Great Novels
Since Time magazine has put together their list of the 100 best English-language novels of all Time's time (i.e. since 1923), I thought it would be fun to list some of my favorites from the books that I've read--no time or language constraints though (they are in no particular order, and though some authors deserve multiple mention--like Henry James, Kurt Vonnegut or Graham Greene--I limited myself to just one novel or series of novels per author):
The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy
The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Love in the Ruins by Walker Percy
Silence by Shukasu Endo
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
The Sparrow by Maria Doria Russell
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic
The Alienist by Caleb Carr
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
McTeague by Frank Norris
The Tale of Arthur Gordon Pym by Edgar Allen Poe
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor
The Rise of Silas Lapham by William Dean Howells
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay by Michael Chabon
Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Cannibal by John Hawkes
The Universal Baseball Association by Robert Coover
Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Nightwood by Djuna Barnes
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
White Noise by Don DeLillo
Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut
The Devil's Advocate by Morris West
Staggerford by Jon Hassler
The Memoirs of a Survivor by Doris Lessing
The Bell by Iris Murdoch
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Billy Budd by Herman Mellville
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
The Enormous Room by E.E. Cummings
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Tales of Eva Luna by Isabella Allende
All Quiet on th Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula LeGuin
The Once and Future King by T.H. White
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Waterland by Graham Swift
Rabbit, Run by John Updike
So, if you're bored, there's some things to look at!
The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy
The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Love in the Ruins by Walker Percy
Silence by Shukasu Endo
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
The Sparrow by Maria Doria Russell
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic
The Alienist by Caleb Carr
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
McTeague by Frank Norris
The Tale of Arthur Gordon Pym by Edgar Allen Poe
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor
The Rise of Silas Lapham by William Dean Howells
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay by Michael Chabon
Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Cannibal by John Hawkes
The Universal Baseball Association by Robert Coover
Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Nightwood by Djuna Barnes
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
White Noise by Don DeLillo
Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut
The Devil's Advocate by Morris West
Staggerford by Jon Hassler
The Memoirs of a Survivor by Doris Lessing
The Bell by Iris Murdoch
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Billy Budd by Herman Mellville
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
The Enormous Room by E.E. Cummings
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Tales of Eva Luna by Isabella Allende
All Quiet on th Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula LeGuin
The Once and Future King by T.H. White
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Waterland by Graham Swift
Rabbit, Run by John Updike
So, if you're bored, there's some things to look at!
posted by Mark Mossa, SJ at 8:30 PM
8 Comments:
Thanks for the tips.
I've read about another Jesuit at BC (Fr.Neenan I think), who has a list of book recommendations, which are updated each semester or year. You could turn that list into a recurring event...
Mark, I think their list was confined to the top 100 since Time began publishing in 1923.
Todd,
I get what you're saying. I've edited the post accordingly.
Mark,
OK, some of these I know and some I don't know - but from the ones I know I think it's safe to say you're not in any sort of rut when it comes to your reading! Interesting list.
Thanks for the tips. I've linked.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Between reading voraciously since kindergarten and two English degrees, I have managed to read a lot of books!!
Some of these are on my "read & forgotten" list and others are on my "to read" list; anyways I do love book lists and yours was most interesting!
Mark, What a diverse list; I'll have to give some of these books a read. I stumbled across your page because I recently read "The Sparrow" and I thought it was amazing. I was looking for other thought-provoking, smart, fiction with Jesuit content, but I'm not finding much. Do you have anything to recommend?
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