The FBG Top 300 Books of All Time (fiction edition) | We are currently up to #60 | Running list in posts #3 and #4 (44 Viewers)

[shuke]

I hope we don't go quickly through this back end of the list. I'd like to hear from people why they chose their selections.

I was planning to go through 300 - 201 from April 1 - 3. This is consistent with scoresman's TV countdown.
If that's too fast let me know and I'll pump the brakes.

I do realize that people have lives and won't be online all day waiting to chime in on their books. However, we can always come back to earlier selections whenever we want. As some of you have already gathered (and I did get a chuckle out of "cut line"; what is this, the Masters?), everyone has got at least their top 17 counted.

Either way, I'm good. If everyone could just let me know what pace you'd like to see and I'll try to accommodate it.

It's your thread so do what you want. I can process a list of 50 shows in a matter of minutes because I'd be at least familiar with most of them. With this list, I expect to see a number of things I've never heard of and would like people to have to opportunity to discuss more.

 

[Psychopav]

Wow, I'm the only person that listed Beowulf? Arguably one of the most important pieces of literature in the English language, and it isn't some boring stuffy work. It's an outstanding telling of the hero's journey and incredibly fun. That really surprises me.

Also, even though I'm a listed ranker for Beowulf and The Divine Comedy (and also one of the two who ranked The Canterbury Tales), my list is NOT all or even mostly classics. Tons of King, and Crichton, and Star Wars novels and stuff like that on there. But those seemed like slam dunks to me. Maybe it's just my love of the history that's associated with those three choices.

Yeah, I didn't have any of those three but figured they'd be top 100 at least, if not top 70.

Guess we're not as pretentious as I gave us credit for.

Maybe I didn't say that right.

 

[Ministry of Pain]

You want us to list 300 books we've read in our lifetime?
What is this 70 book thread I see listed below as I'm posting...

How about 5 or 10?
I would bet money a large chunk of folks in here haven't read 50 books since they left grade school/college

"How to Read a Book"
-Mortimer Adler
I like nonfiction myself

 

[Eephus]

From Russia with Love by Ian Fleming (1957)

FRWL was the fifth James Bond novel and one of JFK's ten favorite books according to a 1961 magazine article. The plot is familiar if you've seen the movie. The big differences are villains who are Russian rather than members of the criminal transnational organization SPECTRE. The third act of the book also lacks the action set pieces of the film. Fleming's Bond is a darker character than the actors who've portrayed him on screen. He's a brutal assassin who drinks and smokes to excess. He also really likes eggs for some reason.

The 007 novels were the first grown-up books I read when I was a tween which made me feel cool and sophisticated for a seventh grader. I've re-read some of them as an adult and still found them entertaining. FRWL is the only Fleming book I ranked because it's always been my favorite. I also ranked a more recent non-Fleming Bond in the low 60s because I can't get enough of the character and there's still some of that 12 year-old Eephus in me.

 

[Barry2]

Wow, I'm the only person that listed Beowulf? Arguably one of the most important pieces of literature in the English language, and it isn't some boring stuffy work. It's an outstanding telling of the hero's journey and incredibly fun. That really surprises me.

You sold me.

 

[krista4]

Phase 2: Books 300 - 201

First up, a 12 way tie for 294th place (that actually pushes the total number of books in the top 300 to 305 but whatcha gonna do?)

294​	The Canterbury Tales	Geoffrey Chaucer	2​
	Billiards at Half-Past Nine	Heinrich Boll	1​

My #17 isn't on the list, as it will undoubtedly do much better than this in the rankings, so I'll just highlight these two. First, The Canterbury Tales should have been on my list. I thought of it along the way but forgot to include it at the end. Would have been somewhere near the middle of my rankings.

Second, the Boll book is OH's selection. He hasn't been feeling well, but I hope that he'll be able to catch up soon and write about this and the le Carre he had in the post #2 list.

 

[krista4]

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem was my #17. It is one of the funniest books I've ever read.

Acccckkkkkk! There is another Lethem that should have been on my list. Dammit. I will add this to my to-read pile.

 

[krista4]

294. James Salter - Light Years (1975)

This sounds fantastic.

 

[TheBaylorKid]

Daemon by Daniel Suarez

Techno thriller. A programmer sets a daemon on the world upon his death.

“This thrill-a-nanosecond novel is certainly faithful to the techno-traditions of Michael Crichton and should delight not only readers of the 'science gone awry' genre, but general adventure readers as well.”—Booklist

Delta V by Suarez was good. Hard sci fi about asteroid mining. I love how he put reference at the back of the book of you wanted to geek out and read non fiction about asteroid mining. I didn’t put Delta V in the top 50 although it met one of my criteria: inspires you to read more.

I copied down his list of non fiction books for the reading list.

Further Reading

You can learn more about the science, technologies, and themes explored in

Delta- by visiting www.daniel-suarez.com or through the following sources:



The Age of Reconnaissance: Discovery, Exploration, and Settlement, 1450 to

1650 by J.H. Parry (University of California Press)

Asteroid Mining 101: Wealth for the New Space Economy by John S. Lewis
(Deep Space Industries)

An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth: What Going to Space Taught Me

About Ingenuity, Determination, and Being Prepared for Anything by
Colonel Chris Hadfield (Little, Brown and Company)


The Darkness Beckons: The History and Development of Cave Diving by Martyn Farr (Vertebrate Publishing)

Electrostatic Phenomena on Planetary Surfaces by Carlos I. Calle (Morgan & Claypool Publishers)

Federal Aviation Regulations / Aeronautical Information Manual 2017 by FAA Aviation Supplies and Academics

The Long Space Age: The Economic Origins of Space Exploration from Co-
lonial America to the Cold War by Alexander McDonald (Yale Uni-
versity Press)


Money As Debt by Paul Grignon(www.moneyasdebt.net)

Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach
(W. W. Norton & Company)


Selected Works of Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky by Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky
(University Press of the Pacific)

FURTHER READING

Space Chronicles: Pacing the Ultimate Frontier by Neil deCrasse Twan
(W. W. Norton & Company)

Space Resoures: Breaking the Bonds of Earth by John S, Lewis and Ruth A,
Lewis (Columbia University Press)

Space Warfare in the 21st Century: Arming the Heavens By Joan Johnson
Freese (Routledge)

 

[Eephus]

Delta V by Suarez was good. Hard sci fi about asteroid mining. I love how he put reference at the back of the book of you wanted to geek out and read non fiction about asteroid mining. I didn’t put Delta V in the top 50 although it met one of my criteria: inspires you to read more.

I was going to make a NASCAR joke about Daniel Suarez but you're one of the few people in the thread who'd get it.

 

[BLOCKED_PUNT]

didn't do a list since I'm very unread but The Da Vinci Code is one of the few books that I've read (and remember it fairly well) and would have probably been #2 if I made a list.

 

[kupcho1]

Phase 2: Books 300 - 201 continued

Continuing on, a few books with multiple selections

293​	The Spy Who Came in from the Cold	John le Carré	2​
292​	The Sum of All Fears	Tom Clancy	2​
281​	Steppenwolf	Herman Hesse	1​
	The Time Machine Did It	John Swartzwelder	1
	Perelandra	C.S. Lewis	1
	Diary of a Wimpy Kid	Jeff Kinney	1
	The Promise	Chaim Potok	1
	Sing, Unburied, Sing	Jesmyn Ward	1
	Rendezvous with Rama	Arthur C. Clarke	1
	Ethan Frome	Edith Wharton	1
	As I Lay Dying	William Faulkner	1
	A Separate Peace	John Knowles	2
	Hawaii	James Michener	2
279​	She’s Come Undone	Wally Lamb	2​
	The Crying of Lot 49	Thomas Pynchon	2
278​	The Hunt for Red October	Tom Clancy	2​
277​	Get Shorty	Elmore Leonard	3​

This is a very interesting mix. We've also got our first repeat author in Tom Clancy.

That'll do it for today. Again, my intent is to cover ~ the first 100 or so books in the countdown over 3 days. This is a light day due to how the rankings broke down. 29 today, 39 tomorrow and 37 on day 3. (Yes, that's 105. But as explained previously, a 12 way tie for 294th place pushed us past 300.)

Also, I've update the running list in post #3.
This list will always be straight text, so hopefully those using the light display can see it.

 

[rockaction]

294. James Salter - Light Years (1975)

This sounds fantastic.

Glad you feel that way. It's actually a tough, depressing read, but his writing is so good that it was my number seventeen. You start out liking the characters, but then not so much. And Salter will rip your heart out with a sentence.

This, from the aforementioned wedding:

Danny's wedding took place at the house of a friend. It was in the country, near Ossining, a wedding somehow old-fashioned despite its youth and informality. The day was warm. It was like Sundays in small villages. Her mother and father were there, of course, her sister, her lover Juan. She was marrying his brother. Theo Prisant was taller than Juan, younger, not as well-formed. He was still in school, his last year of law . . . A vast, brilliant day, the trees sighing, the rooms a bit warm. The ceremony was brief, a cat was rubbing against Viri's leg. The wedding march was played as the bridal couple entered the reception room. In that moment as he saw his daughter in sun-struck white, near now to another, departing, already gone, he felt a sudden pang of bitterness and loss, as if he had somehow been proved a failure, as if his whole life could be dismissed in a word.

- Salter, Light Years, p. 240-242

 

[Eephus]

Phase 2: Books 300 - 201 continued

Continuing on, a few books with multiple selections

293​	The Spy Who Came in from the Cold	John le Carré
292​	The Sum of All Fears	Tom Clancy	3​
281​	Steppenwolf	Herman Hesse	2​
​	Perelandra	C.S. Lewis	2​
	The Time Machine Did It	John Swartzwelder	2​
​	Diary of a Wimpy Kid	Jeff Kinney	2​
​	The Promise	Chaim Potok	2​
	Sing, Unburied, Sing	Jesmyn Ward	1​
	Rendezvous with Rama	Arthur C. Clarke	1​
	Ethan Frome	Edith Wharton	1​
	As I Lay Dying	William Faulkner	1​
	A Separate Peace	John Knowles	1​
	Hawaii	James Michener	1​
279​	She’s Come Undone	Wally Lamb	1​
	The Crying of Lot 49	Thomas Pynchon	1​
278​	The Hunt for Red October	Tom Clancy	2​
277​	Get Shorty	Elmore Leonard	2​

This is a very interesting mix. We've also got our first repeat author in Tom Clancy.

That'll do it for today. Again, my intent is to cover ~ the first 100 or so books in the countdown over 3 days. This is a light day due to how the rankings broke down. 29 today, 39 tomorrow and 37 on day 3. (Yes, that's 105. But as explained previously, a 12 way tie for 294th place pushed us past 300.)

Also, I'll update the running list in post #2

I've gone blind

 

[guru_007]

Hmmm, pretty interesting reveal here. I'm a bit curious as to scoring as I see two of my books listed. as tied for 281st. One I had ranked 16th, and the other 32nd, I would have anticipated the 16th rank book come in quite a bit higher.
The interesting thing (to me) is that Steppenwolf came in, detailed by 2 posters, if I'm correct? I have three Hesse books on my top 70 (he's my favorite author) and Steppenwolf was not one of the books I selected. Probably would have come in in the next 70 though.
eta, I am also blind.

 

[kupcho1]

I've gone blind

You need to turn on braille. Top right-hand corner. You can't miss it.

 

[kupcho1]

I'm a bit curious as to scoring as I see two of my books listed. as tied for 281st. One I had ranked 16th, and the other 32nd, I would have anticipated the 16th rank book come in quite a bit higher.

Your 16th ranked book is listed in the table (Rendezvous with Rama). Your 32nd ranked book will be showing up much later.
I believe you mean your 31st ranked book (A Separate Peace) which was also ranked by another participant. Their points + your points = Rendezvous' points.

Make sense?

Or did I mix up your rankings somehow? This is entirely possible given the lack of support for tables on the board. Entering in the books and authors was a treat.

 

[guru_007]

I'm a bit curious as to scoring as I see two of my books listed. as tied for 281st. One I had ranked 16th, and the other 32nd, I would have anticipated the 16th rank book come in quite a bit higher.

Your 16th ranked book is listed in the table (Rendezvous with Rama). Your 32nd ranked book will be showing up much later.
I believe you mean your 31st ranked book (A Separate Peace) which was also ranked by another participant. Their points + your points = Rendezvous' points.

Make sense?

Or did I mix up your rankings somehow? This is entirely possible given the lack of support for tables on the board. Entering in the books and authors was a treat.

Makes sense. I was just curious. I though the last number on the table was the number of posters that ranked the book (which must be incorrect). And I'm just commenting from the peanut gallery here. I appreciate your efforts in getting this together.

 

[Mrs.Marco]

Anthony Hecht - Collected Later Poems (2005)

This is a collection of formalist, classical poetry written by one of the masters of the poetic form in the twentieth century in America. At times using abstruse allusions that make his artistic intentions somewhat difficult to understand for the lay reader (like myself), the rhyme, meter, and his thoughts and philosophy within his poetry are all so extraordinary that the more accessible poems are some of the finest I have ever read in the English language. I have taken to partially memorizing them because they’re so edifying and beautiful.

The inscription that begins the book:

For Helen

Oh my most dear, I know the live im-
print
Of that smile of gratitude
Know it more perfectly than any book
It brims upon the world, a mood
Of love, a mode of gladness without
stint
O that I may be worthy of that look.

The typesetting isn’t working (it has indentations and such), but you get the picture. It has complex but lovely and accessible meter and rhyme.

And the book proceeds from there. Other remarkable poems are “The Transparent Man” and “Terms," in which Hecht, who could be lethally serious and often biblical, rages about sin, violence, peace, and God's first and upcoming apocalypse and asks us:

What do those distant thunderheads betide?
Nothing to do with us. Not our disgrace
That the raped corpse of a four-
teen year old,
tied With friction tape, is found
in a ditch, and a tide Of violent
crime
breaks out. Yet the world
grown Wrathful,
corrupt, once loosed a true
floodtide That
inched inside the wards where
the frail
are tied To their beds, invaded
attics,
climbed to disclose Sharks in
the nurseries,
eels on the floor, to close Over
lives
and cries and herds, and on
that tide, Which splintered
barn, cottage
and city piece-Meal, one sole
family rode
the world to peace.
Think of the glittering morn-
ing when God's peace
Flooded the heavens as it with-
drew the tide:
Sweet grasses, endless field of
such rich
peace That for long after, when
men dreamed
of peace, It seemed a place
where beast and human
grace A pastoral landscape, a
Virgilian
peace, Or scene such as Mante-
gna's masterpiece
Of kneeling shepherds. But that
dream has grown
Threadbare, improbable, and
our paupers groan While
"stockpiled warheads guaran-
tee our peace,"
And troops, red-handed, mus-
cle in
for the close. Ours is a wound
that
bleeds and will not close.
Long since we had been cau-
tioned: "Until he close
His eyes forever, mildly and in
peace,
Call no man happy." The stain
of our disgrace
Grows ominously, a malign, in-
grown
Melanoma, softly spreading its
dark tide

Fire and brimstone! He could also be wickedly funny and sentimental, and he was adept at understanding romance and heartbreak. In short, I had this at number eighteen because I love it.

I'm trying to read more poetry--and will definitely add this collection to my list!

 

[kupcho1]

Hmmm, pretty interesting reveal here. I'm a bit curious as to scoring as I see two of my books listed. as tied for 281st. One I had ranked 16th, and the other 32nd, I would have anticipated the 16th rank book come in quite a bit higher.
The interesting thing (to me) is that Steppenwolf came in, detailed by 2 posters, if I'm correct? I have three Hesse books on my top 70 (he's my favorite author) and Steppenwolf was not one of the books I selected. Probably would have come in in the next 70 though.
eta, I am also blind.

No, you got it right. I got it wrong. The ****ing tables. I didn't enter the correct number in the far column.
I've got it automatically constructed for the running list in post #2. I'm concatenating and dropping in here as text.
I'll fix it.

 

[Mrs.Marco]

294. James Salter - Light Years (1975)

This is a book about a couple, Viri (an architect) and Nedra (his wife) who live in Hudson Valley, New York. They are privileged and the book is about them, their marriage, their social life, and ultimately their affairs and the dissolution of the marriage and the death of Nedra from cancer. The book chronicles their life together and apart over the span of fifteen or so years.

Salter is a relatively unknown author, one the New Yorker calls “a writer’s writer,” who passed in 2015 after a life of authorship following a previous career in the military. He can, in my opinion, turn a phrase and use language like no other author alive this century, and he garnered a reputation as a master of style among the literary critic set.

In a review of Light Years for The Independent, he is called “a stylist the equal of John Cheever and John Updike. His writing is close to poetry.” The reviewer continues, “I was in the company of a remarkable writer. My anxiety was that he would not be able to sustain such a level but miraculously, with just a slip or two, he does.”

And thus, the book. Of particular note to me is a character named Arnaud, a friend who gets attacked one night in New York City and loses an eye. A close friend before this, we do not hear of him again after the incident until several hundred pages later when he pops back into the novel and into Nedra and Viri's world like nothing has happened. Salter shows us the cruelty inhering in their social sphere by having him go entirely missing from their lives without mention (neither author nor character so much as discusses Arnaud in his absence), but it is not a malicious or punitive cruelty; rather, it is born from thoughtlessness and self-absorption.

He closes with the wedding of their daughter, Danny, whereupon Salter introduces us to her groom and then to his brother, whom he abruptly tells us Danny is sleeping with. Salter and Danny leave the groom in the dark about this—there is no wedding conflagration or confession to be had—and the novel ends soon after the ceremony which is now tarnished in the reader's mind, with Salter revealing, in one critic’s words, that "the passage of time is the novel’s protagonist.”

TL;DR James Salter, a highly stylistic writer, writes a book about a marriage and its dissolution with an examination of the couple's self-absorption and a look at how the passage of time affects us and is ultimately embodied in our lives.

I loved this book, too.

 

[Mrs.Marco]

Pele The Conquerer by Martin Andersen Nexo (my #19)
I have been reading about Denmark since my daughter moved there--both nonfiction and fiction. Pele is a good example of how fiction can represent culture better than a whole bunch of history books. I came to care so much about Pele who ended up representing the values important to the state of Denmark today. When I travel I like to read a classic from that country, if at all possible.

 

[Mrs.Marco]

Go, Went, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck (my #17)
Erpenbeck is a German author who writes really beautiful, sharply observed books. This poignant story is about an older man who befriends the immigrants living in a tent city in a nearby park. The story is so human, and it's one I recommend to anyone. A feel good story. I also loved her newest book Kairos about a May-December romance in the era when the Berlin wall fell. It focuses on the Eastern German population which is interesting and not as common.

 

[Don Quixote]

281. Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward (2017) (my #16)

This is the only that I ranked in this group (I think). Ward is one of my favorites writers of this century. Sing, Unburied, Sing and Salvage the Bones both won the National Book Award. This one also appears on a number of lists of best books of the decade/century.

Putting aside the critical stuff though, it is just a great book. I’d compare it to an updated version of William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, so it is appropriate for them to tie here. It drew a lot of inspiration from that, as it involves a family trip across Mississippi and multiple narrators. But it is updated for the 21st century, and told from the perspective of a black/biracial family. It’s got an intersection of race, poverty, drug issues, with the family trip involving them driving to pick up their father from prison. Also a bit of supernatural with a ghost of Mississippi’s past along for the ride. And Ward provides some good prose to go along with it.

 

[Psychopav]

Perelandra is the second book in C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy. Following his adventure in Out of the Silent Planet, philologist Elwin Ransom is summoned by the Oyarsa of Malacandra and sent to Perelandra. His mission is to prevent the fall of this unfallen world.

Perelandra is a paradise-like planet covered in oceans with floating islands.


This was one of the exceptions I made to the series rule I devised for myself, as it is not the first book in the series. I read the Space Trilogy at least once a year and this is often (but not always) my favorite of the three.

 

[rockaction]

294. James Salter - Light Years (1975)

This is a book about a couple, Viri (an architect) and Nedra (his wife) who live in Hudson Valley, New York. They are privileged and the book is about them, their marriage, their social life, and ultimately their affairs and the dissolution of the marriage and the death of Nedra from cancer. The book chronicles their life together and apart over the span of fifteen or so years.

Salter is a relatively unknown author, one the New Yorker calls “a writer’s writer,” who passed in 2015 after a life of authorship following a previous career in the military. He can, in my opinion, turn a phrase and use language like no other author alive this century, and he garnered a reputation as a master of style among the literary critic set.

In a review of Light Years for The Independent, he is called “a stylist the equal of John Cheever and John Updike. His writing is close to poetry.” The reviewer continues, “I was in the company of a remarkable writer. My anxiety was that he would not be able to sustain such a level but miraculously, with just a slip or two, he does.”

And thus, the book. Of particular note to me is a character named Arnaud, a friend who gets attacked one night in New York City and loses an eye. A close friend before this, we do not hear of him again after the incident until several hundred pages later when he pops back into the novel and into Nedra and Viri's world like nothing has happened. Salter shows us the cruelty inhering in their social sphere by having him go entirely missing from their lives without mention (neither author nor character so much as discusses Arnaud in his absence), but it is not a malicious or punitive cruelty; rather, it is born from thoughtlessness and self-absorption.

He closes with the wedding of their daughter, Danny, whereupon Salter introduces us to her groom and then to his brother, whom he abruptly tells us Danny is sleeping with. Salter and Danny leave the groom in the dark about this—there is no wedding conflagration or confession to be had—and the novel ends soon after the ceremony which is now tarnished in the reader's mind, with Salter revealing, in one critic’s words, that "the passage of time is the novel’s protagonist.”

TL;DR James Salter, a highly stylistic writer, writes a book about a marriage and its dissolution with an examination of the couple's self-absorption and a look at how the passage of time affects us and is ultimately embodied in our lives.

I loved this book, too.

Mrs. Marco, welcome to the group! Nice to meet you and make your acquaintance. I know The Dreaded Marco from the music threads and our Summerpalooza music/fantasy football league.

You read Light Years? That’s very cool. As you might know, I think I bollocksed up the Danny/wedding thing. I was doing all of this from memory and missed or forgot that Theo knows Danny was Juan’s lover at one point and that he thinks Juan has given her over to him. Re-reading it, I’m not sure who is loving who come wedding day, but that’s a pretty big lapse in memory and understanding on my end. Heh.

Glad you liked the Hecht passage. If you do decide to read him further, I’d recommend his Collected Poems and not his Collected Later Poems. Some of his finer poems come earlier than the collection that I ranked. “Dover *****,” “More Light! More Light!” and “The Letter” are all excellent poems and worthy of reading. He is both very Biblical and mythological/historical and you have to be extraordinarily versed in the Bible and history to understand his poems fully (I don’t, really, so I’m left with the less abstruse poems to enjoy). He’s for the literate, although I’m guessing you are precisely that. So thanks for the kind words and acknowledgement. I appreciate it.

 

[krista4]

Go, Went, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck (my #17)
Erpenbeck is a German author who writes really beautiful, sharply observed books. This poignant story is about an older man who befriends the immigrants living in a tent city in a nearby park. The story is so human, and it's one I recommend to anyone. A feel good story. I also loved her newest book Kairos about a May-December romance in the era when the Berlin wall fell. It focuses on the Eastern German population which is interesting and not as common.

You've sold me on this one just with the bolded part.

 

[shuke]

Phase 2: Books 300 - 201 continued

Continuing on, a few books with multiple selections

293​	The Spy Who Came in from the Cold	John le Carré	2​
292​	The Sum of All Fears	Tom Clancy	2​
281​	Steppenwolf	Herman Hesse	1​
​	Perelandra	C.S. Lewis	1​
The Time Machine Did It	John Swartzwelder​	1​
​	Diary of a Wimpy Kid	Jeff Kinney	1​
​	The Promise	Chaim Potok	1​
Sing, Unburied, Sing	Jesmyn Ward​	1​
Rendezvous with Rama	Arthur C. Clarke​	1​
Ethan Frome	Edith Wharton​	1​
As I Lay Dying	William Faulkner​	1​
A Separate Peace	John Knowles​	2​
Hawaii	James Michener​	2​
279​	She’s Come Undone	Wally Lamb	2​
The Crying of Lot 49	Thomas Pynchon	2​
278​	The Hunt for Red October	Tom Clancy	2​
277​	Get Shorty	Elmore Leonard	3​

This is a very interesting mix. We've also got our first repeat author in Tom Clancy.

That'll do it for today. Again, my intent is to cover ~ the first 100 or so books in the countdown over 3 days. This is a light day due to how the rankings broke down. 29 today, 39 tomorrow and 37 on day 3. (Yes, that's 105. But as explained previously, a 12 way tie for 294th place pushed us past 300.)

Also, I'll update the running list in post #2

**** IT, I give up. You've won ****ty tables formatting. You've won.

Please stop with the light gray text. I'd say screw the table, and just paste as plain text. Any chance we can see who voted for what?

 

[krista4]

I had one on the latest list, which was "She's Come Undone" by Wally Lamb. Although I kind of prefer another of his works overall to this one, it is not on my list and this one came in at #30, substantially due to the fact that it is as well as I've ever seen a man write from a woman's POV. It's incredible and earned its spot on my list for that alone (although the book as a whole is also very good).

ETA: It appears one more person might have ranked this (I'm having trouble with the table), and I'd be curious to hear from them if so.

 

[Eephus]

I had one on the latest list, which was "She's Come Undone" by Wally Lamb. Although I kind of prefer another of his works overall to this one, it is not on my list and this one came in at #30, substantially due to the fact that it is as well as I've ever seen a man write from a woman's POV. It's incredible and earned its spot on my list for that alone (although the book as a whole is also very good).

ETA: It appears one more person might have ranked this (I'm having trouble with the table), and I'd be curious to hear from them if so.

Lamb's The Hour I First Believed was one of my late list casualties

 

[Dr. Octopus]

I have three Thomas Pynchon books on my list - as I’m sure like many of you, if I read something I like by an author I’ll generally check out more by that author.

The Crying of Lot 49 was ranked in the middle of the other two.

The plot follows Oedipa Maas, a young Californian woman who begins to embrace a conspiracy theory as she possibly unearths a centuries-old feud between two mail distribution companies.

If that doesn’t grab you, you must be dead inside. Obviously there’s more to it than that - it’s creative journey that even reads like a comic book thriller in parts.

 

[rockaction]

I'm loving the gray text in dark mode. No problems to report here. Everything is hunky dory and easy on the eyes.

 

[rockaction]

If that doesn’t grab you, you must be dead inside.

 

[Eephus]

I have three Thomas Pynchon books on my list - as I’m sure like many of you, if I read something I like by an author I’ll generally check out more by that author.

The Crying of Lot 49 was ranked in the middle of the other two.

The plot follows Oedipa Maas, a young Californian woman who begins to embrace a conspiracy theory as she possibly unearths a centuries-old feud between two mail distribution companies.

If that doesn’t grab you, you must be dead inside. Obviously there’s more to it than that - it’s creative journey that even reads like a comic book thriller in parts.

The Crying of Lot 49 is another one that just missed. I provisionally placed it #49 but it kept moving down. I have another Pynchon book ranked though.

I distinctly remember reading Lot 49 right after moving to SF in 1982. There's a scene in the book where one of the characters is crossing a bridge to enter the City which I read as I was on the Bay Bridge coming back from Berkeley on an AC Transit bus. I was like woah

 

[kupcho1]

Phase 2: Books 300 - 201 continued

Continuing on, a few books with multiple selections

293​	The Spy Who Came in from the Cold	John le Carré	2​
292​	The Sum of All Fears	Tom Clancy	2​
281​	Steppenwolf	Herman Hesse	1​
​	Perelandra	C.S. Lewis	1​
The Time Machine Did It	John Swartzwelder​	1​
​	Diary of a Wimpy Kid	Jeff Kinney	1​
​	The Promise	Chaim Potok	1​
Sing, Unburied, Sing	Jesmyn Ward​	1​
Rendezvous with Rama	Arthur C. Clarke​	1​
Ethan Frome	Edith Wharton​	1​
As I Lay Dying	William Faulkner​	1​
A Separate Peace	John Knowles​	2​
Hawaii	James Michener​	2​
279​	She’s Come Undone	Wally Lamb	2​
The Crying of Lot 49	Thomas Pynchon	2​
278​	The Hunt for Red October	Tom Clancy	2​
277​	Get Shorty	Elmore Leonard	3​

This is a very interesting mix. We've also got our first repeat author in Tom Clancy.

That'll do it for today. Again, my intent is to cover ~ the first 100 or so books in the countdown over 3 days. This is a light day due to how the rankings broke down. 29 today, 39 tomorrow and 37 on day 3. (Yes, that's 105. But as explained previously, a 12 way tie for 294th place pushed us past 300.)

Also, I'll update the running list in post #2

**** IT, I give up. You've won ****ty tables formatting. You've won.

Please stop with the light gray text. I'd say screw the table, and just paste as plain text. Any chance we can see who voted for what?

Plain text is in post 3
The tables are a nightmare.
I've been trying to mirror scoresman as I think his has worked well and he did not list voters until after the first 100

I will be providing the google sheet after so you can see 300-201 then
But...

 

[kupcho1]

OK, I think I found a text color that is visible in both light and dark.
I had two books in the last batch:
Get Shorty (#57) by Elmore Leonard. I was fortunate enough to have found Leonard prior to the movie (which is very well done with an all-star cast (including a young Rock (not the abysmal sitcom))). It's the story of "Chili" Palmer, a loan shark from Florida who has to go out to Vegas to collect on a debt. Things go **** up when he loses the money. He's then offered the chance to go out to Hollywood to collect on another debt to make good.
Hilarity ensues.

The Crying of Lot 49 (#34) is probably the best entry point into Thomas Pynchon (Vineland might serve as well, I just like The Crying of Lot 49 better). Dr. Octopus provided a nice description above. It's worth checking out.

 

[Long Ball Larry]

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem was my #17. It is one of the funniest books I've ever read.

It is the story of Lionel Essrog. He works as a PI for a detective agency masquerading as a transportation company. Rather than try and explain Lionel, I'll let him do it.

Context is everything. Dress me up and see. I'm a carnival barker, an auctioneer, a downtown performance artist, a speaker in tongues, a senator drunk on filibuster. I've got Tourette's. My mouth won't quit, though mostly I whisper or subvocalize like I'm reading aloud, my Adam's apple bobbing, jaw muscle beating like a miniature heart under my cheek, the noise suppressed, the words escaping silently, mere ghosts of themselves, husks empty of breath and tone. (If I were a D!ck Tracy villain, I'd have to be Mumbles.)

Regarding his Tourette's

My words begin plucking at threads nervously, seeking purchase, a weak point, a vulnerable ear. That's when it comes, the urge to shout in the church, the nursery, the crowded movie house. It's an itch at first. Inconsequential. But that itch is soon a torrent behind a straining dam. Noah's flood. That itch is my whole life. Here it comes now. Cover your ears. Build an ark.

It is a detective novel, but with the added twist that you know Lionel is going to vocally erupt at some point. You just don't know when. The plot? Here's a snippet from Salon:

The world of "Motherless Brooklyn" is, of course, the borough of the title, and what disrupts its sense of order is the stabbing death of a small-time neighborhood operator named Frank Minna. Lionel is Frank's factotum, one of four misfits from a local orphanage Frank has commandeered to work in his seedy and makeshift detective agency.

Wasn’t this the name of an Ed Norton movie also?

 

[kupcho1]

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem was my #17. It is one of the funniest books I've ever read.

It is the story of Lionel Essrog. He works as a PI for a detective agency masquerading as a transportation company. Rather than try and explain Lionel, I'll let him do it.

Context is everything. Dress me up and see. I'm a carnival barker, an auctioneer, a downtown performance artist, a speaker in tongues, a senator drunk on filibuster. I've got Tourette's. My mouth won't quit, though mostly I whisper or subvocalize like I'm reading aloud, my Adam's apple bobbing, jaw muscle beating like a miniature heart under my cheek, the noise suppressed, the words escaping silently, mere ghosts of themselves, husks empty of breath and tone. (If I were a D!ck Tracy villain, I'd have to be Mumbles.)

Regarding his Tourette's

My words begin plucking at threads nervously, seeking purchase, a weak point, a vulnerable ear. That's when it comes, the urge to shout in the church, the nursery, the crowded movie house. It's an itch at first. Inconsequential. But that itch is soon a torrent behind a straining dam. Noah's flood. That itch is my whole life. Here it comes now. Cover your ears. Build an ark.

It is a detective novel, but with the added twist that you know Lionel is going to vocally erupt at some point. You just don't know when. The plot? Here's a snippet from Salon:

The world of "Motherless Brooklyn" is, of course, the borough of the title, and what disrupts its sense of order is the stabbing death of a small-time neighborhood operator named Frank Minna. Lionel is Frank's factotum, one of four misfits from a local orphanage Frank has commandeered to work in his seedy and makeshift detective agency.

Wasn’t this the name of an Ed Norton movie also?

Yes! They did make a movie of this. I might need to check it out. Norton's usually pretty good.

 

[Long Ball Larry]

294. James Salter - Light Years (1975)

This is a book about a couple, Viri (an architect) and Nedra (his wife) who live in Hudson Valley, New York. They are privileged and the book is about them, their marriage, their social life, and ultimately their affairs and the dissolution of the marriage and the death of Nedra from cancer. The book chronicles their life together and apart over the span of fifteen or so years.

Salter is a relatively unknown author, one the New Yorker calls “a writer’s writer,” who passed in 2015 after a life of authorship following a previous career in the military. He can, in my opinion, turn a phrase and use language like no other author alive this century, and he garnered a reputation as a master of style among the literary critic set.

In a review of Light Years for The Independent, he is called “a stylist the equal of John Cheever and John Updike. His writing is close to poetry.” The reviewer continues, “I was in the company of a remarkable writer. My anxiety was that he would not be able to sustain such a level but miraculously, with just a slip or two, he does.”

And thus, the book. Of particular note to me is a character named Arnaud, a friend who gets attacked one night in New York City and loses an eye. A close friend before this, we do not hear of him again after the incident until several hundred pages later when he pops back into the novel and into Nedra and Viri's world like nothing has happened. Salter shows us the cruelty inhering in their social sphere by having him go entirely missing from their lives without mention (neither author nor character so much as discusses Arnaud in his absence), but it is not a malicious or punitive cruelty; rather, it is born from thoughtlessness and self-absorption.

He closes with the wedding of their daughter, Danny, whereupon Salter introduces us to her groom and then to his brother, whom he abruptly tells us Danny is sleeping with. Salter and Danny leave the groom in the dark about this—there is no wedding conflagration or confession to be had—and the novel ends soon after the ceremony which is now tarnished in the reader's mind, with Salter revealing, in one critic’s words, that "the passage of time is the novel’s protagonist.”

TL;DR James Salter, a highly stylistic writer, writes a book about a marriage and its dissolution with an examination of the couple's self-absorption and a look at how the passage of time affects us and is ultimately embodied in our lives.

This is definitely the kind of boom that I would gravitate towards though I’m (theoretically) trying to Move toward more uplifting, actualizing type stuff. This reminds me a little of the movie blue valentine, which always made sense to me even though it is crushing in many ways.

 

[Long Ball Larry]

Kafka on the Shore was my #18, and one of three works I have on my list from my favorite author, Haruki Murakami. I probably could have put 15 on the list, including short story collections, and wouldn't have felt they were out of place. If you haven't read his stuff, I think this book is a good entry into his work as it's more immediately accessible than some, including the one I have ranked higher on my list. But an even better place to start would be with his short stories. Any of them will do.

I have difficulty describing Murakami's work - "surreal and dreamlike, but structured" was the best I could think of - and a quick Google shows me I'm not the only one. Some of my favorites from that thread:

- Noir on a light dose of acid and an ice cream cone
- like falling asleep while reading a mathematics textbook
- A semi-depressed 30 something man with a birth defect who loves Jazz is attracted to a woman with a limp. At some point, the man makes spaghetti. Or a simple meal of vegetables.

The good description might be this from the NYT: "...But while anyone can tell a story that resembles a dream, it's the rare artist, like this one, who can make us feel that we are dreaming it ourselves."

I’ve been murakami-curious for a little while now. Is this a good one to start with? Or is there a better one? I see their books around a fair amount at shops

 

[Long Ball Larry]

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem was my #17. It is one of the funniest books I've ever read.

It is the story of Lionel Essrog. He works as a PI for a detective agency masquerading as a transportation company. Rather than try and explain Lionel, I'll let him do it.

Context is everything. Dress me up and see. I'm a carnival barker, an auctioneer, a downtown performance artist, a speaker in tongues, a senator drunk on filibuster. I've got Tourette's. My mouth won't quit, though mostly I whisper or subvocalize like I'm reading aloud, my Adam's apple bobbing, jaw muscle beating like a miniature heart under my cheek, the noise suppressed, the words escaping silently, mere ghosts of themselves, husks empty of breath and tone. (If I were a D!ck Tracy villain, I'd have to be Mumbles.)

Regarding his Tourette's

My words begin plucking at threads nervously, seeking purchase, a weak point, a vulnerable ear. That's when it comes, the urge to shout in the church, the nursery, the crowded movie house. It's an itch at first. Inconsequential. But that itch is soon a torrent behind a straining dam. Noah's flood. That itch is my whole life. Here it comes now. Cover your ears. Build an ark.

It is a detective novel, but with the added twist that you know Lionel is going to vocally erupt at some point. You just don't know when. The plot? Here's a snippet from Salon:

The world of "Motherless Brooklyn" is, of course, the borough of the title, and what disrupts its sense of order is the stabbing death of a small-time neighborhood operator named Frank Minna. Lionel is Frank's factotum, one of four misfits from a local orphanage Frank has commandeered to work in his seedy and makeshift detective agency.

Wasn’t this the name of an Ed Norton movie also?

Yes! They did make a movie of this. I might need to check it out. Norton's usually pretty good.

I do remember liking it, though that description doesn’t feel what it was like. Of course my memory for movies is going in my old age. I mostly remember being interested in the Robert Moses part.

 

[Eephus]

Get Shorty (#57) by Elmore Leonard.

Leonard was a tough guy to rank for me. His crime books are consistently good but none of them separated themselves. I ended up ranking two of his books at #38 and #56 but could have gone with Get Shorty just as easily.

I haven't been able to get into his westerns as much because his tough guy dialogue is such a highlight of his crime novels.

 

[krista4]

I’ve been murakami-curious for a little while now. Is this a good one to start with? Or is there a better one? I see their books around a fair amount at shops

If you like short stories at all, I'd start with one of those collections. 'The Elephant Vanishes" is my favorite and also happens to contain an earlier version of what became the first chapter of my favorite novel from him (which I won't mention now because it will be on the countdown). If you're looking for a novel, I think A Wild Sheep Chase is pretty accessible, or if you want to go stronger on the dreamy/fantasy side, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.

 

[Long Ball Larry]

281 The Time Machine Did It / John Swartzwelder

As some may know, Swartzwelder wrote 59 episodes of the Simpsons and I would argue that almost all of the best ones were written by him.

He is known for his reclusiveness, and gave his first-ever interview in 2021, in The New Yorker. Per Mike Sacks, "Swartzwelder’s specialty on The Simpsons was conjuring dark characters from a strange, old America: banjo-playing hobos, cigarette-smoking ventriloquist dummies, nineteenth-century baseball players, rat-tailed carnival children, and pantsless, singing old-timers.

I could have picked any of the 4 or 5 of his novellas I’ve read, the spirit of which is aptly captured by the above. Mostly they focus on Frank Burly, a Homer Simpson meets noir detective type character who is generally the narrator. The absurdist plots provide a backdrop for his various witticisms and surprise unfolding of the story. Anyone who likes the Simpsons should read at least one of his books and they go very fast.

It's tough to make a living in my racket. Most people who need detecting done just go to the cops. They're free. I have to charge money for essentially the same service. Another thing that makes it tough is that I'm not the best detective in town. In fact in this building you have to pass the offices of three detectives who are better than me to get to my place. So I guess I lose some business that way.

 

[John Maddens Lunchbox]

I’m out of my depth here so excuse my ramblings

The Da Vinci Code
Like millions of others, got sucked into reading this. It’s full of brilliant ideas and story arcs, but written by someone who can’t write.
It’s sort of like eating fast food. Enjoying it at the moment and then afterwards feeling sick and shouting at yourself in the mirror for indulging in such shiite.

Get Shorty
This book is sort of on my level. Which is an indictment on my reading level. These crime action thrillers have compelling central figures and Leonard probably is at the peak of this genre. The fact movie makers like Tarantino (Jackie Brown/Rum Punch), Out of Sight (Soderbergh) and Barry Sonnenfeld (Get Shorty) are so faithful to the books is a rarity. 3:10 to Yuma and Killshot are books of Leonards ive read, but not checked out the movies.

 

[Psychopav]

I had one on the latest list, which was "She's Come Undone" by Wally Lamb. Although I kind of prefer another of his works overall to this one, it is not on my list and this one came in at #30, substantially due to the fact that it is as well as I've ever seen a man write from a woman's POV. It's incredible and earned its spot on my list for that alone (although the book as a whole is also very good).

ETA: It appears one more person might have ranked this (I'm having trouble with the table), and I'd be curious to hear from them if so.

You might want to check out Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King.

 

[Psychopav]

OK, I think I found a text color that is visible in both light and dark.
I had two books in the last batch:
Get Shorty (#57) by Elmore Leonard. I was fortunate enough to have found Leonard prior to the movie (which is very well done with an all-star cast (including a young Rock (not the abysmal sitcom))). It's the story of "Chili" Palmer, a loan shark from Florida who has to go out to Vegas to collect on a debt. Things go **** up when he loses the money. He's then offered the chance to go out to Hollywood to collect on another debt to make good.
Hilarity ensues.

The Crying of Lot 49 (#34) is probably the best entry point into Thomas Pynchon (Vineland might serve as well, I just like The Crying of Lot 49 better). Dr. Octopus provided a nice description above. It's worth checking out.

Oof this is much worse on mobile in dark mode. Like Rock I had no problem with the grey text.

 

[Chaos34]

This is a very interesting mix

Almost a 3rd of them are mine. 5 out of 17. Not sure if I should make something of that, but I wouldn't know what.

#16 Faulkner again - As I Lay Dying - From Faulkner's most unapproachable to maybe his most approachable. This is a dark comedic road trip before road tripping was automated. The matriarch of a dysfunctional family passes on with a simple wish to be buried 40 miles away in the town of her birth. Madness ensues. Each family member gets a crack at the narrative. The ending again is just outstanding, dark, funny, unexpected and kind of perfect.

#42 Tom Clancy - The Hunt for Red October - The book that introduced us to Clancy and Jack Ryan. I remember thinking it was the greatest thing ever on first read. I'm a sucker for dense jargon - sonar pings, caterpillar drives, hull depths, missile specs, etc. So what some thought was overdone I couldn't get enough of. Beyond that the story was the definition of intense. The soviets on the hunt, us on the hunt, the Red October on the run. Woof, what a debut.

#44 le Carre - The Spy Who Came in from the Cold - le Carre's breakout novel and the #2 spy fiction on my list. Probably the best but I have a soft spot for one chosen above it. A slow burn about a burned out spy trying to save face with an assignment above his pay grade. From damp dusky London pubs to drab hotels behind the iron curtain the twists and turns pile up until the final blow. Great story from the ex spy turned author.

#59 Elmore Leonard - Get Shorty - I was the other Get Shorty picker. I've read a few Leonard novels, enjoyed them all, but this was the most memorable.

#65 James Michener - Hawaii - I've heard there's far better historical novelists than Michener, but he's the one who hooked me for awhile. I've ranked 3 and read several more. This one has an epic beginning as he literally starts the story of Hawaii with lava bubbling from the sea forming the islands. Then off to Bora Bora where a tribe losing a war sets out to sea in canoes loaded with women, children and animals - destination unknown. It's an incredible voyage longer than Columbus crossing the Atlantic... in canoes. Great reading if you like giant doorstop books. #65 for me so not really my thing. Though it was for awhile.

Looking at all five titles made me a little proud of the diversity above despite Clancy and le Carre doing cold war stories. They are completely different animals.

 

[Ilov80s]

#44 le Carre - The Spy Who Came in from the Cold - le Carre's breakout novel and the #2 spy fiction on my list. Probably the best but I have a soft spot for one chosen above it. A slow burn about a burned out spy trying to save face with an assignment above his pay grade. From damp dusky London pubs to drab hotels behind the iron curtain the twists and turns pile up until the final blow. Great story from the ex spy turned author.

the best spy novel ive ever read

 

[Ilov80s]

Ethan Frome by Edith Whaton
This novella bounced around between 15 and 60 for me. I really struggled ranking these because unlike movies, I've only read most of these books once. Sometimes quite awhile ago. Anyway, Edith Wharton is one of my favorite novelists. She has such a restrained writing style where everything is happening beneath the surface and specializes in stories of forbidden love. Here she steps away from her usual topic of high society and instead takes us to cold New England countryside. Ethan, a struggling farmer, with an unhappy and sickly wife, finds himself falling in love with the possibility of a new life with her younger cousin, who has been hired to help take care of his ill wife.

They stood together in the gloom of the spruces, an empty world glimmering about them wide and gray under the stars.