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Time’s 100 Best Novels 1923-present

Bil asked the question: how many of Time’s list of 100 Best Novels have you read?
41 of them. Most of them in high school or college English classes. When I read the list I was disappointed at what was missing and some of the crap they included. These people can’t tell me they actually read Infinite Jest. I don’t believe it. And what the hell is “Are you there God, It’s me Margaret” doing on this list? If they needed to pick a teen novel, there are 30 better than that. I also wonder why they picked the year 1923 as the starting point. What’s significant about that year?

  1. The Adventures of Augie March
  2. Animal Farm
  3. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (what the hell?)
  4. Beloved
  5. The Blind Assassin
  6. The Bridge of San Luis Rey
  7. Catch-22
  8. The Catcher in the Rye
  9. A Clockwork Orange
  10. The Corrections
  11. Death Comes for the Archbishop
  12. The French Lieutenant’s Woman (TOTAL SUCKAGE!)
  13. Go Tell it on the Mountain
  14. Gone With the Wind
  15. The Grapes of Wrath
  16. The Great Gatsby
  17. The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter
  18. Herzog
  19. Invisible Man
  20. Light in August
  21. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
  22. Lolita
  23. Lord of the Flies
  24. The Lord of the Rings
  25. Midnight’s Children
  26. Mrs. Dalloway
  27. Neuromancer
  28. 1984
  29. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
  30. Portnoy’s Complaint (SUCKED!)
  31. Possession
  32. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
  33. Rabbit, Run
  34. Slaughterhouse-Five
  35. Snow Crash
  36. The Sound and the Fury (Two Faulkners listed, but not “As I Lay Dying?” Shame.)
  37. The Sun Also Rises
  38. To Kill a Mockingbird
  39. To the Lighthouse
  40. Tropic of Cancer
  41. White Noise
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This Post Has 4 Comments

  1. Grumblah Mitch November 20, 2005

    Ok just a second,
    Time magazine picking the 100 best novels?
    It’s a bit late in the year for an April Fools joke.
    What’s next
    Boy George’s top 100 Rock and Roll bands
    Ray Krocs top 100 French restaraunts
    George Bush’s top 100 intellectuals
    Time/Newsweek sux.
    It’s written on a 6th grade level.
    Just about every other week they have a picture of Jesus, St Paul, Virgin Mary on the cover.
    This is alternated with the “New Mom”, the “New Monogamy” or the “New Whatever” issue to enlighten us of something that we’ve either known about for the last 10 years or is utter BS.
    They have the habit of finding some group, say left handed uncyclists who speak Serbo-Croation and live in tents in US cities and proclaim it as a new “national trend”.

  2. Jaq November 20, 2005

    I understand they started with 1923 so they wouldn’t have to include Ulysses.

  3. denise November 20, 2005

    Time was first published in 1923

  4. Steph Mineart November 21, 2005

    I was going to say “Hey, then starting in 1923 makes sense” but then… um, no.
    I’m making a list of the best novels written since 1968 — the year I was born. Because you know, anything before that is crap. It’s really all about me anyway.

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