Today I was stumbling here and there, down some stairs, Bananas in Pajamas-style, when I came across this list from what could only be some sort of bloggy thing from Random House. The page in question is entitled Modern Library. Research has yet to lead me to any results regarding the nature of the site, but I did find a “Cart” link so I assume they are trying to sell you something. Be that as it may, they do have a very interesting list of books in this post. What kind of books? Just the 100 BEST BOOKS, durr.

The list is broken down into two columns, the “Board’s List” and the “Reader’s List.” In all it is really 200 books, but we will let that slide.

For me, personally, I have read fewer of these novels than I probably should have. Although, to be fair, a lot of these seem to be general high school reading that most people were subjected to but I wasn’t. I learned a lot in my senior English class in high school, but there are only a couple of books on either list that I had to read for class. Luckily, “best” and “important for critical thinking” are two different things, so we won’t dwell on this much. We got to read Beowulf, so yeah, take that.

On the “Board’s List,” I have read five titles:

• The Great Gatsby
• Catch-22
• Slaughterhouse-Five: A Novel
• The Secret Agent
• The Catcher in the Rye

For the “Reader’s List,” I have knocked out nine:

• To Kill a Mockingbird
• Catch-22
• The Great Gatsby
• The Catcher in the Rye
• Slaughterhouse-Five: A Novel
• A Prayer for Owen Meany
• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
• Ender’s Game
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Although I have read more on the Reader’s List, that doesn’t really mean a whole lot. It’s obviously just a popularity contest there. I actually have my doubts about the validity of the choices for the Reader’s List when the second book – book number two – is Battlefield Earth. Seriously?

So how many novels on these lists have you read? Can you top my epic NINE? Come on, try it. I dare you.