top 100 novels
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it’s @bhalpin‘s fault.
about a month ago, he wrote about his top 100 novels, a response to someone’s response to NPR’s list. i’ve looked over others’ lists (including the Modern Library’s and the BBC’s from several years ago) and thought, “well, if they’re doing it, and Halpin’s doing it, i ought to do it, too.”
my list, in no particular order, includes books (not just novels) that have had an impact on me over the last 25+ years, whether because of subject matter, writing style, the time at which i read it, or the chemical that is released by the brain associating pleasure with certain things.
- Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
- Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
- Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen
- The Stand by Stephen King
- Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon
- Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
- An American Tragedy by Ted Dreiser
- The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
- The Inferno by Dante (Ciardi)
- The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
- The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
- Lord of the Flies by William Golding
- The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
- The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
- The Talisman by Peter Straub & Stephen King
- His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman
- A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
- Harry Potter Series by JK Rowling
- Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis
- A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
- Danny, Champion of the World by Roald Dahl
- Fox in Socks by Dr. Seuss
- Maus by Art Spiegelman
- John Adams by David McCullough
- Truman by David McCullough
- Animal Farm by George Orwell
- Big Fish by Daniel Wallace
- Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
- angela’s ashes by Frank McCourt
- The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris
- A Series of Unfortunate Events by lemony snicket
- Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller
- Falling Up by Shel Silverstein
- Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
- The Traveler by john twelve hawks
- The Bible
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
- Snow Falling on Cedars by David Gunderson
- Contact by Carl Sagan
- What is the What byDave Eggars
- Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
- Calvin and Hobbes – Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat by Bill Watterson
- A Generous Orthodoxy by Brian Mclaren
- Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst
- night by Elie Wiesel
- extremely loud and incredibly close by Jonathan Safran Foer
- Candide by Voltaire
- The Unabridged Edgar Allen Poe
- The Stories of Ray Bradbury by Ray Bradbury
- A Bright Red Scream by Marilee Strong
- The Search to Belong by Joseph Meyers
- The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind by Mark Noll
- The Hot Zone by Richard Preston
- Timeline by Michael Crichton
- The Big Book of Hell by Matt Groening
fifty-six. it was the best i could do. i wanted to BS a few more classics just to look more cultured and civilized, but then i realized, “hey! this is MY LIST! if someone thinks i’m not all that intelligent because i like dr. seuss, well pbbbbthhhh!”
do you have a list? how about a top three?
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July 1st, 2009 6:36 pm
# 1
thank goodness E.A. Poe’s biggest fan from the frozen tundra of St. Paul, MN was around to correct me.
and thanks: i don’t feel too bad.
July 1st, 2009 4:01 pm
# 2
As the world’s #1 Edgar ALLAN Poe fan, I would like to point out that you, like thousands of others, for some reason just seem unable or unwilling to spell his middle name correctly. I’ve found it “Allen” on lists from major universities, including Harvard, so don’t feel too bad. But if you will just look at the title page, you will see it is “ALLAN,” not “Allen.” No one likes to have his name misspelled, so we should at least give this courtesy to one of America’s greatest writers, and one that you claim as a lifetime favorite.
June 19th, 2009 1:51 pm
# 3
Searching for God Knows What-Donald Miller
The Lord of the Rings
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Those are the books that keep getting repeated readings for me. Miller’s book helped me think about spirituality and relationships in deeper ways, The Lord of the Rings is just brilliant in its scope and detail with a beautiful story at its heart, and Hitchhiker’s makes me laugh out loud every page, and the series is about 1,000 pages. That’s a lot of calories burned while reading.
honorable mention to To Kill a Mockingbird-my favorite American novel I’ve read.
June 19th, 2009 11:01 am
# 4
Missed the “no particular order bit”
June 18th, 2009 11:21 pm
# 5
be fair, cale – when i said, “no particular order” i meant it – while The Stand is clearly my favorite of King’s books, it would not make the top 5 (or probably even top 10) if i put them in some semblance of order.
salem’s lot was good. i enjoyed pet semetary quite a bit, too.
June 18th, 2009 10:39 am
# 6
Surprised to see The Stand at #4. I read it last summer and though the epidemic section was fantastic, I thought it quickly became unfocused, with an anticlimactic deus ex machina ending. Good characters, interesting bits, but not enough to justify 1200 pages. Of the few Stephen King novels I’ve read, my favorite by far is ‘Salem’s Lot – taut and terrifying.
Not going to venture a Top 3.
June 11th, 2009 1:37 pm
# 7
I’ll limit it to my top three:
Anna Karenina by Tolstoy.
Voyage: A Novel of 1896 by Sterling Hayden — because it inadvertently opened my eyes to reincarnation (ah, but that’s another story). ~;-)
Cape Horn by Felix Riesenberg, an historical treatise of square-rigged sailing ships that further spoke to me of the past life I discovered when reading Voyage.
L&K,
Moldy-Wan ~;-)
June 10th, 2009 4:29 pm
# 8
My top 3 — wow, that’s hard. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Dracula by Bram Stoker, and A Walk to Remeber by Nicolas Sparks. But I thoroughly enjoyed, the Harry Potter series, the Twighlight series, as well as many of these that are on your list. But you gave me some good ideas about some ot read.
June 10th, 2009 1:38 pm
# 9
i blame it ALL on @bhalpin!!
June 10th, 2009 1:27 pm
# 10
Hmmm, a challenge… I could do a Top 3 I think. ;)
1. Frank Peretti’s “Darkness” books (Piercing the Darkness and This Present Darkness): HUGE impact on how I think about and view the spiritual world
2. Bible: I’d say your Youth Bible and reading it daily in 1994-95 saved my life. Can’t remember verses like I used to but Psalm 23:4 remains pretty much a cornerstone of my faith.
3. Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult: As a mother, and of a boy no less, I’m not sure how exactly to this other than it just had an impact on me. It was sobering, heartbreaking and realistic. I was angry for the victims. I ached for the shooter. I was both mad at and for the mother of the shooter. Crazy emotional book and truly astounding.
You may inspire me to do my own list. ;)