Invisible Man…the funny thing about it…it took a late night college dorms room session to finally get the intro when I re read it the summer after my freshman year. Gotta run on🤪🍺✌️
If only Tiger could have, would have had as much self control of his game off the course, as he spent chasing it like a predator off the field of dreams, he, like Shotani, would be the undisputed G.O.A.T. playing right now…and like Ruth, breaking his own home run record over and over and over again…didn’t I say I gotta run on. I am who I say I am🤪🍺✌️
To the Village Idiwitt, “The Art of the Steal”, by Benjy Compson comes in at Numero Uno, it is a real world turner…beating the hell out of the ultimate judge’s otherwise first place finisher The Trump Bible…
Anywho, I kid, I KID ROCK YOU…did you know the last page turner The Don is purported to actually have read cover to cover was “My Struggle” by Donald J Trump…the historical similarities to 1984, with The Don boss recent meeting with planet earths biggest mass murderer’s Chairman Mao, I mean descendent Xi, should have U.S. all very, very worried how good works of fiction can be based on a true story. GOD HELP U.S. We the Living in Idiocracy. Here we are now, Trump entertain U.S. with your latest Bible burning mean, mean tweet. Gotta run on. Thanks for taking my rant Onward and Upward. Peace through superior mental firepower.
I, too, have stopped being interested in ranking as I have aged.
Rather than wasting time arguing, I am full of gratitude that I got to see Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus in their respective primes. I saw them on television, of course.
Rolling Stones or Beatles? I am fortunate to have enjoyed both.
I once had a discussion with a fellow hockey fan who questioned the notion of Wayne Gretzky being the greatest hockey player of all time. “What else would he have had to accomplish?” is my go-to reply.
I have read so many novels that touched me and moved me in such different ways, I would not know where to start to begin to rank them.
Now for a darker comment in regards to ranking: I always wonder why we need to rank the worst humans in history. Is Stalin worse than Hitler? Is Hitler worse than Stalin? Where is Mao? Who cares? There is a certain level of horribleness that needs no further ranking. They're all the worst.
These things are always subjective on the margins. There are novels I don't think belong and things I do. I'll stay positive in this comment and say only that it's missing A Suitable Boy (Vikram Seth) and Winter's Tale (Mark Helprin) to start, along with something by Dickens other than Our Mutual Friend. No Candide makes me sad too.
I should try Middlemarch again. I will not try Wuthering Heights again, for I have tried it numerous times and just can't stand it. I'm pleased to see Persuasion so high on the list, it is too often ignored.
Clearly you are inviting readers to share their own lists of favorite books, so here are the first twenty from my own list of my 100 favorites (mostly novels). I've maintained such a list for many years. I think I've added only three books in the last five years. A House for Mr Biswas comes in at # 49. Middlemarch is at # 28. The World of Yesterday sits at # 57. There are four novels by Evelyn Waugh on my list.
1. Dickens, Charles: Pickwick Papers
2. Waugh, Evelyn: Brideshead Revisited
3. Wodehouse, P. G.: short stories: Right Ho, Jeeves/Carry On, Jeeves/Ukridge/The Crime Wave at Blandings
4. Austen, Jane: Emma
5. Tolkien, J. R. R.: The Hobbit/The Lord of the Rings
6. Twain, Mark: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
7. Trollope, Anthony: The Last Chronicle of Barset
8. Dickens, Charles: A Christmas Carol
9. Fitzgerald, F. Scott: The Great Gatsby
10. Forster, E. M.: Howard’s End
11. Adams, Henry: The History of the United States During the Administrations of Adams and Jefferson
12. Wodehouse, P. G.: five Jeeves novels: The Code of the Woosters/Joy in the Morning/Very Good, Jeeves/Thank You, Jeeves/The Mating Season
13. Dickens, Charles: Bleak House
14. Faulkner, William: Light in August
15. Peake, Mervyn: Titus Groan/Gormenghast
16. Hawthorne, Nathaniel: The House of Seven Gables
17. Marquez, Gabriel Garcia: Love in the Time of Cholera
He lacked a certain gift for narrative that has probably secured his fate as a "writer's writer." (His non-fiction books are his best, I think.) But he had a savage wit (V. S. Pritchett, his editor and friend, rubbed off on him), Greene's appreciation of the absurd and Durrell's sensorial instincts, and there is a poignancy (Larkin-like, maybe) that pervades a lot of his work. Here's an example of the latter: "There was elision of light and sound, a transparency of effect flickering with quicksilver impressions—beautiful, bizarre, courteously erotic, eerie—combining to imply pagan impulses barely checked, a nostalgia for a golden past..." And the former: "All were doomed, only instant pleasure was left." He had the advantage of knowing everyone who ever lived in or trespassed on England. I recommend *In the Fifties* and *In Memory of England* if you can hound them down.
My list isn't my view of the "greatest" novels, just my own favorites. But any list of greatest novels that doesn't have Huckleberry Finn is highly suspect.
A Connecticut Yankee is also on my list of favorites.
The comments about "Middlemarch" warmed the heart of this Catholic school kid who was lucky enough to attend the UofP in the early seventies. In my soph year lit class a feminist professor helped me choose "Middlemarch" for my culminating essay. Fell in love with the novel and it still remains my #1. Sadly, every friend who read the novel at my recommendation.came away unimpressed. Now I feel a bit less lonely. 🙃
P.S. When it comes to Conrad, I'm all in for "Secret Agent."
Invisible Man…the funny thing about it…it took a late night college dorms room session to finally get the intro when I re read it the summer after my freshman year. Gotta run on🤪🍺✌️
P.S. Ruth, or Ohtani…!?
If only Tiger could have, would have had as much self control of his game off the course, as he spent chasing it like a predator off the field of dreams, he, like Shotani, would be the undisputed G.O.A.T. playing right now…and like Ruth, breaking his own home run record over and over and over again…didn’t I say I gotta run on. I am who I say I am🤪🍺✌️
To the Village Idiwitt, “The Art of the Steal”, by Benjy Compson comes in at Numero Uno, it is a real world turner…beating the hell out of the ultimate judge’s otherwise first place finisher The Trump Bible…
Anywho, I kid, I KID ROCK YOU…did you know the last page turner The Don is purported to actually have read cover to cover was “My Struggle” by Donald J Trump…the historical similarities to 1984, with The Don boss recent meeting with planet earths biggest mass murderer’s Chairman Mao, I mean descendent Xi, should have U.S. all very, very worried how good works of fiction can be based on a true story. GOD HELP U.S. We the Living in Idiocracy. Here we are now, Trump entertain U.S. with your latest Bible burning mean, mean tweet. Gotta run on. Thanks for taking my rant Onward and Upward. Peace through superior mental firepower.
I, too, have stopped being interested in ranking as I have aged.
Rather than wasting time arguing, I am full of gratitude that I got to see Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus in their respective primes. I saw them on television, of course.
Rolling Stones or Beatles? I am fortunate to have enjoyed both.
I once had a discussion with a fellow hockey fan who questioned the notion of Wayne Gretzky being the greatest hockey player of all time. “What else would he have had to accomplish?” is my go-to reply.
I have read so many novels that touched me and moved me in such different ways, I would not know where to start to begin to rank them.
Same with movies.
Great essay, Jay. Always a pleasure to read.
Beautifully put. And thank you.
You are most welcome.
We're also lucky to have you, good sir.
Thx, JG!
Would Jonah Goldberg call this rank punditry?
Yes, he would!
Tastefully clever.
Thanks.
A pleasure.
Now for a darker comment in regards to ranking: I always wonder why we need to rank the worst humans in history. Is Stalin worse than Hitler? Is Hitler worse than Stalin? Where is Mao? Who cares? There is a certain level of horribleness that needs no further ranking. They're all the worst.
Good observation.
Perhaps pure evil is just that: pure evil.
These things are always subjective on the margins. There are novels I don't think belong and things I do. I'll stay positive in this comment and say only that it's missing A Suitable Boy (Vikram Seth) and Winter's Tale (Mark Helprin) to start, along with something by Dickens other than Our Mutual Friend. No Candide makes me sad too.
I should try Middlemarch again. I will not try Wuthering Heights again, for I have tried it numerous times and just can't stand it. I'm pleased to see Persuasion so high on the list, it is too often ignored.
Jay:
Clearly you are inviting readers to share their own lists of favorite books, so here are the first twenty from my own list of my 100 favorites (mostly novels). I've maintained such a list for many years. I think I've added only three books in the last five years. A House for Mr Biswas comes in at # 49. Middlemarch is at # 28. The World of Yesterday sits at # 57. There are four novels by Evelyn Waugh on my list.
1. Dickens, Charles: Pickwick Papers
2. Waugh, Evelyn: Brideshead Revisited
3. Wodehouse, P. G.: short stories: Right Ho, Jeeves/Carry On, Jeeves/Ukridge/The Crime Wave at Blandings
4. Austen, Jane: Emma
5. Tolkien, J. R. R.: The Hobbit/The Lord of the Rings
6. Twain, Mark: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
7. Trollope, Anthony: The Last Chronicle of Barset
8. Dickens, Charles: A Christmas Carol
9. Fitzgerald, F. Scott: The Great Gatsby
10. Forster, E. M.: Howard’s End
11. Adams, Henry: The History of the United States During the Administrations of Adams and Jefferson
12. Wodehouse, P. G.: five Jeeves novels: The Code of the Woosters/Joy in the Morning/Very Good, Jeeves/Thank You, Jeeves/The Mating Season
13. Dickens, Charles: Bleak House
14. Faulkner, William: Light in August
15. Peake, Mervyn: Titus Groan/Gormenghast
16. Hawthorne, Nathaniel: The House of Seven Gables
17. Marquez, Gabriel Garcia: Love in the Time of Cholera
18. Saki: Collected Stories
19. Greene, Graham: The End of the Affair
20. Trollope, Anthony: The Way We Live Now
21. Lewis, C. S.: The Screwtape Letters
22. Gaskell, Elizabeth: Cranford
You Brits are good with the pen. Have you read Peter Vansittart?
I'm afraid I don't know him. Please tell me why I should read his work.
He lacked a certain gift for narrative that has probably secured his fate as a "writer's writer." (His non-fiction books are his best, I think.) But he had a savage wit (V. S. Pritchett, his editor and friend, rubbed off on him), Greene's appreciation of the absurd and Durrell's sensorial instincts, and there is a poignancy (Larkin-like, maybe) that pervades a lot of his work. Here's an example of the latter: "There was elision of light and sound, a transparency of effect flickering with quicksilver impressions—beautiful, bizarre, courteously erotic, eerie—combining to imply pagan impulses barely checked, a nostalgia for a golden past..." And the former: "All were doomed, only instant pleasure was left." He had the advantage of knowing everyone who ever lived in or trespassed on England. I recommend *In the Fifties* and *In Memory of England* if you can hound them down.
We’ll be in London next week -- I’ll look for those books. Thanks.
Wonderful, Paul! Thx.
Dang it, and now I've noticed Twain has been left off the Guardians' list as well. Unacceptable.
My list isn't my view of the "greatest" novels, just my own favorites. But any list of greatest novels that doesn't have Huckleberry Finn is highly suspect.
A Connecticut Yankee is also on my list of favorites.
The comments about "Middlemarch" warmed the heart of this Catholic school kid who was lucky enough to attend the UofP in the early seventies. In my soph year lit class a feminist professor helped me choose "Middlemarch" for my culminating essay. Fell in love with the novel and it still remains my #1. Sadly, every friend who read the novel at my recommendation.came away unimpressed. Now I feel a bit less lonely. 🙃
P.S. When it comes to Conrad, I'm all in for "Secret Agent."
I've read Middlemarch several times and have loved it more each time. Don't be lonely.
Thanks!