I would rate these higher, but they came after Gatbsy -

Cider House Rules, John Irving

A Soldier of the Great War, Mark Helprin

Foucault's Pendulum, Umberto Eco

and preceding Fitzgerald but still far surpassing him, IMO -

A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens

The Bible. End of discussion.

I'm not well-read enough to claim a greatest book of all time, but I love these:

Where I'm Calling From, Raymond Carver

Herb 'n' Lorna, Eric Kraft

To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami

Possession, A.S. Byatt

Red Harvest, Dashiell Hammett

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera

Pop. 1280, Jim Thompson

Tristram Shandy, Laurence Sterne

Without Feathers, Woody Allen

The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film, Michael J. Weldon

On a whim, I just started Richard Yates' Revolutionary Road, and its descriptions of masculine self-pity and suburban malaise are at once darkly funny and brutally unsparing. After that, it's probably The Road.

Oh, and thanks to Fluffernutter for the tip many years ago about Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, a sci-fi portrait of a privatized virtual future that looks more like straight reporting every year.

I am a big fan of Gatsby; it probably is my favorite. I love that you used "old sport" as a tag!

Jude the Obscure, Hardy

The Book of Ebenezer LePage, GB Edwards

The French Lieutenant's Woman, Fowles

and to keep things foodie and unexepcted, MFK Fisher's only novel, Not Now But Now

I haven't read The French Lieutenant's Woman in about 25 years, but I adored it. If you liked the literary gamesmanship in that, you should give Byatt's Possession a try: it's a little like a cross between French Lieutenant and Nabokov's Pale Fire--two parallel narratives in separate centuries, linked by a poetic manuscript that serves as both treasure map and treasure.

Shameful admission: I've never read Jude the Obscure, although I love The Mayor of Casterbridge. For some reason, you reminded me of another favorite book: Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence.

I haven't read a book in years, but the best time I ever had reading was when I was living in London around 1997 and Waterstone's booksellers put out a list of the 100 Greatest Books of the Century, as determined by a public poll. It was England, after all, so Lord of the Rings was No. 1. My beloved Gatsby was 12. To Kill a Mockingbird was 7. It seemed like everyone in England--or at least everyone on public transportation--had the same idea: Read all 100 books. I remember it being very cool, since everyone in the country was reading and talking about the same 100 books. I, of course, picked all the short ones, which led me to A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Slaughterhouse Five and The Wasp Factory, which in turn led me down a haunting path of Iain Banks' novels. Anyway, I just found the list -- here's the link. Has anyone read them all? Close?

http://home.comcast.net/~antaylor1/waterstones100.html

Has anyone read them all? Close?
28/100. But I'm not a big reader. Only 5 or 6 novels a year.

As for best ever:

Hemingway: The Sun Also Rises

Joyce: Ulysses (although I've never read it)

If anyone suggests Atlas Shrugged, I'm going to punch them in the nuts.

Taking a cue from Bill Cosby, who never attended the Emmys because he doesn't believe artists are in competition with each other, I wouldn't call Gatsby the best book of all time. Nevertheless, it's an absolutely perfect book, a feat Fitzgerald achieved by making his novel embrace both the psychological microcosm and the sociological macrocosm of his day, and in absolutely gorgeous prose. Also, he seemed to stay mostly sober while writing that one.

Beautifully put, Margaret. That was also back when books had editors who did more than spell-check and rubber-stamp a manuscript.

Thanks for the link to the list, Carrington. I've only gotten to 42/100--clearly, I am not trying hard enough.

My picks, FWIW--

Greatest American novel: "The Custom of the Country," Wharton

Greatest novel in English: "Ulysses," Joyce

Greatest novel I only know in translation: "Crime and Punishment," Dostoevsky

And though none of their titles make my "greatest" list, I think Graham Greene and Iris Murdoch were just about the best writers of the 20th century. Neither of them ever wrote a bad book.

Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks. Mayor of Casterbridge -- I was totally gutted by both books. Gravity's Rainbow. Snow Crash is pretty damn good.

I love these lists -- they give me reading material for years to come.

The Autuum of the Patriarch, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Aunt Julia and the Scribe, Mario Vargas Llosa

The War at the end of The World, MVL

Another Roadside Attraction, Tom Robbins

Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut

And of course, The Source:
"Las Aventuras del Ingenioso Hilalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha", by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Jonathan Livingston Seagull
The Bridges of Madison County
Divine Secrets of The Ya-Ya Sisterhood
A Million Little Pieces

And ANYTHING with Fabio on the cover!

I'm guessing the rest of you spent your evening reading Faulkner or something, but we actually *went* to F. Scott's and did the whispering of the secret phrase. Incidentally, whispering secret things is underrated! But I digress.

I wanted to report on the $1 pizza, because I have my doubts about things being a dollar and those same things also being, you know, good. But it was, featuring roasted veggies - zucchini, red peppers and the like - with provolone cheese. Small, straightforward, and perfect with an earthy, herby gin martini (made with Aristocrat).

Um, also, our bill was like thirteen bucks.

This discussion makes me wonder how many foodies were also English majors?

Fluffernutter was, right?

I was.

Anyone else?

I, for one, agree that The Great Gatsby is one of the best. I'd also add Beloved, The Catcher in the Rye, and Pride & Prejudice.

To Maria B. The Power and the Glory and The End of the Affair are both exquisite and two of my favorites!

I'm like Margaret. I don't think books are in competition-- they're all so different anyway. I'm not into "all time" either. What I've liked just recently is GG Marquez' "Memories of My Melancholy Whores."

And by the way, barbara Please, GB Edawards' "The Book of Ebenezer LePage" is a treasure, but I've never heard anybody but you say so.

I'm like Margaret. I don't think books are in competition-- they're all so different anyway. I'm not into "all time" either. What I've liked just recently is GG Marquez' "Memories of My Melancholy Whores."

And by the way, barbara Please, GB Edawards' "The Book of Ebenezer LePage" is a treasure, but I've never heard anybody but you say so.

Oooo. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood! Anyone? Anyone? You have to skip the parts about planet Zycron -- they're boring.

Just went to the Waterstone's list. I've read a bunch of them, which makes me a good English major. But it's also like Fluffernutter's List of Abandoned Great Books: Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch, Brief History of Time, Bonfire of the Vanities. I'm deeply shallow, and couldn't finish a lot of these. Mr Fluffernutter used to say, of the Great Books: they should have a label that reads "Prize Entry -- Do Not Read."

fluffernutter: Never finished The Blind Assassin. But I have read The Handmaid's Tale twice.

I haven't looked at Carrington's list yet, but I've always known that I was rather poorly read for having an English degree. It seems that I got assigned the same books in high school and college over and over again. See The Handmaid's Tale above. Read the *entire* Odyssey like four times. Things Fall Apart thrice. Etc...

Funny enough, never had to read Gatsby or The Catcher in the Rye for a class.

Maria B.: Geez, I've only read a woeful 34/100. I did better on the list of 100 Vegetarian Dishes You Must Try Before You Die. Then again, do I really want to waste several hours of my life on The Horse Whisperer? (And really—Stephen King's It? Not that King isn't deserving—The Shining, Misery and the Night Shift collection are excellent—but that's the first book I read of his that made me feel his editor was handling him with kid gloves.)

Fluffernutter: You haven't read Faulks' new 007 novel, have you? I love the idea of handing the franchise over to interesting authors; it's what the 007 movies have needed for, oh, about 40 years. As for Bonfire, I tried it once and gave up around page 40; tried it again, got to page 50, and suddenly found it one of the most fun books I've ever read. I couldn't even make it through 40 pages of A Man in Full.

ElZ (the best-looking man at Best of Nashville last night): Caleb Hannan and I were just talking about Don Quixote the other day. Cervantes was Charlie Kaufman centuries before the fact.

Non-English major here. I studied philosophy, which is why I have read a lot of novels. You'll read anything to avoid the horrors of symbolic logic.

There are a lot of dubious entries on that top 100--I mean, geez, "Perfume?" Really?

alwayshungryab: "The End of the Affair" is a book I re-read at least once a year. Exquisite is the word for it, but sometimes I worry that Greene's God is stalking me through that book.

BTW, ever notice how much Greene writes about food in his novels? He nearly always pays close attention to what his characters eat.

Mr. Pink -- Once you got to page 50 of BoV, did you have déjà vu of Gatsby? It's certainly not as beautifully—or as efficiently—written as GG. But they're both good yarns about passing the buck while driving luxury cars.

Pink:

Why do I always miss the good conversations? I spend most of the night discussing Justin Guarini, Capirinha, and whether 80's fashion is back.

BTW, you cute-as-a-kitten-wearing-a-paper-hat kid reminds me of a certain child who lived in an asteroid and tended a rose.

Maria B: I always figured that if I went back to school for a Masters, I'd write my thesis on what characters in novels are eating.

That poor kid in "The End of the Affair"--getting sick after eating too many "ices!"

I think Maria is right -- lotta questionable things on the list.

Pink, I had forgotten about Sebastian Faulk's 007 book. It goes on my "to read" list.

Things Fall Apart -- currently in its second year on the nightstand, and heading for Fluffernutter's List of Abandoned Great Books.

Zorro, you're a thinking man's shallow man, and that's what I love about you. Sorry we were on our way out last nite when we saw you.

I borrowed PJ Tobia's copy of TFA recently, and abandonned it for at least a third time. Maybe we should assign books and report back. Then we can cross them off our to-do lists permanently.

I'm not even that big a Bond fan, but I had to do a deep dive into Fleming's novels 20-odd years ago when I was going to interview Kingsley Amis. His own Bond novel Colonel Sun, written at the behest of the Fleming family after Fleming's sudden death, is much better-written and more layered than any of Fleming's books. (Published under pseudonym Robert Markham.) And Sun has never been filmed. I can only figure it's too daunting a task to reduce all those layers to an action narrative.

Only 23 out of 100 for me. Told you I was poorly read. Though I do admire (and have read) all the Roald Dahl on the list.

I remember Things Fall Apart as an easy read--probably because that was the same semester that I was tackling "Paradise Lost" and Samuel Richardson's "Clarissa," the longest novel in the English language, clocking in at 1600 pages.

Amis is a great fit for Bond. Maybe Martin Amis should do the next one. As long as he didn't write it backwards or something. Hey, there's a neat literary game—who writes the next 007 after Faulks? Julian Barnes? Ian McEwan? My pick: Jeanette Winterson.

C: I probably should have made the BoV/Gatsby connection, since Wolfe is the post-Fitzgerald master of wealth porn (or at least cataloguing). But I didn't.

This discussion makes me wonder how many foodies were also English majors?

Guilty. But I tell my parents I'm the night janitor at an adult bookstore.

Never dared to tackle Clarissa, but I was pretty much riveted by Pamela (or "Shamela").

just got here and obviously someone has used my good name. see above. oh well. i think although it's funny, that's kinda messed up to pose as another person... i would never do that.

my top 3 are

the brothers karamazov
jude the obscure
the old man and the sea

i was an english lit major and read a ton of books when i was younger. these days i seem to read mostly about food...

I must fess up that Claudia (hearts) Fabio was a flight of my deranged fantasy.

The Corrections is right near the top of my favorites. So is The End of the Road. Anybody read that? I took a Mid-century American and British Fiction course in grad school, where I discovered the writers of the previous generation, already semi-abandoned in the 1980s. Barth, Barthelme, Durrell, Cheever, Fowles, Bellows.

Fluffernutter -- You can discuss those works at my Mad Men party, which has still not been scheduled, but which will be fab.

First, has long been on my "to read" list, so maybe I'll move it up on the pile.

Second, as I read through these entries it occurred to me that many of my favorite passages in books center on food.

Finally, by far one of the most amazing writers I've read is W. G. Sebald. My personal favorite is Rings of Saturn, but one of my favorite passages is in Vertigo, in which Sebald equates life's grand dissapointments with the stale cake that is eaten each week by the 2 spinsters who run a local cafe at which no one has ever eaten.

Oops - The End of the Affair is the book added to my "to read" list and seems to have disappeared from my posting above ...

BTW, your cute-as-a-kitten-wearing-a-paper-hat kid reminds me of a certain child who lived in an asteroid and tended a rose.

Ziggy Stardust?

I guess I need to give The Corrections another look. The first chapter had so much throat-clearing and grandiose scaffolding that I just gave up. It didn't help that Franzen was such a whiny little bitch about the whole Oprah thing. But I know a lot of people who love the book. Back on the list it goes, right after Infinite Jest.

A book I've tried countless times but find utterly impenetrable: Gravity's Rainbow. The Crying of Lot 49 will probably stay with me for life, but my eyes glaze over within pages of opening Gravity's Rainbow. Awesome first line, though.

Please, everybody, if you have a reading list, pencil in Eric Kraft's Herb 'n' Lorna. I have yet to find a single person who reads it and doesn't fall in love. I have a feeling if Kraft weren't so laugh-out-loud funny and so merrily, unashamedly erotic—and if he created nothing but unhappy marriages—his fictional universe of Babbington would be recognized as the marvelous construction it is.

Also, my enormous gratitute to Margaret for giving me Andrew Sean Greer's miraculous The Confessions of Max Tivoli, which will probably find its audience once David Fincher's movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button comes out.

el zorro - from you? it's hilarious... you crazy kid.

i LOVED the corrections. loved it loved it and was very sad when it ended. his book of essays called ' how to be alone is GREAT and i enjoyed strong motion evry much too - and and and he was co-writer of spring awakening which i saw this past summer on broadway. it was so good that it renewed my faith in theatre...

i am a franzen fan - bigtime.

Pinks, I'm talkin' Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I was pulling your leg, ElZ. And I shouldn't have, because that's really a lovely compliment. I got really choked up when I read that Gerard Depardieu read from The Little Prince at the funeral last week of his son Guillaume.

Atlas Shrugged!!