The Internet Book Database of Fiction

Chosen by NBA authors

Anyone agree with them? It's the organization that presents the National Book Awards

1. Absalom!, William Faulkner - Paul West
2. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain- Lloyd Alexander, Mark Bowden, Richard Wilbur
3. Alice In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll - Joyce Carol Oates, Richard Peck, Richard Wilbur
4. All the Kings Men, Robert Penn Warren- Jill Abramson, Madison Smartt Bell
5. Arrowsmith, Sinclair Lewis - Myron Levoy
6. The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron - Laurie Halse Anderson
7. As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner - Mark Bowden, Beth Kephart
8. Aspects of the Novel, E.M. Forster - Tracy Kidder
9. Audubon: A Vision, Robert Penn Warren - Howard Norman
10. ~NBA Finalist~ Bastard Out of Carolina, Dorothy Allison - Andre Dubus III
11. ~NBA Finalist~ Beloved, Toni Morrison - Beth Kephart
12. Black Boy, Richard Wright - Charles Johnson
13. ~NBA Finalist~ Body Rags, Galway Kinnell- Ai
14. The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Ai
15. The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer - Susan Mitchell
16. ~NBA Finalist~ Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger - Adam Bagdasarian, Stephen Dixon
17. Charlotte's Web, E.B. White - Laurie Halse Anderson
18. The Collected Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway-Tracy Kidder
19. ~NBA Winner~ The Color Purple, Alice Walker - Andre Dubus III
20. Confessions, St. Augustine - James Carroll, Charles Wright
21. The Counterfeiters, Andre Gide - Myron Levoy
22. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Stephen Dixon
23. Dark Symphony: Negro Literature in America, edited by James A. Emanuel and Theodore L. Gross - Nikki Giovanni
24. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens- Lloyd Alexander
25. ~NBA Finalist~ A Death in the Family, James Agee - B.H. Fairchild
26. Death of a Lake, Arthur Upfield - Tony Hillerman
27. Doktor Faustus, Thomas Mann - Paul West
28. Dracula, Bram Stoker - Don Delillo
29. Eight Men, Richard Wright - Nikki Giovanni
30. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Tom Wolfe - Mark Bowden
31. Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway - Mark Bowden, Myron Levoy
32. Fathers And Sons, Ivan Turgenev - Ivan Doig, Stephen Dixon
33. Finnegan's Wake, James Joyce-Laurie Halse Anderson
34. ~NBA Finalist~ Of a Fire on the Moon, Norman Mailer - Mark Bowden
35. For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway - Mark Bowden
36. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck - Andres Dubus III
37. ~NBA Winner~ Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon - Mark Bowden
38. Great Dialogues of Plato - Ann Cameron
39. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens - Tracy Kidder
40. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald - Adam Bagdasarian
41. ~NBA Finalist~ The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin - Nikki Giovanni
42. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers - Kimberly Willis Holt
43. The Essential Akutagawa, Ryunosuke Akutagawa - Howard Norman
44. ~NBA Finalist~ Henderson the Rain King, Saul Bellow - Tracy Kidder
45. Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell - Ivan Doig, Tracy Kidder
46. Horseman, Pass By, Larry McMurtry - Andre Dubus III
47. The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Stephen Dixon
48. Kafka's Other Trial, Elias Canetti - Sherod Santos
49. The King James Bible - B.H. Fairchild, Joyce Carol Thomas
50. The Left-Handed Woman, Peter Handke - Sherod Santos
51. Legends of the Fall, Jim Harrison - Andre Dubus III
52. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo - Lloyd Alexander
53. Life on the Mississippi, Mark Twain - Jacques Barzun, Richard Peck
54. Lord of the Flies, William Golding - Stephen King
55. The Lottery, Shirley Jackson - Laurie Halse Anderson
56. The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, Roberto Calasso - Sherod Santos
57. Meditations, Marcus Aurelius - Ann Cameron
58. Metamorphoses, Ovid - Susan Mitchell
59. A Midsummer Night's Dream, William Shakespeare - Susan Mitchell
60. Moby Dick, Herman Melville - Tracy Kidder
61. Monsenor Quijote, Graham Greene - Andre Dubus III
62. ~NBA Winner~ The Moviegoer, Walker Percy - Philip Schultz
63. My Book House, edited by Olive Beaupre Miller - Ellen Howard
64. My Name Is Aram, William Saroyan - Adam Bagdasarian
65. Native Son, Richard Wright- Ai
66. The Negro Caravan: Writings by American Negroes, edited by Sterling A. Brown, Arthur P. Davis and Ulysses Lee - Nikki Giovanni
67. Of Time and the River, Thomas Wolfe - Ivan Doig
68. Open Secrets, Alice Munro - Andre Dubus III
69. Out of Africa, Isak Dinesen - Ivan Doig
70. Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, Roddy Doyle - Mark Bowden
71. Paradise Lost, John Milton - Mark Bowden, Susan Mitchell
72. The Pointed Bone, Arthur Upfield - Tony Hillerman
73. ~NBA Finalist~ The Poorhouse Fair, John Updike - Myron Levoy
74. Portrait of a Lady, Henry James- Jill Abramson
75. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce - Beth Kephart, Tor Seidler
76. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen- Diane Johnson
77. The Prince and the Pauper, Mark Twain - Ann Cameron
78. Remembrance of Things Past, Marcel Proust - Paul West
79. The Richard Trilogy, Paul Horgan - Beth Kephart
80. A Season in Hell, Arthur Rimbaud - Clarence Major
81. ~NBA Winner~ The Snow Leopard, Peter Matthiessen - Mark Bowden
82. ~NBA Finalist~ So Long, See You Tomorrow, William F. Maxwell - Beth Kephart
83. The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake, Breece D'J Pancake - Andre Dubus III
84. The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway - Adam Bagdasarian
85. The Tale of Genji, Lady Murasaki Shikibu- Ai
86. Tales of the South Pacific, James A. Michener - John Balaban
87. The Tempest, William Shakespeare - Tracy Kidder
88. The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, Yukio Mishima- Ai
89. Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe - Joseph Bruchac
90. The Times Are Never So Bad, Andre Dubus - Andre Dubus III
91. Tom Jones, Henry Fielding - Mark Bowden
92. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson - B.H. Fairchild
93. The Twelve Caesars, Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus - Tracy Kidder
94. Ulysses, James Joyce - Deirdre Bair, Don Delillo
95. The Voices of Marrakesh, Elias Canetti - Sherod Santos
96. Walden, Henry David Thoreau - Ann Cameron, Milton Meltzer
97. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy - Lloyd Alexander
98. Watt, Samuel Beckett - Paul West
99. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte - Jill Abramson
100. The Yearling, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings - Lois Lowry

I've read 27 of them. I would say that the books I have read on this list range from very good to superb, but I'm not sure I'd say that any of them have changed my life. Played a role in shaping my values, perhaps.

Well, I'm ashamed to admit I've only read 10 of these. The Grapes of Wrath and "The Lottery" (a short story, actually, not a book), are the ones that affected me the most.

I'm not sure how I'd define a "life-changing" book for myself. Some of the books that have had the deepest effect on me just happened to come along at the right time. And there are some books that I think made a big impact on me but I that I can barely remember now, things I read when I was 9 or 10 years old.

I've read more than 60 of those books, and the only "life-changing" effect that I can think of is that Pride and Prejudice and Wuthering Heights hooked me on Romance novels.

That is truly frightening....

blueworld wrote:Well, I'm ashamed to admit I've only read 10 of these. The Grapes of Wrath and "The Lottery" (a short story, actually, not a book), are the ones that affected me the most.

I'm not sure how I'd define a "life-changing" book for myself. Some of the books that have had the deepest effect on me just happened to come along at the right time. And there are some books that I think made a big impact on me but I that I can barely remember now, things I read when I was 9 or 10 years old.

Don't be I've only read seven of them:

--As I Lay Dying (well, I own it, but I haven't gotten around to it yet, I'm currently reading In Cold Blood )
--Catcher in the Rye (hate it)
--Lord of the Flies (Love it)
--Things Fall Apart (Love it)
--Dracula (good book)
--Charlotte's Web (such a long time ago that I don't remember much of the story)
--The Canterbury Tales (we had to read it for Brit Lit, sadly I don't remember it either)
--Paradise Lost (Isn't this a poem? I had to read it for Brit Lit, but I don't remember it that much)

Dimitri_Yuriev wrote:--Paradise Lost (Isn't this a poem? I had to read it for Brit Lit, but I don't remember it that much)

It's a "poem" in the same way that The Iliad and The Odyssey are "poems" - epic poetry.

If you read it for a Brit Lit survey course, you may have read only part(s) of it. It's quite long - I took a college course on Paradise Lost alone. The only other readings for the course were critical studies of the book.

21 here - BUT I am somewhat dubious of their list.

They claim these are the 100 most "life-changing" books. They don't include The Odyysey, OR The Wind In The Willows. I can, just barely, accept them not including something by Heinlein or Asimov, but they should have included Tarzan Of The Apes, that has had a fundamental impact on many young men for several generations.

Edit: I've just looked at the title again - it does say the "most" - so maybe I'll let it slide - but I stand by the 3 title's I've mentioned as being at least as life-changing as several on their list.

laurie wrote:I've read more than 60 of those books, and the only "life-changing" effect that I can think of is that Pride and Prejudice and Wuthering Heights hooked me on Romance novels.

That is truly frightening....

That was "Come Love a Stranger" by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss for me....(the first romance novel my mom let me read - that's ALL my mom reads, sadly). I didn't read Pride and Prejudice until I was 26, and I read Wuthering Heights when I was 28. (far better than contemporary romance novels, imho)... The only contemporary romance authors I find even approach this level of quality are Rosamunde Pilcher and Maeve Binchy (and that's mainly because there's more story than romance). I have to confess, I preferred Northanger Abbey to Pride & Prejudice though.

I read Pride and Prejudice when my sister was reading it for her 12th grade English class. I was 10 at the time and "borrowed" it after she was done - same thing later on with Sense and Sensibility, Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre.

Poor Sis - she never got her books back. (Didn't get her lipstick back, either, LOL !)

hehe well, I'm the oldest of two, and my brother and I have VERY different tastes in reading. He likes pulp sci-fi and fantasy, and comic books. I like everything else (oh hell, I'll read pulp too, but my tastes are much wider). He was never interested in even looking at anything I was reading.

laurie wrote:I read Pride and Prejudice when my sister was reading it for her 12th grade English class. I was 10 at the time and "borrowed" it after she was done - same thing later on with Sense and Sensibility, Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre.

Poor Sis - she never got her books back. (Didn't get her lipstick back, either, LOL !)

LOL!

laurie wrote:

Dimitri_Yuriev wrote:--Paradise Lost (Isn't this a poem? I had to read it for Brit Lit, but I don't remember it that much)

It's a "poem" in the same way that The Iliad and The Odyssey are "poems" - epic poetry.

If you read it for a Brit Lit survey course, you may have read only part(s) of it. It's quite long - I took a college course on Paradise Lost alone. The only other readings for the course were critical studies of the book.

It was Brit Lit in high school (11th grade), so I guess you're right about only reading a part of it since it was included in our textbook.