What a daunting task it would be to write a list like this, but fortunately for us, Norton (of the Norton Anthologies) asked 125 of the greatest living writers to select their top 10, and then (using statistics) produced a final list of the ten greatest books ever written. I certainly agree with the majority of the selections. This is a list of the top 10 fictional books of all time – needless to say, if you have not read these books, you probably should.
10. Middlemarch George Eliot
Middlemarch is considered by many scholars to be one of the most important novels of the Victorian era. It was written by George Eliot (pen name of Mary Anne Evans) and was first published in 1871 to 1872. It is set in the 1830s in Middlemarch, a fictional provincial town in England, based on Coventry.
9. The Stories of Anton Chekhov Anton Chekhov
Anton Chekhov was a Russian short story writer and playwright. He was born in Taganrog, southern Russia, on 29 January 1860. His originality consists in an early use of the stream-of-consciousness technique, later employed by Virginia Woolf and other modernists, combined with a disavowal of the moral finality of traditional story structure.
8. In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust
I appreciate the great artistic merit in Proust’s writing, but I have to be honest and say that I have never managed to get more than half way through the first book of this multiple-book novel. I found it extremely slow paced and boring. This is Proust’s most prominent work, it is popularly known for its extended length and the notion of involuntary memory, the most famous example being the “episode of the madeleine” in which he describes in great (boring) detail, eating a madeleine dipped in tea.
7. The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
I agree with the inclusion of this book – it is one of my favorites and one of the best examples of Fitzgerald’s writing. The Great Gatsby is a tale from the Jazz age of Gatsby – a wealthy man whose life is surrounded by mystery. A brilliant read.
6. Hamlet William Shakespeare
It is no surprise that Mr Shakespeare is on the list. I am not sure that I would have picked Hamlet as his best book, but who am I to debate 125 brilliant authors? Hamlet is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, probably written between 1599 and 1601. The play, set in Denmark, recounts how Prince Hamlet exacts revenge on his uncle for murdering Hamlet’s father, the King, gaining the throne through this treachery, and subsequently marrying his mother.
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain
It is good to see such a great book for the younger generation on the list. Huckleberry Finn is commonly accounted as one of the first Great American Novels. It is also one of the first major American novels ever written using Local Color Regionalism, or vernacular, told in the first person by the eponymous Huckleberry “Huck” Finn, best friend of Tom Sawyer (hero of three other Mark Twain books).
4. Lolita Vladimir Nabokov
Lolita was first written in English and published in 1955 in Paris. The novel is both internationally famous for its innovative style and infamous for its controversial subject: the book’s narrator and protagonist Humbert Humbert becoming sexually obsessed with a twelve-year-old girl named Dolores Haze.
3. War and Peace Leo Tolstoy
War and Peace was first published from 1865 to 1869 in Russkii Vestnik, which tells the story of Russian society during the Napoleonic Era. It is usually described as one of Tolstoy’s two major masterpieces (the other being Anna Karenina) as well as one of the world’s greatest novels.
2. Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert
Madame Bovary was attacked for obscenity by public prosecutors when it was first serialised in La Revue de Paris between 1 October 1856 and 15 December 1856, resulting in a trial in January 1857 that made it notorious. The novel focuses on a doctor’s wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life. Though the basic plot is rather simple, even archetypal, the novel’s true art lies in its details and hidden patterns.
1. Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy
Anna Karenina is widely regarded as a pinnacle in realist fiction, Tolstoy considered this book his first true novel. Although most Russian critics panned the novel on its publication as a “trifling romance of high life,” Fyodor Dostoevsky declared it to be “flawless as a work of art.” Tolstoy’s style in Anna Karenina is considered by many critics to be transitional, forming a bridge between the realist and modernist novel.
Afterword
Obviously a list of this type is very subjective and it is likely to cause discomfort to many people. We are priveleged on this site to have such a great variety of generally very smart readers. I am very interested to know what your top 10 – or even your number 1 – books are. Do you agree with this list? If not, tell us who should be here and tell us why they should be here.
Ohmigod I cannot BELIEVE some of the suggestions being tossed around here. NO… no sci-fi in a list of the “Top 10 Books of All Time.” NO Tolkien. NO Stephen King. NO Clive Barker. NO to 90% of the CRAP you people are suggesting.
My god… is it that people read only garbage these days, or is it just that the internet is mostly populated with kids who don’t know anything?
Oh.. and somebody way up above pointed out that most of these 10 choices were Victorian or post-Victorian, and they balked at that. Well yeah, but again, the untutored fail to recognize that the novel is largely a modern invention. (I realize the list title is the “Top 10 BOOKS” not “Top 10 NOVELS” but I took it to be the latter, despite the out-of-place inclusion of Shakespeare’s Hamlet—which is not a “book” but a play–and Chekov’s stories, which I simply would not have included here). The novel is bourgeois; it owes its very existence, almost, to the rise of a middle class hungry for a voice and a desire to prove its taste. “Don Quixote” is generally acknowledged as the first “novel” in western history, and of course goes back quite a ways–but we should note that it does coincide, at the time, with the rise of a new merchant class who were looking to sponsor works of art of their own–so it’s clear that the middle class and the novel as a form do go hand in hand.
And therefore, as we’d expect, the novel–prose–then reaches its heyday in the 19th Century, which particularly in England and America is the height of the middle class, when it was in all its power and glory. Poetry has been on the decline ever since.
Now… my suggestions for Top 10 books? I’d agree with much of this list, (yes, I’ve read ‘em all) but would have included Joyce’s “Ulysses” and perhaps Lawrence’s “Sons and Lovers” and maybe Henry Miller’s “Tropic of Cancer.” Possibly something of Joseph Conrad’s.
A Confederacy of Dunces is a great book, I agree.
Randall – you have to admit it is a pretty fuzzy topic, is a book great because it meant something to me or is it great in a historical context. To dismiss all works of sci-fi is misguided in my opinion. Tolkien and King have their place, maybe not to you, but I don’t think their work can be marginalized like that.
I would agree that a comparison of something like “The Shining,” against “Dracula” or some other classical horror story is something that really isn’t ‘do-able.’
Additionally, there are is a lot of poetry that could be mentioned.
Sorry for the grammar, I was asleep in that class.
Randall: There’s no need to be so dismissive of other peoples choices. For most people I’m sure the books they are suggesting are their own personal favourites. Just because you don’t necesseraly agree with people’s choices doesn’t mean you have to denounce that people ‘read only garbage’, or that people are ‘kids who don’t know anything’.
I know that ‘everyone has an opinion’ and ‘you’re just stating yours’ but you should at least respect peoples opinions instead of dismissing them as ‘garbage’.
bucslim, I never said Tolkien and King and sci-fi don’t have their place. They do. But that place most assuredly is NOT on a list of the “Top 10 Books of All Time.” I mean, come on. Do you REALLY believe *anything* of Stephen King’s belongs on such a list? Which would mean it would elbow out a TRUE work of art like “Remembrance of Things Past” or “Madame Bovary”?
I’ve read heaps of trash fiction myself, pal. We all do. My personal feeling is that there’s a point when one should get over that, and stop wasting one’s valuable reading time. So I don’t read lower-level stuff anymore except maybe the occasional book someone tosses to me. But that’s me. I’m fine if people want to voraciously devour every book that Stephen King produces or spend their lives reading and re-reading Tolkien. That’s okay, though very limiting… I’d suggest they open their eyes. But still, to each his own.
Just DON’T try to then up the ante and tell me that your pet midbrow or lowbrow fiction writer belongs on a list of Top 10 books alongside Tolstoy, Proust, Joyce and James. That’s just plain moronic.
dango:
I’m insulting by nature, I admit. But to be serious, I don’t denigrate people’s choices in fiction (if you read the post I wrote, just above, to bucslim)… I’ve read plenty of “crap fiction” myself, and enjoyed the hell out of a lot of it.
But don’t tell me such stuff belongs anywhere near a list of the “Top 10 Books.” That’s just silly.
Start another list, instead, of the top 10 “Good Bad Books,” as Orwell would have called them. On there you can have your Tolkien, and Conan Doyle, and Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Stephen King and Clive Barker and Robert Heinlein and so on and so on and so on. I’m all for that.
I couldn’t agree with you more. But top ten of what? That’s my point. A top ten list of influential books would be different than top ten novels, top ten poetry, top ten scientific, top ten religious, et al. That’s what I’m getting at.
The argument is flawed because there’s no context. Any major endeavor has their champions.
Fair enough, though I think you should skim through your posts to try & remove the insults, as they seem to get peoples backs up pretty well. I was close to saying ‘think before you post’ there, but I think that would be a gross misjudgement
Just to note, I posted mine before your reply to bucslim.
dango:
“…though I think you should skim through your posts to try & remove the insults”
No. Never. Not gonna happen. I yam what I yam and that’s what I yam.
Randall and I have traded barbs before, but essentially I agree with him here.
Umm…. The Bible? No? That one sold a few copies and gets read quite a bit. Even quoted once in a while.
bucslim:
were you addressing me in that last post?
No, my argument in fact is NOT flawed. There IS a context here. TOP 10 Books of ALL Time *is* contextual. It gathers together all the books in existence as a set, and then assigns value to them. Now, the question is, how do we assign value? Would you argue that King deserves a higher slot on such a list than, say, Joyce? If so, I’d ask you what criteria you are using to make such a judgement. Because I’m quite sure that of all people more or less qualified to make such a judgement, you would surely be in the minority.
You have to recognize that there is a difference between a list of one’s personal favorites and a list of what is great and valuable overall. My *personal* favorites would not be quite the same as what I judge to be the GREAT books. But I recognize that art is judged on criteria that I’m able to understand and appreciate, without particularly placing said art on my own personal list of “favorite.”
For instance… I love Cezanne’s paintings. He’s nearly my favorite painter. I also love Paul Klee. But if I had to name the “Top 10 Painters of All Time,” I can’t say that I would place these two on that list—I don’t see that they should edge out painters like Rembrandt, for instance–whom I like well enough, but is not one of my favorites. But I recognize the higher degree of value, in certain regards, of Rembrandt (or Reubens or Titian or even Manet) over Klee and Cezanne. Now true, maybe it’s easier for me to think this way because I’ve been schooled in criticism–I studied Fine Art *and* English Lit in college (yeah, lucky me, it’s a wonder I make a living, isn’t it?) But I think anyone with a reasonably open, reasonably educated mind can recognize this—it doesn’t require a degree or degrees—it just requires a willingness to LOOK at art and understand it, and not just LIKE what you like and dismiss or ignore all else.
Wow I have only read one of those books so I’d better get hoppin’!!
The one I read was The Great Gatsby and I really did like it a lot. I’d like to re-read it sometime. I think I only read passages of Huck Finn…..
In my opinion the greatest book that I myself have read is All Creatures Great and Small…it’s just amazing storytelling.
sorry bucslim… maybe you weren’t addressing me… if so, my mistake… sorry.
dangor & jwjw: I recently read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time (the title was irresistible) and found it to be a very compelling and sympathetic peek into an autistic mind.
Three of my personal all-time favorite novels that haven’t been mentioned are Eva Luna, by Isabel Allende; At Play in the Fields of the Lord, Peter Matthiessen; and Spring Moon, Bette Bao Lord.
Eva Luna: Allende is a great storyteller and her characters are fascinating. This one’s written in the magical realism style.
At Play in the Fields of the Lord: misguided missionaries in South America. Another excellent story of missionary work gone wrong is The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver.
Spring Moon: I’m a sucker for a good story about China and this is one of the best I’ve found.
No I’m not saying your argument is flawed, I’m saying the title of this list should contain some sort of qualifier. Even literary critics can’t agree. I’m simply saying it should be boiled down a bit in order to give it some meaning. Otherwise, like I stated in an earlier post, you end up comparing something that is wildly popular to something that has much more substance. I suspect that’s why some folks are suggesting King and others. Top ten? I don’t think so. I gotta agree with Randall on that.
I checked Modern Library’s list – L Ron Hubbard showed up on the people’s choice. Not once, but THREE TIMES! Turns out there are a lot more crazy people converting oxygen into carbon dioxide than I thought.
bucslim:
“Turns out there are a lot more crazy people converting oxygen into carbon dioxide than I thought.”
It’s dangerous to underestimate them and to underestimate their numbers. I still think the MAJORITY of humanity is good, means well, and is reasonably intelligent (or at least they have decent bull*****-detection instincts) but there’s a big chunk out there, nevertheless, who are dumb as pin-cushions and yet think they know better than the rest of us and deserve to rule us. They’re not the majority—but they are legion.
When the Revolution comes… they’re all up against the wall.
Randall – Is it just me or are we having a polite conversation?
bucslim:
Perhaps. Because you showed the proper respect. On my daughter’s wedding day.
Now perhaps some day–and that day may never come–I will ask you to do ME a favor. But until then, go in peace and know your enemies will fear you because they are *my* enemies.
oscar and jfrater;
I thought I was the only one who watched Red Dwarf…
I hate you William Shakespeare. Many a boring, endless English lesson was spent reading his work. *shakes fist in distaste*
Art of War?
LOL @ bucslim. Can I quote you on that? I didn’t think it was possible. Although, somehow, I find myself agreeing as well. o.O
Mom:
I LOVE Red Dwarf! You’re not alone!
dangorironhide and nopunynerd: I have also read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. An awesome incredible moving book. It takes a lot of talent to write from an autistic child’s point of view and he pulled it off brilliantly.
bigwigrabbit: I also loved Watership Down I read it as a kid, have you seen the movie? (It’s animated…)
I already mentioned one that would go on my list of top 10 books (All Creatures Great and Small) and I just realized another one would be She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb. Has anyone here read that? Oh and another one I thought of is King of the Wind. Ok so there’s three for my list lol
I’m so excited about this list, I love reading and I love talking about books.
I recently discovered Red Dwarf the TV show. I absolutely love it… I’d love to read the books but I haven’t gotten around to them.
I think that The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky is the best book of all time primarily because, though I disagree with his conclusion, he did what no other writer could ever do better: I think he gave each philosophical position fair consideration. See the chapter before (and read through!) The Grand Inquisitor.
My favorite book is probably Of Mice and Men, but I’d have to say that the greatest book ever written is Atlas Shrugged. Oh, and I know a lot of you don’t want to hear it, but Orwell is trash.
jfrater – “I will definitely check out Malamud – do you have one I can borrow or should I buy one on Amazon?”
I have some Malamud. I’ll find it for you.
“BTW: when are you going to write me a list?”
Heh..I’m working on it (slowly)
“For those not in on the joke – I am not adopted – kiwiboi is my brother.”
You mean…you *believe* the word of that woman we call “mother” ??
bucslim; jamie asked in the afterword for people to respond with “their” favorite/influential books…
Do I think “The Cameron’s” by Robert Chricton is one of the world’s most influential books? No..but to me at the time,,yes
You’ve insulted everyone pretty much
(yes I’ve read quite a few of the books on the list)
Mom,
How have I insulted anyone? Yeah on other lists, but here?
OK, I did say the thingy about three of L Ron’s books being on the Modern Library’s list of top ten greatest books, but those people need to be insulted.
Mom424 – good for you. Dontcha hate intellectual snobbery ??!!
bucslim/Mom:
I think Mom might have meant *me*…. I insulted everyone, not bucslim.
Holy *****! Isn’t it one of the signs of the apocalypse when Randall and I are on the same side?
bucslim – maybe you guys oughta get a room…
kiwiboi: haha
I will, just as soon as I’m done with your Mom.
Huh ? You mean you’ve finished with yours already ??
She’s ok, but not as good as your sister.
Maybe…but at least your dad says you’re still as tight as a little pink drum
He said that after he was done with you.
amateurs.
see now, “tight as a little pink drum” is funny.
Aw c’mon bucslim…you need to be more inventive than that. For example, I could say to you that the last time you got a piece of ass was when your hand tore through the toilet paper
No, the last time I got a piece of ass was with your sister.
Wowwwww!!! Look at all the *intellect* flying around here now!!! LMAO
This is hilarious.
This kind of intelligent discussion is what makes going on the internet so fun
You know?, Up in the commment range(^up there) in the 130′s range, things looked like they were going to get warm and fuzzy, But then you guys had to go and drive right into Smutville. (hahaha)
I agree to have such a heated debate turn like that is very funny indeed. I really was LOL as I was reading the last of these comments.
Well, a little levity never hurt anyone. And I’m assuming that bucslim was being good-humoured in his comments (as I was trying to be with mine).
I’m kinda glad the server went down (it did for me, at least) as what can start out as a little fun can deteriorate too easily into anarchy !!
And it’d be a shame for a bit of fun to develop into a flame war and spoil a good list
hahahaa thanks for the laugh! Yet another reason to love listverse
Yes I do, and the tendency to over-*****yze everything. I’m pretty sure when of the authors wrote their books they weren’t interested in 3rd Century symbolism…they wanted to tell a story.
Good construction = Good Story
I can understand Proust,,,but why would I want to..
I was laughing my ass off – I was damn near tears when the server went down. My boss was wondering what was so funny, so maybe it was a good thing it went down when it did.
Nothing like a good Mom-sister point-counterpoint.
I’ve been looking for something to read recently. I’ll have to check out a few of these. Any recommendations from personal experience?
Many of these books are available, free, online. I won’t give you the website as JFrater may get a feedback from Amazon. Nevertheless they are there.
Legally by the way, the copyrights expired LONG AGO.
some of my favorites. not a “best books” list by any means. any takers?
1. the catcher in the rye – J.D. salinger
2. the fountainhead – ayn rand
3. catch-22 – joseph heller
4. on the road – jack kerouac
5. steppenwolfe – herman hesse
6. fight club – chuck palahniuk
7. the martian chronicles – ray bradbury
8. lord of the flies – william golding
9. for whom the bell tolls – ernest hemingway
10. the metamorphosis – franz kafka
loseitbonkers: I agree with 1,2,3,4,8 – not necessarily for this list – but certainly as brilliant books worth of being on a “best of all time” list.
Randall: I agree with you that King and Tolkien and sci-fi may not be on a par with Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Proust, et al. Or, aren’t they? What makes a “good” book? The content? The writing technique? The character *****ysis? The development and handling of the plot? All of the above? None of the above? Some of the above? Who decides? A “panel” of judges, or the reader? Do I need someone to tell me that Vermeer (whom I adore) is actually better than Picasso (whom I personally consider to be “crap”, but wouldn’t even dream of imposing my judgment on others)? A piece of art is a piece of art if and when I (the reader, the viewer, the listener, etc.) say it is.
I believe one measure of a “good” book should be that it gives a “message” to ME and helps ME in defining my values. And, you shouldn’t judge a book by its author, but by its “value” to you. Yes, Heinlein was primarily an SF writer, but his Stranger In A Strange Land is a whole different story – it is a scathing diatribe on the “then [and, most of them even today] valid” values of the masses, religion being the topmost one. He takes almost every single “value” prevalent in that day’s society (religion, family, *****, the definition of happiness, etc. etc.) and happily proceeds to rip them all to shreds (no wonder he had trouble in getting the full manuscript published, and had to trim about 80,000 words).
I read it when I was 17 and absolutely fell in love with the book! Did I agree with everything it said? No, but I can easily say that that book, while not “changing” my life, had certainly had a hand in “shaping” it. Does that make it eligible for the “Global Top 10″ list? Maybe not, but it certainly does, for MY “Top 10″ list..
Which begs the question, Randall: Have you read “The Stranger”, the book (and the author) that you condemn as “crap”? Or, for that matter, “IT” (King)?
I am yet to read a book as enjoyable in its writing technique as IT. True, it probably does not part with a world-shaking, vision-inspiring, “A-ha!” kind of message (and, then again, maybe it does..), but the character build-up and *****ysis is so near-perfect that you can’t help but identify with each and every character in the book. Essentially, you become a part of the plot.
I am not questioning the choice for the Top-10 list (though I could have, seeing that it reflects the thoughts of just 125 people), but your branding as “crap” a whole genre of literature and thereby, a whole group of authors, some/most of whom have produced marvelous pieces of work.
You said that one has “to recognize that there is a difference between a list of one’s personal favorites and a list of what is great and valuable overall”. Agreed. So what have we done? Instead of basing the Global Top-10 list on one person’s favorites, we have based it on 125 people’s. Now, that certainly makes the list objective!
Lastly, I believe my previous posting was one of the triggers that may have started the shouting match and the ensuing “drop in the level of intellectualism”, for which I am sorry..