The Throwing of the Gauntlet

Earlier this year, a good friend from college (and a fellow reader - more about her to follow) forwarded a list of what was purportedly the "Greatest Novels of All Time" in a Facebook link. I was supposed to indicate which ones I'd read, which ones I loved/hated, and which ones I'd seen in movie form. While I disagreed with the novels that were included in the list (as did she), I was surprised and disappointed to learn that I'd already read a little more than half of them. Now, I am rarely found without a book in hand. I'm not ashamed to admit that I enjoy reading the last thriller or adventure novel, but I also try to read at least one "serious" work of literature every six months. But certainly that doesn't make me an expert in literature, so the fact that I'd already read more than half of the "Greatest Novels of All Time" was disappointing. Was that really all there is?

Being a lawyer, I decided to use my research skills to find out if this was true. Using my powerful search-fu, I located several more novel lists. Finally, I found one where I'd only read 18 of the purported "top 100 novels." It was Time's All-Time 100 Novels. To be candid, even this list has several flaws. First, it only covers novels written from 1923 (the year that Time was first published) through 2005 (the year the list was made). Second, it only includes English-language novels. Third, no one is ever going to agree about the top 100 novels of all-time or even the system used for selecting them (e.g., popularity, literary genius, relevance).

Nevertheless, it posed an interesting challenge: could I read the remaining 82 books? Not wanting to take on such a daunting contest by myself, I contacted my dear friend who had first brought this quest to my attention. Since she has a Ph.D. in French literature, I knew that Amy would love a reading challenge, and thankfully, she was willing to overlook the absence of non-English (ok, French) novels from the list. Conveniently, we'd also read almost the same number of books on the list - although different ones - so no one would feel like they were playing catch-up! Then, in late April or early May of this year, we set out on our pilgrimage through the last (almost) one hundred years of English-language novels.

Luckily (since we live in different time-zones), Amy was able to come up with some very creative technological solutions to help us organize and share information. We maintain a shared spreadsheet online with the entire list with columns for each of us to indicate whether we've read a book. Since we hadn't read all of the same books to begin with, we decided we would read one book that the other hadn't read, as well as reading a book neither of us had read together. After we finish a book, we arrange a phone call to talk about the book and what we thought of it.

That brings us to today. I've now read 29 of the books, and Amy and I are currently reading American Pastoral by Philip Roth. Amy has just started her own blog about our challenge, so I thought I'd throw my hat in the ring and publish this companion blog.

Without further ado, here's the list!

P.S. I haven't seen Julie & Julia.