In 1998, in honor of my 25th year of reading (I started late, at 18) I decided to make a list of the 100 books most dear to me, and even, boldly, foolishly, to rank them. Once committed to paper I wanted to change it a couple dozen more times, but, brave compilers must at some point call it accompli, and, voila, my top 100. You have to take my word for it that I did this BEFORE Modern Library put out their controversial list; I did it for a lark. Honest. It's an idiosyncratic list, admittedly, more passion, more personal preference than an attempt to cover books of historical significance. It's one man's favorite books, and, it goes without saying, a good place to start an argument. For instance, do I really think that William Steig's Dominic is a better book than, say, Catcher in the Rye? Yes, I do.

1.ULYSSES James Joyce
2.LITTLE, BIG John Crowley
3.LOLITA Vladimir Nabokov
4.THE TRIAL Franz Kafka
5.EDWIN MULLHOUSE Steven Millhauser
6.DARCONVILLE'S CATAlexander Theroux
7.HOUSEKEEPING Marilynne Robinson
8.THE GORMENGHAST TRILOGY Mervyn Peake
9.THE PHILOSOPHER'S PUPIL Iris Murdoch
10.SONG OF SOLOMON Toni Morrison
11.THE MOVIEGOER Walker Percy
12.CHILD OF GOD Cormac McCarthy
13.SOMETHING HAPPENED Joseph Heller
14.SEVENTH HEAVEN Alice Hoffman
15.THE SOTWEED FACTOR John Barth
16.MY LIFE AS A MAN Philip Roth
17.WHITE NOISE Don DeLillo
18.PICTURES FROM AN INSTITUTION Randall Jarrell
19.DANIEL MARTIN John Fowles
20.BEEN DOWN SO LONG IT LOOKS LIKE UP TO ME Richard Farina
21.INVISIBLE MAN Ralph Ellison
22.THE BOOK OF DANIEL E.L. Doctorow
23.TRISTRAM SHANDY Lawrence Sterne
24.WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? Edward Albee
25.JAMES JOYCE Richard Ellmann
26.THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV Fyodor Dostoyevsky
27.THE DAY OF THE LOCUST Nathanael West
28.OBLOMOV Ivan Goncharov
29THE DEPTFORD TRILOGY Robertson Davies
30.THE FAVORITE GAME Leonard Cohen
31.BECH: A BOOK John Updike
32.THE HORSE'S MOUTH Joyce Cary
33.THE KILLER INSIDE ME Jim Thompson
34.THE OUTER DARK Cormac McCarthy
35.MASON AND DIXON Thomas Pynchon
36.CALL IT SLEEP Henry Roth
37.THE HONORARY CONSUL Graham Greene
38.IN OUR TIME Ernest Hemingway
39.SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE Kurt Vonnegut
40.THE MAN WHO LOVED CHILDREN Christina Stead
41.THE STRANGER Albert Camus
42.LAZAR MALKIN ENTERS HEAVEN Steve Stern
43.CHILLY SCENES OF WINTER Ann Beattie
44.THE QUIET AMERICAN Graham Greene
45.PALE FIRE Vladimir Nabokov
46.THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE James Cain
47.HUMBOLDT'S GIFT Saul Bellow
48.ON THE BLACK HILL Bruce Chatwin
49.GREAT DAYS Donald Barthelme
50.THE CRYING OF LOT 49 Thomas Pynchon
51.DUBLINERS James Joyce
52.SABBATH'S THEATER Philip Roth
53.TO THE LIGHTHOUSE Virginia Woolf
54.NUNS AND SOLDIERS Iris Murdoch
55.THE TIN DRUM Gunter Grass
56.UNDERWORLD Don DeLillo
57.THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER Davis Grubb
58.A CLOCKWORK ORANGE Anthony Burgess
59.THE DEATH OF IVAN ILYCH Leo Tolstoy
60.AEGYPT John Crowley
61.COMPLETE PLAYS William Shakespeare
62.THE ECSTASY OF OWEN MUIR Ring Lardner, Jr.
63.THE MAGUS John Fowles
64.WISE BLOOD Flannery O'Connor
65.WIND IN THE WILLOWS Kenneth Grahame
66.CRIME AND PUNISHMENT Fyodor Dostoyevsky
67.ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE Gabriel Garcia Marquez
68.THE FATE OF THE EARTH Jonathon Schell
69.WIDE SARGASSO SEA Jean Rhys
70.WAITING FOR THE BARBARIANS J.M. Coetzee
71.THE ILLUSTRATED WOODY ALLEN READERWoody Allen
72.TALES Edgar Allan Poe
73.DYLAN Anthony Scaduto
74.AMERIKA Franz Kafka
75.THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER Joan Didion
76.GARGANTUA AND PANTAGRUEL Rabelais
77.DANCING WITH MERMAIDS Miles Gibson
78.ALICE IN WONDERLAND Lewis Carroll
79.WAITING FOR GODOT Samuel Beckett
80.MINOTAUR Benjamin Tammuz
81.THE GOLDBUG VARIATIONS Richard Powers
82.1984 George Orwell
83.IN HIS OWN WRITE AND A SPANIARD IN HIS WORKS John Lennon
84.TENDER IS THE NIGHT F. Scott Fitzgerald
85.THE PLAGUE Albert Camus
86.THE END OF THE ROAD John Barth
87.PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT Philip Roth
88.THE HEART OF THE MATTER Graham Greene
89.CAT'S CRADLE Kurt Vonnegut
90.THE SOUND AND THE FURY William Faulkner
91.THE BLACK PRINCE Iris Murdoch
92.THE SECOND COMING Walker Percy
93.THE SUN ALSO RISES Ernest Hemingway
94.THE DAY Douglas Hobbie
95.DOMINIC William Steig
96.LIVES OF THE POETS E. L. Doctorow
97.ON THE ROAD Jack Kerouac
98.THE BOOK OF EBENEZER LE PAGE G.B. Edwards
99.A FINE MADNESS Eliot Baker
100.VERY GOOD, JEEVES P.G.Wodehouse

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