100 Best Novels?

So, random house put out a list of the 100 best novels of the past whatever period of time. They had a list compiled from libraries, and a list compiled by patrons (L. Ron Hubbard and Ayn Rand are all up in the top 10 of the reader's list, so clearly something fishy went on with the voting but whatever).

This got me thinking. I read a lot - I mean, I read a lot - but I don't really consider myself "well read", largely because I read mostly science fiction, fantasy and horror. If I wanted to live under a slightly smaller cultural rock, reading every book on this list would be a pretty good way to go about it, I figure. Reading every book on both lists might end with me clawing my eyes out, mostly because I've got no respect for Hubbard or Rand, but it might still be worth it only so that I could bitch more effectively.

So if you take out the duplicates and sort them alphabetically, this is the list you get:

1984 by George Orwell
A BEND IN THE RIVER by V.S. Naipaul
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess
A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME (series) by Anthony Powell
A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway
A HANDFUL OF DUST by Evelyn Waugh
A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA by Richard Hughes
A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS by V.S. Naipaul
A PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M. Forster
A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce
A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY by John Irving
A ROOM WITH A VIEW by E.M. Forster
A TOWN LIKE ALICE by Nevil Shute
ABSALOM, ABSALOM! by William Faulkner
ALL THE KING'S MEN by Robert Penn Warren
AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser
ANGLE OF REPOSE by Wallace Stegner
ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell
ANTHEM by Ayn Rand
APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA by John O'Hara
ARROWSMITH by Sinclair Lewis
AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner
AT SWIM-TWO-BIRDS by Flann O'Brien
AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS by H.P. Lovecraft
ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand
BATTLEFIELD EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard
BELOVED by Toni Morrison
BLOOD MERIDIAN by Cormac McCarthy
BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh
CATCH-22
CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller
CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY by Robert Heinlein
DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler
DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather
DELIVERANCE by James Dickey
DOUBLE STAR by Robert Heinlein
DUNE by Frank Herbert
ENDER'S GAME by Orson Scott Card
FARENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury
FEAR by L. Ron Hubbard
FIFTH BUSINESS by Robertson Davies
FINNEGANS WAKE by James Joyce
FROM HERE TO ETERNITY by James Jones
GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN by James Baldwin
GONE WITH THE WIND by Margaret Mitchell
GRAVITY'S RAINBOW by Thomas Pynchon
GREENMANTLE by Charles de Lint
GUILTY PLEASURES by Laurell K. Hamilton
HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad
HENDERSON THE RAIN KING by Saul Bellow
HOWARDS END by E.M. Forster
I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves
ILLUSIONS by Richard Bach
INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison
IRONWEED by William Kennedy
IT by Stephen King
KIM by Rudyard Kipling
LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner
LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov
LORD JIM by Joseph Conrad
LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding
LOVING by Henry Green
MAIN STREET by Sinclair Lewis
MEMORY AND DREAM by Charles de Lint
MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie
MISSION EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard
MOONHEART by Charles de Lint
MULENGRO by Charles de Lint
MY ANTONIA by Willa Cather
MYTHAGO WOOD by Robert Holdstock
NAKED LUNCH by William S. Burroughs
NATIVE SON by Richard Wright
NOSTROMO by Joseph Conrad
OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham
ON THE BEACH by Nevil Shute
ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac
ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST by Ken Kesey
ONE LONELY NIGHT by Mickey Spillane
PALE FIRE by Vladimir Nabokov
PARADE'S END by Ford Madox Ford
POINT COUNTER POINT by Aldous Huxley
PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT by Philip Roth
RAGTIME by E.L. Doctorow
SCOOP by Evelyn Waugh
SHANE by Jack Schaefer
SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser
SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut
SOMEPLACE TO BE FLYING by Charles de Lint
SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES by Ray Bradbury
SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION by Ken Kesey
SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence
SOPHIE'S CHOICE by William Styron
STARSHIP TROOPERS by Robert Heinlein
STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND by Robert Heinlein
SUTTREE by Cormac McCarthy
TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald
THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH by Saul Bellow
THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith Wharton
THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET by Lawrence Durell
THE AMBASSADORS by Henry James
THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder
THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London
THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger
THE CUNNING MAN by Robertson Davies
THE DAY OF THE LOCUST by Nathanael West
THE DEATH OF THE HEART by Elizabeth Bowen
THE DOOR INTO SUMMER by Robert Heinlein
THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand
THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN by John Fowles
THE GINGER MAN by J.P. Donleavy
THE GOLDEN BOWL by Henry James
THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford
THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck
THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck
THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
THE HANDMAID'S TALE by Margaret Atwood
THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE by Shirley Jackson
THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers
THE HEART OF THE MATTER by Graham Greene
THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY by Douglas Adams
THE HOUSE OF MIRTH by Edith Wharton
THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER by Tom Clancy
THE LITTLE COUNTRY by Charles de Lint
THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkien
THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS by Booth Tarkington
THE MAGUS by John Fowles
THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett
THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS by Robert Heinlein
THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy
THE NAKED AND THE DEAD by Norman Mailer
THE OLD WIVES' TALE by Arnold Bennett
THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain
THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE by Muriel Spark
THE PUPPET MASTERS by Robert Heinlein
THE RAINBOW by D.H. Lawrence
THE RECOGNITIONS by William Gaddis
THE SATANIC VERSES by Salman Rushdie
THE SECRET AGENT by Joseph Conrad
THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles
THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles
THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner
THE STAND by Stephen King
THE STUDS LONIGAN TRILOGY by James T. Farrell
THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway
THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLES by John Cheever
THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by Samuel Butler
THE WINGS OF THE DOVE by Henry James
THE WOOD WIFE by Terri Windling
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP by John Irving
THE WORM OUROBOROS by E.R. Eddison
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee
TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf
TOBACCO ROAD by Erskine Caldwell
TRADER by Charles de Lint
TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller
TRUSTEE FROM THE TOOLROOM by Nevil Shute
U.S.A. (trilogy) by John Dos Passos
ULYSSES by James Joyce
UNDER THE NET by Iris Murdoch
UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry
UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry
V. by Thomas Pynchon
WATERSHIP DOWN by Richard Adams
WE THE LIVING by Ayn Rand
WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys
WINESBURG, OHIO by Sherwood Anderson
WISE BLOOD by Flannery O'Connor
WOMEN IN LOVE by D.H. Lawrence
YARROW by Charles de Lint
ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE by Robert Pirsig
ZULEIKA DOBSON by Max Beerbohm


It's a lot. But I think I can do it. I might even shoot for doing it all in one or two years.