Top ten works of literature ever?

[Nubclear]

Re: Re: Re: Top ten works of literature ever?

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi


well that definitely fits monkspider's criteria as being a work of fiction.....

Hmm....Just goes to show one should read the post before posting

[Ari Rahikkala]

Just a few 's to already mentioned books (ones that I've read):

Douglas Adams: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series
Isaac Asimov: Foundation series
Aleksis Kivi: Seitsemän Veljestä (one of the best works of fiction ever written by a Finn)

Plus, perhaps, Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. I'll have to read the whole series (have only read the first book) to make any sort of a judgement, though.

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by Ramo
I haven't gotten that far in the series yet. I've only read to book 4 (or maybe 3).

Stop now. It only goes downhill from there.

[Kepler]

Originally posted by monolith94
The Club Dumas

Excellent choice for a good book, though from Perez-Reverte I preferred The Flanders Panel. I'm slogging through The Seville Communion right now, but it's interminable.

From Twain, rather than Huck Finn I'll take Life on the Mississippi, one of the two great American novels (the other being Moby D1ck.

I'd definitely include the Collected Works of H.G. Wells, especially since he poses the immortal "three books" question at the end of Time Machine. Also "Winnie the Pooh," IMHO the greatest work of children's literature for adults ever written.

And I have a special fondness for Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe novellas and short stories (having read about 60 of the 70-or-so), though I don't think I'd them on the heavy hitter list.

[Sikander]

Very tough to choose, and bound to change from day to day.

I agree that Catch-22 has to be on that list, and I like a lot of Russian fiction, Gogol, Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Lermentov, Tolstoy. I would also recommend Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov who was born in Russia but wrote Lolita in English, and almost anything from Joseph Conrad, who writes so well it's hard to believe that English was his 3rd language. One could easily fill the list with these authors alone, and I haven't even gotten to the Brits or Americans yet.

I am surprised to find Hitchhikers Guide mentioned, and shocked to see it mentioned more than once. It was amusing, but to me about as memorable as an average comic book.

[Kropotkin]

Ok here I go (in no particular order and excluding some literature in Swedish only):

* Joseph Heller: Catch 22
* Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness
* Irvine Welsh: Trainspottning
* Fjodor Dostorjevskij: Crime and Punishment
* Hermann Hesse: Steppenwolf
* Luke Rhinehart: The Dice Man
* Albert Camus: Tje Myth of Sisyphus
* George Orwell: 1984
* Jaroslav Hasek: The Good Soldier Svejk
* Karel Capek: War of the Newts

Hard not to be inspired by others here. Also, obviously there's to many books I haven't read. I tried not to be pretentious but it's not easy when we're talking about the top ten.

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by Kepler
Also "Winnie the Pooh," IMHO the greatest work of children's literature for adults ever written.

it is IMHO too.

[vulture]

Limiting myself to one book per person (and in no particular order):

1. Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkein
2. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
3. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
4. The Dispossessed - Ursula LeGuin (hard to pick just one of hers)
5. 1984 - George Orwell
6. Nostromo - Joseph Conrad
7. Possession - A. S. Byatt
8. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
9. Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
10. To Say Nothing of the Dog - Connie Willis

EDIT: I'm tempted to throw in 'Of Mice and Men' or 'The Grapes of Wrath' now I've thought a bit more, but am not sure that any of the above deserve to be booted out to make room.

[Wernazuma III]

Homer - Odyssee
Thomas Morus - Utopia
Cervantes - Don Quixote
Shakespeare - Mac Beth
Shakespeare - Hamlet
Lewis Carroll - Alice in Wonderland
George Orwell - 1984
J.R.R. Tolkien - Lord of the Rings

That's only 8, I know. But these arfe all that sprung to my mind first and so be it.

[Ben Kenobi]

Going only by books that I have read:

Genesis - Bible
Ivan Denisovich - Solzhenitsen
Crime & Punishment - Dostoyevski
Grapes of Wrath - Steinbeck
Heart of Darkness - Conrad
Things Fall Apart - Achebe
Foundation series - Asimov
To Sail beyond the Sunset - Heinlein
Rowan - Anne McCaffrey
Hammer of God - Clarke

[Aeson]

Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Everything else on my list has already been mentioned (I just don't want to have to decide between so many good books ).

[vulture]

Originally posted by Aeson
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Everything else on my list has already been mentioned (I just don't want to have to decide between so many good books ).

That was another one that I was considering sticking in my list - if I could find someone else to chop out. I just couldn't be bothered to edit my post a second time...

[monolith94]

Frustrated Poet, I beg to disagree. Mostly harmless is the most ideologically transcendent and significant of all the series. It holds a surrealisticly simplistic quality about it, and deals excellently with relationships between simple folks just mucking about in the world. Highly reccomended by moi. Although my two favorite moments are the mountain sequence, where he learns to fly, and gets the olive oil, and where he flies by a jet-liner with his girlfriend there.
Two books which deserve mentioning:
Martian Chronicles - FÃœCKING AMAZING BOOK! Altered my perception of chronological narrative forever!
Real Life Of Sebastian Knight - The overlooked Nabokov book, overlooked in favor of Lolita. This book expresses so many profound thoughts and ideas, in a structure so complex yet elegant! My favorite quote from it: "Imagination is the muscle of the soul".

[vulture]

Oh, and by the way, anyone who picks a Dickens novel ( monkspider ) will be summarily executed for being a depressing b*st*rd.

[orange]

I don't see why 1984 is such a popular choice. I didn't think it was that well written, and the concept - while interesting - was not as developed as it could have been.

I think Lord of the Flies is an excellent choice as a great book but not sure about top 10 of all time simply due to the fact that it's not very long. Still very, very good though. One of my all time favourites.