The 100 Greatest Books Ever Written -by Easton Press

[Suzanne]

From what I can tell, it's more about manipulation than sex, which is what made it so uncomfortable for me.

What makes "Lolita" disturbing and brilliant is how Nabokov manipulates the reader.

[bleachededen]

From what I can tell, it's more about manipulation than sex, which is what made it so uncomfortable for me.

What makes "Lolita" disturbing and brilliant is how Nabokov manipulates the reader.

Exactly. That's what I got from the movie, and that's what disturbed me. There's nothing overtly sexual that I could see, but the manipulation of both main characters drove me crazy. I knew that was the author/filmmaker's intent, and it worked really well. But I never really got the feeling it was pornographic. I think the age difference between the two main characters just disturbs people and automatically gives a feeling of perversion, even if there isn't anything sexual actually happening.

There's a scene in the movie where the older man is painting the girl's toenails, and it's such an odd and awkward scene that even that became a sort of perverted act, even though it was in no way sexual. As Suzanne said, it's the manipulation that makes the reader/viewer feel dirty, not the sexual content.

I still shudder thinking about it, though. I hate overt manipulation. Yech.

[Suzanne]

Oh, there is molestation going on in "Lolita". There is no question about it, Humbert Humbert is a pedifile, and Dolores (Lolita) is an abused child. But what makes the book so stunning is how Nobokov manipulates the reader into believing and liking HH. At one point, and this is not easy for me to say, Dolores's mother sends her to camp, and I actually thought to myself, "How dare that mother prevent her child from being molested by Humbert Humbert". That is so sick of me, and that was the point when I saw the molester as the lying SOB that he is.

Lolita learns the art of manipulation from her molester, and at one point they feed off of each other.

"Vanity Fair" has said of this book, "It's the only convincing love story of our century". It took me a long, long time to unravel what this meant. But it is true, Humbert Humbert, the pedifile in "Lolita" loves himself more than anything in the world, and tries desperatly to get the reader of his story to love him too. And he can be very convincing.

[sade201030]

1. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea by Jules Verne
2. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
3. Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
4. Walden by Henry David Thoreau5. Gulliver's Travels by Johnathan Swift
6. Mobt Dick, or The Whale by Herman Melville
7. A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway
8. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
9. The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling
10. The Odyssey by Homer
11. The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
12. A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man by James Joyce
13. Paradise Lost by John Milton
14. Tales From The Arabian Nights by Richard Burton
15. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
16. Candide by Voltaire
17. Oedipus The King by Sophocles
18. The Hunchback Of Notre Dame [Notre-Dame De Paris] by Victor Hugo
19. The Last Of The Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
20. The Sea Wolf by Jack London
21. Cyrano De Bergerac by Edmund Rostand
22. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
23. Collected Poems by Robert Browning
24. The Essays Of Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph Waldo Emerson
25. The Portrait Of A Lady by Henry James
26. Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
27. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
28. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
29. Collected Poems by John Keats
30. On The Origin Of Species by Charles Darwin
31. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
32. Collected Poems by Robert Frost
33. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories by Washington Irving
34. Animal Farm by George Orwell
35. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
36. She Stoops To Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith
37. Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck
38. Pride And Prejudice by Jane Austen
39. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
40. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
41. The Iliad by Homer
42. Lady Chatterly's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
43. The Count Of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
44. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
45. Aesop's Fables by Aesop
46. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
47. The Autobiography Of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin
48. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
49. Politics And The Poetics by Aristotle
50. The Aeneid by Virgil
51. Madam Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
52. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
53. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
54. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
55. Pygmalion And Candida by George Bernard Shaw
56. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
57. Romeo And Juliet by William Shakespeare58. The Cherry Orchard And The Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov
59. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
60. The Analects of Confucius by Confucius
61. A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare
62. Collected Poems by William Butler Yeats
63. The Picture Of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
64. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
65. The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
66. Beowulf
67. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
68. The Neclace And Other Tales by Guy de Maupassant
69. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
70. Fathers And Sons by Ivan Turgenev
71. Heart Of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
72. War And Peace by Leo Tolstoy
73. The History of Early Rome by Livy
74. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
75. The Talisman by Sir Walter Scott
76. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
77. Alice's Adventure In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
78. Dracula by Bram Stoker
79. The Rubáiyát Of Omar Khayyám by Omar Khayyám
80. The Red And The Black by Stendhal
81. A Tale Of Two Cities by Charles Dickins
82. The Republic by Plato
83. Collected Poems by Emily Dickinson
84. Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
85. Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
86. The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay
87. Silas Marner by George Eliot
88. The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine
89. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
90. Billy Budd by Herman Melville
91. The Confessions by St. Augustine
92. Tales of Mystery And Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe
93. Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
94. The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler
95. The Sound And The Fury by William Faulkner
96. Crime And Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
97. Grimm's Fairy Tales by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
98. Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
99. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
100. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens





SO far that's i've read out of the 100 on the list MY favorite is the leaves of grass

[Seraphim]

Ooooooh I like this list much more than the 1001 list. I feel a bit more accomplished reading this list, and most of the ones I haven't read yet are at least on my to-do list.

1. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea by Jules Verne
2. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
3. Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
4. Walden by Henry David Thoreau
5. Gulliver's Travels by Johnathan Swift
6. Moby Dick, or The Whale by Herman Melville
7. A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway
8. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
9. The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
10. The Odyssey by Homer
11. The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
12. A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man by James Joyce
13. Paradise Lost by John Milton (I've read excerpts from it)
14. Tales From The Arabian Nights by Richard Burton
15. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
16. Candide by Voltaire
17. Oedipus The King by Sophocles
18. The Hunchback Of Notre Dame [Notre-Dame De Paris] by Victor Hugo
19. The Last Of The Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
20. The Sea Wolf by Jack London
21. Cyrano De Bergerac by Edmund Rostand
22. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
23. Collected Poems by Robert Browning
24. The Essays Of Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph Waldo Emerson
25. The Portrait Of A Lady by Henry James
26. Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
27. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
28. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
29. Collected Poems by John Keats
30. On The Origin Of Species by Charles Darwin
31. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
32. Collected Poems by Robert Frost
33. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories by Washington Irving
34. Animal Farm by George Orwell
35. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
36. She Stoops To Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith
37. Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck
38. Pride And Prejudice by Jane Austen
39. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
40. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
41. The Iliad by Homer
42. Lady Chatterly's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
43. The Count Of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
44. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
45. Aesop's Fables by Aesop
46. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
47. The Autobiography Of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin
48. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (I've read the first 100 pages 3 times. Keep getting distracted )
49. Politics And The Poetics by Aristotle
50. The Aeneid by Virgil
51. Madam Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
52. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
53. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
54. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
55. Pygmalion And Candida by George Bernard Shaw
56. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
57. Romeo And Juliet by William Shakespeare
58. The Cherry Orchard And The Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov
59. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
60. The Analects of Confucius by Confucius
61. A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare
62. Collected Poems by William Butler Yeats
63. The Picture Of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
64. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
65. The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
66. Beowulf
67. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
68. The Neclace And Other Tales by Guy de Maupassant
69. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
70. Fathers And Sons by Ivan Turgenev
71. Heart Of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
72. War And Peace by Leo Tolstoy
73. The History of Early Rome by Livy
74. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
75. The Talisman by Sir Walter Scott
76. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
77. Alice's Adventure In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
78. Dracula by Bram Stoker
79. The Rubáiyát Of Omar Khayyám by Omar Khayyám
80. The Red And The Black by Stendhal
81. A Tale Of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
82. The Republic by Plato
83. Collected Poems by Emily Dickinson
84. Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
85. Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
86. The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay
87. Silas Marner by George Eliot
88. The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine
89. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
90. Billy Budd by Herman Melville
91. The Confessions by St. Augustine
92. Tales of Mystery And Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe
93. Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
94. The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler
95. The Sound And The Fury by William Faulkner
96. Crime And Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
97. Grimm's Fairy Tales by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
98. Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
99. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
100. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

[Anderson]

1. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea by Jules Verne
2. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
3. Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
4. Walden by Henry David Thoreau
5. Gulliver's Travels by Johnathan Swift
6. Mobt Dick, or The Whale by Herman Melville
7. A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway
8. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
9. The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling
10. The Odyssey by Homer
11. The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
12. A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man by James Joyce
13. Paradise Lost by John Milton
14. Tales From The Arabian Nights by Richard Burton
15. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
16. Candide by Voltaire
17. Oedipus The King by Sophocles
18. The Hunchback Of Notre Dame [Notre-Dame De Paris] by Victor Hugo
19. The Last Of The Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
20. The Sea Wolf by Jack London
21. Cyrano De Bergerac by Edmund Rostand
22. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
23. Collected Poems by Robert Browning
24. The Essays Of Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph Waldo Emerson
25. The Portrait Of A Lady by Henry James
26. Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
27. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
28. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
29. Collected Poems by John Keats
30. On The Origin Of Species by Charles Darwin
31. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
32. Collected Poems by Robert Frost
33. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories by Washington Irving
34. Animal Farm by George Orwell
35. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
36. She Stoops To Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith
37. Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck
38. Pride And Prejudice by Jane Austen
39. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
40. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
41. The Iliad by Homer
42. Lady Chatterly's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
43. The Count Of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
44. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
45. Aesop's Fables by Aesop
46. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
47. The Autobiography Of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin
48. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
49. Politics And The Poetics by Aristotle
50. The Aeneid by Virgil
51. Madam Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
52. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
53. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
54. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
55. Pygmalion And Candida by George Bernard Shaw
56. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
57. Romeo And Juliet by William Shakespeare
58. The Cherry Orchard And The Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov
59. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
60. The Analects of Confucius by Confucius
61. A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare
62. Collected Poems by William Butler Yeats
63. The Picture Of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
64. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
65. The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
66. Beowulf
67. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
68. The Neclace And Other Tales by Guy de Maupassant
69. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
70. Fathers And Sons by Ivan Turgenev
71. Heart Of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
72. War And Peace by Leo Tolstoy
73. The History of Early Rome by Livy
74. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
75. The Talisman by Sir Walter Scott
76. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
77. Alice's Adventure In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
78. Dracula by Bram Stoker
79. The Rubáiyát Of Omar Khayyám by Omar Khayyám
80. The Red And The Black by Stendhal
81. A Tale Of Two Cities by Charles Dickins
82. The Republic by Plato
83. Collected Poems by Emily Dickinson
84. Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
85. Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
86. The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay
87. Silas Marner by George Eliot
88. The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine
89. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
90. Billy Budd by Herman Melville
91. The Confessions by St. Augustine
92. Tales of Mystery And Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe
93. Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
94. The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler
95. The Sound And The Fury by William Faulkner
96. Crime And Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
97. Grimm's Fairy Tales by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
98. Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
99. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
100. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens


Total of 30 for me. I've got a lot of reading still to do...

[Anderson]

Inspired by this thread, I ordered these from amazon:

1. Leaves of Grass, by Whitman
2. The Necklace and Other Short Stories, by du Maupassant
3. Gulliver's Travels, by Swift
4. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Doyle
5. The Red and the Black, by Stendhal
6. Frankenstein, by Shelley

Ought to keep me busy.

I love how cheap these classics are! All told, less than $50, shipping included. That's pretty good, for all of that classic literature.

[bleachededen]

Very nice. Let me know what you think of Frankenstein, when you get to it. That's one of my favorites from that time period, and is definitely a must read for a sci-fi nerd like me!

[Anderson]

Very nice. Let me know what you think of Frankenstein, when you get to it. That's one of my favorites from that time period, and is definitely a must read for a sci-fi nerd like me!

I'll let you know how I like it, thanks.

I'm an SF nerd, too. I tried to order Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde, but I couldn't find it in print! Maybe I'll try e-bay.

I never did read Frankenstein. I got the idea last week when Miles, the best of the artists on a reality TV show about artists, raved about it.

p.s. I found a copy of Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde on amazon. Not sure how I missed it the first time...

[President Camacho]

I didn't like Gulliver's travels at all... it definitely has a message but the writing was difficult for me to keep interest in the story.