Books #42

[LaBlonde]

bleak house being the top ranked dickens has really surprised me it is one of the few of his i’ve liked so i’ll allow it.

i adore middlemarch, hate to the lighthouse, happy to see two tolstoys and jane eyre in the top ten, and persuasion getting the love it deserves. it’s a really oddly imbalanced list though.

the distinct lack of french classics (where is les mis?! WHERE IS DUMAS?!) will annoy me forever.

ended up with a solid 50/100 but again i can’t say i thought all of those were amazing.

 

[emmer_moans]

*The Turn of the Screw - did at school, enjoyed it
*Dracula -read it this month. Slow start but gripping by end
*Our Mutual Friend. - listened to audiobook last year, Samuel West's voice is nectar to the gods for me, and so I was invested and payed attention and ended up loving it
*Jude the Obscure - sad
*White Teeth - did at school, overanalyzed as we spent like a year scribbling all over it
*Mansfield Park - I love Austen but this is my least favourite
*David Copperfield - enjoyed but long. Only got through it thanks to audiobook narration
*Wuthering Heights - hated it, all miserable with no hope
*Persuasion - adore this
*1984 - a classic that lives rent free in my head whenever I look at that state of things these days
*Mrs Dalloway - I get it is loved but I dislike the format and I was bored
*Emma - love even though Emma deserves a slap sometimes
*The Great Gatsby - most boring novel yet so loved by folk, I don't get it. Only read it to see the fuss
*Madam Bovary - listened to the abridged version. Did not enjoy.
*Pride and Prejudice - no notes, love it
*Jane Eyre - no notes, also love it

So that's 16, with quite a few on the list that are on my long-term TBR
But I do see this feels like a list based on general public remembering what they have read, where a lot may not have read much since school, nor they think that new books should go on a top 100 list. Surprised there weren't more modern ones. I am mid 30s and White Teeth was our GCSE text, I think, so i wonder of that's on there because that book was everywhere around that time? Because that jumps out on the list with not much else that is similar.

I've discovered I am able to slowly work through my Classics TBR by listening to the audio versions. I'm not crowding my shelves with the Dickens doorstop sized books but I often have one on audio, they are long enough that you can pick pff a chapter every other day and make it last a couple of months. Usually I'll listen in the car.

 

[emmer_moans]

bleak house being the top ranked dickens has really surprised me it is one of the few of his i’ve liked so i’ll allow it.

i adore middlemarch, hate to the lighthouse, happy to see two tolstoys and jane eyre in the top ten, and persuasion getting the love it deserves. it’s a really oddly imbalanced list though.

the distinct lack of french classics (where is les mis?! WHERE IS DUMAS?!) will annoy me forever.

ended up with a solid 50/100 but again i can’t say i thought all of those were amazing.

Bleak House and Middlemarch are on my list to read this year

 

[LaBlonde]

Bleak House and Middlemarch are on my list to read this year

middlemarch is wonderful! bleak house is a bit of a slog but i did find it to be one of the more enjoyable dickens - i hope you like them both

personally though, like i said last page, i’d dump the dickens and read a wilkie collins or anthony trollope instead!

 

[StephenTJackson]

Some of the top 20 are extremely long books! I'm surprised to see In Search of Lost Time there, and Moby fool is not a book, but a thing to be endured.

I got 15 out of the last 20, and 46/100. My favourite three Austens made the top 20!

Moby fool is one I started and very quickly gave up on. Torturous to read. Not worth the effort even in the first bit I managed to endure.

 

[veronica71]

There are a good few on there that I want to read. I was working my way through Austen in the order she wrote them which meant some re reads and then I went off on a tangent and didn’t read the last three but I will do.

I can’t believe there’s not Pratchett on the list - but as he always said he didn’t write literature

 

[ToxicPony]

Well, based on my opinions on the ones I've read, these lists are not for me You might be able to spot a theme:

Catch 22: funny in places but a bit of a slog. Better on TV.
Turn of the Screw: one of the most boring things I've ever read. Better on TV.
The Vegetarian: bizarre and kind of boring.
The Talented Mr Ripley: ok as a book, better as a film.
Rebecca: now we're talking, should be top 5.
Kindred: yes yes yes, highly recommend.
The Color Purple: don't remember much about it.
White Teeth: I did enjoy this but also a bit of a slog to get through at times.
Never Let Me Go: interesting concept, annoying characters, kind of boring.
The Metamorphosis: one of my favourite ever stories.
The Leopard: well I read it, I don't think I could even tell you what it's about.
Giovanni's Room: for me, extremely overhyped.
Heart of Darkness: one of the OTHER most boring things I've ever read.
Wolf Hall: OK I guess.
Frankenstein: SNORE!!
Pale Fire: rambling and annoying.
Lolita: OK, here we see why this guy is considered a master. Sentence-level writing that makes me go HOW did you do that?
The Remains of the Day: MY FAVOURITE EVER BOOK.
One Hundred Years of Solitude: rounds out my top 3 of most boring things I've ever read.
1984: a classic, tons of fun. Culturally important.
Mrs Dalloway: I think I'm the only person I know who actually likes this, surprised to see it so high.
The Great Gatsby: OK but overrated.
Pride and Prejudice: extremely overrated.
Beloved: good, hard to read at times. Genuinely frightening.

 

[daisynoon]

Well, based on my opinions on the ones I've read, these lists are not for me You might be able to spot a theme:

Catch 22: funny in places but a bit of a slog. Better on TV.
Turn of the Screw: one of the most boring things I've ever read. Better on TV.
The Vegetarian: bizarre and kind of boring.
The Talented Mr Ripley: ok as a book, better as a film.
Rebecca: now we're talking, should be top 5.
Kindred: yes yes yes, highly recommend.
The Color Purple: don't remember much about it.
White Teeth: I did enjoy this but also a bit of a slog to get through at times.
Never Let Me Go: interesting concept, annoying characters, kind of boring.
The Metamorphosis: one of my favourite ever stories.
The Leopard: well I read it, I don't think I could even tell you what it's about.
Giovanni's Room: for me, extremely overhyped.
Heart of Darkness: one of the OTHER most boring things I've ever read.
Wolf Hall: OK I guess.
Frankenstein: SNORE!!
Pale Fire: rambling and annoying.
Lolita: OK, here we see why this guy is considered a master. Sentence-level writing that makes me go HOW did you do that?
The Remains of the Day: MY FAVOURITE EVER BOOK.
One Hundred Years of Solitude: rounds out my top 3 of most boring things I've ever read.
1984: a classic, tons of fun. Culturally important.
Mrs Dalloway: I think I'm the only person I know who actually likes this, surprised to see it so high.
The Great Gatsby: OK but overrated.
Pride and Prejudice: extremely overrated.
Beloved: good, hard to read at times. Genuinely frightening.

I also love Kindred and Beloved! And agree Rebecca should have placed higher.

 

[Carapop]

I need to start reading Toni Morrison, delighted to see so much Austen, bored by so much Dickens, Ulysses wtf, half of the top ten being written by women pleases me, overall a very dull list I think.

 

[anniemouse]

I finished on 6/100. I don’t read a lot of classics, some are written differently which can make them feel like an effort.

 

[ordinaryjelly]

I am 61/100.

I would say 40 of those have wanted me to burn them because they were that painful to read or just so long that you could take 300 pages away and never notice.

Stand outs for me

- The Remains of the Day, if you have not read this please, please make it your next read. You can thank me later!

- Go Tell it on the Mountain. Baldwin's debut. You would never know it though, it is a gentle, short read with no agenda.

- Midnight's Children. I read this when I was a lot younger. I'm not sure how well it would read as an adult. Still brilliant.

- The Color Purple. Still a Banned Book, read it for that reason alone. Lyrical piece of writing but extremely detailed which I know is what turns people off of this book. Definitely Walker's best book. Always on my top shelf.

Song of Soloman - I'm not sure I liked the characters but Morrison's way of writing them in such a gentle empathetic way made it so I had to like them and engage with them on their level. A clever piece of writing.

I don't think Beloved is Morrison's best work - The Bluest Eye and Soloman are better books. The Bluest Eye is quite possibly the most evocative book I have read. She still gets such a bad rep, female, minority, not afraid to speak her mind, keep her supressed. I was surprised to see her at #2. But if you want to read her books I would start with Beloved. Save The Bluest Eye. Her books get better leading up to this one. Beloved --> Soloman --> Bluest Eye.

I think I still have a couple of others but my post is turning into 2026s War and Peace.

 

[Harlot O'Scara]

Only another 4 for me:

Mansfield Park
The Age of Innocence
Wolf Hall
Frankenstein

Wuthering Heights better be in the Top 20 or I'm declaring the whole thing null and void

Link to the list so far:

https://www.archive.is/oldest/https...e/2026/may/12/the-100-best-novels-of-all-time

I've got 8 more from the Top 20:

Wuthering Heights
Persuasion
1984
Emma
Bleak House
The Great Gatsby
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre

Total 18/100.

I agree a very predictable list.

A publicly voted one, like the Big Read that the BBC did years back might be interesting.

 

[ahkrin]

I preferred Go Tell it on the Mountain to Giovanni's Room too.

Hated To The Lighthouse so much I burnt it after college was done because it was the worst thing I could think of to do to a book.

I think an updated public voted list would be much more interesting and varied.

 

[Carapop]

Middlemarch is free on kindle btw. I shall endeavour to finally read it this year. I also have so many Morrison waiting for me so this may motivate me to right that wrong.

Amazon.co.uk

 

[LaBlonde]

Hated To The Lighthouse so much I burnt it after college was done because it was the worst thing I could think of to do to a book.

time for me to get crawdads out from behind the bookcase! i have plans for it

i also hated to the lighthouse (and, tbh, all the woolf i’ve read apart from her incredibly beautiful suicide note which i know is dark but i think of it often).

 

[Carapop]

time for me to get crawdads out from behind the bookcase! i have plans for it

i also hated to the lighthouse (and, tbh, all the woolf i’ve read apart from her incredibly beautiful suicide note which i know is dark but i think of it often).

I hadn’t read it in years and looked it up just now. So beautiful. But also how heartbreaking that it was misconstrued so by the media at the time

March 28, 1941: Virginia Woolf’s Suicide Letter and Its Cruel Misinterpretation in the Media

A humbling reminder that self-righteousness is the greatest enemy of compassion and judging another human being’s private struggle is a disgrace to our own humanity.

www.themarginalian.org

 

[Harlot O'Scara]

time for me to get crawdads out from behind the bookcase! i have plans for it

i also hated to the lighthouse (and, tbh, all the woolf i’ve read apart from her incredibly beautiful suicide note which i know is dark but i think of it often).

I think you should throw Crawdads at someone you don't like. Spine first, obviously.

 

[Phil Anne Throw Pee]

Bleak House at English A level put me off reading for years. So bloody turgid.

 

[veronica71]

Middlemarch is free on kindle btw. I shall endeavour to finally read it this year. I also have so many Morrison waiting for me so this may motivate me to right that wrong.

Amazon.co.uk

a lot of them are also probably free on project guternberg and you can have them sent to your kindle/e reader

 

[LaBlonde]

I hadn’t read it in years and looked it up just now. So beautiful. But also how heartbreaking that it was misconstrued so by the media at the time

March 28, 1941: Virginia Woolf’s Suicide Letter and Its Cruel Misinterpretation in the Media

A humbling reminder that self-righteousness is the greatest enemy of compassion and judging another human being’s private struggle is a disgrace to our own humanity.

www.themarginalian.org

it’s honestly a gorgeous piece of writing (and absolutely devastating). i will save that article to read later as i do find it interesting how private letters meant for one person (in this case her husband) become public property almost i think of the phrasing of it all so often.