Coming Saturday: The Elliotsreading Top 100 Books

Have you checked out the BBC list of The Top 100 Books to Read, or whatever they call it - books that they expect everyone should read (and the believe the average person has read only 6) - I think the list is a few years old but it's recently surfaced on Facebook and many people are chiming in w/ how many they've read. I read 66 (wish I'd read the whole Bible!), or, math whiz that I am, about 2/3rds. I've seen a few people hit the 70s - and a lot of complaints and laments about the oddity of the list - the many pop culture, self-help, or otherwise ephemeral books side by side with true classics, the odd mix of genres, the weird lapses on taste - many inexplicable inclusions and inexcusable exclusions. So what's the answer? And how do you possible "score" 100 without devoting the next few years to reading books you've perhaps quite rightly ignored over the past 50 years? You make up a list of your own! Therefore, on Saturday, I will post the Elliotsreading Top 100 Books. Aside from excellence, interest, influence, and originality, there are several criteria: First, they will be books I have read so that I can score 100. Sorry. Second, all literary fiction - no nonfiction, memoir, or genre (children's, scifi, mystery, fantasy, horror). Third, only one book per author; almost every author represented, however, will have written other books worth your attention, so the list will be kind of a chart that can maybe guide you to other literary pleasures and discoveries. Stay tuned till Saturday.