top 21, the big read

and here, you can win the whole 100 originally listed.

Is that your list, or the official one? By the way, talking of "Nineteen Eighty-Four", did you see this competition? Right up your street, Liana, I'd have thought. I mean, how many photographers have the literary nous to get this right? d.beswetherick. [%sig%]

Oh oh oh. Do it Liana! I want to buy a copy of The Sheltering Sky and The Master and Margarita with a L.H original on the front! *tries to contain excitement* That Bulgakov one is really old too.. Perhaps an opportunity for Alison Brown as well?? She's a photographer. Ahem.. now back to the voting-

Ooooooooooooooooooooh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hadnt seen that - thank you thank you thank you!

doesn't lord of the rings always win these things?

Here's a good one prompted by young Besterwick - how many of those top 21 do you think would be in Liana's list ? I'm going to guess three - and the three are :- Catcher in the Rye (you can't love Sylvia Plath without liking the companion to the Bell Jar), His Dark Materials (I suspect the child Liana was very very much like Lyra, only possibly with more experimentation with make-up and alcohol) and To Kill a Mockingbird (for no reason other than it is just a marvellous book and I can't imagine anyone not liking it) There are five on my list - a couple that I like but that would be well-short of my best 21 and one that is the book I hated reading most out of all those I've read.

the lion the witch and the wardrobe... the narnia collection was incredibly important to me as a child. I also loved Little Women, though the others from alcott didnt grab me. Catcher in the rye yes, to kill a mockingbird yes, and 1984. Well done andrew :o)

Our house voted for Winnie The Pooh. In all seriousness, and not because we particularly dislike any of the others.

Ironic, but not in an ironic sense, of course.

I nearly put lion, witch in my selection for you, but I don't think it is the best of the Narnia books - the Magician's Nephew is the real deal for me. On re-reading Lion recently, I was astonished how many times he warns about the danger of hiding in wardrobes; perhaps this was added in following some horrific accidents to children searching for Aslan. As a Wodehouse fan, it sickens me to see A A Milne in the list. He was the first to leap to Plum's attack when those horrid collaborator rumours were flying and speaking personally I find Milne cloying.

Yes, magicians nephew for me too.. it was the simplest of them all, the most magical and appealing to a child i feel. the lion witch and the wardrobes heavy symbolism makes it a joy though even now. my middle daughter was watching it on a video a week ago and remarked that it was "just like jesus" when aslan was resurrected from the stone table. aww, ickle christian... milne i too find cloying ... even when the kids were small they couldnt bear it.

Agreed; but I love the drawings. (Not the modern franchised ones that have been globbed over in thick lines, but the original wispy ones.) * Wodehose still stuck up for Milne, bless his simple heart, even after Milne shat on him. d.beswetherick.

Out of that lot the winner should be: Great Expectations with runner up: Winnie the Pooh but it will be: Lord of the Rings I like the Tolkien thing but it's not that good - it's just an amiable load of old tosh.

I don't know much about Milne's life, but we've been rereading Pooh recently, and find it thoroughly entertaining. There's some great dialogue, particularly from Eyeore. "What if we were to accidentally hit Eyeore with the rock?" asked Piglet. "What if you were to accidentally miss Eyeore with the rock?" said Eyeore. "Please consider all the options before you settle down to having fun, Piglet."

I do think that if the film version is miles better than the book, the book should be removed from the list; so that's Lord of the Rings (the people who think it belongs in the top 10 have forgotten all the grim poetry), Gone with the Wind and Winnie the Pooh (the cartoon Tigger rocks!). I am now arguing with myself whether I ought to have to exclude To Kill a Mockingbird, which I was hoping would win, because the film is first class.

Ye gods, Andrew! Disney have slaughtered, distorted and shat upon poor old Winnie. I didn't realise until recently just how much they changed it, and what a difference it makes. Much, much prefer the books.

how it grieves me to agree with hen milne is not cloying ... milne is high camp hysteria ... if there is a better incarnation of evil that Roo i wouldnt like to meet it ... milne does it for me

than Roo ... THAN

bleurgh

I cannot really express how much I loathe and despise Milne, so saying the films are better is not high praise on my part. My final word on the subject "Christopher Robin goes hoppetty-hoppetty-hop"

precisely.

I agree with Hen about the film. They turned a gentle rural idyll into an adventure thriller in Swiss Alpine mountains. Dreary.

I cannot believe that "American Psycho" did not top the list. It's the first really egotistical killer, obsessed with his prowess and reputation, even more than Hannibal.

Well, I don't see how anyone can find Milne's work cloying. All I can say is that you just don't 'get' it. For my money, the characters in it are more comic, more interesting and more human than any of the others in the list I've read. They remind me of people I know, and of elements of myself. As for the rest, I remain a big fan of 'HHGttG', 'the Wind in the Willows'. I want to read 'Catch 22', but I worry that it'll just be a second-rate 'Slaughterhouse 5'. I appreciated 'Wuthering Heights' and 'Great Expectations', although I don't look back on them too fondly. 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' made a good TV series, but I never really got into the books. '1984' wouldn't be on there if we weren't so self-loving and paranoid - it's a straight rip-off of Zamjatin's 'We' (which, I believe, Orwell listed as an 'influence') but with the religious subtext removed. Zamjatin got exiled for writing his book, even though it could be argued that it dealt with spiritual tyranny and existentialism as much as cultural or political tyranny, while Orwell's was immediately brandished as a political weapon, a "cool million votes" for the conservatives. He immediately, and rightfully, claimed that he'd 'ballsed it up'.

Over the past fortnight, I've read the books on the list that I'd never read before (Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Little Women, Gone With the Wind (yuk!) and Rebecca) and - of the books on the list - I'd only really rate Catch 22 (completely different to Slaughterhouse 5, Hen - completely different), Catcher in the Rye, 1984 (doesn't matter if Zemyatin did a better job first, there are always precursors to greatness, but there is a good reason Orwell is justly revered), To Kill A Mockingbird and Rebecca. Of the remaining books on the list, about a third are books I can appreciate (I understand why Pride and Prejudice is there even if it wouldn't appear on my own list), a third are the kinds of books that always end on lists like these (Lord of the Rings) and a third are either tosh (Birdsong, Captain Corelli) or proof that we're a nation that gives up reading the instant we leave school (Winnie, the Lion, Harry Potter, even His Dark Materials). I could name 21 better books in an instant (but then again, the list isn't about good or great books, it's about LOVED books, right . . . Books that mean a lot to people, books for which people suspend their critical faculty . . . right?).

What's the difference, when it comes down to it? Are there any books that you think are really, truly great that don't mean a lot to you? I think it's meant to be the 'greatest reads', so to speak - as in, the one's that people get the most out of reading. That surely goes hand in hand with both being 'loved' and being 'great' in their own right. Personally, there're very few books I don't appreciate for the skill they display, and many of those I genuinely like as well. '1984' remains, for me, a book that's revered for all the wrong reasons: because it was politically important at the time of writing (a cool million votes for the Conservatives,) because everyone can grasp its blunt, simple message and agree with it, no matter their political bent, and because its profoundly one-dimensional. Removed of the poetry, philosophy and religious subtext that 'We' possesses, it's simply a fusion of an involving adventure story and a political message as trite and idiotic as that daft quote, "Evil triumphs when good people do nothing" (the justification for many an immoral action on the basis that its perpetrator is a 'good' person.) I could go on forever about this fundamental problem, but suffice to say, the message driven home is completely, utterly unchallenging. "Absolute tyranny's bad, eh? Damned straight - now I'll just go about my business thinking whatever it is I usually think." The dystopia of, say, 'A Clockwork Orange' is far more complex and revelatory. Same for 'Brave New World'. '1984' cheats the way horoscopes do - by saying something broadly true in such a way as it sounds insightful and relevant. All that said, it's a story I enjoyed reading, and it's unquestionably full of memorable scenes, ideas and images. I just think, as I say, that it's held up as a great book for the wrong reasons. And Winnie is still marvellous. Subtle, magical, hilarious and lyrical. It isn't that I fondly remember it - I only discovered it properly in the last year or so, but it just seems so much fresher and more full of character than the other books I know.

I do think it's an interesting point - whether "most loved" equals "best". I think there's a real distinction. There are books I've read that I "admired", that I "appreciated", that I understood to be "great" but which didn't rock my world - "Pride and Prejudice" is a great example of that. It's a good book, a fine book - but it isn't necessarily my cup of tea. Saying that, I don't dispute its presence in the twenty in the way I dispute the presence of, say, "Great Expectations" - aside of "Oliver Twist", "Great Expectations" is probably Dickens weakest book - it's muddy and disenchanted and - well, it isn't "Bleak House" or "Dombey & Son" or "Our Mutual Friend". I guess what I'm saying is that, yes, I think there is an enormous divide between most loved and best. Most loved implies cherished and you cherish things almost in spite of themselves, their cracks and flaws are an important part of what constitutes the original experience of reading 'em. For example, my most loved book would be Confederacy of Dunces. But the best book I've ever read would be Don Quixote. I could go on. But I won't.

I spent a year (the year before the year before last) making my way through Dickens (and loving it, I don't dispute the presence of Dickens in the list at all - if the list was a list of most loved writers, I'd fight for his position in the top slot) - and it infuriates me (and I know it shouldn't!! but it does!) when things like "A Christmas Carol" make the top 30 on the basis of a rather terrific Alistair Sims movie (I would love to know how many people who voted for A Christmas Carol have actually READ it . . .) - and so people toddle off and read Great Expectations or A Christmas Carol, or whatever, and Bleak House languishes with Ulysses and 100 Years of Solitude in the 70s and 80s . . . (And I have to say - what kind of world sees those books appearing in the 70s and 80s . . .??!?) The Ayckroyd bio is also rather good . . . .

I read 'Great Expectations' for A Level, which is normally enough to put anyone off Dickens for life. While I prefer 'A Christmas Carol', I think 'Great Expectations' was very well done, and no film adaptation I've seen really works in the same way. The trouble with this divide between 'most loved' and 'best' is how do we then go about defining 'best'? It's very easy to tear down anything we don't like with criticism, and leave our favourite things untouched, all the while fooling ourselves that we're treating them objectively. For example, I'm sure you could write a thorough and convincing argument against 'Great Expectations', but I'm sure someone could do that with anyone of the top 21, or any book. It's just a matter of rhetoric. Likewise, I can talk about how 'We' is a much better book than '1984', but I'm sure an ardent Orwell fan could knock down 'We' for excessiveness, or for being confusing (I didn't find it confusing myself, but then I didn't find 'Great Expectations' at all muddled,) and then praise '1984' for its daring simplicity and starkness. Reason follows passion - unless you're coming to a book from a purely academic direction, you rationalise its 'greatness' only after you've fallen in love with it. The ones you and I 'appreciate' are likely ones we feel indifferent towards - we find praise of them reasonable, but it doesn't represent our reaction. This accounts, in my case, for most of the stuff I read that I then forget about. The ones you identify as not very good are ones you feel opposed towards - you find praise of them *unreasonable*, and so you put it down to sentiment, or emotiveness. True, there is a certain amount of sentiment involved, but there is probably an equal amount felt towards the books you would consider better, and both positions can be rationalised by an argument holding up the book's strengths. If the debate were about books that were great achievements - that represent the highest and most enviable abilities any author has ever possessed - then for my money, The Canterbury Tales would be top. But that's not to say I don't find reading them a difficult and unrelaxing process!