Read Modern Library's 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century

I loved Animal Farm. It wasn’t slow for me, unlike The Great Gatsby. Read it in a couple hours and then checked out the cliff notes on it (which were also pretty interesting).

I also checked out 5 other books from the list and hope to read them within a 3 week period. Hopefully they’ll be as fun to read as Animal Farm was.

I read my first of 100 of the novels (The Great Gatsby) and I’m discouraged. My mind seems like it wanders way too much to grasp the convoluted sentences and language of this era. I have to read the same passage over and over to glean any meaning from it.

It worries me a little, because I have never struggled to read anything in my life. I read classics like The Count of Monte Cristo when I was in early middle school. I feel like I’ve lost some of my intelligence; or maybe I was never intelligent at all—other people seem to be able to read these books just fine. Maybe I am just out of practice.

I don’t know.

Books on the list that can be found online, free to read (and in the Public Domain, so it is not illegal).

ULYSSES by James Joyce
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4300/4300-h/4300-h.htm

A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/prtrt11.txt

SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/217/217-h/217-h.htm

THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by Samuel Butler
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2084/2084-h/2084-h.htm

WINESBURG, OHIO by Sherwood Anderson
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/416/416.txt

THE AMBASSADORS by Henry James
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/432/432-h/432-h.htm

THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext01/gsldr10.txt

THE GOLDEN BOWL by Henry James
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/gbwlc10.txt

SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/scarr10a.txt

THE SECRET AGENT by Joseph Conrad
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/974/974-h/974-h.htm

NOSTROMO by Joseph Conrad
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2021/2021-h/2021-h.htm

THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith Wharton
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/541/541-h/541-h.htm

ZULEIKA DOBSON by Max Beerbohm
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1845/1845-h/1845-h.htm

OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/351/351.txt

HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/219/219.txt

MAIN STREET by Sinclair Lewis
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/543/543-h/543-h.htm

THE HOUSE OF MIRTH by Edith Wharton
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/284/284-h/284-h.htm

KIM by Rudyard Kipling
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext00/kimrk12h.htm

LORD JIM by Joseph Conrad
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/5658/5658-h/5658-h.htm

THE OLD WIVES’ TALE by Arnold Bennett
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/thldw10.txt

THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/215/215-h/215-h.htm

THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS by Booth Tarkington
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/8ambr10.txt

Enjoy!