Wednesday, November 12, 2014

125 Authors Choose the Best Modern "Classics" of All Time

Since I posted yesterday's composite Top Ten Great Books list, several people asked if any books from the more recent past came close to cracking the list.  Well, they do start showing up with some regularity at the number 20 spot, and the ones that cracked the Top 100 include a surprise or two.  Take a look:

20.  One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (66 points)
33.  To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) - Harper Lee (44 points)
40.  Beloved (1987) - Toni Morrison (40 points)
53.  The Rabbit Angstrom Books (1960-90) - John Updike (28 points)
57.  Catch-22 (1962) - Joseph Heller (26 points)
58.  Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) - Kurt Vonnegut (26 points)
59.  The Stories of John Cheever (1912-82) - (24 points)
62.  Blood Meridian (1985) - Cormac McCarthy (23 points)
67.  The Master and Margarita (1966) - Mikhail Bulgakov (21 points)
82.  The Stand (1978) - Stephen King (18 points)
91.  Labyrinths (1964) - Jorge Luis Borges (16 points)
92.  The Long Goodbye (1953) - Raymond Chandler (16 points)
98.  A Death in the Family (1957) - James Agee (15 points)
99.  Invisible Cities (1972) - Italo Calvino (15 points)

I did only slightly better with this group of 14, having finished 9 of them - but it looks a little better if you remember that the Rabbit Angstrom books are four, in total, and the Bulgakov pick is for two novels.  

There's a good bit more room for controversy in this bunch, starting (for me) with a Stephen King book coming in as high as number 82.  And for you?

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