(Untitled)

[knihy]

So I'm feeling intellectually under-gunned, again. I can barely spell "John Updike", for example, and my subscription to the New York Review of Books is making me feel even more inadequate. Does anyone care to recommend a list of the top 100 books everyone should read? I'm looking for a decently pretentious one, it should include anna akhmatova,

Comments

100 best novels

[erinzdad]

I happened across this list just last night, it's the Time 100 best novels, 1923 to present, published last year.

http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/index.html

This may not be esoteric enough for your current mood, but take a look. I'd printed the list out because I also have a desire to broaden the ol' intellectual waistline a bit. I found I've read 23 off this list, hope to make it halfway through someday. Of course, some of the 23 all I remember is the title because I read them 30 years ago in a state of highly altered conscienceness. May have some do overs. And I've got some time to read again.
Enjoy!

[brava23]

Go with classics...books like My Antonia and Brave New World are reasonably pretentious, and are actually good reads.

[knihy]

Correct. It was entitled the New York Review of John Updike in the late seventies, but he sued. I can recommend their publishing line, too. I randomly picked up a reprint of what is possibly the best history book I have ever read, The Thirty Year's War by C.V. Wedgwood, and only after purchase did I discover it was a reprint New York Review books.

[sunshineyellow]

oh lord, don't read updike. everyone knows the way to get around this is to read finnegan's wake and pretend like you understood it.