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How Many of These Books Have you Read?

298 replies

JaneyGee · 04/10/2023 13:49

I belong to an amazing book group. The members are great – no one shows off, or disagrees just for the sake of it, or tries to impress you with what they know. They all come just for the love of books. Anyway, one of the members is a retired university lecturer. She's published several books and can talk for hours on Chaucer, Milton, Blake, Keats, etc. We're all in awe of her (though she's very humble and sweet). Anyway, I asked her what she thought were the best novels in the English language. She emailed me her list (roughly in chronological order). Here they are. (I'm ashamed to admit I've only read three of them.)

Henry Fielding: Tom Jones
Jonathan Swift: Gullivers Travels
Jane Austen: Persuasion
Dickens: Bleak House
Thackery: Vanity Fair
Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre
George Eliot: Middlemarch
Hermann Melville: Moby Dick
Henry James: Portrait of a Lady
Joseph Conrad: Nostromo
Kipling: Kim
Thomas Hardy: Jude the Obscure
James Joyce: Ulysses
D. H. Lawrence: Women in Love
Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby
Ford Madox Ford: Parade's End
Henry Green: Partygoing
Nabokov: Pale Fire
Nabokov: Lolita
Evelyn Waugh: Scoop
Aldous Huxley: Point Counter Point
Virginia Woolf: To the Lighthouse
Anthony Powell: Dance to the Music of Time (considered as one novel)
Saul Bellow: Augie March
John Updike: The Rabbit novels (considered as one novel)
Cormac McCarthy: Blood Meridian

OP posts:
Notagains · 04/10/2023 14:37

I've read 10. Some along time ago though

griegwithhimandhim · 04/10/2023 14:38

One. Jane Eyre, which I had to read at school, and I found it excruciatingly awful.

clary · 04/10/2023 14:39

I didn’t really mean that Ulysses was passé tbh; more that it is more or less unreadable or at any rate unread by many – notably those who include them on their “must read” lists haha. I am a big reader (and have read other Woolf and other Dickens than those on the list tbf) but when I tried with Ulysses I just could not get on with it. What I meant really was that list reads like a list of books everyone says you should read, but many of them are rarely read. Middlemarch must be Eliot’s best bc it is so long? Hmmm. Actually I think Silas Marner is a finer novel.

If anyone here has read and enjoyed Moby-Dick and Ulysses, hats off to them. I read Heart of Darkness as a teen and found it almost impossible to finish, even tho it’s only about 100 pages long.

If I asked someone who was a great reader what their top 30 books in English were, and that was their list, I would find it very depressing. Sorry. Enough to put you off reading tbh.

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about this subject:

Books
clary · 04/10/2023 14:40

Namddf · 04/10/2023 14:26

I’ve read 9.

I agree it’s a dated and unimaginative list. I do concur about Scoop over other Waugh though - it is the best. And Point Counter Point.

But where is Tolstoy? (far better and more relevant than Nabokov IMO). Where are the other Hardy novels that are infinitely better than Jude? Where’s North and South? Where are the French writers like Camus and Colette?

It’s just dull.

Tbf Tolstoy wrote in Russian!

OccasionalHope · 04/10/2023 14:40

Nine. Two more I’ve watched TV adaptations of and have no desire to read as a result.

Devilsmommy · 04/10/2023 14:40

16 but I used to be a book a day woman before I was a mom😆

Bruisername · 04/10/2023 14:40

Dd is reading Jane eyre for school and I’d forgotten how long it is. Shame as she is struggling to get through it

Tlolljs · 04/10/2023 14:40

She’s missed some of my favourites.

Velvetpaws75 · 04/10/2023 14:40

Seven. But none of them are favourites of mine
Each to her own of course

BarbaraofSeville · 04/10/2023 14:41

I've read none of them but have started The Great Gatsby and Ulysses but not actually finished them.

I often wonder what makes a book a classic as few of them really appeal, even though I do read decent books, not dross.

I recently tried The Shipping News by Annie Proulx, which being a Pulitzer prize winner would suggest that it is suitably worthy, but I gave up with. I don't know if it would get better if I'd have persevered with it.

cardibach · 04/10/2023 14:41

@clary Ulysses was the only book on my degree that I not only didn’t read but didn’t even attend a lacquer to get a flavour of crit on it. But if a risk as our exam questions we’re always each on multiple texts so that decision could have ruled out books I really wanted to write on. Just couldn’t get on with it though.

MarkWithaC · 04/10/2023 14:42

cardibach · 04/10/2023 14:35

12, but I did an English Lit degree.
As PPs have said, it’s an odd list, particularly in terms of more modern stuff. Looks more like a personal favourites list, which is interesting but not any sort of absolute. I think all such lists are a bit like that though. It’s so subjective.
Edit: I think I know what’s odd. It’s very low on female writers post 19th century - this is weird as there are so many more of them to choose from than there were in the 18th/19th centuries. Where are Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, Anita Brookner, Angela Carter, Barbara Kingsolver etc etc. ?

Edited

I'm not sure it is personal favourites; it's quite cliched, like someone's idea of what theySHOULD say are their favourites/the greatest.

Devilsmommy · 04/10/2023 14:42

Am I the only one who loved Ulysses? 😳

deplorabelle · 04/10/2023 14:43

I've read ten but couldn't fight my way through Vanity Fair even though Charlotte Bronte adored Thackeray and I adore her.

The list is very much not to my taste. Dense and chewy and as others have pointed out very masculine heavy.

LeftyLou · 04/10/2023 14:43

I have read 2 with 11 on my TBR

Dinosauratemydaffodils · 04/10/2023 14:43

13 but I wouldn't class any of them as favourites. I did enjoy Moby Dick though. I started Middlemarch in 1997 as a student...still not finished.

MarkWithaC · 04/10/2023 14:44

Namddf · 04/10/2023 14:26

I’ve read 9.

I agree it’s a dated and unimaginative list. I do concur about Scoop over other Waugh though - it is the best. And Point Counter Point.

But where is Tolstoy? (far better and more relevant than Nabokov IMO). Where are the other Hardy novels that are infinitely better than Jude? Where’s North and South? Where are the French writers like Camus and Colette?

It’s just dull.

I love Jude Grin I know that's weird and it's his most miserable. <<shrug>>

Ilkleymoor · 04/10/2023 14:44

They are quite samey. Some good books in there and some I love but nothing modern? Nothing from Toni Morrison? All decent choices from a particular reader but not a wide reader.

MrsLeonFarrell · 04/10/2023 14:45

I've read a few of them, like others in the thread I disagree with her list. It's a list of obvious 'classics' , I wouldn't call it a list of the best novels of all time. Did she stop reading new books a few decades ago?

I realise I'm being snippy, I hate the premise behind these lists.

DappledThings · 04/10/2023 14:46
  1. But that's 15 fully plus 0.75 of the Anthony Powells and 0.25 of the Updikes.

Edit - I had no idea entering a number and full stop would make it a list

Namddf · 04/10/2023 14:47

MarkWithaC · 04/10/2023 14:44

I love Jude Grin I know that's weird and it's his most miserable. <<shrug>>

Show quote history

I’ve read virtually all of Hardy and Jude is my least favourite! So depressing and repetitive.

Tess and Far from the Madding Crowd are far better imo.

cardibach · 04/10/2023 14:48

Dinosauratemydaffodils · 04/10/2023 14:43

13 but I wouldn't class any of them as favourites. I did enjoy Moby Dick though. I started Middlemarch in 1997 as a student...still not finished.

I enjoyed Middlemarch.
It was my mum’s absolute favourite novel and when she started to lose her sight and needed large print she said her biggest regret was that she’d never read Middlemarch again. I have her battered copy now, though my feelings aren’t as strong…I’ve read it twice and that’s enough.

clowniform · 04/10/2023 14:48

Devilsmommy · 04/10/2023 14:42

Am I the only one who loved Ulysses? 😳

I didn't love it, but certainly found plenty to enjoy and admire in it. It's not as if she'd picked Finnegan's Wake!

Middlemarch is probably my favourite novel, though I think Silas Marner sentimental dreck. Agree with Scoop for Waugh.

Picking Jane Eyre over Villette is the biggest red flag on that list.

JellyfishandShells · 04/10/2023 14:48

17 Had a go at Ulysses but didn’t finish it.

MarkWithaC · 04/10/2023 14:49

Namddf · 04/10/2023 14:47

I’ve read virtually all of Hardy and Jude is my least favourite! So depressing and repetitive.

Tess and Far from the Madding Crowd are far better imo.

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What can I say Grin Horses for courses. I didn't even finish Tess. Not keen on the others. I like Hardy's poetry though.