than either of the books by Saul Bellow and Philip Roth that made it and similarly set out to capture an intellectual take on latter 20th century America. So much better.

 

[Carol Rose]

So many on that list deserving of the title, and some I've never read or never heard of! YIKES!

 

[Jason Byrne]

Welp, I've read a grand total of 8 on that list, my favorite being a tie between The New York Trilogy and 1984. I was a little surprised to see that The Jungle by Upton Sinclair and Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky weren't on here. Those are two of my all time favorite classics, and I've read all four mentioned numerous times.

I was dreading going through the list and posting what is sure to be a measly sum, but I'm good for a laugh. Let me have a look.

I've read six for sure, with several on my upcoming short list. A couple I can't remember if I read or not — probably just bits and pieces of them, like Gulliver's Travels, Alice in Wonderland, Ulysses, and such.

 

[Nicole Wilson]

I was dreading going through the list and posting what is sure to be a measly sum, but I'm good for a laugh. Let me have a look.

I've read six for sure, with several on my upcoming short list. A couple I can't remember if I read or not — probably just bits and pieces of them, like Gulliver's Travels, Alice in Wonderland, Ulysses, and such.

Whew - I don't feel so inadequate anymore. Another single digit-er Some of these are on my to-read list, but it will take me quite a while to get to them as I already have a large "already bought and I still haven't read this" list.

 

[Karen Gray]

1984 made it I'm a happy bunny

 

[Steven McC]

Whew - I don't feel so inadequate anymore. Another single digit-er Some of these are on my to-read list, but it will take me quite a while to get to them as I already have a large "already bought and I still haven't read this" list.

I actually think it'd be more shameful to have read all 100 of these than to only have read a few. It would suggest to me someone who reads, not for the love of it and the joy of discovering books that speak to them, but just unimaginatively following a reading list prescribed by cultural authorities or - even worse - to say 'look at me, I've read all these classics'.

I've read quite a few of the books on here but mostly because my degree is in English Literature - so I had to read a lot of them. Wuthering Heights, Catch-22 and Lanark are in my personal Top 10 of great books and I'd recommend them because they are unique and subversive in both style and content, but a lot of the other books on the list I could take or leave. Jude the Obscure, for example, I found almost unreadable and painfully dull, though I appreciate that it had a big impact at the time as it tackled a taboo subject.

I'd never recommend reading a classic because you feel like you should. I've slogged through a few big ones for this reason and it wasn't beneficial so I totally agree with the Mark Twain quote in the opening post.

 

[Karen Gray]

I actually think it'd be more shameful to have read all 100 of these than to only have read a few. It would suggest to me someone who reads, not for the love of it and the joy of discovering books that speak to them, but just unimaginatively following a reading list prescribed by cultural authorities or - even worse - to say 'look at me, I've read all these classics'.

I've read quite a few of the books on here but mostly because my degree is in English Literature - so I had to read a lot of them. Wuthering Heights, Catch-22 and Lanark are in my personal Top 10 of great books and I'd recommend them because they are unique and subversive in both style and content, but a lot of the other books on the list I could take or leave. Jude the Obscure, for example, I found almost unreadable and painfully dull, though I appreciate that it had a big impact at the time as it tackled a taboo subject.

I'd never recommend reading a classic because you feel like you should. I've slogged through a few big ones for this reason and it wasn't beneficial so I totally agree with the Mark Twain quote in the opening post.

I've not read that many of them, I'm impossibly hard to please when it comes to books. If it doesn't keep my attention, I can't force myself to read it. Too many "classics" I find unreadably boring. Boringly unreadable? Dunno which way to say it... they dinnae haud my attention ye ken?

 

[Steven McC]

I was dreading going through the list and posting what is sure to be a measly sum, but I'm good for a laugh. Let me have a look.

I've read six for sure, with several on my upcoming short list. A couple I can't remember if I read or not — probably just bits and pieces of them, like Gulliver's Travels, Alice in Wonderland, Ulysses, and such.

At the risk of sounding like a heretic bits and pieces of Ulysses is enough! The whole book is bits and pieces. I sort of enjoyed it but large parts of it are totally incomprehensible. I read the bits I could understand!

 

[Nicole Wilson]

At the risk of sounding like a heretic bits and pieces of Ulysses is enough! The whole book is bits and pieces. I sort of enjoyed it but large parts of it are totally incomprehensible. I read the bits I could understand!

I'll join you in the heretic's club but for a different book: *glances around and whispers* I didn't like To Kill A Mockingbird.

 

[Jason Byrne]

Whew - I don't feel so inadequate anymore. Another single digit-er Some of these are on my to-read list, but it will take me quite a while to get to them as I already have a large "already bought and I still haven't read this" list.

I'll join you in the heretic's club but for a different book: *glances around and whispers* I didn't like To Kill A Mockingbird.

I was so-so about Huck Finn. Loved The Count of Monte Christo. But some of the ones on my "already own, but haven't read yet" list are just shameful, like The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wile, and The Trial by Franz Kafka. I really should have read those, by now. They're just taking up space next to Frankenstein, Dracula, and Kafka's The Metamorphosis. I've also yet to get around to Machen's The Hill of Dreams...

 

[Steven McC]

Jekyll and Hyde is really good. I read it in one sitting. RLS really is a master storyteller.

Highly recommend this to anyone looking for a quick read. I want to re-read it now!

 

[Damian North]

Glad to see that Catcher in the Rye made it onto the list.

 

[Meerkat]

I was so-so about Huck Finn. Loved The Count of Monte Christo. But some of the ones on my "already own, but haven't read yet" list are just shameful, like The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wile, and The Trial by Franz Kafka. I really should have read those, by now. They're just taking up space next to Frankenstein, Dracula, and Kafka's The Metamorphosis. I've also yet to get around to Machen's The Hill of Dreams...

You've GOT to read The Trial, Dracula, and The Metamorphosis!!! I can't believe you haven't!

 

[Jason Byrne]

You've GOT to read The Trial, Dracula, and The Metamorphosis!!! I can't believe you haven't!

I have read Frankenstein, Dracula and The Metamorphosis, but not The Trial, TSCoDJaMH, or TPoDG.

Yeah — if I hadn't read any of those yet, I would have a hard damned time calling myself a weird fiction writer.
Now here's a list of which I'm a little better-read.
http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/classic-horror
21 out of 51. Whew...