# The 10 Greatest Books of All Time **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 13, 2008, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-greatest-books-of-all-time/477059 "2008-12-13T22:06:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2008, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-greatest-books-of-all-time/477059/41 "2008-12-14T08:48:53Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Dude, Crichton, come up with a new plot. I’m afraid Mr. Crichton, whom I thought very highly of as a person if not necessarily as a writer, has passed on to that big writing desk in the sky. [Link](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton) ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2008, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-greatest-books-of-all-time/477059/42 "2008-12-14T08:59:13Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > I’m afraid Mr. Crichton, whom I thought very highly of as a person if not necessarily as a writer, has passed on to that big writing desk in the sky. [Link](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton) Wasn’t Crichton an active global-warming denier? I’m not aware of anything particularly worth praising about him as a person. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2008, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-greatest-books-of-all-time/477059/43 "2008-12-14T09:18:13Z")
His intelligence, his humility, his kindness to aspiring writers, his honesty, his accomplishments in the fields of computer software and movie making, and his very full, rich and interesting life. Read _Travels_ sometime for a glimpse. Or are you saying a person can’t be worthwhile if they doubt/disbelieve in global warming? ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2008, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-greatest-books-of-all-time/477059/44 "2008-12-14T09:21:59Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > His intelligence, his humility, his kindness to aspiring writers, his honesty, his accomplishments in the fields of computer software and movie making, and his very full, rich and interesting life. Read _Travels_ sometime for a glimpse. > > Or are you saying a person can’t be worthwhile if they doubt/disbelieve in global warming? I was just saying that was all I knew about his personal life. I read the wiki article afterward, and saw that someone who responded negatively to his political publications ended up as a character in one of his books who raped children and had a tiny penis. Not sure I’m willing to call the guy a class act, but as I said, I don’t actually know much about him. ---
**Author:** ![Boozahol\_Squid\_P.I](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d9b06d/32.png) [@Boozahol\_Squid\_P.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boozahol_Squid_P.I)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2008, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-greatest-books-of-all-time/477059/45 "2008-12-14T10:07:31Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > Classics like “The Iliad” appear on lists of the best books of all time, which astounds me. Does anyone enjoy reading stuff like that? Absolutely. While perhaps Book 2’s Catalogue of the Ships isn’t enthralling, the story of Achilles and Agammemnon’s feud is a great one; it inspires thought and reflection, and can spur conversations that last a lifetime. While I read and enjoyed many of the books on the OP’s list, I don’t think the Hitchhiker’s Guide is one that I can mull over, pick apart, and enjoy in the same fashion. It’s a funny, fast, easy read. The characters are well-developed, and the asides in the book make a decent commentary on modern life. But Adams’ page-long footnotes about depressed elevators aren’t nearly as intriguing a commentary on man’s emotional state as the character of Achilles is. If you took the top 150 brewmasters from all over the world, and asked them to rattle off their top 10 favorite beers, you’re unlikely to get a lot of votes for Bud Light on there, even if a popular vote would easily put it at number one. Jack Daniels is a lot smoother going down than a 25 year old Islay malt. Similarly, ease of reading and mass popularity does not make great literature. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2008, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-greatest-books-of-all-time/477059/46 "2008-12-14T12:33:23Z")
There is an interesting little feature at the moment on Barnes & Nobles site - [Guest Books](http://www.barnesandnoble.com/bn-review/guestbooks/index.asp?cds2Pid=22560) where lots of celebrities, including well known authors, nominate their favourite 3 books. Some of your typical top 100 but a huge array of stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2008, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-greatest-books-of-all-time/477059/47 "2008-12-14T15:16:31Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > I read the wiki article afterward, and saw that someone who responded negatively to his political publications ended up as a character in one of his books who raped children and had a tiny penis. Not sure I’m willing to call the guy a class act, but as I said, I don’t actually know much about him. It’s all in how you look at it. I doubt I agreed with him much politically (just assuming because of his AGW stance), but that right there is hilarious. ---
**Author:** ![Windwalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/5e9695/32.png) [@Windwalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Windwalker)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2008, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-greatest-books-of-all-time/477059/48 "2008-12-14T16:37:36Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Depending on what is meant by “greatest,” it doesn’t surprise me at all that the books (or novels, if you want to focus on novels) that are considered the greatest are not necessarily the most popular. A truly great book may well be over the heads of most readers, and be capable of being fully appreciated only by a relative few. But, at least one valid way of defining greatness is to say that **the greatest books are those that have the most to offer those who are able to appreciate them**. > > For example, I’ve read Faulkner’s _The Sound and the Fury_, or at least tried to. I didn’t get out of it nearly as much as I would have if I were a better reader of that sort of literature or if I were willing to put more time and effort into understanding it. I can see how it may well have taken genius to write, and I have at least some idea why the people who do “get” it find it so impressive. I like your definition of greatness, but I think most mainstream lists hold greatness to be the total influence and power they have over their _entire readership_, instead of the _per reader_ influence and power. Thus, books with tiny audiences rarely get considered, even if they had managed to change every single reader’s life in a major way, while books like **To Kill a Mockingbird** and **1984** always seem to get put forward because they are both powerful and widely read, which puts the total power product somewhere really high. My top 10 list would be somewhat similar to those of the magazines, probably because I’m not particularly well read but have read enough of the super-classics that some manage to really stand out to me. If I read more obscure great works, I’d probably be singing a different tune. That said, some of those I’d put on my own top 10 list are just pure pulp fiction (e.g. Stephen King’s **The Stand** ), but I take some solace knowing that Shakespeare was essentially a pulp playwright, too, and look where he stands in the pantheon of the written word now. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2008, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-greatest-books-of-all-time/477059/49 "2008-12-14T17:25:36Z")
Let’s see, my favorite fiction books: Lolita - Vladimir Nabakov (in what universe is this unreadable??? Joyce, I could see, but Nabakov? The guy wrote the most beautiful English prose.) The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger (wonder if I still would like this one today) Picture of Dorian Grey - Oscar Wilde The Trial - Franz Kafka Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams 1984 - George Orwell The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry[ ---
**Author:** ![UnwrittenNocturne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/6de8d8/32.png) [@UnwrittenNocturne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UnwrittenNocturne)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2008, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-greatest-books-of-all-time/477059/50 "2008-12-14T23:03:44Z")
It really is utterly subjective, so I’ll add mine in no particular order 1. _Underground Man_ - Dostoevsky 2. _The Trial_ - Kafka 3. _The Stranger_ - Camus 4. _Homage to Catalonia_ - Orwell (non-fiction thrown in because it’s my favourite Orwell) 5. _Slaughterhouse 5_ - Vonnegut 6. _Brave New World_ - Huxley 7. _Heart of Darkness_ - Conrad 8. _A Clockwork Orange_ - Burgess 9. _I, Claudius/Claudius the God_ - Graves 10. _Ghormenghast_ - Peake (first two books) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-greatest-books-of-all-time/477059.md?page=2)