100 novels everyone should read
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I've read 8, seen few more as movies, if you count watching the movie. I think there are a number of books that should have been mentioned over what was presented. Other than HG Wells, Mary Shelly or Douglas Adams where were the some of the other notable Sci Fi writers? Phillip K Dick, Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury. Too many books, too many books...
It was broke, so I fixed it.
I'd be hard pressed to keep my list down to only 100 if we were listing the 'must read' science fiction novels.
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21. I'm appalled that the Foundation Trilogy by Asimov (or Asimov's I Robot series) is not on that list! Marc
Come now, Marc. This list was for serious literature, not that populist tripe.
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megaadam wrote:
heard about a singer called Tom Jones?
It's not unusual! ;)
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17 No more than that because a) never heard of it b) feeling barfish just contemplating it or c) too busy with better books Saw the movie "Crash". Can't bear Ballard's writing, so didn't rad the book, but the story was good.
We won't sit down. We won't shut up. We won't go quietly away. YouTube and My Mu[sic], Films and Windows Programs, etc.
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Come now, Marc. This list was for serious literature, not that populist tripe.
Software Zen:
delete this;Gary Wheeler wrote:
This list was for serious literature, not that populist tripe.
And that's why Lord of the Rings was on the list? Serious literature? Well, maybe the elven poems could be considered such. :) Marc
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Gary Wheeler wrote:
This list was for serious literature, not that populist tripe.
And that's why Lord of the Rings was on the list? Serious literature? Well, maybe the elven poems could be considered such. :) Marc
You'll note that Lord of the Rings was entry #100, the bottom of the list. I have a feeling the only reason it was included was that Tolkien was English, and his trilogy has earned more money been read more times than the rest of the entries on the list combined.
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You'll note that Lord of the Rings was entry #100, the bottom of the list. I have a feeling the only reason it was included was that Tolkien was English, and his trilogy has earned more money been read more times than the rest of the entries on the list combined.
Software Zen:
delete this;Gary Wheeler wrote:
been read more times than the rest of the entries on the list combined.
Or at least watched. ;) I'm constantly surprised by how few people I meet haven't actually read the books, even The Hobbit. I obviously run in the wrong crowds! Marc
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Gary Wheeler wrote:
been read more times than the rest of the entries on the list combined.
Or at least watched. ;) I'm constantly surprised by how few people I meet haven't actually read the books, even The Hobbit. I obviously run in the wrong crowds! Marc
I'll admit I haven't read them recently... well, since 1985. That's more of a reflection that I've been reading a lot of 'hard' science fiction lately, and haven't been interested in reading fantasy.
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Don't feel bad. I have a private library of nearly 13,000 volumes -- yes, I've read them all; I'm a novelist as well as a software engineer, and reading widely is a novelist's occupational requirement -- and of the 100 books on the Telegraph's list I've read only 23. But the list contains quite a number of novels I consider garbage, having read snatches of them and tossed them aside with a snort.
What comes to mind in this connection is Ambrose Bierce's definition of a classic: "A book everyone wants to have read, but no one wants to read." That applies to quite a number of the most frequently cited "classics," and sometimes for very good reasons!
(This message is programming you in ways you cannot detect. Be afraid.)
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The list is invalid without War and Peace on it. Although, it did have Hitchhiker's Guide... "I am rarely happier than when spending entire day programming my computer to perform automatically a task that it would otherwise take me a good ten seconds to do by hand." - Douglas Adams
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For me, 20. I am not a Philosopher so I never read Proust and partners. At this time I think a must did it, but I do not have enough time because I am reading not Philosophy books but novels (Sci-Fi, mystery...) :laugh:
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Right on. I've read one book from that list, The Lord of the Rings. Which is actually 3 books, but apparently that doesn't matter. I've read plenty of programming books from cover to cover at 1200-1500 pages each. But novels? I simply don't have enough time to sit down and read them. What does he do for a living?
No Lord Of The Rings is one book. That's how it was written and how it was intended to be read. Tolkien was forced into the rather artificial dividing of the work by his publisher and he was never happy with it. Most modern editions reunite the three parts in a single volume in any event.
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I hit 15 only counting the books I finished. Ulysses is bull s**t on a stick. Get drunk (really drunk), talk into a recorder and you will have made as much readable material. Pseudo-intellectuals sop up this kind for garbage and claim to "so get it" when there is nothing there. Emperor/clothes much?
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I see Moby Dick is on the list (as if it's ever not on a list). For anyone who hasn't read it, here's the short version: Rope is awesome. Knots knots, rope, knots, oh yea baby. Also a white whale because reasons.
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The list is invalid without War and Peace on it. Although, it did have Hitchhiker's Guide... "I am rarely happier than when spending entire day programming my computer to perform automatically a task that it would otherwise take me a good ten seconds to do by hand." - Douglas Adams
Well hardly invalid. It's a list of 100 novels that should be read. It doesn't say anywhere that it's the only 100 novels you should read nor indeed that these are the 'best', 'greatest' or any other superlative you care to mention. It doesn't even claim that the list is any kind of definition of 'literature' as we know it.
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For me, 20. I am not a Philosopher so I never read Proust and partners. At this time I think a must did it, but I do not have enough time because I am reading not Philosophy books but novels (Sci-Fi, mystery...) :laugh:
In what way is Proust philosophy? Certainly it's an exploration of the human condition but that's true of pretty much all good writing and especially so of sci-fi. If any genre can be accused of being 'philosophical' then sci-fi is right up there among the usual suspects!
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