Eh. People like what people like. (although, I'm pretty sure that Hubbard always showing up so high on these kind of polls is due to some kind of half-assed stealth prostletyzing, since apparently those tin cans attached to patteries devices in the subway ain't bringing them in the way it used to)

There is no Anthony Trollope on other list. Something is clearly wrong.

I majored in English and have never read anything by mr. scientology. I have read all of the board's top 10 and a good majority of that list.

Something is telling me the "readers list" ballot box is stuffed...

d'ya know, I've tried to read The Sound and the Fury like, 5 times, and I never make it to the end. As with alcohol, I get frustrated when I find a book that I get nothing out of.

I just said that....

I've read almost none of either list, but i still read all the time. Lists made by bodies like 'The Board,' tend to have this 'required reading' sort of flavor to them. Reading should be a pleasure not a chore or duty.

hmmm... a joint effort between the church of scientology and paultards?

There is no Anthony Trollope on other list. Something is clearly wrong.

And there are two books by Ford Madox Ford on it. That's ridiculous.

I've read Gatsby and Anthem from these lists and enjoyed both. But aren't the cults of Hubbard and Rand embarrassed by such obvious... I don't know what to call it... cultism?

I've read Gatsby and Anthem from these lists and enjoyed both. But aren't the cults of Hubbard and Rand embarrassed by such obvious... I don't know what to call it... cultism?

Apparently not.

"such obvious cultism"

You haven't known many Randroids. That's not cultism, it's their (only) social network. The ones to worry about are those who don't join the flock.

think you've got that right, syntax!

Reading should be a pleasure not a chore or duty.

To a lot of people, reading those books is a pleasure. Reading is like eating - different people will enjoy different tastes. Also, people who have done an intense amount of reading are, I think, entitled to talk about the relative merits of different books with some authority, and to construct definitions of 'quality' which is up to everyone else to challenge or reject. You don't have to read their books, but they're simply saying 'given all the time we've spent reading, reading about reading, and talking about reading, we think these books have consistently had more to offer through generations of readers than many other books.' That doesn't mean I agree with their selections - I definitely don't - but it's not fair to suggest that they see their own reading as a duty or a chore.

Because I studied English, I read a lot of books I didn't truly like, and that was okay too. They were chosen because they were significant or influential, and they made me better able to talk to people about all sorts of movements in writing and possibilities within literature. It's okay that I didn't enjoy every single title - I haven't enjoyed every trip I've made, but I don't regret any of them. Each one broadened my world. Same with books.

Though I have made a resolution to read more for pure pleasure this year. After a few years of reading stuff that was job-related or edifying in some other way, I picked up a couple books this year that I read purely for fun. They sped by, and I rediscovered that feeling of not being able to wait to crack open my book again and see what happened. I'd forgotten what that felt like, and I want to experience the pleasure reasons for reading more often this year.

(Of the list, I liked 2, 3, 7, and 10. Catch-22 is one of my favorite books of all time. I think 1984 and Brave New World are really overrated in our day, though I'm willing to accept that they were important cautionary fables in their time. D. H. Lawrence I always found flabby and whiny. I couldn't finish Lolita - it bored me to tears. And Rand is the Ron Paul of literature.)

Yeah, the readers list is pure crap. Putting aside the two third-rate hacks (I can hold my nose, throw a bone to the objectivists and scientologists and say that those two authors had some interesting (and, in the right light, hilarious) ideas, but c'mon, nobody reads that stuff for the literary value), you're left with The Lord of the Rings, To Kill A Mockingbird and 1984. People like their message books to be kinda heavy-handed, I guess.

hmmm... a joint effort between the church of scientology and paultards?

I actually know someone who is an ex-scientologist and a current fanatic Paul supporter. Some people just want to belong.

Lolita's a funny case, for me. I was blown away by it the first time I read it, then reread it a few years later and it left me utterly cold.

Of the other 10 on the board's list, I've read them all except the Faulkner and the Lawrence -- I can't get through Faulkner (which I guess is amusing and/or ironic, considering that spending the day reading Joyce is my idea of heaven), and somehow have managed to live my life without ever reading any D.H. Lawrence, save for the dirty parts in Lady Chatterly's Lover at 14. My main irritation with the list is that I think they rank Joseph Conrad entirely too low (Heart of Darkness not in the top 10 or even top 20? It's un-possible!)

I love Lolita, but I only read it the once. Nabokov is a wonderful writer. I've read all of the Board's list with the exception of Grapes of Wrath which I bought from the charity shop just recently so will read soon, and 2, 4, 5 and 6 on the other list. I quite liked The Fountainhead but I read it when I was 13 or 14 and it was pompous and prolix - as was I - and it is a novel notionally about architecture which was my passion at the time. I don't think I've read any L. Ron.

I will read pretty much anything, though. When I was at uni, and didn't read for fun during the semester, I would take leave from work for the first week of the summer holidays and lie in the sun in the backyard and just read novels. For the whole week. It was a great ritual, one I miss dearly.