Favorite American Novels

Yesterday, I gave you the top 100 favorite novels in the U.K. It's not so easy to find a list of favorites (as opposed to bests) for the U.S., as I found out. I could find lists by the editors and by the readers of the Modern Library (Modern Library books only) by two Time Magazine critics, by librarians (which I like because I've read a ton--64--of them), but a general list of favorites by actual American readers took some searching.

This list comes from Best 100 Novels of All Time, but it's not really clear who compiled the list and who voted. If you can find a better list, please let me know. I've read 52 of these, at one time or another.

How is your reading coming along?

1984 by George Orwell

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Animal Farm by George Orwell

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling

Ulysses by James Joyce

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

The Stranger by Albert Camus

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Watership Down by Richard Adams

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Middlemarch by George Eliot

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

The Stand by Stephen King

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Dune by Frank Herbert

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

The Trial by Franz Kafka

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

Persuasion by Jane Austen

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

Emma by Jane Austen

I, Claudius by Robert Graves

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Atonement by Ian McEwan

Beloved by Toni Morrison

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner

Siddharta by Hermann Hesse

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

Light in August by William Faulkner

Favorite Novels in the UK

On its Big Read website, the BBC asked people in the United Kingdom to name their favorite novels. Here is the list in order, with the winning favorite, Lord of the Rings, at the top. Although this is not a list of the best books, only the favorites (and it includes quite a few children's books), I find it to be a much more friendly list than the English Major's Reading List that was given to me when I was 17, and which has been making me feel unsuccessful ever since. I've actually read 60 of these.

How about you?

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien

2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman

4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling

6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne

8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell

9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis

10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller

12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë

13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks

14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier

15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger

16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame

17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens

18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres

20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy

21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell

22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling

23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling

24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling

25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien

26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy

27. Middlemarch, George Eliot

28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving

29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck

30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson

32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez

33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett

34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens

35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl

36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson

37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute

38. Persuasion, Jane Austen

39. Dune, Frank Herbert

40. Emma, Jane Austen

41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery

42. Watership Down, Richard Adams

43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald

44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas

45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh

46. Animal Farm, George Orwell

47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy

49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian

50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher

51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett

52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck

53. The Stand, Stephen King

54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth

56. The BFG, Roald Dahl

57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome

58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell

59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer

60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman

62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden

63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens

64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough

65. Mort, Terry Pratchett

66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton

67. The Magus, John Fowles

68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett

70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding

71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind

72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell

73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett

74. Matilda, Roald Dahl

75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding

76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt

77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins

78. Ulysses, James Joyce

79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens

80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson

81. The Twits, Roald Dahl

82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith

83. Holes, Louis Sachar

84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake

85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy

86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson

87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons

89. Magician, Raymond E Feist

90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac

91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo

92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel

93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett

94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

95. Katherine, Anya Seton

96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer

97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez

98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson

99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot

100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

A "Few" Good Books; Our Mass Collaboration

I admit it--I'm compulsive, or I wouldn't be a librarian. I couldn't leave well enough alone and just had to go through your comments on the Looking for a Few Good Books post and put everything in alphabetical order. Here they are--all 68 titles (so far) that we recommended to each other. If you want to read the original comment, I have included the name of the person who recommended the book. Just go to Looking for a Few Good Books and scroll down to the comments section.

-Baker: Mezzanine (Benjamin)
-Barry: History of the Millennium (So Far) (brassring)

-Beyond Brokeback; the Impact of a Film (j)

-The Bible (j)

-Bin Laden: Inside the Kingdom (photokeeper)

-Blight: A Slave No More; Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Own Narratives of Emancipation (Anonymous/JL)

-Boonshaft: Teaching Music with Passion (brassring)

-Box: Books featuring the character Joe Pickett [Savage Run, Trophy Hunt, for example] (photokeeper)

-Brashares: Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (jacksonrnnr)

-Brown: I'm Just Here for the Food (Benjamin)

-Colbert: I am America (and So Can You) (clairz)

-Counselor: Wild, Woolly, and Wonderful (lin)--This book is out of print. Ask your librarian for a copy. Note: Lin originally posted the title for this book over on La Casa de Towanda. Because she is living off the grid and has electricity for just a short time each day, I was glad to copy and paste it here for her.

-Crystal: Seven Hundred Sundays (ameriaussie)

-Dante: The Divine Comedy (brassring)
-Denton (editor) : Plays and Playwrights 2006 (Benjamin)
-Diaz: Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (clairz)
-Dyer: Real Magic (brassring)

-Enright: The Gathering (clairz)

-Esquith: Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire (This title was recommended twice--by Anonymous/jl and clairz)

-Feinstein: Winter Games (b)

-Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love (Anonymous/JL)

-Greenlaw: Slipknot (brassring)

-Gruen: Water for Elephants (ameriaussie)

-Horgan: Rational Mysticism, Spirituality Meets Science in the Search for Enlightenment (j)

-Hosseini: A Thousand Splendid Suns (clairz)

-Iggulden: Dangerous Book for Boys (clairz)

-IIibagiza: Left to Tell; Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan (Anonymous/jl )

-Joyce: Ulysses (b)

-Junge: Until the Final Hour (jacksonrnnr)

-Kakalios: Physics of Superheroes (Benjamin)
-King: Cell (brassring)

-King: Lisey's Story (brassring)

-Kitchell: Coyote Speaks (j)

-Kitchell: Get a God (j)

-Kitchell: God's (j)

-Kline: Shock Doctrine (S)

-The Koran (j)
-Kuo: Tempting Faith, An Inside Story of Political Seduction (j)

-Lao Tsu: Tao Te Ching [available online] (brassring)

-Mabry: Twice as Good: Condoleeza Rice and Her Path to Power (b)

-Mahoney: Down the Nile; Alone in a Fisherman's Skiff (Anonymous/jl)

-McCarthy: No Country for Old Men (b)

-McKay: Saffy's Angel (brassring)

-Miller: The Crucible (j)

-Montgomery: The Good, Good Pig (photokeeper)

-Moore: Lamb (S)

-Obeidi: The Bomb in My Garden (photokeeper)

-Ohler: What Next (ridin' geeky)

-Oliver: Why I Wake Early (j)

-Pica: Jump into Literacy (ameriaussie)

-Pratt: Radical Hospitality; Benedict's Way of Love (j)

-Preston: The Wild Trees; a Story of Passion and Daring (Anonymous/jl)

-Pullman: Golden Compass (jacksonrnnr)

-Saunders: The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil (jacksonrnnr)

-Schultz: 1000 Places to See Before You Die (jacksonrnnr)

-Sedaris: Me Talk Pretty Some Day (Benjamin)

-Sedaris: Naked (Benjamin)

-Taleb: Black Swan;Impact of the Highly Improbable (clairz)

-Tapscott: Wikinomics; How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything (clairz)

-Tolstoy: War and Peace (brassring)

-Toole: Confederacy of Dunces (ridin' geeky)

-Tracy: Eat That Frog (Anonymous/jl)

-Troost: The Sex Lives of Cannibals (jacksonrnnr)

-Tsukiyama: The Street of a Thousand Blossoms (ameriaussie)

-Twitchell: Shopping for God; How Christianity Went from in Your Heart to in Your Face (b)

-Ung: First They Killed My Father (jacksonrnnr)

-Walter: The Zero (ridin' geeky)

-Weiner: Legacy of Ashes; the History of the CIA (b)

Looking for a Few Good Books: A Challenge

I read a lot. There are certain authors that I follow, and I always want to read both fiction and nonfiction about New Mexico and the rest of the Southwest. However, I would like to challenge myself to read some books that are a bit different from what I usually seek out, so I have compiled a list of books I’d like to read over the next few months. My friend Sonja in New Hampshire used to let me know about great reads but alas, there is no Sonja here in New Mexico, so I’ve picked these ten titles from a variety of award-winning and “best” lists. I’ve linked the titles to reviews and/or additional information from resources like The New York Times Book Review and National Public Radio.

Now, here is where you can help. As the Wikinomics subtitle (below) says, “mass collaboration changes everything,” so I’d like to see the list of books you’d like to read. If we share, we can broaden our horizons. Please send a comment that includes your list. Thank you for collaborating.

My Challenge List:

I Am America (And So Can You!), by Stephen Colbert.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz.

The Gathering, by Anne Enright.

Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire; The Methods and Madness Inside Room 56, by Rafe Esquith.

A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini.

The Dangerous Book for Boys, by Conn and Hal Iggulden.

The God of Animals, by Aryn Kyle.

Black Swan; the Impact of the Highly Improbable, by N.N Taleb.

Born on a Blue Day; Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant, by Daniel Tammet.

Wikinomics; How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, by Don Tapscott.