Andrew Rutz's blog
Compulsive reading...
When I was asked as a kid what I liked to do, I'd say "read"... but I wasn't convinced. My passion was athletics, but I think I felt I wasn't supposed to have such an answer... that I was supposed to have a "real hobby" ... a productive one...
Well, times certainly did change, and not only can I read ;-), but I enjoy it. There's a Twilight Zone episode where a librarian who never has enough time to read... finally gets that time... when Earth is hit, I believe, by a meteor... and he is the only human left standing... yet he mistakenly knocks his "spectacles" off his ears... and they shatter on the ground... along with his hopes of reading all those books he's had on "his list".
My greatest fear would be to lose my sight... and probably why I have so much respect and awe of those who are not capable ... and it's probably why I volunteer at Reading for the Blind & Dyslexic. It allows me to share my sight ... to let it live on after I'm gone...
So, after some background on me and reading, here's one of the "100 Best Novels lists" that are "out there". I have read the books that are highlighted.
- ULYSSES by James Joyce
- THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce
- LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov
- BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
- THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner
- CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller
- DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler
- SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence
- THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck
- UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry
- THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by Samuel Butler
- 1984 by George Orwell
- I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves
- TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf
- AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser
- THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers
- SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut
- INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison
- NATIVE SON by Richard Wright
- HENDERSON THE RAIN KING by Saul Bellow
- APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA by John O'Hara
- U.S.A. (trilogy) by John Dos Passos
- WINESBURG, OHIO by Sherwood Anderson
- A PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M. Forster
- THE WINGS OF THE DOVE by Henry James
- THE AMBASSADORS by Henry James
- TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- THE STUDS LONIGAN TRILOGY by James T. Farrell
- THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford
- ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell
- THE GOLDEN BOWL by Henry James
- SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser
- A HANDFUL OF DUST by Evelyn Waugh
- AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner
- ALL THE KING'S MEN by Robert Penn Warren
- THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder
- HOWARDS END by E.M. Forster
- GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN by James Baldwin
- THE HEART OF THE MATTER by Graham Greene
- LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding
- DELIVERANCE by James Dickey
- A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME (series) by Anthony Powell
- POINT COUNTER POINT by Aldous Huxley
- THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway
- THE SECRET AGENT by Joseph Conrad
- NOSTROMO by Joseph Conrad
- THE RAINBOW by D.H. Lawrence
- WOMEN IN LOVE by D.H. Lawrence
- TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller
- THE NAKED AND THE DEAD by Norman Mailer
- PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT by Philip Roth
- PALE FIRE by Vladimir Nabokov
- LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner
- ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac
- THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett
- PARADE'S END by Ford Madox Ford
- THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith Wharton
- ZULEIKA DOBSON by Max Beerbohm
- THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy
- DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather
- FROM HERE TO ETERNITY by James Jones
- THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLES by John Cheever
- THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger
- A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess
- OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham
- HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad
- MAIN STREET by Sinclair Lewis
- THE HOUSE OF MIRTH by Edith Wharton
- THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET by Lawrence Durell
- A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA by Richard Hughes
- A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS by V.S. Naipaul
- THE DAY OF THE LOCUST by Nathanael West
- A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway
- SCOOP by Evelyn Waugh
- THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE by Muriel Spark
- FINNEGANS WAKE by James Joyce
- KIM by Rudyard Kipling
- A ROOM WITH A VIEW by E.M. Forster
- BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh
- THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH by Saul Bellow
- ANGLE OF REPOSE by Wallace Stegner
- A BEND IN THE RIVER by V.S. Naipaul
- THE DEATH OF THE HEART by Elizabeth Bowen
- LORD JIM by Joseph Conrad
- RAGTIME by E.L. Doctorow
- THE OLD WIVES' TALE by Arnold Bennett
- THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London
- LOVING by Henry Green
- MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie
- TOBACCO ROAD by Erskine Caldwell
- IRONWEED by William Kennedy
- THE MAGUS by John Fowles
- WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys
- UNDER THE NET by Iris Murdoch
- SOPHIE'S CHOICE by William Styron
- THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles
- THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain
- THE GINGER MAN by J.P. Donleavy
- THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS by Booth Tarkington
Posted at 12:04AM Aug 02, 2005 by Andrew Rutz in :-) | Comments[0]
