The FBG Top 300 Books of All Time (fiction edition) | We are currently up to #47 | Running list in posts #3 and #4 (31 Viewers)

[Eephus]

263 The Magic Christian / Terry Southern

I came across this in one of our local used book stores knowing nothing about out it, but I found it hilarious. A little bit like confederacy of dunces but more absurdist, it follows the escapades of a billionaire named Grand who spends about half his time paying people to engage in all sorts of strange behavior that he considers practical jokes (one of his favorite pranks is to buy hot dogs from railway station vendors just before the train pulls out, handing them one overly-large bill after another and then demanding his change, as the train begins to move and the vendor has to run to keep up). The other half of his time is spent socializing with his aunt and her friends, doddering old wasps who think Grand is the greatest person in the world, even though he is kind of an *** toward them.

I didn't read the book but I watched the movie last night. Southern co-wrote the screenplay along with director Joseph McGrath. I'd seen the movie as a teenager and was surprised by how many of the bits I remembered.

The film moves the action from late 50s America to late 60s London and adds Ringo as the adopted son of Guy Grand to provide his deadpan reactions to Guy's exploits. Many of Guy's pranks from the book are in the movie but probably not in the same order. Based on the synopsis and reviews I read, the novel isn't plot-heavy and the movie follows that, playing out more like a series of loosely connected comedy sketches. Peter Sellers dominates the film as Guy with a mix of arrogance and mischievousness that's not completely unlikable. It's not a good movie by any measure but it's an interesting 60s black comedy that still hits its targets a half century later.

There's a decent, wide-screen print on YouTube that's shown without commercials.

 

[Chaos34]

Flowers for Algernon is a powerful and heartbreaking novel about Charlie Gordon, a man with a low IQ who undergoes surgery to increase his intelligence. Told through Charlie’s journal entries, the story shows his rapid rise and tragic fall, revealing deep truths about human dignity, loneliness, and the cost of knowledge.

I ranked this 20th. I expected it to be #1 for someone. For those seeking reading material from our lists, well, I tell people this is a book everyone should read. Dr. O ranked it #4, so it isn't his top book, but it's close enough if you haven't read it. The tragic fall he describes isn't fun reading, kind of crushing actually. It's not on the list of books that stayed with me for a long time. It's on the very short list of books that stayed with me permanently. I literally think it made me a better person.

 

[Dr. Octopus]

The tragic fall he describes isn't fun reading, kind of crushing actually.

Yes it's devastating in many ways.

It's tragic to see how one's perceptions can change with perspective. Being dumb but "happy" may just be a bit underrated.

 

[Keith R]

11/22/63

I have this on deck to read next.

This was my #13. I really liked the setup and seeing the 1960s through the eyes of someone from the 2010s. There were a couple callbacks to other King works but not enough to be distracting. As someone who didn't know *that* much about the JFK assassination, I couldn't really tell what, if any, incongruencies there were between the book and what really happened, which helped me enjoy the story more. This may be the longest book I've ever read from start to finish for purely entertainment purposes, but it kept me enthralled when I read it 11 years ago and there was no doubt I would finish it.

This was later adapted into a limited series on Hulu, starring James Franco. I sometimes have an issue with Franco's acting, but it was a solid adaptation IMO

 

[Barry2]

11/22/63

I have this on deck to read next.

This was my #13. I really liked the setup and seeing the 1960s through the eyes of someone from the 2010s. There were a couple callbacks to other King works but not enough to be distracting. As someone who didn't know *that* much about the JFK assassination, I couldn't really tell what, if any, incongruencies there were between the book and what really happened, which helped me enjoy the story more. This may be the longest book I've ever read from start to finish for purely entertainment purposes, but it kept me enthralled when I read it 11 years ago and there was no doubt I would finish it.

This was later adapted into a limited series on Hulu, starring James Franco. I sometimes have an issue with Franco's acting, but it was a solid adaptation IMO

I had 11/22/63 ranked as well. The premise of travelling back and having the opportunity to stop the assassination was good enough for me to pick it up. It's kind of tricky getting into it without adding spoilers. The protagonist has to deal with consequence both globally and personally when figuring out if he should act. It's time travel well done.

 

[CletiusMaximus]

I’m hoping to see a write up for #62 Notes From Underground.

 

[Long Ball Larry]

Notes from the Underground

Largely a philosophical treatise with the main character arguing with himself ona some different topics like the value of suffering vs. pleasure, free will vs. determinism, and why it is even worth doing anything in the end. A lot of nihilistic and existential themes and the narrator would probably today be considered somewhere between a highly sensitive person and a dilettante, which I can sadly relate to. The main actual activity of the novella is the narrator going to a prostitute and feeling conflicted about many things including pity for the prostitute, anger at the society that causes that situation, shame about his participation in the process and also contempt for the prostitute. It does have some of the same themes was crime and punishment, but much more like mainlining Dostoevsky’s madness/genius, so if you like themes from Russian literature and can handle the purest white powder version, then this novella might be for you.

 

[shuke]

11/22/63

I have this on deck to read next.

This was my #13. I really liked the setup and seeing the 1960s through the eyes of someone from the 2010s.

This is what I enjoyed about this book. I didn't rank it but was probably in my last 30ish out. I think this was one of King's better books after a stretch that had some clunkers outside of the Dark Tower series (From A Buick 8, Duma Key, Under the Dome). However, I thought it was a little heavy-handed in the point he was trying to make about

Spoiler: maybe a spoiler

the past harmonizing

.

 

[krista4]

Flowers for Algernon didn't cross my mind and should have. Great to see it so high on the list.

 

[Ilov80s]

Flowers for Algernon didn't cross my mind and should have. Great to see it so high on the list.

Kind of embarrassing but I had no idea it was a novel. I read it as a short story in school and was confused when I saw it on this list. Looks like the author turned the short story into a novel. You learn something new everyday.

 

[kupcho1]

OK, let's do three very different books (one of which is the first on the list to garner 6 votes) to take us into the top 50.

52	Johnny Got His Gun	Dalton Trumbo	ilov80s, Don Quixote, shuke
51	The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy	Douglas Adams	turnjose7, guru_007, Oliver Humanzee, Dr_Zaius, Psychopav, rockaction
50	Les Miserables	Victor Hugo	chaos34, Psychopav

52. Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo
shuke: #3
ilov80s: #17
Don Quixote: #21
Total points: 252
Average: 84.0

51. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Psychopav: #12
guru_007: #20
Dr_Zaius: #23
turnjose7: #36
rockaction: #49
Oliver Humanzee: #70
Total points: 253
Average: 42.2

50. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Psychopav: #2
chaos34: #5
Total points: 255
Average: 127.5

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was liked by a lot of people, but Les Miserables was loved by two, so Mssr. Hugo edges out Mr. Adams to reach the top 50.

You may or may not find this interesting, but it will be a little while before we hit a book that's on 7 lists. In fact, we'll hit a book with 8 people ranking it before we reach that one. And, while this might be (OK, probably is) spoiling what the book with 7 nominations will be, I'll tell you anyway: both books are from the same author.

And if you think you know who it is, you're probably wrong.

 

[Barry2]

Never read JGHG, seems way too disturbing.

 

[Ilov80s]

Johnny Got His Gun is a nice light pick me up of a read. I was going to say All Quiet on the Western Front was the most depressing antiwar novel ever written but JGHG is actually more depressing and more effective.

What the hell does liberty mean anyhow? It's a word like house or table or any other word. Only it's a special kind of word. A guy says house and he can point to a house to prove it. But a guy says come on let's fight for liberty and he can't show you liberty. He can't prove the thing he's talking about so how in the hell can he be telling you to fight for it? No sir anybody who went out and got into the front line trenches to fight for liberty was a ******* fool and the guy who got him there was a liar.

 

[Don Quixote]

Thought for sure I had Les Miserables in the top 20, but that is on me. I had it my Word document, but somehow missed translating it over when I put things into the table format. Glad others did not forget it.

 

[shuke]

Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo

This is not a "horror" book, but it's the most horrifying thing I've ever read. If you have any form of claustrophobia this book might not be for you. A WWI soldier wakes up in a hospital after having lost all limbs and a lot of his face and any ability to communicate. But his mind is fully functional. A lot of flashbacks to his earlier life and of course discourse on war, religion. If you haven't read it but it might sound familiar, clips of the movie were used in Metallica's One video.

 

[shuke]

I remember enjoying Hitchiker's but honestly couldn't remember enough about it so I didn't rank it.

 

[Mt. Man]

OK, let's do three very different books (one of which is the first on the list to garner 6 votes) to take us into the top 50.

52	Johnny Got His Gun	Dalton Trumbo	ilov80s, Don Quixote, shuke
51	The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy	Douglas Adams	turnjose7, guru_007, Oliver Humanzee, Dr_Zaius, Psychopav, rockaction
50	Les Miserables	Victor Hugo	chaos34, Psychopav

51. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Psychopav: #12
guru_007: #20
Dr_Zaius: #23
turnjose7: #36
rockaction: #49
Oliver Humanzee: #70
Total points: 253
Average: 42.2

The answer is to round down that average. Even if that raises another question.

 

[turnjose7]

I actually like a couple of the other Hitchhiker books better than the first one, with The Restaurant at the End of the Universe probably being my favorite, but ranked the first just to make sure to capture the series.

 

[Ilov80s]

I remember enjoying Hitchiker's but honestly couldn't remember enough about it so I didn't rank it.

Same.

 

[Eephus]

I watched the 1998 film version of Les Miserables over the weekend after it appeared in the lower reaches of Tim's Nineties movie countdown. It's the non-musical one starring Liam Neeson and Geoffrey Rush. It was a decent enough Classic Comics survey of the story that ended abruptly to let audiences leave the theater with a happy ending.

 

[Dr_Zaius]

I watched the 1998 film version of Les Miserables

Do you at least get "Do You Hear the People Sing"? It's hard to picture Les Miserables without that iconic song.

 

[timschochet]

Les Miserables is one of the very few books that I don’t think it’s necessary to read the full novel. There are literally hundreds of pages where all he does is describe the catacombs of Paris- completely unnecessary. I know this seems almost blasphemous but there are many edited versions that are 400-500 pages long and they’re just fine; you’ll get the entire story.

 

[Don Quixote]

Les Miserables is one of the very few books that I don’t think it’s necessary to read the full novel. There are literally hundreds of pages where all he does is describe the catacombs of Paris- completely unnecessary. I know this seems almost blasphemous but there are many edited versions that are 400-500 pages long and they’re just fine; you’ll get the entire story.

I’ll disagree with that. I love the detail. Sure, it does not really move the plot, but not everything needs to move the plot.

 

[Psychopav]

Les Miserables is one of the very few books that I don’t think it’s necessary to read the full novel. There are literally hundreds of pages where all he does is describe the catacombs of Paris- completely unnecessary. I know this seems almost blasphemous but there are many edited versions that are 400-500 pages long and they’re just fine; you’ll get the entire story.

I tend to agree with this but unfortunately when I read the abridged version it left out some critical parts of the story along with all the contemporaneous exposition that don't really resonate today. So I never picked up the abridged version again.

 

[Eephus]

I am very impressed by the amount of classical literature that's showing up in the countdown.

My knowledge of the classics is very limited; my school curriculum was mostly STEM (before it was an acronym) so I took the bare minimum of literature courses. I've never been without a book in my adult life although left to my own devices, I've mostly steered clear of pre-20th century books. Maybe I should dip my toe in with some short stories or something but my reading list is overflowing at the moment.

 

[kupcho1]

Here's a 3-way tie for 47th place. The variety in genres is a consistent theme in this countdown.

47	One Hundred Years of Solitude	Gabriel Garcia Marquez	chaos34, Don Quixote, krista4
	Foundation	Isaac Asimov	kupcho1, turnjose7, guru_07, Dr_Zaius
	The Brothers Karamazov	Fyodor Dostoevsky	kupcho1, TheBaylorKid, Barry2, Dr_Zaius, Psychopav

47. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Don Quixote: #3
chaos34: #14
krista4: #24
Total points: 257
Average: 85.7

47. Foundation by Isaac Asimov
guru_07: #8
turnjose7: #13
kupcho1: #29
Dr_Zaius: #43
Total points: 257
Average: 64.3

47. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Psychopav: #3
Dr_Zaius: #27
TheBaylorKid: #31
Barry2: #40
kupcho1: #59
Total points: 257
Average: 51.4

@Psychopav with top 3 choices appearing on consecutive days, and 2 from me today.
Have at it.

 

[kupcho1]

Foundation by Isaac Asimov was one of 5 instances where I was "forced" to choose one book from a series rather than all the books. I'm not sure what idiot decided that choosing an entire series was against the rules, but I hope he gets deported to El Salvador.

For the record, I consider the first 3 books to be a complete set. The fact that he added 2 sequels as well as 2 prequels is nice, but not necessary to the story told in the trilogy.

I posted a link to a video in the Dune thread, but basically the gist of it was: Foundation is Whigs in space. Asimov was a New Deal believer. That is, the solution to any problem is provided in a top-down manner, either by the government or another organization that new what was best for humanity. In the case of Foundation , it is one man, Hari Seldon and Psychohistory. (Dune, on the other hand, was a response to Foundation and was more indivualistically centered.)

Anyway, it's a great series.

 

[Don Quixote]

Here's a 3-way tie for 47th place. The variety in genres is a consistent theme in this countdown.

47	One Hundred Years of Solitude	Gabriel Garcia Marquez	chaos34, Don Quixote, krista4
	Foundation	Isaac Asimov	kupcho1, turnjose7, guru_07, Dr_Zaius
	The Brothers Karamazov	Fyodor Dostoevsky	kupcho1, TheBaylorKid, Barry2, Dr_Zaius, Psychopav

47. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Don Quixote: #3
chaos34: #14
krista4: #24
Total points: 257
Average: 85.7

47. Foundation by Isaac Asimov
guru_07: #8
turnjose7: #13
kupcho1: #29
Dr_Zaius: #43
Total points: 257
Average: 64.3

47. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Psychopav: #3
Dr_Zaius: #27
TheBaylorKid: #31
Barry2: #40
kupcho1: #59
Total points: 257
Average: 51.4

@Psychopav with top 3 choices appearing on consecutive days, and 2 from me today.
Have at it.

Removing color formatting. I’ll post something on One Hundred Years of Solitude later.

 

[krista4]

Greetings from London, where I haven't kept up with the thread much, but I have only had 1-2 selections show up recently! Since I'm the low scorer at #24 on One Hundred Years of Solitude (and I don't have time to type anyway), I'll leave that to others.

My tidbit for the day is that OH has a tattoo related to his #70 book, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The perils of having been 16 years old.

 

[turnjose7]

Foundation by Isaac Asimov was one of 5 instances where I was "forced" to choose one book from a series rather than all the books. I'm not sure what idiot decided that choosing an entire series was against the rules, but I hope he gets deported to El Salvador.

For the record, I consider the first 3 books to be a complete set. The fact that he added 2 sequels as well as 2 prequels is nice, but not necessary to the story told in the trilogy.

I posted a link to a video in the Dune thread, but basically the gist of it was: Foundation is Whigs in space. Asimov was a New Deal believer. That is, the solution to any problem is provided in a top-down manner, either by the government or another organization that new what was best for humanity. In the case of Foundation , it is one man, Hari Seldon and Psychohistory. (Dune, on the other hand, was a response to Foundation and was more indivualistically centered.)

Anyway, it's a great series.

I consider the main 3 books to be a complete set as well. But ended up putting all 3 on the list because I couldn't see how any of them could be left out and I guess I'm a rule follower.

I don't know that I've ever encountered anything with the scope of the Foundation story. It's the story of an entire galaxy over hundreds of years of time (or even tens of thousands if you count stuff that is referenced or predicted, though not specifically seen). It's wild and incredibly fun, but can also be challenging to follow. I can't believe they actually tried to make a TV series out of it.

 

[turnjose7]

I would have thought Marquez's other really famous novel would have made the list but been ranked behind One Hundred Years of Solitude. Now I'm intrigued because I guess it didn't make the list at all (I don't think I've missed it), but maybe it pulled the upset and is ranked higher?

 

[kupcho1]

I would have thought Marquez's other really famous novel would have made the list but been ranked behind One Hundred Years of Solitude. Now I'm intrigued because I guess it didn't make the list at all (I don't think I've missed it), but maybe it pulled the upset and is ranked higher?

All will be revealed ...

Seriously, there are two tables for the authors in the statistics tab:

1. Ranked by total number of books submitted
2. Ranked by total number of books in the top 300

 

[Mrs.Marco]

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Hemingway is another one of my repeat authors. This is Papa Hemingway’s debut novel published in 1926 at the age of 27. It’s the work of a young man but carries with it the sadness and world weariness of a lost generation author who had already been severely injured working for the Red Cross in WW1, bummed around Europe with the likes of Ezra Pound, Picasso and John Dos Passos and covered the Greco-Turkish war for the Toronto Star.

This is about expatriates, cafe society, matadors, drinking, love and a total lack of fulfillment with a post war world with fictional characters standing in for real life members of Hemingway’s circle. There’s something deeply romantic about it, you want to be there in Pamplona drinking wine in the shade of a tree but the emptiness weighs more than bulls themselves.

How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”

That's a great description of the mood of the novel.

I read a non-fiction book Everybody Behaves Badly that's about Hemingway's 1925 trip to Pamplona which inspired the book. The Lost Generation has been written about a lot but I found this one very interesting.

Everybody Behaves Badly: The True Story Behind Hemingway’s Masterpiece The Sun Also Rises — Lesley M. M. Blume

The making of Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, the outsize personalities who inspired it, and the vast changes it wrought on the literary world

www.lesleymmblume.com

I read both books as a pair--and it was a great reading experience!

 

[Barry2]

I'm definitely going to leave Brothers Karamazov to one of the higher ranks. This is the first of three russian classics that I tried and the only one I liked. Part of the enjoyment was what came after. The reviews, lurking reddit etc...helped enlighten me on the philosophies.

 

[Mrs.Marco]

Alright, my #1 — War and Peace. Although I wonder if it would have been as highly acclaimed if published under its original title, “War, What is it Good For?” (Absolutely nothing, hyuh)

By now, you have probably seen in my rankings my affinity for historical fiction (e.g., Wolf Hall, Lincoln in the Bardo, Midnight’s Children), as well as novels with some philosophical element to them. And there is nothing that meshes the two quite like War and Peace. You’ve got the Napoleonic invasion of Russia as the backdrop, mixed with the home front and a cast of hundreds, as well as some philosophy on the nature of war. It gets knocked for its length, but it never felt like it dragged to me. The initial part has a lot of setup and introducing the characters, which can make it a little bit hard to get into. But once it settles in, it is an epic ride.

While I did not rank Tender is the Night, I do like seeing it show up here. It was on my list that just missed the 70 cut. I had two Fitzgerald novels in my 70 and decided to break end of list “tie” with less represented authors.

I had War and Peace as my #40. I read it while stuck on the sofa with a broken kneecap, and I found it utterly absorbing. I particularly liked the historical asides.

 

[Psychopav]

I can see I'm behind. Let me try to catch up some today.

First up, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

I can't say this is my favourite book of the series but I can't say it wasn't. It started it all, after all, and there's no forgetting the opening salvo of Arthur Dent trying to protect his home from being demolished so that the government can build an interstate bypass through his front yard. Not only does the series provide a surprisingly cohesive plot with memorable characters (if not, exactly, character development), this book - this (increasingly inaccurately named) trilogy - comes as close to written word Monty Python as anything could. From Marvin the Paranoid Android to the improbability drive, Ford Prefect and Zaphod Beeblebrox, this series is so rich with quotable quotes and memorable vignettes that it's hard to pick just one. But that's what I'm going to do anyway. You can look up for yourselves my runners up, both of which may be also be found in the inaugural novel. Just google "Hitchhiker's Guide Towel" or "Hitchhiker's Guide Whale Passage" if you like. In the mean time, here for your reading enjoyment is Adam's description of Vogon poetry - also from Book 1:

“Vogon poetry is of course, the third worst in the universe.
The second worst is that of the Azgoths of Kria. During a recitation by their poet master Grunthos the Flatulent of his poem "Ode to a Small Lump of Green Putty I Found in My Armpit One Midsummer Morning" four of his audience died of internal haemorrhaging and the president of the Mid-Galactic Arts Nobbling Council survived by gnawing one of his own legs off. Grunthos was reported to have been "disappointed" by the poem's reception, and was about to embark on a reading of his 12-book epic entitled "My Favourite Bathtime Gurgles" when his own major intestine, in a desperate attempt to save humanity, leapt straight up through his neck and throttled his brain.
The very worst poetry of all perished along with its creator, Paul Neil Milne Johnstone of Redbridge, in the destruction of the planet Earth. Vogon poetry is mild by comparison.”

Yes, Paul Neil Milne Johnstone was an actual poet who, as it happens, went to school with Adams. More on that here, including a sample of his poetry.

 

[Psychopav]

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

I had a hard time deciding on whether this or the Brothers K would be my #2, and ultimately decided on this because I felt that, on balance, this has brought the most to my life. I will freely admit however that it would have slipped to third had it not been for the well known musical, which I was a big fan and first prompted me to pick up the book.

Having said this, as might be expected, the novel brings so much more depth to the story than a 4 hour musical ever could, especially considering there are big chunks of story and of course nuance that understandably couldn't survive the transition from 1500 page novel. Yes, there are hundreds of pages on nineteenth century Parisian sewers, street urchins, and convents. And I will never get those hours of my life back (or the hours I spent re-reading the book, and reading it again, and even some of that made it into the abridge version I mentioned upthread). That said, there's a reason that Jean Valjean routinely makes the short list of the greatest fictional characters of all time. If any novel defines the "Epic", it's Les Mis. It got its hooks deep into me and has never let go.

I assume the story is well known for those who care to know, but one thing that might not be so well known is how well-fleshed out the characters and situations are. The realism is relentless, if not in broad plot strokes certainly in the minutiae of the characters' motivations and actions - which is where this novel lives. Each situation is a story in itself, masterfully told with morals that continue to ripple and fold back on themselves as the novel progresses. I still remember the first time I read the story of Jean Valjean's tormented decision to turn himself in when, as mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer, he learned that someone was going to be sent to prison in his place. Hugo writes it just as it would happen, with all the twists and turns one might expect when conscience is grappling with self-sacrifice. The Bishop's sacrifice is another example of brilliant writing that resonates with the reality I myself experience in far less epic ways (admittedly as focused through my worldview).

Ultimately, if Hitchhiker's Guide represents my artistic outlook (surrealism), and Brother's K (and Dostoevsky more generally) my philosophical outlook (Christian existentialism), then I'd say that Les Mis represents well my theology (Catholicism - call it sacrificial love).

 

[Don Quixote]

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

The most frequent phrase that comes up with One Hundred Years of Solitude is “magical realism.” Salman Rushdie called it the greatest book in any language in the past 50 years — you can see how it informed something like Midnight’s Children. Toni Morrison called it one of the five most important books of the world, and you can see how it informed Beloved.

But its influence is not why it is a favorite of mine. Not even really the plot. It is the story of the Buendía family over seven generations, showing the rise and fall and cycles of events that befall the family. Its themes are similar to those of Latin American history and the colonial experience in Colombia.

It’s really the prose that wowed me when I read it. I can’t remember how many times I read a line or a passage or a description of something and needed to re-read it because I thought it was so dang beautifully written. It was originally released in Spanish, and while I’m tempted to learn Spanish just I could read it in its original form, I also know that Marquez called Rabassa’s translation superior to the original Spanish.

I still need to watch the Netflix series that came out a few months ago. I started watching it, but was having a little trouble getting into it, and made me worry it would lower my estimation of the book.