Greatest novels PBS
This year PBS ran an ongoing series celebrating reading. They came up with a list of 100 greatest novels. I had read 20 of the books and vowed to read a few more. You could vote for your favorite, once a day and I did for several weeks. I split my vote between about half dozen books, Stephen King's The Stand, Tom Clancy Hunt for Red October, Gone With the Wind, and a few others. None of mine got top notch. Of the top 10 I think I had read over half, To Kill A Mockingbird was the winner. It led in the polling from the first day. The list can be found at the-great-american-read on PBS website Thoughts ?
I've read about 33 of the first 60 or so, and almost none of the last 40. I would disagree that this is a list of great novels - although many are great, a lot are just popular. As much as I enjoyed the Harry Potter series, for example, I wouldn't call them great. "Atlas Shrugged", on the other hand, does qualify (in my opinion). Neither "50 Shades of Grey" nor "Twilight" are likely to pass the test of time as great novels, either. I would have selected "Huckleberry Finn" over "Tom Sawyer", but "The Count of Monte Cristo", "Gulliver's Travels", and "Don Quixote" all definitely make the cut as great.
Oh well, that's what happens with on-line polls. Whether you consider them great or not, there's a lot of good reading in this list.
I looked at the PBS list and to be honest...they had a lot of novels on there I would consider "trash". Here's just some of the great classics I've read over the years and many of them weren't on the list.
A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens
Great Expectations, Dickens
A Christmas Carol, Dickens
Tom Sawyer, Twain
Huckleberry Finn, Twain
The Scarlet Letter
Gulliver's Travels
Ben Hur
Wuthering Heights
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Red Badge of Courage
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
To name just a few that I can think of off the top of my head. :)
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