OK, I've just looked over a bunch of Best 100 Novels websites because the BBC irritated me with their clearly British-author-weighted list that's found it's way around Facebook. I figure any list created by anybody is somewhat egocentric with its choices, so I qualify with the best/worst of them. This Blog won't let me create columns in this format...or at least I haven't figured out how to make it do it...so I'll post the BBC ones I've read, then my additions...with comments, of course:Lord of the Rings...definitely my favorite novel
Hobbit...All I can say is, "gollum, gollum."
To Kill A mocking Bird...did you know that Robert Duval's debut was as Boo Radley?
1984...someone should rewrite this as 2009 I believe...hmmm, maybe my next project?!!
Great Expectations...well, maybe So So Possibilites
Shakespeare (the WHOLE Shebang!!)...as a Sexton, "alas poor Yorrick" actually happened to me when we reopened a grave when I worked in a cemetery during my college summers.
Catch 22...I think Yosarian became a politician of the Left, didn't he?
Catcher In the Rye...I'd prefer corn beef and coleslaw ON rye.
The Great Gatsby...he wasn't all that great, if you ask me.
War & Peace...makes a good bookend when you've read it once.
Crime & Punishment...interesting, but sometimes I felt like The Idiot...wonder if Fyodor meant that to happen.
Grapes of Wrath...I wonder if they sang The Battle Hymn of the Republic in the Dust Bowl?
Alice In Wonderland...BRING ON THEM 'SHROOMS!! ;P
David Copperfield...Deus ex machina from start to finish!!
Da Vinci Code...I wonder if the herd of swine that were demon possessed had this much hogwash when they ran over the cliff?!
Lord of the Flies...nasty little fellows, weren't they? Can you say Total Depravity?
Tale of Two Cities...an excellent tale of substitutionary death...not quite as good as Calvary, however!!
Brave New World...got Soma?
Counte of Monte Crisco...was this the guy that invented shortening?
Moby Dick...just call me Ishmael and pass the coffin!
Oliver Twist... "You've got to pick a pocket or two!"
Ulysses...read it at lunch while working in above mentioned cemetery in the summer of 1970 only because I spent $20 on it for my 20th Century Novels course.
A Christmas Carol...actually played the character of Scrooge in a church musical production of that name in 1981...not much of an acting stretch, some wags would say.
Sherlock Holmes...actually, in a dead heat with Lord of the Rings!...am actually working through the whole shebang for the second time
Heart of Darkness...these days it reminds me of Jeremiah 17:9
The Little Prince...read it in French for class in 1969...parlez-vous, mes amis?
Watership Down...since I was born in the year of the rabbit, I "go zarn" on occasion
Three Musketteers...I'd recommend the movie these days
Hamlet...Something is rotten with the BBC List, if you ask me, with this "double"
Les Miserables...Tres bien, mes amis, tres bien!! (Les Mis is a great musical, too!)
Now, the good ones the Brits missed:
The Scarlet Letter...was Dimsdale the first divine branding?
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea...check out The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie!
Fahrenheit 451...look out for the mechanical dog!
Flannery O'Connor's works...mandatory reading freshman year
The Sound and the Fury...signifying nothing?
Around the World in 80 Days...I think Phileas was in a Fogg most of the time
Journey to the Center of the Earth...got BBQ sauce for dinosaurs and BIG 'shrooms?
Lost Souls...Gogol's look at identity theft!
Pilgrim's Progress...the Celestial City is looking pretty good these days!
Edgar Allen Poe's works...my Tell Tale Heart wants a Cask of Amontillado
Frankenstein...written in July, 1816, the year without a summer, because Mt. Timora volcano erupted
Tom Sawyer...got paint brush?
Huckleberry Finn...wonder if Huck and Jim smoked Long Bottom Leaf from The South Farthing?
Treasure Island...Just exactly which page of the Bible had the black spot?
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde...got potion?
War of the Worlds...gotta love them microbes God engineered!
The Invisible Man...now you don't see him, now you don't still!
Quo Vadis...much better read if you're a Christian
The whole Horatio Hornblower series...from Midshipman to Admiral..."Master and Commander" with Russell Crow will give you a good feel for the novels
Robinson Crusoe...the unexpergated version with a gospel presentation...if you can find it these days!!
The Deer Slayer...got Bambi?
Waiting For Godot...Hogwash on Catcher's Rye
Silas Marner...it's really spooky to have a real life neighbor who has catatonic epilepsy as I did
Nickolas Nickleby...long, but interesting, especially the characters
Gulliver's Travels...satire at its best...drink beer, put out fires
Pickwick Papers...more great characters
Ivanhoe...Scottish chic flick novel
Don Quixote...would you believe "The Impossible Dream" was my 1969 high school senior class theme song?!
Aesop's Fables...my money's on the tortoises of this world ever since
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest...how did Jack Nicholson EVER get cast as Randall Patrick McMurphy?!! Somebody must have bogarted the joint Jack was passing in "Easy Rider."
Portnoy's Complaint...rubbish I read freshman year at Muhlenberg
Red Badge of Courage...Don't know what the big hoopla is on this one, now that I've read so much other Civil War stuff!
Well, there it is. History, biographies, and political science pique my interests these days. Maybe I'll suggest a reading list along those lines later on as yet another bit of Self Indulgent B.S. rendering.
Got whaler tun from the Pequod, Queequeg?
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