22 July 2010

Another list of "100 Best Novels"

I suppose there must be 100 lists of "100 best novels."  This one seems to emanate from Modern Library and tilt toward American literature.  I don't think I'll ever understand why so many such lists put Ulysses at the top.  Still, it's fun to browse these things.  I think I've only read 32 of these, and I found several that I hadn't considered and will put on my neverending list of BooksToRead.

Via The Centered Librarian.

Update: Pietr Hitzig discovered that this book list has been heavily criticized.

2 comments:

  1. It looks like a list of great books of 1964 not 2010. Rushdie might be the youngest author on the list.

    I didn't spend that much time on this ridiculous list so please don't point out my obvious errors.

    How did they miss Thomas Hardie?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Follow up.

    Wikipedia relates the furor that occurred with the release of this list a decade ago.

    Of course, the titles are also preselected. Only MODERN LIBRARY books were on the nominated list.

    Bennett Cerf, the polymath responsible for MODERN LIBRARY, was already dead a quarter century when this list was released. I don't think he would have approved.

    ReplyDelete

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