100 Great American Novels (+ Poetry) that we’re not reading bc we watch 2 hours of TV a night.

by Waylon Lewis, elephantjournal.com on Feb 20, 2009

reading book tv

UPDATE: I’ve added in a few notes on books I’ve read, and liked or disliked. Feel free to add your 2 cents in Comments section, below.

I used to read a ton. I used to be a nerd. I used to be well-educated, and half that education was self-education—me in a chair in a park on the couch in the tub reading, reading, reading and learning and enjoying and adjusting the book 555 times in my hands, trying to get comfortable. I still got the big ol’personal living room library to prove it—at least what I haven’t lent or given away (which is the same thing).

Then, four months ago or so, I got my first big TV, and cable for the first time—largely inspired by Planet Green. And while I’ve enjoyed watching basketball, again, and Conan O’Brien, and Jon Stewart & Colbert…well most of ‘em I could watch online. So I’m finally thinking of saving myself a couple hundy a month and going back to having a life, reading, and going out instead of hunkering down with my tired self and my dog Redford and enjoying a little TV R&R each night.

All that said, there’s plenty of good stuff on TV—if you’re disciplined. If you have Tivo and/or Netflix, even easier to not-waste-your-precious-short-human-life channel surfing.

Anyways. Without further adieu, a list of amazing (and a few overrated) books that you better consider reading before you get too old and too blind.

The Radcliffe Publishing Course’s Top 100 Novels & Nonfiction Books of the 20th Century:

On July 21, 1998, the Radcliffe Publishing Course compiled and released its own list of the century’s top 100 novels, at the request of the Modern Library editorial board.

1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (top writer at top of his game)
2. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (every boy/girl should read)
3. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (couldn’t get thru it)
4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (don’t remember)
5. The Color Purple by Alice Walker (didn’t love the style)
6. Ulysses by James Joyce (didn’t love style; reading Joyce is like having to listen to your crazy uncle)
7. Beloved by Toni Morrison (didn’t love style)
8. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding (dark, depressing, great)
9. 1984 by George Orwell (amazingly, haven’t read)
10. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (didn’t love style)
11. Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov (read but don’t remember)
12. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (didn’t love)
13. Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White (love)
14. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce (boo)
15. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (couldn’t get thru it)
16. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (amazingly, haven’t read)
17. Animal Farm by George Orwell (love)
18. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (This would be in my top 10)
19. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner (boo)
20. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (great)
21. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (dark, depressing, didn’t love)
22. Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne (love, love, also love illustrations)
23. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (don’t remember much about it)
24. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (boo, rated highly based on content, not style)
25. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
26. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
27. Native Son by Richard Wright (boo, rated highly on social importance and content, not style)
28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey (couldn’t get thru it)
29. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (couldn’t get thru it)
30. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway (solid)
31. On the Road by Jack Kerouac (in my top 10)
32. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (beautiful)
33. The Call of the Wild by Jack London (fun, great, solid)
34. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (boo on style)
35. Portrait of a Lady by Henry James (don’t remember much)
36. Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin (gorgeous writing)
37. The World According to Garp by John Irving (couldn’t get thru it)
38. All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren (don’t remember)
39. A Room with a View by E.M. Forster (don’t remember, movie is an all-time fave)
40. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (love, the world he creates is so complete and detailed)
41. Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally (saw movie, loved it)
42. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
43. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
44. Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
45. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
46. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
47. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
48. Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence
49. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
50. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
51. My Antonia by Willa Cather (love this, read several times, an all-time fave)
52. Howards End by E.M. Forster
53. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (couldn’t get thru it)
54. Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
55. The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
56. Jazz by Toni Morrison
57. Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
58. Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
59. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
60. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
61. A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor
62. Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald (okay)
63. Orlando by Virginia Woolf
64. Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence (at the time was scandalous, couldn’t get thru it)
65. Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe (couldn’t get thru)
66. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut (couldn’t get thru)
67. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
68. Light in August by William Faulkner (boo on style)
69. The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
70. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
71. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
72. A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (got bored)
73. Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
74. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
75. Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence (couldn’t get thru)
76. Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe (couldn’t get thru, style boo)
77. In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway
78. The Autobiography of Alice B. Tokias by Gertrude Stein
79. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (awesome, fun, I don’t know about top 100 though)
80. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer (couldn’t get thru)
81. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
82. White Noise by Don DeLillo
83. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
84. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
85. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
86. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
87. The Bostonians by Henry James
88. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
89. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
90. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
91. This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald (rough first novel, but loved it)
92. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
93. The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles
94. Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
95. Kim by Rudyard Kipling
96. The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald (couldn’t get thru, and I loove Fitz)
97. Rabbit, Run by John Updike (didn’t dig)
98. Where Angels Fear to Tread by E.M. Forster
99. Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
100. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie