Top 100 Books

Spynotes posted the list below of "the top 100 books of all time," as published by The Guardian here. As Spynotes notes, there's plenty to argue about, in terms of books included as well as books left off, but she lists the books, with those read (at least in significant part) printed in bold.

Here, then, is what I've read. I think my list is pretty wimpy! I posted last week about plans to read through the NEA "Big Read" list this summer, and i'm working on Alvarez' In the Time of the Butterflies at the moment, so I'm not going to start in on this list right away. But it gives ideas.

Copy and repost if you want to play.

1. Chinua Achebe, Nigeria, (b. 1930), Things Fall Apart
2. Hans Christian Andersen, Denmark, (1805-1875), Fairy Tales and Stories
3. Jane Austen, England, (1775-1817), Pride and Prejudice
4. Honore de Balzac, France, (1799-1850), Old Goriot
5. Samuel Beckett, Ireland, (1906-1989), Trilogy: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable
6. Giovanni Boccaccio, Italy, (1313-1375), Decameron
7. Jorge Luis Borges, Argentina, (1899-1986), Collected Fictions
8. Emily Bronte, England, (1818-1848), Wuthering Heights
9. Albert Camus, France, (1913-1960), The Stranger
10. Paul Celan, Romania/France, (1920-1970), Poems.
11. Louis-Ferdinand Celine, France, (1894-1961), Journey to the End of the Night
12. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Spain, (1547-1616), Don Quixote
13. Geoffrey Chaucer, England, (1340-1400), Canterbury Tales
14. Anton P Chekhov, Russia, (1860-1904), Selected Stories
15. Joseph Conrad, England,(1857-1924), Nostromo
16. Dante Alighieri, Italy, (1265-1321), The Divine Comedy
17. Charles Dickens, England, (1812-1870), Great Expectations
18. Denis Diderot, France, (1713-1784), Jacques the Fatalist and His Master
19. Alfred Doblin, Germany, (1878-1957), Berlin Alexanderplatz
20-23. Fyodor M Dostoyevsky, Russia, (1821-1881), Crime and Punishment; The Idiot; The Possessed; The Brothers Karamazov
24. George Eliot, England, (1819-1880), Middlemarch
25. Ralph Ellison, United States, (1914-1994), Invisible Man
26.Euripides, Greece, (c 480-406 BC), Medea
27-28. William Faulkner, United States, (1897-1962), Absalom, Absalom; The Sound and the Fury
29-30. Gustave Flaubert, France, (1821-1880), Madame Bovary; A Sentimental Education
31. Federico Garcia Lorca, Spain, (1898-1936), Gypsy Ballads
32-33. Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Colombia, (b. 1928), One Hundred Years of Solitude; Love in the Time of Cholera
34. Gilgamesh, Mesopotamia (c 1800 BC).
35. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Germany, (1749-1832), Faust
36. Nikolai Gogol, Russia, (1809-1852), Dead Souls
37. Gunter Grass, Germany, (b.1927), The Tin Drum
38. Joao Guimaraes Rosa, Brazil, (1880-1967), The Devil to Pay in the Backlands
39. Knut Hamsun, Norway, (1859-1952), Hunger.
40. Ernest Hemingway, United States, (1899-1961), The Old Man and the Sea
41-42. Homer, Greece, (c 700 BC), The Iliad and The Odyssey
43. Henrik Ibsen, Norway (1828-1906), A Doll’s House
44. The Book of Job, Israel. (600-400 BC).
45. James Joyce, Ireland, (1882-1941), Ulysses
46-48. Franz Kafka, Bohemia, (1883-1924), The Complete Stories; The Trial; The Castle Bohemia
49. Kalidasa, India, (c. 400), The Recognition of Sakuntala
50. Yasunari Kawabata, Japan, (1899-1972), The Sound of the Mountain
51. Nikos Kazantzakis, Greece, (1883-1957), Zorba the Greek
52. DH Lawrence, England, (1885-1930), Sons and Lovers
53. Halldor K Laxness, Iceland, (1902-1998), Independent People
54. Giacomo Leopardi, Italy, (1798-1837), Complete Poems
55. Doris Lessing, England, (b.1919), The Golden Notebook
56. Astrid Lindgren, Sweden, (1907-2002), Pippi Longstocking
57. Lu Xun, China, (1881-1936), Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
58. Mahabharata, India, (c 500 BC).
59. Naguib Mahfouz, Egypt, (b. 1911), Children of Gebelawi
60-61. Thomas Mann, Germany, (1875-1955), Buddenbrook; The Magic Mountain
62. Herman Melville, United States, (1819-1891), Moby Dick
63. Michel de Montaigne, France, (1533-1592), Essays.
64. Elsa Morante, Italy, (1918-1985), History
65. Toni Morrison, United States, (b. 1931), Beloved
66. Shikibu Murasaki, Japan, (N/A), The Tale of Genji Genji
67. Robert Musil, Austria, (1880-1942), The Man Without Qualities
68. Vladimir Nabokov, Russia/United States, (1899-1977), Lolita
69. Njaals Saga, Iceland, (c 1300).
70. George Orwell, England, (1903-1950), 1984
71. Ovid, Italy, (c 43 BC), Metamorphoses
72. Fernando Pessoa, Portugal, (1888-1935), The Book of Disquiet
73. Edgar Allan Poe, United States, (1809-1849), The Complete Tales
74. Marcel Proust, France, (1871-1922), Remembrance of Things Past
75. Francois Rabelais, France, (1495-1553), Gargantua and Pantagruel
76. Juan Rulfo, Mexico, (1918-1986), Pedro Paramo
77. Jalal ad-din Rumi, Afghanistan, (1207-1273), Mathnawi
78. Salman Rushdie, India/Britain, (b. 1947), Midnight’s Children
79. Sheikh Musharrif ud-din Sadi, Iran, (c 1200-1292), The Orchard
80. Tayeb Salih, Sudan, (b. 1929), Season of Migration to the North
81. Jose Saramago, Portugal, (b. 1922), Blindness
82-84. William Shakespeare, England, (1564-1616), Hamlet; King Lear; Othello
85. Sophocles, Greece, (496-406 BC), Oedipus the King
86. Stendhal, France, (1783-1842), The Red and the Black
87. Laurence Sterne, Ireland, (1713-1768), The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy
88. Italo Svevo, Italy, (1861-1928), Confessions of Zeno
89. Jonathan Swift, Ireland, (1667-1745), Gulliver’s Travels
90-92. Leo Tolstoy, Russia, (1828-1910), War and Peace; Anna Karenina; The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories
93. Thousand and One Nights, India/Iran/Iraq/Egypt, (700-1500).
94. Mark Twain, United States, (1835-1910), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
95. Valmiki, India, (c 300 BC), Ramayana
96. Virgil, Italy, (70-19 BC), The Aeneid
97. Walt Whitman, United States, (1819-1892), Leaves of Grass
98-99. Virginia Woolf, England, (1882-1941), Mrs. Dalloway; To the Lighthouse
100. Marguerite Yourcenar, France, (1903-1987), Memoirs of Hadrian