The Elliot's Reading Top 100 Books

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Here's the list, the Elliot's Reading Top 100 Books. This list comprises literary fiction (novels, novellas, and short-story collections) only - no nonfiction, memoir, or poetry; no genre fiction (mystery, scifi, fantasy). They're all books that I've read, though some I've read only once or quite a while ago. The list is arranged, essentially, in the order that the books occurred to me - my own Search for Lost Time - with a few amendments after I hit #100. I avoided omnibus editions (e.g., story collections), though many of the short-story writers on the list have editions of collected or selected stories that are well worth reading. Nearly every writer represented has other books worth reading of course - so this list can be a map for further exploration, I hope. 

You'll note that no writer is represented by more than one book on the list, which of course leads to many choices and decisions. Can you identify all the authors? Within the next week, I'll re-post, adding the authors' names.

You'll see that the list skews toward Anglo-American-European-white-male authors - a fault of mine, perhaps, and of our world of publishing? The list also, obviously, represents my own personal taste and reading history. The selections lean heavily toward the great European naturalist tradition; had I composed a similar list 25 years ago, I would have included a lot more experimental and postmodern fiction - and to explain my shift in taste over time might be the subject of a future blog post or posts. 

How many of the 100 have you read? If you've read more than 70, we share similar interests. If you've read more than 80, we share similar taste. If you've read more than 90, we share similar experiences. If you've read all 100 - then you are me!
 

1.     Don Quixote

2.     War and Peace

3.     Crime and Punishment

4.     Swann’s Way

5.     A Sentimental Education

6.     The Red and the Black

7.     The Magic Mountain

8.     Ulysses

9.     Light in August

10.  A Farewell to Arms

11.  Mrs. Dalloway

12.  Emma

13.  Bleak House

14.  The Lady with the Little Dog and other stories

15.  A Passage to India

16.  The Color Purple

17.  Death Comes for the Archbishop

18.  Invisible Man

19.  The God of Small Things

20.  The Leopard

21.  Confessions of Zeno

22.  Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage

23.  The Hill Bachelors

24.  Cathedral

25.  The Age of Innocence

26.  Things Fall Apart

27.  Tom Jones

28.  Museums and Women

29.  American Pastoral

30.  Fathers and Sons

31.  The Elephant Vanishes

32.  The Crying of Lot 49

33.  Middlemarch

34.  A Turn of the Screw and other stories

35.  A Month in the Country

36.  The Light in the Piazza

37.  The Good Soldier

38.  100 Years of Solitude

39.  The Bell Jar

40.  Mr. Mani

41.  Snow

42.  Snow Falling on Cedars

43.  To Kill a Mockingbird

44.  Nine Stories

45.  Lord Jim

46.  Moby-Dick

47.  The Scarlet Letter

48.  Wuthering Heights

49.  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

50.  A Separate Peace

51.  Lord of the Flies

52.  Jane Eyre

53.  The Tin Drum

54.  Crossing to Safety

55.  Mrs. Bridge

56.  Metamorphosis and other stories

57.  The Unbearable Lightness of Being

58.  The Known World

59.  Germinal

60.  One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

61.  The Adventures of Augie March

62.  The Origin of the Brunists

63.  Pale Fire

64.  A House for Mr. Biswas

65.  The Power and the Glory

66.  Lonesome Dove

67.  The Golden Gate

68.  A Fine Balance

69.  The Great Gatsby

70.  On the Road

71.  Jude the Obscure

72.  Beloved

73.  A Good Man Is Hard to Find

74.  A Worn Path

75.  A Crown of Feathers and other stories

76.  Their Eyes Were Watching God

77.  A Confederacy of Dunces

78.  So Long, See You Tomorrow

79.  The Housebreaker of Shady Hill

80.  The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner

81.  Suite Francaise

82.  On the Road

83.  Bonfire of the Vanities

84.  All the King’s Men

85.  The Executioner’s Song

86.  The Haunting of Hill House

87.  Go Tell It on the Mountain

88.  The Grapes of Wrath

89.  The Sheltering Sky

90.  Gulliver’s Travels

91.  1984

92.  Brave New World

93.  Austerlitz

94.  Frankenstein

95.  Ficciones

96.  Atonement

97.  11 Kinds of Loneliness

98.  The Secret History

99.  Blood Meridian

100.                 Catch-22

(Friend TG has noted that On the Road appears twice - my bad! - but that opens up a spot. Accepting nominations. I will update the list within a week or so.)