The 101 greatest novels of all time - Exclusive Books

Sim Kid · 07-22-2007, 03:16 AM

1. The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
3. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
4. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
5. The Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
6. The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver (Firewood Title)
7. The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
8. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
9. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (Firewood Title)
10. The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
11. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
12. Spud - John van de Ruit
13. The Power of One - Bryce Courtenay
14. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
15. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis de Bernieres
16. Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts
17. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
18. Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
19. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
20. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
21. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
22. Disgrace - J. M. Coetzee
23. My Sister's Keeper - Jodi Picoult
24. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
25. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
26. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
27. Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett
28. Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
29. Cry, the Beloved Country - Alan Paton
30. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
31. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
32. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time - Mark Haddon
33. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
34. Atonement - Ian McEwan
35. Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
36. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
37. The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje
38. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
39. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
40. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
41. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
42. I Know This Much is True - Wally Lamb
43. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
44. Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
45. War And Peace - Leo Tolstoy
46. Clan of the Cave Bear - Jean M. Auel
47. The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera
48. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
49. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
50. Possession - A. S. Byatt
51. Perfume - Patrick Suskind
52. The House of the Spirits - Isabel Allende
53. Chocolat - Joanne Harris
54. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency - Alexander McCall Smith
55. Q & A - Vikas Swarup
56. Dune - Frank Herbert
57. Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
58. Fugitive Pieces - Anne Michaels
59. River God - Wilbur Smith
60. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
61. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
62. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
63. Mort - Terry Pratchett
64. Crime and Punishment - Feodor Dostoyevsky
65. The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood
66. East of Eden - John Steinbeck
67. The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
68. The Other Boleyn Girl - Philippa Gregory
69. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas - John Boyne
70. The Prince of Tides - Pat Conroy
71. Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
72. Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
73. The Shipping News - E. Annie Proulx
74. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
75. Animal Farm - George Orwell
76. The Red Tent - Anita Diamant
77. Watership Down - Richard Adams
78. Magician - Raymond E Feist
79. Middlemarch - George Eliot
80. The Day of the Jackal - Frederick Forsyth
81. We Need to Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver
82. The Magus - John Fowles
83. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
84. Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk
85. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
86. The Shell Seekers - Rosamunde Pilcher
87. The Colour Purple - Alice Walker
88. The Beach House - James Patterson
89. Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak
90. Kringe in 'n Bos - Dalene Matthee
91. The World according to Garp - John Irving
92. Northen Lights - Phillip Pullman
93. Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
94. Shades - Marguerite Poland
95. Kane and Abel - Jeffrey Archer
96. Fiela se kind - Dalene Matthee
97. Story of an African Farm - Olive Schreiner
98. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
99. The Magic Faraway Tree - Enid Blyton
100. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
101. Winnie-the-Pooh - A.A. Milne

If anything, this is a popularity contest. Notice how high up Harry Potter is, over books that have stood the test of time and/or won Nobel Prizes.

In addition, notice that in the top ten list, there are two Firewood Titles that only made it because they sold well...If there's any top ten lists those belong on, it's a "Top ten ****ty titles that everybody loves".

***CaptHayfever*** · 07-22-2007, 12:08 PM

Besides that, Great Expectations isn't even Dickens' best work, much less worthy of being that high on the list. And Neftoon Zamora blows Bridget Jones out of the water, but of course that's never going to be on a top-whatever list.

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

Wyborn · 07-22-2007, 01:19 PM

This list could get set on fire and blow away as ashes on the wind and I would not care.

Things Fall Apart is an utterly beautiful story, though. Shoulda been higher.

Panfan · 07-22-2007, 01:35 PM

Yeah, this is a huge popularity contest. As much as I love the books, Harry Potter shouldn't even be ON the list, let alone top ten.

***The Doctor*** · 07-22-2007, 02:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CaptHayfever

Great Expectations isn't even Dickens' best work,

Yeah, it never did be what I thought that it was going to be like.

Swordmaster Link · 07-22-2007, 05:33 PM

That list is laughable.

For one, how in the hell can Crime and Punishment be ranked lower than The Grapes of Wrath? By 30, no less.

Sim Kid · 07-22-2007, 05:49 PM

^And how come "The Secret Life of Bees" wasn't on there. Heck, Poisonwood Bible's top ten material.

Swordmaster Link · 07-22-2007, 05:57 PM

Also, I do think Ender's Game warrants a spot somewhere in the lower part of that list. Plus, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe wasn't even the best Narnia book IMO...

And how can you put the collective Harry Potter series in one spot?

LinkManDX · 07-22-2007, 06:58 PM

The Count of Monte Cristo should be higher. I thought it was better than most of the HP books.

**Crazyswordsman** · 07-22-2007, 07:16 PM

You have to look to the future and see if these things will stand the test of time. You have to include present phenomenons in there. I agree Harry Potter and LotR shouldn't have been so high up, but they should definitely be on the list.

I honestly think Grapes of Wrath deserves the top spot, and I'm surprised Kafka, Mark Twain, and Oscar "The Pimp" Wilde haven't made the list. -CSM

Wyborn · 07-22-2007, 07:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swordmaster Link

That list is laughable.

For one, how in the hell can Crime and Punishment be ranked lower than The Grapes of Wrath? By 30, no less.

....since Steinbeck wrote it better.

**Galefore** · 07-22-2007, 08:16 PM

LotR deserves a top spot, at least in the twenty. I'm sorry if you think it's over-rated, but in all honesty, it was well-written and deserves a high-spot, and not to mention its influence and the way it has shaped modern fantasy. As well, Tolkien built a brilliant universe that was accessable to anyone, and I honestly think that was genius. Still, I liked The Hobbit better.

Anyway, Harry Potter doesn't even need to be on that list. This was indeed a popularity contest.

Kil'jaeden · 07-22-2007, 09:40 PM

The Brothers Karamazov?

Prince Phaeral · 07-22-2007, 09:45 PM

Lord of the Rings should not be at number one. Then again, I'm seething with hate, so don't listen to me.

Bomby · 07-22-2007, 09:55 PM

No Kurt Vonnegut? Bull****!

You do all realize that they just said that Harry Potter is better than Slaughterhouse Five, right?

Kil'jaeden · 07-22-2007, 10:02 PM

56. Dune - Frank Herbert
Holy Hell, it IS on the list. And I was going to bitch about it.

Sim Kid · 07-22-2007, 10:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swordmaster Link

Also, I do think Ender's Game warrants a spot somewhere in the lower part of that list. Plus, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe wasn't even the best Narnia book IMO...

And how can you put the collective Harry Potter series in one spot?

If the Harry Potter SERIES deserves to be on that spot, surely they can put Narnia in as well...The entire series was really influential, even IF most of its popularity was gained after the '05 movie.

...speaking of which, I can see "The Dark is rising" getting some new popularity when the movie comes out...

***CaptHayfever*** · 07-22-2007, 11:09 PM

None of us are taking it seriously, Bomby.

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

Frumie · 07-22-2007, 11:20 PM

Where the hell is Jurassic Park?

**Galefore** · 07-22-2007, 11:32 PM

The writers of the list thought that was a movie-to-book adaption, so they skipped it.

Because they are morons.

07-22-2007, 03:16 AM	#1
Sim Kid Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: The state of Denial Gender: Posts: 8,884 Thanks: 80 Thanked 198 Times in 122 Posts	The 101 greatest novels of all time - Exclusive Books 1. The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien 2. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini 3. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen 4. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee 5. The Harry Potter series - JK Rowling 6. The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver (Firewood Title) 7. The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho 8. Life of Pi - Yann Martel 9. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (Firewood Title) 10. The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy 11. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden 12. Spud - John van de Ruit 13. The Power of One - Bryce Courtenay 14. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien 15. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis de Bernieres 16. Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts 17. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte 18. Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger 19. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte 20. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams 21. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez 22. Disgrace - J. M. Coetzee 23. My Sister's Keeper - Jodi Picoult 24. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger 25. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks 26. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller 27. Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett 28. Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell 29. Cry, the Beloved Country - Alan Paton 30. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald 31. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry 32. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time - Mark Haddon 33. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens 34. Atonement - Ian McEwan 35. Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand 36. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck 37. The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje 38. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy 39. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie 40. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez 41. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon 42. I Know This Much is True - Wally Lamb 43. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth 44. Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell 45. War And Peace - Leo Tolstoy 46. Clan of the Cave Bear - Jean M. Auel 47. The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera 48. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery 49. The Secret History - Donna Tartt 50. Possession - A. S. Byatt 51. Perfume - Patrick Suskind 52. The House of the Spirits - Isabel Allende 53. Chocolat - Joanne Harris 54. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency - Alexander McCall Smith 55. Q & A - Vikas Swarup 56. Dune - Frank Herbert 57. Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame 58. Fugitive Pieces - Anne Michaels 59. River God - Wilbur Smith 60. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott 61. Lord of the Flies - William Golding 62. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis 63. Mort - Terry Pratchett 64. Crime and Punishment - Feodor Dostoyevsky 65. The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood 66. East of Eden - John Steinbeck 67. The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco 68. The Other Boleyn Girl - Philippa Gregory 69. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas - John Boyne 70. The Prince of Tides - Pat Conroy 71. Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier 72. Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding 73. The Shipping News - E. Annie Proulx 74. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll 75. Animal Farm - George Orwell 76. The Red Tent - Anita Diamant 77. Watership Down - Richard Adams 78. Magician - Raymond E Feist 79. Middlemarch - George Eliot 80. The Day of the Jackal - Frederick Forsyth 81. We Need to Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver 82. The Magus - John Fowles 83. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro 84. Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk 85. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas 86. The Shell Seekers - Rosamunde Pilcher 87. The Colour Purple - Alice Walker 88. The Beach House - James Patterson 89. Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak 90. Kringe in 'n Bos - Dalene Matthee 91. The World according to Garp - John Irving 92. Northen Lights - Phillip Pullman 93. Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides 94. Shades - Marguerite Poland 95. Kane and Abel - Jeffrey Archer 96. Fiela se kind - Dalene Matthee 97. Story of an African Farm - Olive Schreiner 98. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl 99. The Magic Faraway Tree - Enid Blyton 100. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe 101. Winnie-the-Pooh - A.A. Milne If anything, this is a popularity contest. Notice how high up Harry Potter is, over books that have stood the test of time and/or won Nobel Prizes. In addition, notice that in the top ten list, there are two Firewood Titles that only made it because they sold well...If there's any top ten lists those belong on, it's a "Top ten ****ty titles that everybody loves".

07-22-2007, 12:08 PM	#2
*CaptHayfever* Smash SuperMod Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: (n) - the place where I am Gender: Posts: 27,659 Thanks: 1,991 Thanked 2,486 Times in 1,513 Posts	Besides that, Great Expectations isn't even Dickens' best work, much less worthy of being that high on the list. And Neftoon Zamora blows Bridget Jones out of the water, but of course that's never going to be on a top-whatever list. And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

07-22-2007, 01:19 PM	#3
Wyborn Zelda Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: All over the place Gender: Posts: 12,388 Thanks: 87 Thanked 469 Times in 281 Posts	This list could get set on fire and blow away as ashes on the wind and I would not care. Things Fall Apart is an utterly beautiful story, though. Shoulda been higher.

07-22-2007, 01:35 PM	#4
Panfan AND HE PRAYS Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Grayskull Gender: Posts: 18,805 Thanks: 1,405 Thanked 2,247 Times in 1,337 Posts Blog Entries: 15	Yeah, this is a huge popularity contest. As much as I love the books, Harry Potter shouldn't even be ON the list, let alone top ten.

07-22-2007, 05:33 PM	#6
Swordmaster Link Super Bodyguard & King of the Arcade Join Date: Apr 2000 Location: Wherever you want me to be Gender: Posts: 32,132 Thanks: 253 Thanked 951 Times in 640 Posts Blog Entries: 2	That list is laughable. For one, how in the hell can Crime and Punishment be ranked lower than The Grapes of Wrath? By 30, no less.

07-22-2007, 05:49 PM	#7
Sim Kid Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: The state of Denial Gender: Posts: 8,884 Thanks: 80 Thanked 198 Times in 122 Posts	^And how come "The Secret Life of Bees" wasn't on there. Heck, Poisonwood Bible's top ten material.

07-22-2007, 05:57 PM	#8
Swordmaster Link Super Bodyguard & King of the Arcade Join Date: Apr 2000 Location: Wherever you want me to be Gender: Posts: 32,132 Thanks: 253 Thanked 951 Times in 640 Posts Blog Entries: 2	Also, I do think Ender's Game warrants a spot somewhere in the lower part of that list. Plus, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe wasn't even the best Narnia book IMO... And how can you put the collective Harry Potter series in one spot?

07-22-2007, 06:58 PM	#9
LinkManDX Senior Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: Because political usernames ftw Gender: Posts: 3,582 Thanks: 297 Thanked 266 Times in 156 Posts	The Count of Monte Cristo should be higher. I thought it was better than most of the HP books.

07-22-2007, 07:16 PM	#10
Crazyswordsman This key doesn't work. Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Booyaville (yeah!) Gender: Posts: 10,791 Thanks: 1,019 Thanked 686 Times in 467 Posts	You have to look to the future and see if these things will stand the test of time. You have to include present phenomenons in there. I agree Harry Potter and LotR shouldn't have been so high up, but they should definitely be on the list. I honestly think Grapes of Wrath deserves the top spot, and I'm surprised Kafka, Mark Twain, and Oscar "The Pimp" Wilde haven't made the list. -CSM

07-22-2007, 08:16 PM	#12
Galefore EXPLOSION GOD OF MUSIC Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Some studio somewhere Gender: Posts: 8,275 Thanks: 1,361 Thanked 826 Times in 535 Posts Blog Entries: 5	LotR deserves a top spot, at least in the twenty. I'm sorry if you think it's over-rated, but in all honesty, it was well-written and deserves a high-spot, and not to mention its influence and the way it has shaped modern fantasy. As well, Tolkien built a brilliant universe that was accessable to anyone, and I honestly think that was genius. Still, I liked The Hobbit better. Anyway, Harry Potter doesn't even need to be on that list. This was indeed a popularity contest.

07-22-2007, 09:40 PM	#13
Kil'jaeden Member Join Date: May 2003 Location: in your mind Gender: Posts: 2,132 Thanks: 21 Thanked 146 Times in 99 Posts	The Brothers Karamazov?

07-22-2007, 09:45 PM	#14
Prince Phaeral Junior Member Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Sephiroth's arms. Gender: Posts: 278 Thanks: 19 Thanked 14 Times in 10 Posts	Lord of the Rings should not be at number one. Then again, I'm seething with hate, so don't listen to me.

07-22-2007, 09:55 PM	#15
Bomby You just freaking blew Joe Biden's mind! Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: WHAT?house Gender: Posts: 19,491 Thanks: 513 Thanked 1,449 Times in 849 Posts Blog Entries: 5	No Kurt Vonnegut? Bull****! You do all realize that they just said that Harry Potter is better than Slaughterhouse Five, right?

07-22-2007, 10:02 PM	#16
Kil'jaeden Member Join Date: May 2003 Location: in your mind Gender: Posts: 2,132 Thanks: 21 Thanked 146 Times in 99 Posts	56. Dune - Frank Herbert Holy Hell, it IS on the list. And I was going to bitch about it.

07-22-2007, 11:09 PM	#18
*CaptHayfever* Smash SuperMod Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: (n) - the place where I am Gender: Posts: 27,659 Thanks: 1,991 Thanked 2,486 Times in 1,513 Posts	None of us are taking it seriously, Bomby. And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

07-22-2007, 11:20 PM	#19
Frumie Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Planet X Gender: Posts: 3,926 Thanks: 310 Thanked 221 Times in 147 Posts	Where the hell is Jurassic Park?

07-22-2007, 11:32 PM	#20
Galefore EXPLOSION GOD OF MUSIC Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Some studio somewhere Gender: Posts: 8,275 Thanks: 1,361 Thanked 826 Times in 535 Posts Blog Entries: 5	The writers of the list thought that was a movie-to-book adaption, so they skipped it. Because they are morons.