What, pray tell, would you place on this list? Have you read the 100 books it would minimally require to even establish your own list?

Broad generalizations and blind hatred, like the drivel above, are the factors that lead to genocide.

ANGLE OF REPOSE by Wallace Stegner – Personal Top Five … This is, IMHO, without a doubt, IMHO, arguably, IMHO The Great Novel of the American West. No one else ever needs to write another one.

ULYSSES by James Joyce – Read the first several pages, slammed shut, sold on half.com.
THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald – Read in high school and again later. What’s the big whoop about it? Way overrated.
LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov – Quite an amazing experience, in terms of the voice.
BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley – Read the first few chapters online recently, liked it well enough to continue in print, when I get around to it.
THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner – Haven’t really tried any Faulkner yet, own a few volumes that I hope to get to sometime.
CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller – Started it, found it very obnoxious, stopped it.
SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence – Don’t think I’ve read this one yet but quite like Lawrence and hope to read someday (I think the only Lawrence novel I’ve read is Lady Chatterley’s Lover).
THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck – Loved it in high school, would like to read again.
1984 by George Orwell – I’m pretty sure I read it in high school; didn’t make much impact on me.
SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut – Read it in college. Can’t remember much about it or what I thought of it.
WINESBURG, OHIO by Sherwood Anderson – I think I’ve read portions.
THE WINGS OF THE DOVE by Henry James – I may have read this, but I now have a policy against reading Henry James. Life is too short.
ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell – Ditto 1984. I would probably get more out of Orwell if I returned to him now, which I’m not opposed to doing.
HOWARDS END by E.M. Forster – Enjoyed it. I like British stuff a lot, probably overall better than ‘murrican.
LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding – Loved it in school, would like to revisit.
THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway – I like reading Hemingway. He always inspires me to write my own stuff because he makes it seem so easy and simple.
PORTNOY’S COMPLAINT by Philip Roth – Nasty, lots of fun.
ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac – Never read, but I’ve always meant to.
THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith Wharton – Did the audiobook, liked it rather a lot but don’t remember much from it.
THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger – Eh, whatever. I’m sure it meant something big in its time but I didn’t get what all the fuss was about.
HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad – I think I tried this and bogged down and didn’t finish.
A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway – Ditto on my earlier Hemingway comment.
BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh – Enjoyed it a lot as a book, but recently found the TV version sort of queasy, because I’m so tired of pro-gay propaganda.
THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH by Saul Bellow – I’ve only read Humbolt’s Gift but want to read more Bellow.
ANGLE OF REPOSE by Wallace Stegner – Own it, want to read.

That’s it for me.

Was never sure what Sis. Bjorn saw in her. Oh well.

I’m glad someone else has the same feelings as me on Joyce. Conrad is loved for English style, I believe, but I found him slow, too. Lord Jim is too long for a novel of redemption; Stagecoach (the movie) rocks redemption. Many of the books I have read that are on this list failed to edify in any meaningful way.

Fitzgerald is OK if you’re in an artsy mood — at least his works are shorter than Faulkner. You got something out of 1984 other than totalitariansim sucks? You must be more equal than I am.

And now I can delete my internet bookmark of this list, that I consider on occasion — before deciding it is a far, far better thing to read non-fiction.