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What are your "Best Books?"
Published: 8/2/2008 4:07 PM
Last Modified: 8/2/2008 4:07 PM

Blogger Neil Bowers has come up with what he calls "A Unified List of the Best 100 Novels." He took similar lists from a variety of sources and mixed them all together, to see what would emerge.

His results are here:

Read the complete list here:
Read the story: Best Novels

One thing that sets this list a bit apart is that Bowers also took into account public popularity, as well as "literary merit." Which explains the inclusion of such recent books as "The Kite Runner" and "The Da Vinci Code" -- both of which rate higher on this list than, say, "The Brothers Karamazov."

Books that were designed to appeal to "younger readers" are also here -- the Harry Potter books are considered a single entry, as well as Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy, "Anne of Green Gables" (which turns 100 this year) and -- yes! -- Roald Dahl's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."

At the top? Orwell's "1984," followed by "The Great Gatsby." Joyce's "Ulysses" checks in at No. 8.

Lists such as these are about as accurate a measure of literary excellence as hacking open a sheep and seeing what spills out is a method of forecasting the weather.

But they do make a good starting point for argument and discussion. Does something like "The Da Vinci Code" deserve to be on a "Best Novels" list? Does something as unwieldy and dense as "Gravity's Rainbow" need to be on such a list? What should be on the list that isn't?




Reader Comments 6 Total
dean (5 years ago)
Proust is the most notable absentee. Also Stendhal, Flaubert, Gogol, Pushkin and Graham Greene. And how does Ayn Rand make a list like this?
watts (5 years ago)
Dean,

I think Rand made it on to the list because of "popularity" -- think of her what you will, she has, it seems, sold a lot of books that have either enriched mankind or needlessly laid waste to acres of forest for no good reason.

And I agree with you that Graham Greene is never accorded the respect i think his work deserves.
Wayne Greene (5 years ago)
The Greene Top 4
1. The Great Gatsby
2. To the Lighthouse
3. Brideshead Revisited
4. Lolita

I don't know how far down I'd have to go before I hit Ayn Rand. It's sort of a philosophical question. How far is bottom?

wg
Stick61 (5 years ago)
The late William F. Buckley Jr.'s impersonation of Ayn Rand telling him she was sure he was much too intelligent to believe in God was much more entertaining, and mercifully much shorter, than anything she wrote. It is unfortunate that, as far as I can tell from a brief search of the list, none of the novels of Michael Ondaatje made the list. The English Patient is the one that most will remember.
Robert H. Smith (5 years ago)
Also, while I think On the Road is an important American novel, it is not as significant as Moby-Dick, which is ranked almost 50 spots below it. Granted, On the Road is easier to read. Personally, I think Moby-Dick is the most significant American novel up to, say, the death of Hemingway.
Stick61 (5 years ago)
As for The Da Vinci Code, I read it and did a little research on it and found it mighty trendy and painfully derivative of other, lesser-known work to really make a best-novels list.
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ARTS

James D. Watts Jr. has lived in Oklahoma for most his life, even though he still has people saying to him, "Don't sound like you're from around these parts." A University of Oklahoma Phi Beta Kappa graduate, Watts has received the Governor Arts Award, Harwelden Award and the National Conference of Christians and Jews Beth Macklin Award for his writing. Before coming to the Tulsa World, Watts worked for the Tulsa Tribune.

Contact him at (918) 581-8478.

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