I blogged recently about a contest at the Strand Bookstore in New York City. If you recall, the top 80 books to be named as favorites by customers would be featured at the front of the store, and certain prizes were to be given away.
The results are in:
1. To Kill a Mockingbird
2. Pride and Prejudice
3. Great Gatsby
4. Catcher in the Rye
5. Atlas Shrugged
6. The Fountainhead
7. Lord of the Rings
8. One Hundred Years of Solitude (Marquez)
9. Jane Eyre
10. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
11. Lolita
12. 1984
13. On the Road (Kerouac)
14. Gone With the Wind
15. Anna Karenina
16. Brothers Karamazov
17. Crime and Punishment
To see the rest, go to Strand's website.
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3 comments:
Rand's at 5 and 6? What is going on at that store? m.
A conspiracy, maybe?
Truth is, Rand is always in the top ten these days, so long as you're polling the poloi. Of course, if you poll the oligoi instead, you end up with Ulysses at the top, which no one reads unless he's striving for a B.A., which really ought to be called a B.S these days.
Anyhoo, the reason I listed the first seventeen -- an odd number, don't you think? -- is because I noticed how many great classics made it onto the list, especially the last four, Gone With the Wind, Anna Karenina, Brothers Karamazov, and Crime and Punishment. There's reason to hope.
Yeah, there are a LOT of good books on that list, along with some real stinkers, too, but I can kind of understand their presence because they are *influential* if not *good* by any standard I recognize.
Read every book on that list, and you have a pretty thorough literary education.
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