# 100 Best Books **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 7, 2004, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/100-best-books/223127 "2004-01-07T01:58:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![SandyHook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dec6dc/32.png) [@SandyHook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SandyHook)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2004, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/100-best-books/223127/1 "2004-01-07T01:58:38Z")
Okay, so it’s been done before, but not my me. Deciding that since I am retired, and now have the time, I should improve myself by reading, “The Better Books” I embarked on a search through the world wide web for the best 100 books ever written. Not suprisingly there were some differences of opinion. So I located 16 different lists and copied them to a file, did a quick sort and came up with the list below as the concensus top 100. The order is a little rough because of the numerous ties, but the top 12-15 were hands down above the rest. So, in your many and varied opinions, who have I left out? Lolita Vladimir Nabokov Catcher In The Rye J. D. Salinger Catch 22 Joseph Heller Ulysses James Joyce The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald Invisible Man Ralph Ellison 1984 George Orwell The Grapes Of Wrath John Steinbeck On The Road Jack Kerouac To The Lighthouse Virginia Woolf To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez Brave New World Aldous Huxley The Sound And The Fury William Faulkner Midnight’s Children Salman Rushdie Lord Of The Flies William Golding Heart Of Darkness Joseph Conrad A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess The Lord Of The Rings J. R. R. Tolkien Beloved Toni Morrison Animal Farm George Orwell A Passage To India E. M. Forster USA John Dos Passos Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway The Old Man And The Sea Ernest Hemingway The Naked And The Dead Norman Mailer Slaughter House Five Kurt Vonnegut Native Son Richard Wright Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh Women In Love D. H. Lawrence The Wind In The Willows Kenneth Grahame The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe C. S. Lewis The Golden Notebook Doris M. Lessing The Color Purple Alice Walker The Call Of The Wild Jack London The Age Of Innocense Edith Wharton Sons And Lovers D. H. Lawrence Portnoy’s Complaint Philip Roth Pale Fire Vladimir Nabokov Of Mice And Men John Steinbeck Finnigan’s Wake James Joyce All The King’s Men Robert Penn Warren A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man James Joyce A Farewell To Arms Ernest Hemingway Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte Wise Blood Flannery O’Connor Winesburg, Ohio Sherwood Anderson Wide Saragasso Sea Jean Rhys Waiting For Godot Samuel Beckett Under The Volcano Malcom Lowry Tropic Of Cancer Henry Miller Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston The Tin Drum Gunter Grass The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark The Maltese Falcon Dashiell Hammett The Day Of The Locust Nathanael West The Big Sleep Raymond Chandler Sophia’s Choice William Styron One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest Ken Kesey Moby Dick Herman Melville Metamorphoses Franz Kafka I, Claudius Robert Graves Dune Frank Herbert Don Quixote Miquel de Cervantes Death Comes For The Archbishop Willa Cather Darkness At Noon Arthur Koestler As I Lay Dying William Faulkner An American Tragedy Theodore Dreiser A Room With A View E. M. Forster Winnie The Pooh A. A. Milne The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz L. Frank Baum The Stranger Albert Camus The Sheltering Sky Paul Bowles The Rainbow D. H. Lawrence The Movie Goer Walker Percy The Heart Of The Matter Joseph Conrad The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter Carson McCullers The Good Soldier Ford Madox Ford The Golden Bowl Henry James The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain Nostromo Joseph Conrad Molloy Samuel Beckett Malone Dies Samuel Beckett Madame Bovary Gustaye Flaubert Lord Jim Joseph Conrad Howard’s End E. M. Forster Great Expectations Charles Dickens Gone With The Wind Margaret Mitchell Go Tell It On The Mountain James Baldwin From Here To Eternity James Jones Charoltte’s Web E. B. White Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland Lewis Carroll Absalom, Absalom William Faulkner A House For Mr. Biswas V. S. Naipaul A Bend In The River V. S. Naipaul One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Diary Of Ann Frank Ann Frank All Quiet On The Western Front Erich Maria Remarque And now off to Lions Club. ---
**Author:** ![SandyHook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dec6dc/32.png) [@SandyHook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SandyHook)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2004, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/100-best-books/223127/2 "2004-01-07T02:02:54Z")
**PISS, SHIT, FUCK, RAPE IN THE BUTT!!!** I spent 10 minutes putting nice even spaces between the titles and authors and what happens. ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2004, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/100-best-books/223127/3 "2004-01-07T02:18:28Z")
Sorry to do this but HA HA HA HA HA!!! ROFL. Another victim of the removal of multiple spaces. I’d add “His Dark Materials” to your list. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2004, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/100-best-books/223127/4 "2004-01-07T04:46:59Z")
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World ---
**Author:** ![forever\_Dreaming](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b5e925/32.png) [@forever\_Dreaming](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/forever_Dreaming)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2004, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/100-best-books/223127/5 "2004-01-07T05:01:21Z")
well, i like High Society By Ben Elton Gossip Girl By Cecily Von Ziegesar Go Ask Alice By Anonymous i find them pretty interesting, but i guess you’d have to find out for yourself… ---
**Author:** ![ice1000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a3d4f5/32.png) [@ice1000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ice1000)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2004, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/100-best-books/223127/6 "2004-01-07T05:18:34Z")
Foundation Series by Issac Asimov The Jungle by Upton Sinclair The Little Prince by Antoine Saint de Exupery ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2004, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/100-best-books/223127/7 "2004-01-07T05:50:11Z")
I second **ice1000** ’s nomination of _The Jungle_, half novel, half socialist political tract, all excellent. It’s not quite clear to me whether you really just want novels, but i would also add an autobiography: Henry Adams, _The Education of Henry Adams_. And, as someone raised in Australia, i’ll also put in a plug for a few of my compatriots. Xavier Herbert, especially _Capricornia_ and _Poor Fellow, My Country_. Authors Patrick White and Peter Carey have both done great stuff. And, continuing with a couple more autobiographies: Jill Kerr Conway, _The Road from Coorain_. Bernard Smith, _The Boy Adeodatus_. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2004, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/100-best-books/223127/8 "2004-01-07T05:56:32Z")
_Moving This Thread To Cafe Society_, by Czarcasm ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2004, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/100-best-books/223127/9 "2004-01-07T06:13:06Z")
_The Guns of Krupp_ by Wm. Manchester (and also his WWII autobiography) _Johnny Got His Gun_ by Dalton Trumbo _Modern Times_ by Paul Johnson _When the Snow Comes, They Will Take You Away_ by Eric Newby Gaaahhh! There’s too many, and it’s late (I’m _not_ retired). I did read _l’Étranger_ several times. But that must have been somebody else, I guess, as I only remember it. ---
**Author:** ![Lisa-go-Blind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Lisa-go-Blind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lisa-go-Blind)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2004, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/100-best-books/223127/10 "2004-01-07T06:20:20Z")
_Jane Eyre_, Charlotte Bronte ---
**Author:** ![A\_wizard\_song\_for\_thee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/46a35a/32.png) [@A\_wizard\_song\_for\_thee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_wizard_song_for_thee)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2004, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/100-best-books/223127/11 "2004-01-07T06:21:21Z")
Seriously, though, your list is weighted something awful to modern writers. What about Shakespeare? Or are you considering his works to be plays, and therefore not on your list? On second glance, you’ve listed _Waiting for Godot_, so drama must be okay with you. Then you’d have to add about seven of Shakespeare’s plays, two of Marlowe’s, and at least one of Ben Jonson’s. Even if you were excluding plays, I think you’re overlooking what may be the best poem ever written, in _Paradise Lost_. Or are you only looking for prose novels? If so, you should probably take _Pale Fire_ off of your list and add some of the great books you’ve missed, like _Anna Karenina_ and _War and Peace_ by Tolstoy and _The Brothers Karamazov_ and _The Idiot_ by Dostoevsky. I know you can’t be limited to things written originally in English, because you have Kafka and Camus on there. Really, the more I think about it, the more I think you need to refine your search. Is anyone really going to stand up and say that _Beloved_ is a better or more important work than _The Divine Comedy_? And that’s not even including such seminal works as _The Canterbury Tales_ or _The Oresteia_. I didn’t even see any Dickens on there, which, considering the time frame from which most of your works were taken, should be an indispensible part of your reading. Your list is definitely American-heavy and biased toward modern writers. ---
**Author:** ![A\_wizard\_song\_for\_thee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/46a35a/32.png) [@A\_wizard\_song\_for\_thee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_wizard_song_for_thee)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2004, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/100-best-books/223127/12 "2004-01-07T06:27:26Z")
Doh! Just saw _Anna Karenina_ and _Great Expectations_. Sorry. Though I would say that _Bleak House_ should be there before Pip and that whore Estella… ---
**Author:** ![sanja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d2c977/32.png) [@sanja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sanja)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2004, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/100-best-books/223127/13 "2004-01-07T06:27:34Z")
Naked Lunch\*\* \*\* \*\* \*\* \*\* \*\* by William S. Burroughs crime and punishment couldn’t the WORLD wide web contribute to a more worldly list? isn’t it a bit eurocentric (or at least western)? and overrepresented by the modern? just a thought. ergo: The Tale of Genji \*\* \*\* \*\* \*\* \*\* \*\* by Murasaki Shikibu Kokoro by Natsume Soseki Yukio Mishima No longer human by Osamu Dazai ---
**Author:** ![SandyHook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dec6dc/32.png) [@SandyHook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SandyHook)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2004, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/100-best-books/223127/14 "2004-01-07T07:14:39Z")
I’ve read several of your suggestions. I guess I am surprised that “The Jungle” didn’t make the list. A great book, but on all the lists I found (with no effort to make it truly a WORLD wide search) it got only one mention. “Johnny Got His Gun” also another favorite of mine likewise got only one vote. Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” was a shocker to me. I’ll be reading it in the next couple or three weeks. > [@](#): > > Seriously, though, your list is weighted something awful to modern writers. What about Shakespeare? You know **A wizard song for thee** (GREAT name by the way) I just don’t like Shakespeare, thusly don’t miss him a bit. Various plays of his got mentions but none got more than 2. > [@](#): > > Gaaahhh! There’s too many, and it’s late (I’m not retired). Yeah **Ringo** it’s great. The only downside is being significantly closer to death. ---
**Author:** ![Dragon\_Phoenix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@Dragon\_Phoenix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dragon_Phoenix)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2004, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/100-best-books/223127/15 "2004-01-07T10:46:36Z")
No Pratchett? Throw in **Good Omens** or **Small Gods**. ---
**Author:** ![cowgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@cowgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cowgirl)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2004, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/100-best-books/223127/16 "2004-01-07T16:06:16Z")
_Oscar and Lucinda_ by Peter Carey and for Vonnegut, I would suggest that _Cat’s Cradle_ and _Breakfast of Champions_ are every bit as good as _Slaughterhouse Five_. All my other favourite books are on there already. Oh, and start with _Metamorphosis_ by Kafka - it’s only fifty pages long. Thanks for the list ! ---
**Author:** ![Duncan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecc23a/32.png) [@Duncan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duncan)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2004, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/100-best-books/223127/17 "2004-01-07T16:31:21Z")
Am I just not seeing where you’ve put your choice of Jane Austen novel? That omission seems incredible. Something by Sir Walter Scott? “Ivanhoe” perhaps? “The Three Musketeers” by Alexandre Dumas was an excellent book, and might provide some light relief from some of your more downbeat choices (“As I Lay Dying” for instance). Possibly it might be an idea to include a Martin Amis novel - I think “Money” is his best. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2004, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/100-best-books/223127/18 "2004-01-07T16:40:13Z")
Yeah, way too much modern crap and not enough 18th- and 19th-century writers. I _haaaaate_ these “best books,” “best movies,” “best music” lists. It is all completely subjective. Your “best book” may be my doorstop, and vice versa. ---
**Author:** ![SandyHook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dec6dc/32.png) [@SandyHook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SandyHook)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2004, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/100-best-books/223127/19 "2004-01-07T17:35:54Z")
**Eve** > [@](#): > > It is all completely subjective. Your “best book” may be my doorstop, and vice versa. Of course it’s subjective Eve. That’s why we have things like judgement and do strange things like make choices based on personal preferences. Personally I think a bunch of the books on the list are real yawners. A good example being “Nostromo” by Conrad which I am currently wading through. Another reader will soon be along to inform me that I’m a total Neanderthal, at best a limpingly functioning semi-literate (insert your personal favorites here) for not seeing the moving beauty in Conrads vision of the human soul. Yawners or not my plan is to get through them. I may have to hie on down to Barnes & Nobles and drink coffee and read their “Cliff’s Notes” to find out what I just read, 'cause in the case of Conrad it ain’t coming through loud and clear - so far. \*\* Duncan \*\* > [@](#): > > Am I just not seeing where you’ve put your choice of Jane Austen novel? That omission seems incredible. Just checked the master list and Jane Austen’s “Emma” got two mentions. “Pride and Prejudice” had 3. Two others had one each. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2004, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/100-best-books/223127/20 "2004-01-07T18:25:41Z")
And just why should you get through them? Seriously. For every book on that list I’ve read, there was another one I started and couldn’t finish. Instead I found another book that I liked more and finished that one. You read for yourself rather than for a Canon that no one else in the world cares about. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/100-best-books/223127.md?page=2)