Your 50 favourite books
- Thread starter Sybarite
- Start date
Cleanthess
Dinanukht wannabe
StevieB, male bias is a problem that a lot of us had when compiling our lists. I listed over 70 writers, 5 of which happened to be female, for a dismal ratio. According to my feminist friend Hellas' rule, women writers should amount to at least 10% for 'all literary periods since the past' lists, and 20% for 20th. Century and later lists of favorites, as a minimum.
With Hellas' rule in mind I went through the top 50 lists of other members and found out the following ratios sorted in order of enlightenment (with the favorited female writers included). Personally I don't think that this is done out of prejudice, it's just a matter of taste when it comes to the gender differences when writing re: subject matter, focus, etc.; not to mention the fact that the lists we ourselves rely on to pick the books we will read under-represent women writers (I'll use the Planeta Ideal Library lists as an example in a later post).
Uemarasan: 24 out of 53 authors listed, very impressive! (Agatha Christie, Angela Carter, Assia Djebar, Bessie Head, Christina Stead, Clarice Lispector, Edith Wharton, Eileen Chang, Emily Bronte, Forugh Farrokhzad, Fumiko Enchi, Hannah Arendt, Janet Frame, Marguerite Yourcenar, Marie Vieux-Chauvet, Mirabai, Moto Hagio, Murasaki Shikibu, Nicole Brenez, Sei Shonagon, Simone Weil, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Sylvia Plath, Toni Morrison). I look forward to reading Bessie Head, Marie Vieux-Chauvet, Forugh Farrokhzad and Cao Yu, writers that I only learned about thanks to Uemarasan's list. I also wish I had the same courage as Uemarasan to list my favorite Manga (Asterix, Chanoc and Rumiko Takahashi's Lum/Ranma and Hideo Azuma's Journal d'une disparition/depression) just like Uemarasan listed Herge, Masamune Shiro, Moto Hagio and the kamisama of manga: Osamu Tezuka.
outragedoptimist: 6 out of 21 (Charlotte Bronte, Flannery O'Connor, Carson McCullers, Tony Morrison, Banana Yoshimoto, George Elliot).
waalkwriter: 12 out of 43 authors listed (Gabriella Mistral, Virginia Woolf, Ursula Le Guin, Susan Cooper, J.K. Rowling, Diana Wynne Jones, Katherine Paterson, Lois Lowry, Mary Shelley, Selma Lagerlof, Willa Cather, Edith Wharton). A lot of youthful choices, but overall a solid list with good books and no male bias at all.
sybarite: 10 out of 42: (Isabelle Allende, Dominique Aury, Jane Austen, Margaret Atwood, Beryl Bainbridge, Angela Carter, Elizabeth Gaskell, Vita Sackville, Alice Walker). I look forward to reading the delightful cat thriller by Akif Pirincci listed by sybarite.
mirabell: 12 out of 51 (Edith Wharton, Iris Murdoch, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Harper Lee, Christa Wolf, Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein, Doris Lessing, Jean Rhys, Irmtraud Morgner, Margaret Atwood, Tova Reich)
Dreamqueen: 10 out of 47 (Allison Fell, Erdrich, Austen, Eliot, A. Bronte, C. Bronte, Marie-Claire Blais, Madeleine L'Engle, Barbara Gowdy).
beelzebubbles: 10 out of 49 authors listed (Gertrude Stein, A.S. Byatt, Judith Michaels, Jayne Ann Krentz, Colette, Joyce Carol Oates, Francine du Plessix Grey, Toni Morrison, Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood, ).
lionel: 11 out of 55: (Virgina Woolf, Ali Smith, Gertrude Stein, Jean Rhys, Sylvia Plath, Winifred Holtby, Harper Lee, Sarah Grand, Charlotte Perkins, Kate Chopin, Simone de Beauvoir).
Titania: 8 out of 43 (Carson McCullers, Flannery O'Connor, Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, Elinor Wylie, Virginia Woolf, George Elliot, Simone de Beauvoir)
Eric: 10 out of 53 (Mare Kandre, Clarice Lispector, Elo Viiding, Elizabeth Bowen, Edith Wharton, Inger Edelfeldt, Katherine Mansfield, Elisabeth Eybers, Tove Jansson, Jane Austen). I look forward to reading poets Elo Viiding, Inger Edelfeldt and Elizabeth Eybers (Estonian, Swedish and Afrikaans) thanks to Eric's list.
errequatro: 7 out of 40 authors listed (Emily Bronte, Sylvia Plath, Sarah Kane -a very interesting choice-, Virginia Woolf, Kay Redfield Jamison, Doris Lessing, Edith Wharton).
Aillil: 7 out of 50 authors listed (Sylvia Plath, Mary Shelley, Alice Walker, Virginia Woolf, Betty Friedan, Charlotte Bronte, Harper Lee).
sevigne: 4 out of 26 (Eleanor Clark, George Eliot, Penelope Fitzgerald, Shirley Hazzard).
promtbr: 5 out of 38 (Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, Eudora Welty, Barbara Kingsolver, Annie Proulx)
obooki: 7 out of 50 (Virginia Woolf, Edith Wharton, Harper Lee, Doris Lessing, George Eliot, Colette, Emily Bronte).
bogotabibliophile: 5, maybe 6 out of 48 (Mary Shelley, Jung Chang, The authoress of the Odissey -cf Samuel Butler-, Pearl Buck, Barbara Kingsolver, Isak Dinesen).
JTolle 5 out of 49 (Gillian Rose, Marguerite Duras, Virginia Woolf, Carson McCullers, Anne Carson).
Liam: 5 out of 50 (Christina Rossetti,Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf, Marina Tsvetaeva, A. S. Byatt).
chamberk: 5 out of 50 (Donna Tartt, Audrey Niffenegger, Carson McCullers, Harper Lee, Margaret Atwood).
nightwood: 5 out of 51 authors listed (Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, Ingeborg Bachmann, Elfriede Jelinek, Djuna Barnes).
spooool: 3 out of about 30 (Marguerite Yourcenar, Jean Rhys, Iris Murdoch).
Heteronym: 4 out of 43 (Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, Emily Bronte, Jill Thompson). I look forward to reading Lucio's Confession as suggested by Heteronym's list, and I admire Heteronym's decision to include comic book author Jill Thompson and genre writers Dennis Wheatley and James Ellroy.
saliot thomas: 4 out of 46 (Virginia Woolf, Highsmith, Barbara Cartland, Yourcenar).
eva, minus the stonian writers: 3 out of 33(Jane Austen, Astrid Lindgren, Muriel Spark).
dog_eared_pages: 4 out of 49 (Pearl S. Buck, Willa Cather, Merce Rodoreda, Christina Stead).
nnyhav: 4 out of 50 (Cynthia Ozick, Penelope Fitzgerald, Olga Grushin, George Eliot).
Refus de Sejour, 3 out of 43 (Anne Carson, Tove Jannson, Maxine Hong Kingston).
Svidrigailov: 2 out of 30 authors listed (Tove Jansson, Ursula Le Guin).
Cleanthess, 5 out of 80 authors listed (Kathy Acker, Ana Blandiana, Szymborska. Sophia de Mello Breyner, Adelia Prado).
waxwing: 3 out of 47 (Donna Tarrt, Willa Cather, George Eliot).
kpjayan: 3 out of 50 (Lilian Lee, Laura Esquivel, Clarice Lispector). I look forward to reading Osman Lins thanks to jayan's list.
omo: 2 out of 33 (Yourcenar, Sappho).
Rumpelstilzchen 2, maybe 3 out of 50 (Herta Mueller, the authoress of the Odyssey-cf Samuel Butler-, Ursula Le Guin).
Caodang: 1 out of 35 (Murasaki Shikibu).
sif: 1 out of 38 (Selma Lagerlof).
adaorardor: 1 out of 39 (Virginia Woolf)
guillaume Barkero: 1 out of 40 (Flannery O'Connor).
Daniel Del Real, 1 out of 44 (Virginia Woolf).
miercuri: none out of 15.
ferns_dad: none out of 12.
DB Cooper: none out of 17, maybe 23.
Redheadshadz: none out of 23 authors listed.
Ramblingsid: None out of 50.
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Stevie B
Current Member
Cleanthess, your last post must have taken some time to write. Thanks for assembling all of that information showing to what extent male authors dominate our lists. I suppose it's easy for me to point out the lack of female authors since I've yet to complete my own list of top 50 books. I've started on this task previously, bit I keeping thinking that one of the books in my to-be-read pile will certainly make my list so I never manage to finish the job.
Hamlet
Reader
I don't think I could assemble a top 50 list. There's a few authors that I'd place in a top 5 perhaps, but the very idea of a list of "tops", is something that quickly brakes down when you really think about what your criteria is, which is diffuse and complicated at best, and in the end, it seems to make a complete nonsense out of any list one attempts to construct.
I think the internet has led us astray with "lists", they are a firm favourite of the pop culture, list everything, it's fun, and as long as it's not too serious, it's a good way of seeing what appeals to folks, but seriously... a top 50, 100, 200, 1000 list - really?! With works that have no relation to one another.........
I think the internet has led us astray with "lists", they are a firm favourite of the pop culture, list everything, it's fun, and as long as it's not too serious, it's a good way of seeing what appeals to folks, but seriously... a top 50, 100, 200, 1000 list - really?! With works that have no relation to one another.........
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Stevie B
Current Member
Even though I've not finished compiling my own list, I'm always happy to see new posts on this thread because I love being introduced to new authors. After researching these authors and reading about their often amazing lives, however, I'm frequently compelled to buy their books even though I have plenty of other books on my shelves I've yet to read. Although I try to make use of inter library loan opportunities I have at school, there are few things I enjoy more than going to my mailbox and finding a book waiting for me inside. I wonder if there is a support group for people like me. "Hello. My name is Stevie B and I'm addicted to buying books."
Hamlet
Reader
If there is Stevie B, I need to join too...
I have ten books out at the moment from a large library, and four from my local small library, which has a history, local/national, club and so is stong on English history, I'm not a member, but I enjoy their books.
I've just had two books arrive this week, a rare Robert Greene facsimile from 1905 of the playwright's collected works.
And I've bought two cheap-ish books on the white slave trade and the history of France...
It's not unknown for me to have a 'book tower' as call it on the floor of 25 books on the go at the same time, I read fast, and so depending on mood, will access what appeals, especially when the TV is naff in the evening, or suchlike. Sometimes it's not possible to read some of the books I take out, too busy, but at least I get to dip and assess them... or just read intro essays, or a sample... I've found this works out quite well, whereas I used to just get one book and read it until I'd finished it, but my latest approach has me both finishing books, but also opening up new horizons, the secret-weapon is the rucksack, I know the larger library well, so a quick 20 min visit here and there and into the bag they go, and then on ionto into the car's boot, and there's no struggling around carrying loads of awkward books, small rucksacks being slung over the shoulder and feeling weightless, ideal with some of the history tomes I pick up... or heavier art books ....
The carpark and library are close, so I can get on with whatever I have to having already dropped the wordy payload off... before this I used to just take out 2 or 3 books, and fret about getting them back but telephone renewal by phone keypad 24/7 has ended all that...
I have ten books out at the moment from a large library, and four from my local small library, which has a history, local/national, club and so is stong on English history, I'm not a member, but I enjoy their books.
I've just had two books arrive this week, a rare Robert Greene facsimile from 1905 of the playwright's collected works.
And I've bought two cheap-ish books on the white slave trade and the history of France...
It's not unknown for me to have a 'book tower' as call it on the floor of 25 books on the go at the same time, I read fast, and so depending on mood, will access what appeals, especially when the TV is naff in the evening, or suchlike. Sometimes it's not possible to read some of the books I take out, too busy, but at least I get to dip and assess them... or just read intro essays, or a sample... I've found this works out quite well, whereas I used to just get one book and read it until I'd finished it, but my latest approach has me both finishing books, but also opening up new horizons, the secret-weapon is the rucksack, I know the larger library well, so a quick 20 min visit here and there and into the bag they go, and then on ionto into the car's boot, and there's no struggling around carrying loads of awkward books, small rucksacks being slung over the shoulder and feeling weightless, ideal with some of the history tomes I pick up... or heavier art books ....
The carpark and library are close, so I can get on with whatever I have to having already dropped the wordy payload off... before this I used to just take out 2 or 3 books, and fret about getting them back but telephone renewal by phone keypad 24/7 has ended all that...
Cleanthess
Dinanukht wannabe
Hamlet, as always, it is a pleasure to read your point of view on things. Good point about lists being little more than random arrangements. Borges said it better:
These ambiguities, redundancies and deficiencies (of lists in general) remind us of those which doctor Franz Kuhn attributes to a certain Chinese encyclopaedia entitled 'Celestial Empire of benevolent Knowledge'. In its remote pages it is written that the animals are divided into: (a) belonging to the emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) sucking pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher,
that from a long way off look like flies.The Bibliographic Institute of Brussels exerts chaos too: it has divided the universe into 1000 subdivisions, from which number 262 is the pope; number 282, the Roman Catholic Church; 263, the Day of the Lord; 268 Sunday schools; 298, mormonism; and number 294, brahmanism, buddhism, shintoism and taoism. It doesn't reject heterogene subdivisions as, for example, 179: "Cruelty towards animals. Animals protection. Duel and suicide seen through moral values. Various vices and disadvantages. Advantages and various qualities."
I have registered the arbitrarities of Wilkins, of the unknown (or false) Chinese encyclopaedia writer and of the Bibliographic Institute of Brussels; it is clear that there is no classification of the Universe not being arbitrary and full of conjectures. The reason for this is very simple: we do not know what thing the universe is. "The world - David Hume writes - is perhaps the rudimentary sketch of a childish god, who left it half done, ashamed by his deficient work; it is created by a subordinate god, at whom the superior gods laugh; it is the confused production of a decrepit and retiring divinity, who has already died" ('Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion', V. 1779). We are allowed to go further; we can suspect that there is no universe in the organic, unifying sense, that this ambitious term has. If there is a universe, it's aim is not conjectured yet; we have not yet conjectured the words, the definitions, the etymologies, the synonyms, from the secret dictionary of God.
Hamlet
Reader
Oh, I can't compete with Borges, and as ever, you have the finger on the quotes. I don't like to ask how you get them, as it's more mysterious to imagine a supercomputer, hidden in NJ, a sort of new version of the Delphic Oracle, and you consult it, otherwise, you just have a photographic memory and have read mountainous heaps of stuff...
But seriously, we're all under assault guys, aren't we, in the world of lists, but what I think we do as intelligent thinking people is that 'we know this' and we still like to see what others are reading, and we find something new, some new pleasure.
I read too many books, if such a thing is possible, and sometimes I like to set up oppostions, say something to myself like "reading books is pointless, it's just a small portion of the universe, your limited, we all are, and you can't be in two places at the same time, so if you are reading a book, you're not out surfing, scaling a mountain, feeling the wind on your face, or some other heroic (and unlikely adventure!) and then I sort of respond...
Yes but, second-self, or whatever it is I've pictured as a sort of virtual critic, that is there to guard me (or you) against the futility and mistakes of being sucked into this activity, course in life, or whatever.... and the reply is....
-but we're here for a short time, and the greatest that has ever been thought and written is now availbable to us, if we'd been born 300 or 400 or 1000 years ago, less would have been written, and we'd probably be illerate and helping to shore up the foundations of some pyramid, or whatever, so I say to the second-self/critic/thingy .... I'm going to do my best to read as much of it as possible, and I'll do it for no purpose at all, it's not part of a course, it's just a driven from deep down inside, and sometimes, yeah, it's boring, frustrating, and life is always *ALWAYS* finding ways of getting me to quit, as most of the time we have, billionaires aside, is taken up with economic survival, and the reading is a kind of pit-stop, or food for the soul, but that sounds a bit hippy-ish, nothing wrong with that per se, but you know, trying to keep to the sane and normal path in life, it's not easy to keep reading, for some of the reasons before...
Now, Borgees, come back to us, briefly, and convert all of that into something more digestable...
...please.
But seriously, we're all under assault guys, aren't we, in the world of lists, but what I think we do as intelligent thinking people is that 'we know this' and we still like to see what others are reading, and we find something new, some new pleasure.
I read too many books, if such a thing is possible, and sometimes I like to set up oppostions, say something to myself like "reading books is pointless, it's just a small portion of the universe, your limited, we all are, and you can't be in two places at the same time, so if you are reading a book, you're not out surfing, scaling a mountain, feeling the wind on your face, or some other heroic (and unlikely adventure!) and then I sort of respond...
Yes but, second-self, or whatever it is I've pictured as a sort of virtual critic, that is there to guard me (or you) against the futility and mistakes of being sucked into this activity, course in life, or whatever.... and the reply is....
-but we're here for a short time, and the greatest that has ever been thought and written is now availbable to us, if we'd been born 300 or 400 or 1000 years ago, less would have been written, and we'd probably be illerate and helping to shore up the foundations of some pyramid, or whatever, so I say to the second-self/critic/thingy .... I'm going to do my best to read as much of it as possible, and I'll do it for no purpose at all, it's not part of a course, it's just a driven from deep down inside, and sometimes, yeah, it's boring, frustrating, and life is always *ALWAYS* finding ways of getting me to quit, as most of the time we have, billionaires aside, is taken up with economic survival, and the reading is a kind of pit-stop, or food for the soul, but that sounds a bit hippy-ish, nothing wrong with that per se, but you know, trying to keep to the sane and normal path in life, it's not easy to keep reading, for some of the reasons before...
Now, Borgees, come back to us, briefly, and convert all of that into something more digestable...
...please.
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Hamlet
Reader
Btw, guys, gang, shall we set up a thread with a title like
"Why do we read?"
I mean really, not tritely or just because of something like: I have to write essays, to show off at cocktail parties, because it's just what I do... but why... ?
What is the deeper "why?" fellow good folks of WLF?
"Why do we read?"
I mean really, not tritely or just because of something like: I have to write essays, to show off at cocktail parties, because it's just what I do... but why... ?
What is the deeper "why?" fellow good folks of WLF?
Great work compiling the data! It's pretty interesting to see how gender is represented in these lists. Oh, and Ai Yazawa is another female writer/manga artist in mine. I would have loved to include Rumiko Takahashi (I think I didn't include her because I can't really choose among her works, maybe Lum, Ranma, or the Mermaid Saga) and Asterix as well, but I was afraid I would have kept on going and going. Choosing around 50 was hard enough!
I just read Tezuka's Barbara and now I'm torn between that and Ayako, which might still have the edge because it's one of the finest post-war and anti-war books I've ever read. Most probably the greatest Japanese book of the 20th century. Inspired choice with Hideo Azuma, by the way!
marcus
Reader
In no particular order of preference,
Achebe, Things Fall Apart
Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
Asturias, Mulata
Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil
Bergson, Matter and Memory
Böll, The Clown
Borges, Labyrinths
Brecht, Galileo
Broch, The Death of Virgil
Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita
Calvino, If on a Winter's Night a Traveller
Carpentier, The Lost Steps
Casares, The Invention of Morel
Cervantes, Don Quixote
Cherkov, Selected Stories
Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
Fuentes, Aura
Garcia Lorca, Selected Poems
García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
Gogol, Dead Souls
Guimarães Rosa, The Devil to Pay in the Backlands
Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund
Hoffmann, Tales of Hoffmann
Kafka, The Trial
Kawabata, Snow Country
Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death
Kleist, The Earthquake in Chile
Laforet, Nada
Lispector, The Passion According to G.H.
Mahfouz, Children of Gebelawi
Mann, The Magic Mountain
Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception
Musil, The Man Without Qualities
Neruda, Poetry of Pablo Neruda
Oe, The Silent Cry
Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude
Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
Proust, Swann's Way
Rilke, Duino Elegies
Rulfo, Pedro Páramo
Sábato, On Heroes and Tombs
Saramago, The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis
Schulz, Street of Crocodiles
Sebald, The Rings of Saturn
Sophocles, Antigone
Sōseki, Kokoro
Vesaas, The Birds
Wa Thiong'o, A Grain of Wheat
Walser, Jakob von Gunten
Yourcenar, Memories of Hadrian
Achebe, Things Fall Apart
Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
Asturias, Mulata
Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil
Bergson, Matter and Memory
Böll, The Clown
Borges, Labyrinths
Brecht, Galileo
Broch, The Death of Virgil
Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita
Calvino, If on a Winter's Night a Traveller
Carpentier, The Lost Steps
Casares, The Invention of Morel
Cervantes, Don Quixote
Cherkov, Selected Stories
Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
Fuentes, Aura
Garcia Lorca, Selected Poems
García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
Gogol, Dead Souls
Guimarães Rosa, The Devil to Pay in the Backlands
Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund
Hoffmann, Tales of Hoffmann
Kafka, The Trial
Kawabata, Snow Country
Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death
Kleist, The Earthquake in Chile
Laforet, Nada
Lispector, The Passion According to G.H.
Mahfouz, Children of Gebelawi
Mann, The Magic Mountain
Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception
Musil, The Man Without Qualities
Neruda, Poetry of Pablo Neruda
Oe, The Silent Cry
Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude
Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
Proust, Swann's Way
Rilke, Duino Elegies
Rulfo, Pedro Páramo
Sábato, On Heroes and Tombs
Saramago, The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis
Schulz, Street of Crocodiles
Sebald, The Rings of Saturn
Sophocles, Antigone
Sōseki, Kokoro
Vesaas, The Birds
Wa Thiong'o, A Grain of Wheat
Walser, Jakob von Gunten
Yourcenar, Memories of Hadrian
josearcadiobuendia
New member
I see this is an old thread, but i´m new in the forum so here is my top 50 chronologically (sorry for the mixture of languages, it´s how I read them)
| La divina comedia | Dante Aligheri |
| Gargantúa y Pantagruel | François Rabelais |
| El Quijote | Miguel de Cervantes |
| Gulliver´s travels | Jonathan Swift |
| Tom Jones | Henry Fielding |
| Candide | Voltaire |
| Tristram Shandy | Laurence Sterne |
| Las desventuras del joven Werther | J.W.Goethe |
| Jacques el fatalista | Denis Diderot |
| Fausto | J.W.Goethe |
| Los pápeles póstumos del club Pickwick | Charles Dickens |
| Almas muertas | Nicolai Gogol |
| A Christmas carol | Charles Dickens |
| Moby Dick | Herman Melville |
| Fathers and sons | Ivan Turgenev |
| Crimen y castigo | Fiodor Dostoievski |
| La Regenta | Leopoldo Alas Clarín |
| Hunger | Knut Hamsun |
| The Canterville ghost | Oscar Wilde |
| Dracula | Bram Stoker |
| Los Buddenbrook | Thomas Mann |
| Sons and lovers | D.H.Lawrence |
| La montaña mágica | Thomas Mann |
| En busca del tiempo perdido | Marcel Proust |
| Independent people | Halldor Laxness |
| Absalom, Absalom! | William Faulkner |
| The grapes of wrath | John Steinbeck |
| El maestro y Margarita | Mihail Bulgakov |
| The world of yesterday | Stefan Zweig |
| L´etranger | Albert Camus |
| Ficciones | Jorge Luis Borges |
| Un puente sobre el Drina | Ivo Andric |
| Zorba the Greek | Nikos Kazantzakis |
| East of Eden | John Steinbeck |
| The old man and the sea | Ernest Hemingway |
| Lolita | Vladimir Nabokov |
| Pedro Páramo | Juan Rulfo |
| El siglo de las luces | Alejo Carpentier |
| Un día en la vida de Iván Denisovich | Alexander Solzhenytsin |
| Rayuela | Julio Cortazar |
| Season of migration to the north | Tayeb Salih |
| CIEN AÑOS DE SOLEDAD | Gabriel García Márquez |
| Song of Solomon | Toni Morrison |
| El nombre de la rosa | Umberto Eco |
| Midnight´s children | Salman Rushdie |
| Blood meridian | Cormac McCarthy |
| El amor en los tiempos del cólera | Gabriel García Márquez |
| Beloved | Toni Morrison |
| El evangelio según Jesucristo | José Saramago |
| The sea | John Banville |
EternalSunshine
Reader
Some pretty good books on that list. Have you read "A rose for Emily" by Faulkner?
tiganeasca
Moderator
Compiling this list was made easier by the fact that it should be my favorites as opposed to the 50 “greatest.” And of course, the longer I sit and look at the list, the more I keep adding and pruning, adding and pruning. Plus, I feel obliged to note the vague sense of guilt I feel posting any list considering the number of books I have yet to read—both the acknowledged masterworks as well as the unacknowledged ones. But, without any further ado—and in absolutely no order whatsoever:
JMG Le Clezio, The Prospector
Ignazio Silone, Bread and Wine
Homer, The Iliad
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
Tanizaki Junichiro, The Makioka Sisters
Marguerite Yourcenar, The Abyss
Par Lagerkvist, Barabbas
Abdelrahman Munif, Cities of Salt
Ivan Turgenev, A Hunter's Sketches
Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island
Siegfried Lenz, The Heritage
Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay, Pather Panchali
Elsa Morante, History
William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom
Nikos Kazantzakis, Saint Francis (or The Last Temptation of Christ)
Louis Couperus, The Hidden Force
Shusaku Endo, Silence
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Gunter Grass, The Tin Drum
Jan Neruda, Prague Tales
Pramoedya Ananta Toer, The Buru Quartet
John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
Thomas Mann, Buddenbrooks
David Malouf, Remembering Babylon
Pierre Michon, Winter Mythologies and Abbots
Naguib Mahfouz, Children of Gebelaawi
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust
Jose Saramago, Blindness
Carlo Levi, Christ Stopped at Eboli
Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front
Willa Cather, My Antonia
Hermann Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund
Mustapha Tlili, Lion Mountain
Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls
Ivo Andric, The Bridge on the Drina
Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird
Stijn Streuvels, The Long Road
Walter Scott, Ivanhoe
Soseki Natsume, Kokoro
Gottfried Keller, Stories
Tibor Dery, Stories
Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
Premchand, Godaan [The Gift of a Cow]
George Eliot, Silas Marner
Doris Lessing, The Grass is Singing
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Joseph Conrad, Almayer’s Folly
Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge
Romesh Gunesekera, Monkfish Moon
Mishima Yukio, Sea of Fertility Quartet
On the other hand, if you ask me tomorrow, it may well be a different list….
JMG Le Clezio, The Prospector
Ignazio Silone, Bread and Wine
Homer, The Iliad
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
Tanizaki Junichiro, The Makioka Sisters
Marguerite Yourcenar, The Abyss
Par Lagerkvist, Barabbas
Abdelrahman Munif, Cities of Salt
Ivan Turgenev, A Hunter's Sketches
Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island
Siegfried Lenz, The Heritage
Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay, Pather Panchali
Elsa Morante, History
William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom
Nikos Kazantzakis, Saint Francis (or The Last Temptation of Christ)
Louis Couperus, The Hidden Force
Shusaku Endo, Silence
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Gunter Grass, The Tin Drum
Jan Neruda, Prague Tales
Pramoedya Ananta Toer, The Buru Quartet
John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
Thomas Mann, Buddenbrooks
David Malouf, Remembering Babylon
Pierre Michon, Winter Mythologies and Abbots
Naguib Mahfouz, Children of Gebelaawi
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust
Jose Saramago, Blindness
Carlo Levi, Christ Stopped at Eboli
Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front
Willa Cather, My Antonia
Hermann Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund
Mustapha Tlili, Lion Mountain
Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls
Ivo Andric, The Bridge on the Drina
Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird
Stijn Streuvels, The Long Road
Walter Scott, Ivanhoe
Soseki Natsume, Kokoro
Gottfried Keller, Stories
Tibor Dery, Stories
Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
Premchand, Godaan [The Gift of a Cow]
George Eliot, Silas Marner
Doris Lessing, The Grass is Singing
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Joseph Conrad, Almayer’s Folly
Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge
Romesh Gunesekera, Monkfish Moon
Mishima Yukio, Sea of Fertility Quartet
On the other hand, if you ask me tomorrow, it may well be a different list….
Stevie B
Current Member
Nice way to squeeze 3 extra books into your list of 50, tiganeasca. You might be new to the forum, but I see you've learned some sneaky listing strategies from the master, Daniel del Real.
tiganeasca
Moderator
Nice way to squeeze 3 extra books into your list of 50, tiganeasca. You might be new to the forum, but I see you've learned some sneaky listing strategies from the master, Daniel del Real.
Moi? Squeeze in extra books?! Nope. However, I will note that Mishima's Sea of Fertility is also a quartet but it is my firm conviction that quartets are created by publishing houses eager to eke out extra pennies from penurious book lovers. I prefer to think of both quartets as one volume artificially chopped into pieces by greedy publishers. (Besides, in both cases, the total page count is still probably less than War and Peace.) Just be grateful I didn't include Durrell's Alexandria Quartet or Mann's Joseph books (which, come to think of it, perfectly illustrates my point: depending on the edition you own, it's either three volumes or four!) or all of the Divine Comedy (Singleton translation only, please).
So there!
Last edited:
Ben Jackson
Well-known member
Blindness Jose Saramago
War and Peace Tolstoy
Anna Karenina Tolstoy
Crime and Punishment Dostoevesky
Brothers Karamazov Dostoevesky
Moby Dick Hermann Melville
Les Miserables Victor Hugo
Picture of Dorian Gray Wilde
Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy
Voss Patrick White
The Conservationist Nadine Gordimer
The Interpreters Wole Soyinka
Hunger Knut Hamsun
Beloved Toni Morrison
To the Lighthouse Woolf
Golden Notebook Doris Lessing
Enigma of Arrival Naipaul
Confession of a Mask Mishima
A Thousand Cranes Kawabata
Death of Artemio Cruz Fuentes
The Clown Boll
Soul Mountain Xingjiang
Zorba the Greek Kazantzakis
The Stanger Camus
The Sound and the Fury Faulkner
Montauk Max Frisch
An Episode in the Landscape of Painter Aira
A Clockwork Orange Burgess
Go Tell it On the Mountain Baldwin
Another Country Baldwin
A Personal Matter Oe
Family of Paschal Duarte Cela
Ivan Denisovich Solzhensityn
Doctor Zhivago Pasternak
A Grain of Wheat Ngugi
All the King's Men Penn Warren
To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
A Dry White Season Brink
Savage Dectatives Bolano
Arrow of God Chinua Achebe
Palace Walk Mahfouz
Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas Assis
If on a winter's Night, a Traveler Calvino
Invisible Man Ellison
Solid Mandala White
Herzog Below
The Trial Kafka
Ulysses Joyce
Swann's Way Proust
End of the Affair Greene
War and Peace Tolstoy
Anna Karenina Tolstoy
Crime and Punishment Dostoevesky
Brothers Karamazov Dostoevesky
Moby Dick Hermann Melville
Les Miserables Victor Hugo
Picture of Dorian Gray Wilde
Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy
Voss Patrick White
The Conservationist Nadine Gordimer
The Interpreters Wole Soyinka
Hunger Knut Hamsun
Beloved Toni Morrison
To the Lighthouse Woolf
Golden Notebook Doris Lessing
Enigma of Arrival Naipaul
Confession of a Mask Mishima
A Thousand Cranes Kawabata
Death of Artemio Cruz Fuentes
The Clown Boll
Soul Mountain Xingjiang
Zorba the Greek Kazantzakis
The Stanger Camus
The Sound and the Fury Faulkner
Montauk Max Frisch
An Episode in the Landscape of Painter Aira
A Clockwork Orange Burgess
Go Tell it On the Mountain Baldwin
Another Country Baldwin
A Personal Matter Oe
Family of Paschal Duarte Cela
Ivan Denisovich Solzhensityn
Doctor Zhivago Pasternak
A Grain of Wheat Ngugi
All the King's Men Penn Warren
To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
A Dry White Season Brink
Savage Dectatives Bolano
Arrow of God Chinua Achebe
Palace Walk Mahfouz
Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas Assis
If on a winter's Night, a Traveler Calvino
Invisible Man Ellison
Solid Mandala White
Herzog Below
The Trial Kafka
Ulysses Joyce
Swann's Way Proust
End of the Affair Greene
redhead
Blahblahblah
A “like” just brought my attention back to this thread, and I have to say, I’m deeply embarrassed about my old list ??
As someone else pointed out, not a single woman listed! And many of the books and writers I did include have since fallen considerably in my eyes.
So, here is a new list, though like last time I have nowhere near 50 books (it’s 28, if I counted right. So coincidentally the same length as my last one). There are a few books on my last list that aren’t included here more because I haven’t read them in ages and don’t know what I’d make of them now, 12 years later (mainly Glass Bead Game and Blindness, plus the Faulkner and Murakami).
Jon Fosse: Trilogy
Jon Fosse: Morning & Evening
Can Xue: Frontier
Can Xue: Vertical Motion
Can Xue: The Last Lover
Patrick White: Voss
Lucius Shepard: The Jaguar Hunter
Ursula K Le Guin: The Dispossessed
Ursula K Le Guin: The Left Hand of Darkness
Kenzaburo Oe: A Personal Matter
Kenzaburo Oe: The Silent Cry
Samuel Delany: The Einstein Intersection
Gene Wolfe: Book of the New Sun
Gene Wolfe: Fifth Head of Cerberus
N K Jemisin: Fifth Season
Lydia Davis: Collected Stories
M John Harrison: Viriconium
Pierre Michon: Abbots & Winter Mythologies
William Golding: Darkness Visible
Charlotte Brontë: Jane Eyre
Samuel Beckett: Trilogy
Olav Hauge: Luminous Spaces
Dag Solstad: T. Singer
Halldor Laxness: World Light
Yukio Mishima: Temple of the Golden Pavilion
Olga Tokarczuk: Primeval and Other Times
Laszlo Krasznahorkai: Seiobo There Below
Jeff Vandermeer: City of Saints and Madmen
As someone else pointed out, not a single woman listed! And many of the books and writers I did include have since fallen considerably in my eyes.So, here is a new list, though like last time I have nowhere near 50 books (it’s 28, if I counted right. So coincidentally the same length as my last one). There are a few books on my last list that aren’t included here more because I haven’t read them in ages and don’t know what I’d make of them now, 12 years later (mainly Glass Bead Game and Blindness, plus the Faulkner and Murakami).
Jon Fosse: Trilogy
Jon Fosse: Morning & Evening
Can Xue: Frontier
Can Xue: Vertical Motion
Can Xue: The Last Lover
Patrick White: Voss
Lucius Shepard: The Jaguar Hunter
Ursula K Le Guin: The Dispossessed
Ursula K Le Guin: The Left Hand of Darkness
Kenzaburo Oe: A Personal Matter
Kenzaburo Oe: The Silent Cry
Samuel Delany: The Einstein Intersection
Gene Wolfe: Book of the New Sun
Gene Wolfe: Fifth Head of Cerberus
N K Jemisin: Fifth Season
Lydia Davis: Collected Stories
M John Harrison: Viriconium
Pierre Michon: Abbots & Winter Mythologies
William Golding: Darkness Visible
Charlotte Brontë: Jane Eyre
Samuel Beckett: Trilogy
Olav Hauge: Luminous Spaces
Dag Solstad: T. Singer
Halldor Laxness: World Light
Yukio Mishima: Temple of the Golden Pavilion
Olga Tokarczuk: Primeval and Other Times
Laszlo Krasznahorkai: Seiobo There Below
Jeff Vandermeer: City of Saints and Madmen