The Radio 3 Boards Forum from myforum365.com
11:20:29, 01-12-2008 *
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
News: Whilst we happily welcome all genuine applications to our forum, there may be times when we need to suspend registration temporarily, for example when suffering attacks of spam.
 If you want to join us but find that the temporary suspension has been activated, please try again later.
 
   Home   Help Search Login Register  

The Radio 3 Boards > Arts Other Than Music > Literature > Top 20 books of all time
Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 6
« previous next »
  Print  
Author Topic: Top 20 books of all time  (Read 1720 times)
IgnorantRockFan
*****
Gender: Male
Posts: 794



WWW
« on: 12:06:50, 22-04-2008 »
Somebody on another forum I inhabit posed the question, "If you were asked to compile a list of books you thought would be considered the best of all time, what would the top 20 be?"

Note, that's books that are considered to be the best, not your own personal favourites.

I made a top-of-my-head list but soon floundered. I wonder if anybody can suggest an improvement on this:


The Great Gatsby - Fitzgerald
The Grapes of Wrath - Steinbeck
The Canterbury Tales - Chaucer
The Aenid - Virgil
The Bible - various
The Koran - various
Hamlet - Shakespeare (are plays allowed?)
The Catcher in the Rye - Salinger
The Heart of Darkness - Conrad
To Kill a Mockingbird - Lee
Ulysses - Joyce
1984 - Orwell
A day in the life of Ivan Denisovich - Solzhenitsyn
Crime and Punishment - Dostoyevsky
Frankenstein - Shelley
A Tale of Two Cities - Dickens
something by Woolfe
something by Hemmingway
something else by Steinbeck
and something else, sorry, I am completely out of ideas


The list seems overly American. My personal favourites would show a much stronger British bias I think  Undecided
Logged
Allegro, ma non tanto
pim_derks
*****
Gender: Male
Posts: 1518
« Reply #1 on: 13:00:28, 22-04-2008 »
Quote from: IgnorantRockFan on 12:06:50, 22-04-2008
The Great Gatsby - Fitzgerald
The Grapes of Wrath - Steinbeck

I never understood what's good about these two, so we can put them aside. If you really want a special American book from that period, please try Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust.

Quote from: IgnorantRockFan on 12:06:50, 22-04-2008
The Canterbury Tales - Chaucer
The Aenid - Virgil
The Bible - various
The Koran - various
Hamlet - Shakespeare (are plays allowed?)

A bit predictable, but I can live with that.

Quote from: IgnorantRockFan on 12:06:50, 22-04-2008
A Tale of Two Cities - Dickens

Not a bad novel at all, but I think Oliver Twist is a better novel by Dickens. His humor and sentimentality work a lot better in that book.

Quote from: IgnorantRockFan on 12:06:50, 22-04-2008
something by Woolfe

I suppose you mean Mrs Virginia Woolf? A terrible overrated old lady. I don't think her novels are very good. Those of D.H. Lawrence are also terrible. I'm glad to see that he's missing from the list.

Quote from: IgnorantRockFan on 12:06:50, 22-04-2008
something by Hemmingway

Also very overrated, I'm afraid.

I would like to see Stendhal's Le Rouge et le Noir on the list. Evelyn Waugh should be added. Personally I prefer The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold, but for this list Decline and Fall, A Handful of Dust or The Loved One would be better. Brideshead Revisited is not funny enough.

I also would like so see something by Henry James on the list. The Portrait of a Lady perhaps? Some short stories by Guy de Maupassant or Jorge Luis Borges would also be wonderful. There's also Robert Musil and what about Francis Ponge? If I was asked to add a play to the list, I would choose Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night.
Logged
"People hate anything well made. It gives them a guilty conscience." John Betjeman
perfect wagnerite
*****
Gender: Male
Posts: 1568
« Reply #2 on: 13:02:58, 22-04-2008 »
Hmm, it all rather depends on what you mean by "best".  Any such list is bound to be pretty subjective.

But if you mean most influential - the books that changed the world - then the Bible or Koran would have to be there, but also as a starter (in no particular order):

Darwin The Origin of Species
Lyell Principles of Geology
Marx Das Kapital
Plato The Republic
Mao Tse-Tung's Quotations
Confucius Analects
Smith The Wealth of Nations
Paine The Rights of Man
Keynes General Theory
Linnaeus Systemae Naturae
Newton Principia Mathematica
Popper Logik der Forschung
Luther 95 Theses

No fiction, and not all of these would be considered a riveting read ...  Smiley

Others?  Any that shouldn't be here?
Logged
At every one of these [classical] concerts in England you will find rows of weary people who are there, not because they really like classical music, but because they think they ought to like it. (Shaw, Don Juan in Hell)
Turfan Fragment
*****
Posts: 1330


Formerly known as Chafing Dish
« Reply #3 on: 13:06:03, 22-04-2008 »
You can't get by without Madame Bovary, I think. Oh, sorry, wrong format:

Flaubert Madame Bovary
Logged
pim_derks
*****
Gender: Male
Posts: 1518
« Reply #4 on: 13:14:07, 22-04-2008 »
Madam Bovary is fine.

Non fiction:

David Hume - The Natural History of Religion (can people still believe in something after reading this book?!)
Thorstein Veblen - The Theory of the Leisure Class

Something by Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche or Adorno would also be fine.
« Last Edit: 14:30:43, 22-04-2008 by pim_derks » Logged
"People hate anything well made. It gives them a guilty conscience." John Betjeman
Swan_Knight
Temporary Restriction
****
Gender: Male
Posts: 428
« Reply #5 on: 13:20:11, 22-04-2008 »
That list contains only English language works and is FAR too heavily weighted towards American writers - none of whom, in my opinion, deserve a place at the top table:

My choice would be:

Flaubert - Sentimental Education
Tolstoy - Anna Karenina
Dostoyevsky - Brothers Karamazov
Hamsun - Pan
Balzac - Human Comedy
Proust - A La Recherche
Mann - Buddenbrooks
Cervantes - Don Quixote
Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged*
Zola - Germinal


*not really an American writer: Russian by birth, and temperament.


These aren't all my favourites, but they are all hugely original and influential in various ways.
Logged
...so flatterten lachend die Locken....
Kittybriton
*****
Gender: Female
Posts: 2690


Thank you for the music ...


WWW
« Reply #6 on: 13:35:46, 22-04-2008 »
I notice nobody mentions Stanislaus Lem yet...
What I love about his writing is the questions he raises, and sometimes, partially, answers
Logged
Click me ->About me
or me ->my handmade store
No, I'm not a complete idiot. I'm only a halfwit. In fact I'm actually a catfish.
A
*****
Posts: 4808
« Reply #7 on: 13:39:42, 22-04-2008 »

I would have to add any book by Trollope (preferably not the Cathedral ones, more like Rachael Ray)

 -Catch 22..?

A
Logged
Well, there you are.
IgnorantRockFan
*****
Gender: Male
Posts: 794



WWW
« Reply #8 on: 13:54:04, 22-04-2008 »
Many fine additions, and several I know nothing at all about  Embarrassed


Also:

Quote from: perfect wagnerite on 13:02:58, 22-04-2008
Darwin The Origin of Species

I put this on my original list but then scrubbed it because I thought it was wrong to rank non-fiction with fiction, even though the original question didn't specify one or the other. I would agree with many of your other choices as most influential/important, too. Also, would you add Mein Kampf to such a list?
« Last Edit: 13:57:01, 22-04-2008 by IgnorantRockFan » Logged
Allegro, ma non tanto
Ron Dough
Admin/Moderator Group
*****
Posts: 5133



WWW
« Reply #9 on: 14:12:01, 22-04-2008 »
Possibly a tad bizarre that Ulysses should make in onto the list, yet the Homeric epic which inspired it (and which, along with its companion, marks the first examination of the human condition in extended narrative form) is nowhere to be seen.   
Logged
perfect wagnerite
*****
Gender: Male
Posts: 1568
« Reply #10 on: 14:22:52, 22-04-2008 »
Quote from: IgnorantRockFan on 13:54:04, 22-04-2008
Also, would you add Mein Kampf to such a list?

Interesting - I'm not sure that I would, on the grounds that things other than the book influenced Hitler's rise to power.  But its importance to understanding the motivation for what happened in Germany is beyond doubt.
Logged
At every one of these [classical] concerts in England you will find rows of weary people who are there, not because they really like classical music, but because they think they ought to like it. (Shaw, Don Juan in Hell)
George Garnett
*****
Gender: Male
Posts: 3855
« Reply #11 on: 14:26:12, 22-04-2008 »
Quote from: pim_derks on 13:00:28, 22-04-2008
I suppose you mean Mrs Virginia Woolf? A terrible overrated old lady.

59? Undecided
Logged
Turfan Fragment
*****
Posts: 1330


Formerly known as Chafing Dish
« Reply #12 on: 15:21:44, 22-04-2008 »
Quote from: Swan_Knight on 13:20:11, 22-04-2008
That list contains only English language works and is FAR too heavily weighted towards American writers - none of whom, in my opinion, deserve a place at the top table
None of those American writers, or no American writers at all?

I think it would be hard for you to judge the importance of American writers if you can't judge whether they accurately reflect the culture from which they come.

I would definitely vote for Sherwood Anderson, Poor White or Winesburg, Ohio and for William Gaddis, The Recognitions or J.R. or Carpenter's Gothic (one from each, not all 5).

But in partial deference to SK I would concede that Steinbeck, Hemingway, and especially JD Salinger are far less important than William Faulkner. Also I second Nathanael West's Day of the Locust.

Also, I'm having trouble seeing the point of discussing 'important' works of literature rather than 'quality' works of literature... mostly because importance is to some degree statistically verifiable and the purview of experts, even if these may argue about methodology. So I vote for talking about 'quality' works.
Logged
Swan_Knight
Temporary Restriction
****
Gender: Male
Posts: 428
« Reply #13 on: 15:58:15, 22-04-2008 »
Quote from: Turfan Fragment on 15:21:44, 22-04-2008
Quote from: Swan_Knight on 13:20:11, 22-04-2008
That list contains only English language works and is FAR too heavily weighted towards American writers - none of whom, in my opinion, deserve a place at the top table
None of those American writers, or no American writers at all?

I think it would be hard for you to judge the importance of American writers if you can't judge whether they accurately reflect the culture from which they come.




I didn't include any English writers, either.

This is not because I dislike English or American fiction per se.....just that I find the literary product of both nations a bit insular, self-regarding and, yes, 'provincial' - certainly compared to the work of the major continental novelists. 

Faulkner....I've read quite a bit by him, but I can't claim he's a favourite: distinctive and original, certainly, but I always feel that he communicates through a 'fog'.  This is not a criticism as such, though!

Logged
...so flatterten lachend die Locken....
Turfan Fragment
*****
Posts: 1330


Formerly known as Chafing Dish
« Reply #14 on: 16:37:41, 22-04-2008 »
Quote from: Swan_Knight on 15:58:15, 22-04-2008
Faulkner....I've read quite a bit by him, but I can't claim he's a favourite: distinctive and original, certainly, but I always feel that he communicates through a 'fog'.  This is not a criticism as such, though!
Definitely As I Lay Dying rather than The Sound & The Fury.
Logged
Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 6
  Print  
« previous next »
 
Jump to: