I've been meaning to do this for some time, so I guess now is finally the time. I want to get back to more reading and less TV and I want to start with the "classics". Some I've read in the past but will need to read again (Catcher In The Rye, Brave New World, etc) and some I've never read (1984, Slaughterhouse-Five, etc) So here's my question: What are the greatest books of all time in your opinion? I seem to remember some organization publishing a list of the 100 Greatest Books of All Time a few years back. Does anyone have a link to that? Thanks for the help.

Catcher in the Rye, no contest.

Lord of the Rings, Dune, Foundation Trilogy, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Into Thin Air, Ender's Game, 1984, Starship Troopers, Lord of the Flies, The Call of the Wild...I could go on for days. This is the list of MY favorite books of all time, not THE greatest books of all time.

Some classics are overated. Some are really boring and dated. I think some people just read them to say that they have, and not because they thought it was actually good.

For a different kind of reading list next time you are at the book store go look at "On Writing" by Stephen King at the back of the book he has a reading list that is a pretty good mix of old and new.

[This message has been edited by Wellborn (edited 6/5/2002).]

Wellborn, I couldn't agree with you more.

"My screen name is my real name, which prevents me from posting something too stupid. Therefore, I will avoid being banned if its God's will."

My two favorite classics...
Fiction - "A Farewell To Arms" by Ernest Hemingway
Non-Fiction - "Walden" by Henry David Thoreau

that is all

jim

"Where the Red Fern Grows" by Wilson Rawls. "Lonesome Dove" was pretty good too. "101 Aggie Jokes" was decent even though I found it pretty predictable at times.

Classics huh? Well among my faves are Lord of the Rings, The Grapes of Wrath (I adore Steinbeck, but this is one of those books that I think most people would lump into the category that Wellborn described above), The Great Gatsby, pretty much anything by Hemingway and Twain, with a sprinkle of Poe. For a change of pace try "The Everlasting Man", by G.K. Chesterton...it's an amazing book even if that's not your thing (I don't want to say what "it" is for fear that it'll turn off readers before they give it a chance)

Section 423, The Zone.....where vocal cords go to die!

BRING BACK THE LSU SERIES!!

huck finn

don quixote

les mis

To Kill A Mockingbird
Lord of the Rings
Jurassic Park
Animal Farm
The Stand
Frankenstein
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Old Man and the Sea
Congo
Stranger in a Strange Land

quote:

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Some classics are overated. Some are really boring and dated. I think some people just read them to say that they have, and not because they thought it was actually good.

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Catcher In The Rye and The Old Man in the Sea clearly fall in this category. Highly overrated and extremely boring.

Classics:
Homer's Odyssey
Lord of the Rings
Elmer Gantry (about a hypocritical corrupt pastor. I've recently come to the conclusion that this book has affected my outlook on religion more than I realize.)
Dune

...and I beleive it was the "American Library," or something like that, that published the top 100 list in 97 or 98. I remember buying several on the list that I did not have just to read them to see if I agreed with the list. I started with Ulysses by Joyce, which was #1 on the list. I thought it was a POS and decided that the "American Library" was full of crap.

This is my area

"We" by Yuri Zamyatin. Highly underrated science fiction novel

"Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen. In my opinion, teh greatest book ever written. But it is a chick book.

"To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee. I cannot rave enough about this novel.

"In COld Blood" by Truman Capote. Brought violence to middle-class America.

"Native Son" by Richard Wright. Black man in the wrong place at the wrong time who makes the dumbest choices possible. Very pro Communist party.

"The Great Gastby" or "Tender is the Night" by F. Scott Fitzgerald. He just had a way with words.

Any of the Harry Potter books. Yeah, they are kid books, but they are really well written.

"Survival in Auschwitz" by Primo Levi. Considered by many to be the best account of experiences in teh camps. Amazing writer. Just lyrical...

"Destined to Witness: Growing up Black in Nazi Germany" by Hans J. Massaquoi. Story of a young boy who was the result of a lvoe affair between a son of an African Diplomat and a German woman. This litte boy wanted to be part of teh Nazi party like his friends and couldn't. Wow. Amazing book.



I can give you more later if you want

Just to prelude the list I'm about to make, I've read a lot of classics. Some I liked, most I didn't (I would rather stick hot pokers in my eye than read another Dosteovsky or Hemingway book, and I re-read them as an adult hoping that I just didn't like them because I was forced to read them before, no dice).

Here's my list of my own personal favorite books of all time:

Older Books -
Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner - James Hogg
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Tale of Two Cities - Dickens
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
The Misanthrope(it's a play, but a good read) - Moliere
Lady Chatterly's Lover - DH Lawrence (there is another book of his I enjoyed a lot, but I can't remember the name.)
Native Son - Richard Wright
The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck
The Bible - Various authors

New Books -
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues - Tom Robbins
Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men - David Foster Wallace
Jazz - Toni Morrison
The Color Purple - Alice Walker
The Missing Piece and the Big O - Shel Silverstein
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Good Omens - Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Perfect Agreement - Michael Downing

Other posts keep reminding me of books that I love!


[This message has been edited by TAT2DAG (edited 6/6/2002).]

Some obvious ones:
To Kill a Mockingbird - Atticus is the coolest dad of all time.

1984 & Brave New World - although 1984 has come and gone, I still think much of what happens in these books could still occur.

Some other old ones:
The Sun also Rises - I hated Old Man and the Sea, but for some reason picked up this book and read it in a mere 2 days. Truly great story telling and character insight.

Trout Fishing in America - odd 1960's counterculture novel about a man named Trout Fishing in America. Not for everyone, but hilarious if you can get into it.

Some Modern ones:
Less Than Zero and The Rules of Attraction, both by Brett Easton Ellis. Very dark and disturbing tales of greed and shallowness of the late 20th century.

The Godfather - amazing story telling, much greater detail than the movies.

[This message has been edited by Bacon (edited 6/6/2002).]

This is not the geatest book in the world.

This is just a tribute.

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest by Ken Kesey (i think)
IT by Stephen King
Anything by Charles Bukowski (prose...never read his poetry)



Speaking of the sun also rises...does anything ever happen in that book...i have tried to read it about 3 times now and it seems very dull.



[This message has been edited by GoAgs92 (edited 6/6/2002).]

All Quiet on the Western Front

A short list of books I modestly consider to be classics:

The KJV of the Bible -- regardless of your religious beliefs, the Bible is full of moving prose and stands on its own as the greatest literary accomplishment of any age.

Any play by William Shakespeare -- especially Taming of the Shrew and Macbeth

Brave New World and Brave New World Revisited, both by Aldous Huxley -- far superior to 1984

Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

Shogun by James Clavell

Dune by Frank Herbert -- only Tolkien comes close in creating a complete society with such depth

Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain, both by C.S. Lewis

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

anything by S.J. Perelman

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