How Many of These Books Have you Read?

[JaneyGee]

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

Nothing wrong with that! My favourite author (well, see my username!) isn't high brow. I've read about half that list. They are not the 'best' by any measure I can apply.

@MrsTerryPratchett He's also my favourite author. I miss him.

No more new book every year.

1. I did an English degree. They're in the Canon arent they? (I digress but at uni they went on about the Canon from the beginning of day 1 and I didn't have a clue what they meant for about a year....)

5

But I have read different books by 9 of the other authors.

Mind you, I find Henry James and James Joyce utterly unreadable. So I would never include them in a 'best of Eng Lit' list.

I've only read one of those: Jane Eyre, which I've read two or three times.

I've tried reading Nostromo a few times but found it very dull.

10

There are several in there that I have tried and found impenetrable.

Think it's is a very old fashioned list.

16 of them, but I don't think it's a great list: it's a bit of a yawn. Two standout omissions for me: Lawrence Sterne's Tristan Shandy and Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban.

I did an English lit degree btw.

17, and I’m reading Ulysses atm (very slowly). I would probably say Bleak House is my favourite novel; I wish I had more Dickens to read.

I don't think it's an old fashioned list-I do think it's a good solid collection as an introduction to English Lit. I'd narrow it down to Persuasion, Kim, Portrait of a Lady, To The Lighthouse (although I'd replace it with Orlando) Scoop and Jude. And I'd add Tristam Shandy. Then I'd move on to some more modern stuff!

Agree with PPs about Rebecca - it's amazing, incredibly clever and not "romantic" at all. I don't think it's "about" love, but about women. It would be on my list and so would Frankenstein. Love Jane Eyre too.

Re being unable to get through Moby Dick, for me the worst book like that is Catch 22. Cannot stand it. Bored out of my mind. Updike really annoys me as well.

Yes to Riddley Walker! Possibly also White Noise by Don DeLillo, although is that too niche a choice?

It's a crazy question, anyway, which is "best" - totally meaningless when our response to fiction is so hopelessly subjective.

Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy Oh, this brings back memories. I was dared to read it and thought I'd hate it. It turned out to be one of my favourite novels.

Been catching up on my podcasts and stumbled across one I thought might be of some interest to a few people on this thread: I don't seem to be able to share it directly but it's the Sep 15th "Where Did all the Rockstar Authors Go?" at Stories of our times | The Times and The Sunday Times and talks about the decline of the novel in recent years. Also a reminder of how spoilt we were at the end of the last century, and how many more modern novels could have been included on this list!

Four for me. Struggling to get what the point of a list by, some English professor, is supposed to be about though? It’s fairly uninspired. Not someone I would be holding up within bookclub for recommendations.

One

9 and I did English at uni.

I love Jude, too. It's actually my favourite book and definitely, imo, Hardy's finest work. I loved Heart of Datkness, as well. I read it at the same time as I read Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. Both complex, eye opening books.

Also Lolita is about a predatory paedophile. I can't understand how it can be dressed up as some kind of obsessive love story. I was so shocked when I read it. I just don't get it.

None of them.
Though I have read another of Thomas Hardy's books, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and we did Dickens' Great Expectations at O'Level. Other than that, I haven't read a single book by any of those authors.

Nine, but apart from Jane Eyre, Vanity Fair and Middlemarch I can't say I particularly enjoyed them.
I find all Dickens very hard work but I had a phase in my teens when I forced myself to read most of his work as I thought it would be good for me, but it became an endurance feat rather than a journey of self improvement! I couldn't say I enjoyed any of them. Some good stories, tediously told in my opinion.
There are some authors on the list who have written books that I have really enjoyed, but not particularly the stated novels. For instance Emma is my favourite Jane Austen and Far From the Madding Crowd would be my Thomas Hardy choice.
I wouldn't claim to be particularly cultured or well read though - I haven't even heard of some of the later books on the list. My desert island book would probably be Lord of the Rings. I actually prefer The Hobbit but it wouldn't keep me busy for very long!

None. They are really not the type of books I read.

@JaneyGee 18 - It could have been 19 but I have started Middlemarch so often and just can't get on with it . I have an English degree & I have ploughed through The Faerie Queen ( Spenser ) so I can get though turgid stuff ( other opinions are available ) - I do love Hemingway and would recommend him for any book club. All respect @CurlewKate for having read all .

Six