And the top five novels are ...

Was the people's list generated from an online poll? Because it seems like it was hijacked by nerds (obviously not literature nerds) and scientologists.

As for my list:

1) Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov
2) Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
3) Look Homeward Angel, Thomas Wolfe
4) One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
5) Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad

Pale Fire is probably the closest to a perfect piece of literature I've ever read.

Try these on fpr size

Mrs. Dalloway (Woolf)
Sons and Lovers (Lawrence)
Of Human Bondage (Maugham)
The Alexandrian Quartet (Durrell)
East of Eden (Steinbeck)
*******
genre novels:

Brighton Rock (Greene)
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (Le Carré)

I recall there was a similar poll in the UK, by Waterstones ( a bookstore chain) and the Lord of the Rings came out on top, much to the disgust of the literati.

Either Waterstone's poll was better conducted to avoid mass voting by Ayn Rand fans (gee, I thought they were supposed to be individualists) or the Brits have never heard of her.

Having just perused the list, I realize I would have put Nostromo (Conrad) in, had I thought of it.

Also The Heart of the Matter (Greene),
and To the Lighthouse (Woolf)

but i liked the ones I picked by these authors better.

My top five, in no particular order.

Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent
Rudyard Kipling, Kim
John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
Joseph Heller, Catch-22
William Kennedy, Ironweed

And, just for the pure art of spinning a yarn, John Buchan's John Macnab

The Waterstones poll is online. Here are the top ten from that:

1. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
2. George Orwell, 1984
3. George Orwell, Animal Farm
4. James Joyce, Ulysses
5. Joseph Heller, Catch-22
6. J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
7. Harper lee, To Kill a Mocking Bird
8. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
9. John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
10. Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting

And no Rand or Hubbard to be seen in the list.
Oh, and I'd read 43% of that list.

Aside from #1, these are in no particular order.

Swordspoint Ellen Kushner
The Tiger in the Smoke Margery Allingham
A Room With a View E.M. Forster
Night's Master Tanith Lee
Deerskin Robin McKinley

For all I read, I've read 8/15 of the two lists. On the other hand, I had to keep excluding books from my top five because they were written too early.

What does 'best' refer to here? Does it mean 'does stuff to my head but I still had to read it through...', or 'enjoyable and entertaining', or 'life-changingly brilliant'?

I'd also draw your attention to the matter of timeliness. Terry Pratchett once said something like: '...for a 13 year old boy to think that 'Lord of the Rings' is the greatest book ever written is perfectly natural. If someone still thinks so when they reach 30, its' time to get worried...'

Many of the books which have dramatic impacts on us are read when we are in our teens. Retrospectively, they are often not quite as wonderful or insightful as we recall. Many of the books which please us as adults are pleasurable for a whole complex range of reasons, but rarely do they hit us with the impact of that first reading of 'Catcher in the Rye' or 'Animal Farm'.

My 'top ten' would have to include about a hundred books. I've read 68 of the Waterstone's 100; I even vaguely recall some of them. As your post isn't really meant to be taken so seriously, here is a list of 7 authors whose books I currently consume with anticipation and pleasure:

Iain M Banks
Garry Kilworth
Terry Pratchett
Steven Erikson
Bernard Cornwell
Ian Rankin
Robert Rankin

Regards,

I really resist rating and prioritizing artwork of any kind because any one thing speaks to each person uniquely at that moment in their lives.

I must say, however, the Ursala Le Guin's The Dispossessed and then The Left Hand of Darkness really had an impact on me and have continued to do so after every subsequent read.

Earlier, The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Justin was an eye-opening experience for me and is still a delight.

Ohhhhhhhh, books....

www.theskinofmyteeth.com

David B.

In general I don't have a problem with the novels selected by the panel, but ... no Kafka!? No Dostoevsky!? That's just wrong.

@Norm

No Dostoevsky!?

Considering he died in 1881 and the poll is for novels written in the 1900's ...

Oh, quite right. Still, there's the omission of Kafka, and what about Proust's "In Search of Lost Time"? That should at least be in the top 10.

The Random House list does not have much in the way of translations (I am not sure about Darkness at Noon), while the British list has quite a few. That could explain the absence of Kafka.

If translations are allowed in I would go for The Plague, by Camus

Paul01, I agree, The Plague belongs on the list.

or the Brits have never heard of her

Yup. Ayn Who?