As mentioned by TimeandTide in the March "What are you reading?" thread, I figured this might be a good topic for its own thread.

http://www.esquire.com/the-side/feat...-books#slide-1

Unfortunately, they have it listed in a slideshow format (perhaps there's a consolidated list somewhere?).

Here are the books from the list I've read (7). A few others in my to-read pile.

Winter's Bone - Daniel Woodrell
Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
The Shining - Stephen King (currently reading)
Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry
The Adventures of Huck Finn - Mark Twain
Savages - Don Winslow
The Road - Cormac McCarthy

I've read 5 of them, probably the 5 most 'common', but may get around to a few of the others in time.

Printable link that shows all 80. http://www.esquire.com/print-this/80-books?page=all

Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
Master and Commander, by Patrick O'Brian

The first three were read in a Great American Lit class in college.

My list of read books:

The Grapes of Wrath
The Brothers Karamazov
The Call of the Wild
Invisible Man
Dubliners
For Whom The Bell Tolls
The Killer Angels
Slaughterhouse Five
A Confederacy of Dunces
Heart of Darkness (still have scars from this one)
The Spy Who Came In From the Cold
Moby Dick
American Tabloid
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

No matter how much you read, you can never really feel "well-read" anymore.

Huck Finn
Call of the Wild
The Grapes of Wrath
The Things They Carried

... I probably need to read a little more regular/literary fiction!


The Grapes of Wrath
Lucky Jim
The Wind Up Bird Chronicle
Heart of Darkness
Midnight's Children
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Am I right in believing that this seems to be predominantly an American list?

It is probably down to my upbringing that more than half of my picks are by non-US writers.

Have read 3, perhaps 4

and given up on one

I'm at 14 or 15... I kinda lost count as I went. Obviously it's a very subjective list, but there are many other Hemingways I would've put ahead of For Whom the Bell Tolls. And I still stubbornly hold on to the belief that A Confederacy of Dunces winning the Pulitzer Prize was part of some giant prank. But it's awesome to see Labyrinths by Borges on the list... one of my all-time favorites.

grapes of wrath
The Killer Angels
The Shining
The Right Stuff
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Collected Stories of John Cheever
Deliverance
Grapes of Wrath
Blood Meridian
American Pastoral
The Things They Carried
Dispatches
Revolutionary Road
The Killer Angels
Slaughterhouse-Five
All the King's Men
Master and Commander
A Confederacy of Dunces
This Boy's Life
Heart of Darkness
The Shining
Moby-Dick
The Right Stuff
The Sportswriter
Lolita
Underworld
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Savages
Let the Great World Spin
The Road

The Grapes of Wrath
The Brothers Karamazov,
The Call of the Wild
Dubliners
For Whom the Bell Tolls
As I Lay Dying
Slaughterhouse-Five
A Confederacy of Dunces
Heart of Darkness
War and Peace
Moby Dick
Midnight's Children
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn


However, no Crime and Punishment or 100 Years of Solitude equal an invalid list. For me at least.

Call of the Wild
As I Lay Dying
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Heart of Darkness
Moby Dick
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Although I actually just started Slaughterhouse-Five the other day and For Whom the Bell Tolls is on my reading list soon. I bought a copy of The Grapes of Wrath years ago, but have never read it and have trouble mustering up much enthusiasm to start it.

ETA: The Call of the Wild - Jack London

The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy
The Call of the Wild, by Jack London
Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, by John LeCarre
Moby Dick, by Herman Melville
The Right Stuff, by Tom Wolfe
The Continental Op, by Dashiell Hammett
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain

There are others that I started and didn't finish, like Dubliners, A Winter's Tale, and the Collected John Cheever.

I read mostly literary fiction, but have only read 3 from the list:

Plainsong, by Kent Haruf
Affliction, by Russell Banks
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, by Ben Fountain

But I've read other books by the authors on that list, ie. Bukowski, Richard Ford, Hunter S. Thompson, Daniel Woodrell, Richard Yates, Vonnegut, Tobias Wolff, etc. I guess I don't run to the more popular books.

Some on the list I already have in my cue, while others I have no desire to read.

And why would Esquire be the one to tell us this?

Esquire was once a literary magazine that published work by major authors. They still like to coast on that reputation, decades after they lost the reason for that reputation.

I'veks read ten of these books; thanks for for sharing this list Geofferson..there are several books that I certain am interesting in reading.

I believe Hemingway himself wrote for them once upon a time.

Grapes of Wrath
The Call of the Wild
Hell's Angels
Dog Soldiers
The Naked and the Dead
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Slaughterhouse Five(hilarious book)
One flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Heart of Darkness
The Shining
Moby Dick
Huckleberry Finn
The Road

I'm saddened, but not shocked that I didn't see a single female author on that list.

Here you go. A list of the 100 best books of all time where the white males writing in English are a small minority. I saw three in the first 20, and the only native Englishman among them is Chaucer.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/2012/...-Chinua-Achebe

Grapes of Wrath
The Call of the Wild
Invisible Man
Dubliners
Slaughterhouse Five
Heart of Darkness
Moby Dick
Labyrinths
Lolita

Curious as to what book(s) written by women you'd include on the list. All I can think of off the top of my head are Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand, To Kill a Mockingbird (a major omission, IMO), something by Rand, perhaps (Anthem?), and...? One of my favorite authors is Toni Morrison, but I wouldn't consider any of her works must-reads for men.

Lots of cowboys and war and fishing and countryside. Eh.. Ok, I guess some of them are classics, but the list is a bit one-note. Manly-man reading.