"The 10 Greatest Books of All Time"
 

"Let's not mince words: literary lists are basically an obscenity. Literature is the realm of the ineffable and the unquantifiable; lists are the realm of menus and laundry and rotisserie baseball. There's something unseemly and promiscuous about all those letters and numbers jumbled together. Take it from me, a critic who has committed this particular sin many times over.

But what if—just for argument's sake—you got insanely rigorous about it. You went to all the big-name authors in the world—Franzen, Mailer, Wallace, Wolfe, Chabon, Lethem, King, 125 of them— and got each one to cough up a top-10 list of the greatest books of all time. We're talking ultimate-fighting-style here: fiction, non-fiction, poetry, modern, ancient, everything's fair game except eye-gouging and fish-hooking. Then you printed and collated all the lists, crunched the numbers together, and used them to create a definitive all-time Top Top 10 list....

1.Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
2.Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
3.War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
4.Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
5.The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6.Hamlet by William Shakespeare
7.The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
8.In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
9.The Stories of Anton Chekhov by Anton Chekhov
10.Middlemarch by George Eliot"

http://www.time.com/time/arts/articl...578073,00.html

Comments?

I've only read four of these books - I'm definitely not a man of letters, I guess.

Did you just use the word ineffable on a sports board?

no, no, it was a simple copy and paste for me from the Time article.

its missing Atlas shrugged...the best novel ever written

I cannot go there with you. Atlas Shrugged is the worst book I have ever read. Of course, there is no accounting for taste.

How can Don Quixote not be on this list? Taste aside, this one set the bar almost 500 years ago.

It's funny to me that Fitzgerald is getting a ton of praise again. It wasn't long ago that his wife's work was receiving more attention than his own and some were arguing that The Great Gatsby shouldn't be included in the canon.

Atlas Shrugged is certainly not the worst book ever written by any stretch. In fact in one recent reader's list it was voted most influential book ever or something like that. I like Rand's ideas and the novel is captivating but gets tedious and redundant long before you get to Galt's 50 page monologue.

I think To Kill a Mockingbird should be up there. It should replace The Great Gatsby. I find it interesting that these authors who created the list esteem that book so highly.

Well, Rand's perspective is antithetical to my own and therefore it is not surprising that I do not like it.

I don't have a problem with Great Gatsby but I don't really get down with the accolades either. It is a pretty tedious book in my opinion.

Well, as a card-carrying Letters man, er woman, I think the list is, what's the term, retarded. And gay. How can you boil all of the written word down to ten books, and have two of them by tolstoy?? Not that I have anything against Tostoy, mind you, but seems the idea of 20% of the list legitimately going to any one author is a stretch.

I bet that if you surveyed the leading humanities professors worldwide the list of ten greatest works of literature would look something like this (in no particular order):

King Lear

The Pentateuch

The Iliad

The Divine Comedy

Paradise Lost

War and Peace

Anna Karenina

The Brothers Karamazov

The Aeneid

Don Quixote

I read Atlas Shrugged 2 Summers ago and though it was a grind getting through it, it was definetly an intriguing read.

I read Les Miserables last year and enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to seeing the Production sometime on Broadway.

John Adams is probably my favorite book. McCullough's follow up "1776" was solid, but I didn't like it as much.

Ghost Soldiers is one of the more harrowing accounts of WWII I've ever read. Some of the images are burned in my memory.

This will no doubt get me in trouble, but the best book I have ever read is probably Gone With the Wind. If you have only seen the movie you won't understand what I'm saying. You may also have to be from the south.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA H!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! COUGH COUGH GASP!!!!!! WATER PLEASE!!!!!

come on...I'll give 3/1 odds you have not even read it. right?

What?

No Hop on Pop?

Clearly, this list is biased.

I can't claim to have read it. No.

I actually liked it a lot too, so much so that I dared to buy Scarlett (only to vomit in my mouth after reading a few pages).

I thought A Tale of Two Cities was one of the best ever. I also liked Uncle Tom's Cabin a lot.

Moby Dick was one of the worst books ever written.

Me neither, but I think it was one of the best selling novels of the last century <SU’s eyes roll> but IIRC, it also won the Pulitzer in the mid-30s?

The Great Gatsby sucks big time. What that is considered great is beyond me.

I couldn't name ten but many of those named are fabulous.

Two novelas in German are at also at the top of my list,

Faust by Goethe
Nathan der Weise by Lessing

I also liked Draussen vor der Tuer about post war Germany.

Die Verwandlung by Kafka is worthwhile.

The Count of Monte Cristo is beloved by me.

Les Mis must be considered my favorite.

I wouldn't admit to have read it if I did. I know I lack breeding coming from coalminer/rancher stock, but even I know to avoid chick books.

A Tale of Two Cities is marvelous. And the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire thing sucked big time.

I would also have to add:
The Hobbit
The Lord of the Flies
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Jurassic Park (really captured my imagination)
Huck Finn
The DaVinci Code (what can I say? Very entertaining)
To Kill a Mockingbird
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
Treasure Island

I bet you haven't read it.

Right on. How did Gibbons ever get that thing published? It was incoherent and long- not a good combination.

And I did read Moby Dick. Why I read it I will never know. A little voice in my head said "It must get better. It HAS to get better." I have since killed that little voice.

Same thing with anything written by Jane Austin. Pride and Prejudice is one of the top 5 most terrible books I have read.

Okay, so I'm a sucker for fantasy as well, and I even like Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series as well as his Stone Tablets.

Tolkien is also a favorite of mine.

That's why ten is too limiting.

Any list of great books must have Catch-22 on it. I refuse to take any other list seriously.

In addition my list would include:
Don Quixote
Grapes of Wrath
One Flew Over the CUckoo's Nest
Watership Down
Hiroshima

I have yet to read any of the books on your list. Guess I need to drop the Revolutionary War biographies for a bit and try to get some culture (though I am making solid progress on my goal of reading a book on each member of the constitutional convention if any such book has been written!).

Melville has some great lines, but you must wade through too much sea to get to the good stuff.

My advice is to skip the book and watch the film. It's far shorter and better. Usually I love long books. Deride me if you will, but I liked the Potter cliche books.

Watership Down is a great book.

I don't think I'd argue it for top ten all time, but I love that book.

what criteria are we supposed to be using anyway? did the article say?

My favorite scene from Moby Dick (from Chapter 36):

Vehemently pausing, he cried:-

"What do ye do when ye see a whale, men?"

"Sing out for him!" was the impulsive rejoinder from a score of clubbed voices.

"Good!" cried Ahab, with a wild approval in his tones; observing the hearty animation into which his unexpected question had so magnetically thrown them.

"And what do ye next, men?"

"Lower away, and after him!"

"And what tune is it ye pull to, men?"

"A dead whale or a stove boat!"

More and more strangely and fiercely glad and approving, grew the countenance of the old man at every shout; while the mariners began to gaze curiously at each other, as if marvelling how it was that they themselves became so excited at such seemingly purposeless questions.

But, they were all eagerness again, as Ahab, now half-revolving in his pivot-hole, with one hand reaching high up a shroud, and tightly, almost convulsively grasping it, addressed them thus:-

"All ye mast-headers have before now heard me give orders about a white whale. Look ye! d'ye see this Spanish ounce of gold?"- holding up a broad bright coin to the sun- "it is a sixteen dollar piece, men. D'ye see it? Mr. Starbuck, hand me yon top-maul."

While the mate was getting the hammer, Ahab, without speaking, was slowly rubbing the gold piece against the skirts of his jacket, as if to heighten its lustre, and without using any words was meanwhile lowly humming to himself, producing a sound so strangely muffled and inarticulate that it seemed the mechanical humming of the wheels of his vitality in him.

Receiving the top-maul from Starbuck, he advanced towards the main-mast with the hammer uplifted in one hand, exhibiting the gold with the other, and with a high raised voice exclaiming: "Whosoever of ye raises me a white-headed whale with a wrinkled brow and a crooked jaw; whosoever of ye raises me that white-headed whale, with three holes punctured in his starboard fluke- look ye, whosoever of ye raises me that same white whale, he shall have this gold ounce, my boys!"

"Huzza! huzza!" cried the seamen, as with swinging tarpaulins they hailed the act of nailing the gold to the mast.

"It's a white whale, I say," resumed Ahab, as he threw down the topmaul: "a white whale. Skin your eyes for him, men; look sharp for white water; if ye see but a bubble, sing out."

All this while Tashtego, Daggoo, and Queequeg had looked on with even more intense interest and surprise than the rest, and at the mention of the wrinkled brow and crooked jaw they had started as if each was separately touched by some specific recollection.

"Captain Ahab," said Tashtego, "that white whale must be the same that some call Moby Dick."

"Moby Dick?" shouted Ahab. "Do ye know the white whale then, Tash?"

"Does he fan-tail a little curious, sir, before he goes down?" said the Gay-Header deliberately.

"And has he a curious spout, too," said Daggoo, "very bushy, even for a parmacetty, and mighty quick, Captain Ahab?"

"And he have one, two, three- oh! good many iron in him hide, too, Captain," cried Queequeg disjointedly, "all twiske-tee be-twisk, like him- him-" faltering hard for a word, and screwing his hand round and round as though uncorking a bottle- "like him- him-"

"Corkscrew!" cried Ahab, "aye, Queequeg, the harpoons lie all twisted and wrenched in him; aye, Daggoo, his spout is a big one, like a whole shock of wheat, and white as a pile of our Nantucket wool after the great annual sheep-shearing; aye, Tashtego, and he fan-tails like a split jib in a squall. Death and devils! men, it is Moby Dick ye have seen- Moby Dick- Moby Dick!"

"Captain Ahab," said Starbuck, who, with Stubb and Flask, had thus far been eyeing his superior with increasing surprise, but at last seemed struck with a thought which somewhat explained all the wonder. "Captain Ahab, I have heard of Moby Dick- but it was not Moby Dick that took off thy leg?"

"Who told thee that?" cried Ahab; then pausing, "Aye, Starbuck; aye, my hearties all round; it was Moby Dick that dismasted me; Moby Dick that brought me to this dead stump I stand on now. Aye, aye," he shouted with a terrific, loud, animal sob, like that of a heart-stricken moose; "Aye, aye! it was that accursed white whale that razeed me; made a poor pegging lubber of me for ever and a day!" Then tossing both arms, with measureless imprecations he shouted out: "Aye, aye! and I'll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition's flames before I give him up. And this is what ye have shipped for, men! to chase that white whale on both sides of land, and over all sides of earth, till he spouts black blood and rolls fin out. What say ye, men, will ye splice hands on it, now? I think ye do look brave."

"Aye, aye!" shouted the harpooneers and seamen, running closer to the excited old man: "A sharp eye for the white whale; a sharp lance for Moby Dick!"

"God bless ye," he seemed to half sob and half shout. "God bless ye, men. Steward! go draw the great measure of grog. But what's this long face about, Mr. Starbuck; wilt thou not chase the white whale! art not game for Moby Dick?"

"I am game for his crooked jaw, and for the jaws of Death too, Captain Ahab, if it fairly comes in the way of the business we follow; but I came here to hunt whales, not my commander's vengeance. How many barrels will thy vengeance yield thee even if thou gettest it, Captain Ahab? it will not fetch thee much in our Nantucket market."

"Nantucket market! Hoot! But come closer, Starbuck; thou requirest a little lower layer. If money's to be the measurer, man, and the accountants have computed their great counting-house the globe, by girdling it with guineas, one to every three parts of an inch; then, let me tell thee, that my vengeance will fetch a great premium here!"

"He smites his chest," whispered Stubb, "what's that for? methinks it rings most vast, but hollow."

"Vengeance on a dumb brute!" cried Starbuck, "that simply smote thee from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing, Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous."

"Hark ye yet again- the little lower layer. All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event- in the living act, the undoubted deed- there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike though the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there's naught beyond. But 'tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the sun do that, then could I do the other; since there is ever a sort of fair play herein, jealousy presiding over all creations. But not my master, man, is even that fair play. Who's over me? Truth hath no confines. Take off thine eye! more intolerable than fiends' glarings is a doltish stare! So, so; thou reddenest and palest; my heat has melted thee to anger-glow. But look ye, Starbuck, what is said in heat, that thing unsays itself. There are men from whom warm words are small indignity. I meant not to incense thee. Let it go. Look! see yonder Turkish cheeks of spotted tawn- living, breathing pictures painted by the sun. The Pagan leopards- the unrecking and unworshipping things, that live; and seek, and give no reasons for the torrid life they feel! The crew, man, the crew! Are they not one and all with Ahab, in this matter of the whale? See Stubb! he laughs! See yonder Chilian! he snorts to think of it. Stand up amid the general hurricane, thy one tost sapling cannot, Starbuck! And what is it? Reckon it. 'Tis but to help strike a fin; no wondrous feat for Starbuck. What is it more? From this one poor hunt, then, the best lance out of all Nantucket, surely he will not hang back, when every foremast-hand has clutched a whetstone. Ah! constrainings seize thee; I see! the billow lifts thee! Speak, but speak!- Aye, aye! thy silence, then, that voices thee. (Aside) Something shot from my dilated nostrils, he has inhaled it in his lungs. Starbuck now is mine; cannot oppose me now, without rebellion."

"God keep me!- keep us all!" murmured Starbuck, lowly.

Some stunning descriptions of nature from Moby Dick:

From Chapter 51--

It was while gliding through these latter waters that one serene and moonlight night, when all the waves rolled by like scrolls of silver; and, by their soft, suffusing seethings, made what seemed a silvery silence, not a solitude; on such a silent night a silvery jet was seen far in advance of the white bubbles at the bow. Lit up by the moon, it looked celestial; seemed some plumed and glittering god uprising from the sea. Fedallah first descried this jet. For of these moonlight nights, it was his wont to mount to the main-mast head, and stand a look-out there, with the same precision as if it had been day. And yet, though herds of whales were seen by night, not one whaleman in a hundred would venture a lowering for them. You may think with what emotions, then, the seamen beheld this old Oriental perched aloft at such unusual hours; his turban and the moon, companions in one sky. But when, after spending his uniform interval there for several successive nights without uttering a single sound; when, after all this silence, his unearthly voice was heard announcing that silvery, moon-lit jet, every reclining mariner started to his feet as if some winged spirit had lighted in the rigging, and hailed the mortal crew. "There she blows!" Had the trump of judgment blown, they could not have quivered more; yet still they felt no terror; rather pleasure. For though it was a most unwonted hour, yet so impressive was the cry, and so deliriously exciting, that almost every soul on board instinctively desired a lowering.

From Chapter 132--

It was a clear steel-blue day. The firmaments of air and sea were hardly separable in that all-pervading azure; only, the pensive air was transparently pure and soft, with a woman's look, and the robust and man-like sea heaved with long, strong, lingering swells, as Samson's chest in his sleep.

Hither, and thither, on high, glided the snow-white wings of small, unspeckled birds; these were the gentle thoughts of the feminine air; but to and fro in the deeps, far down in the bottomless blue, rushed mighty leviathans, sword-fish, and sharks; and these were the strong, troubled, murderous thinkings of the masculine sea.

But though thus contrasting within, the contrast was only in shades and shadows without; those two seemed one; it was only the sex, as it were, that distinguished them.

Aloft, like a royal czar and king, the sun seemed giving this gentle air to this bold and rolling sea; even as bride to groom. And at the girdling line of the horizon, a soft and tremulous motion- most seen here at the Equator- denoted the fond, throbbing trust, the loving alarms, with which the poor bride gave her bosom away.

I fear too much B of M reading has wrecked many here's taste in literature.

Hey! We can and do agree about something. Jane Austen is bad. The Bronte chicks are worse.

I agree I cannot take any list that does not include Catch-22 seriously.

In fact screw their list, I am doing my own.

1. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
2. Breakfast of Champions - Vonnegut
3. Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
4. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
7. Native Son - Richard Wright (although the last third of the book is damn near intolerable)
8. The Stranger - Albert Camus
9. Slaughterhouse 5 - Vonnegut
10. Moneyball: the Art of Winning an Unfair Game - Michael Lewis (damnit I refuse to have a list and leave off the best baseball book of all time)

Since you like satire, I was wondering if you have read A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole?

I really liked Gone With the Wind too, but I don't think my approval does much for your street cred :).

I really liked John Irving's A Word According to Garp and A Prayer for Owen Meany.

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
The Cairo Trilogy and especially Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz

My Name is Asher Lev and its sequel the Gift of Asher Lev by Chaim Potok

East of Eden by John Steinbeck (ooh, that needs to go on the classic movies thread too)

The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck

Moby Dick should be renamed "How to Hunt Whales in 450 boring steps."

It really is amazing- even your favorite passage has the uncanny ability to make me want to go to the dentist for a root canal.

Ouch.

Best book:

Tarzan of the Apes, by Edgar Rice Burroughs

The first novel I ever read, when I was six.