Read the 'Observer' newspapers 100 greatest novels

Not really a list I have been working on aggressively, but it overlaps heavy with some others. There are definitely some great books I look forward to reading. So far I have read the following(32):

3. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
10. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
14. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
16. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
17. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
18. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
20. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
21. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
24. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
27. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
29. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
31. Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
33. Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome
34. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
36. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
38. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
39. Nostromo by Joseph Conrad
47. A Passage to India by E. M. Forster
48. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
49. The Trial by Franz Kafka
52. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
53. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
59. 1984 by George Orwell
61. Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
63. Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
66. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
68. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
69. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
71. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
73. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
74. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
76. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Catch-22 makes me think, this is what you would get if Monty Python re-wrote All Quiet on the Western Front. The book has a great rhythm and a wonderful sense of humor. The early part of the story spends a lot of time defining the multitude of characters, normally I am not a big fan of this style; however; Heller’s humor makes this work. By the mid point of the book, the humor started to feel a little repetitive and a bit hollow. The last quarter of the novel gets some depth and it finishes strong.

I enjoyed this book, but I have to admit it seems a bit high on the list at #14. I found Dantes annoying and that took away from the book for me. The book reads like a superhero comic. Dantes powers associated with his immense wealth that enable him to unleash his wrath upon his enemies. The powers seem to go to his head and he seems to become an egomaniac. He forgets that his powers are really a result of dumb luck, not some great doing of his own. Well worth the read, but I recommend the abridged version if you are impatient with the lead character.

This is the 18th Book that I have read on this list. The book tells a beautiful story and is brilliantly written. I am a big Conrad fan, I expected alot from this novel and it delivered. The story line contained a lot more twists and turns then I expect from Conrad. The story is exciting to the very end. Highly reccomend to read this and Lord Jim together, it is an interesting comparison of characters.

This book is brilliant. The simple, bare bones writing style works perfect for the storyline. The underlying theme (partiularly the details in “The Brotherhood Handbook” are frigthening similar to the foriegn policies of some of todays governments. If you have not read this book for a while I reccomend re-reading it.

Nabakov shows what a brilliant author he truly is. His writing style is so strong that he can make a book about such a brutal subject readable. I don’t think I can say that I enjoyed this book, I found many sections vile and disturbing. However, Nabakov takes on a difficult subject and simply hits a home run.

What an extremely interesting book. It is amazing that Wilde can so thoroughly explore such an in-depth topic with so few pages. I just finished reading Joyces “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” and cannot help but to think how much better that book would have been if Wilde had edited it for Joyce. Wilde uses conversations; particularly Lord Henry’s to sum up fascinating observations of the human soul in short brief statements. A very enjoyable and thought provoking book.

Interesting list. I have 14 so far. I will try to knock a few more off this year. Hard to believe Jude the Obscure is so low on the list. One of my all time favourites. Would have liked to see the Satanic Versus on this list as well.