I was invited to join a book club recently, and the book for May is The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. I checked it out of the Luther College library and hesitantly began reading. My only experience with Margaret Atwood was the movie The Handmaid's Tale, which disturbed me greatly. After 71 pages, I'm convinced that Atwood is a writer worth reading.
Tonight I googled The Blind Assassin and found that it was on a list of the 100 best books from 1923-2005. I thought the list was worth putting on the blog. Let me know if you've read any of these books and what you thought of them. (Janelle N....I bet you've read lots of these!)
The Adventures of Augie MarchSaul Bellow
All the King's MenRobert Penn Warren
American PastoralPhilip Roth
An American TragedyTheodore Dreiser
Animal FarmGeorge Orwell
Appointment in SamarraJohn O'Hara
Are You There God? It's Me, MargaretJudy Blume
The AssistantBernard Malamud
At Swim-Two-BirdsFlann O'Brien
AtonementIan McEwan
BelovedToni Morrison
The Berlin StoriesChristopher Isherwood
The Big SleepRaymond Chandler
The Blind AssassinMargaret Atwood
Review Blood MeridianCormac McCarthy
Brideshead RevisitedEvelyn Waugh
The Bridge of San Luis ReyThornton Wilder
Call It SleepHenry Roth
Catch-22Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the RyeJ.D. Salinger
A Clockwork OrangeAnthony Burgess
The Confessions of Nat TurnerWilliam Styron
The CorrectionsJonathan Franzen
The Crying of Lot 49Thomas Pynchon
A Dance to the Music of TimeAnthony Powell
The Day of the LocustNathanael West
Death Comes for the ArchbishopWilla Cather
A Death in the FamilyJames Agee
The Death of the HeartElizabeth Bowen
DeliveranceJames Dickey
Dog SoldiersRobert Stone
FalconerJohn Cheever
The French Lieutenant's WomanJohn Fowles
The Golden NotebookDoris Lessing
Go Tell it on the MountainJames Baldwin
Gone With the WindMargaret Mitchell
The Grapes of WrathJohn Steinbeck
Gravity's RainbowThomas Pynchon
The Great GatsbyF. Scott Fitzgerald
A Handful of DustEvelyn Waugh
The Heart Is A Lonely HunterCarson McCullers
The Heart of the MatterGraham Greene
HerzogSaul Bellow
HousekeepingMarilynne Robinson
A House for Mr. BiswasV.S. Naipaul
I, ClaudiusRobert Graves
Infinite JestDavid Foster Wallace
Invisible ManRalph Ellison
Light in AugustWilliam Faulkner
The Lion, The Witch and the WardrobeC.S. Lewis
LolitaVladimir Nabokov
Lord of the FliesWilliam Golding
The Lord of the RingsJ.R.R. Tolkien
LovingHenry Green
Lucky JimKingsley Amis
The Man Who Loved ChildrenChristina Stead
Midnight's ChildrenSalman Rushdie
MoneyMartin Amis
The MoviegoerWalker Percy
Mrs. DallowayVirginia Woolf
Naked LunchWilliam Burroughs
Native SonRichard Wright
NeuromancerWilliam Gibson
Never Let Me GoKazuo Ishiguro
1984George Orwell
On the RoadJack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's NestKen Kesey
The Painted BirdJerzy Kosinski
Pale FireVladimir Nabokov
A Passage to IndiaE.M. Forster
Play It As It LaysJoan Didion
Portnoy's ComplaintPhilip Roth
PossessionA.S. Byatt
The Power and the GloryGraham Greene
The Prime of Miss Jean BrodieMuriel Spark
Rabbit, RunJohn Updike
RagtimeE.L. Doctorow
The RecognitionsWilliam Gaddis
Red HarvestDashiell Hammett
Revolutionary RoadRichard Yates
The Sheltering SkyPaul Bowles
Slaughterhouse-FiveKurt Vonnegut
Snow CrashNeal Stephenson
The Sot-Weed FactorJohn Barth
The Sound and the FuryWilliam Faulkner
The SportswriterRichard Ford
The Spy Who Came in From the ColdJohn le Carre
The Sun Also RisesErnest Hemingway
Their Eyes Were Watching GodZora Neale Hurston
Things Fall ApartChinua Achebe
To Kill a MockingbirdHarper Lee
Tropic of CancerHenry Miller
UbikPhilip K. Dick
Under the NetIris Murdoch
Under the VolcanoMalcolm Lowry
WatchmenAlan Moore & Dave Gibbons
White NoiseDon DeLillo
White TeethZadie Smith
Wide Sargasso SeaJean Rhys
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3 comments:
Catch 22 was really good. It reminded me a little of watching M.A.S.H. Funny and good perspective.
A Cather in the Rye I remember liking okay, though not a lot of specifics.
A Clockwork Orange will always be one of my favorite books after The Screwtape Letters. Very creative!
The Grapes of Wrath is interesting and a "classic", but not super exciting.
The Great Gatsby, eh.
Invisible Man I couldn't get through. I still hope to finish it later in life when I have the stamina. Worth reading.
Chronicles of Narnia and The Fellowship of the Ring: no brainers. Super entertaining. Great story telling.
Only 23 of them! There are probably 20-30 others that I mean to read, started, should have read, etc. I am impressed with the list and its diversity. Interestingly enough, I just finished teaching Their Eyes Were Watching God to my AP kids (one of my favorites), just read Revolutionary Road for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and own but have not read The Blind Assassin, but do teach The Handmaid's Tale.
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