The Best Book Ever Written
If you ask a person what they consider to be the best book ever written, you will likely get many different replies. Some may consider Twilight a classic (yikes), while others love Moby Dick or The Great Gatsby. The question, "what is the best book every written?" will likely never be answered, but many groups, websites and blogs attempt to tackle this question by taking votes, then posting the results in the form of a list. The Modern Library's top choices included "Ulysses" by James Joyce (#1), "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald (#2), "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller (#7), "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck (#10), and "1984" by George Orwell (#13).
According to the Easton Press, the top five books are "20000 Leagues Under the Seas" by Jules Verne, "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne, "Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde" by Roberto Louise Stevenson, "Walden" by Henry David Thoreau, and "Gulliver's Travels" by Jonathan Swift, with "Mody-Dick" by Herman Melville coming in sixth. Thebookman. com has yet another top list, with "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austin as number one, and "To Kill a Mockingbird" and number two, followed by "Jane Eyre", "Gone With the Wind," "The Lord of the Rings," and "Catcher in the Rye."
Clearly, there is not a whole lot of agreement on the subject, yet I did notice a few consistencies. Almost every list I looked at place "1984," "The Catcher in the Rye" and "The Great Gatsby" in the top ten. Another thing I noticed was the "Twilight" was not on any one's top 100. Sorry, "Twilight" fans.
While I like many of the books considered "top choices" by these groups, there were, in my opinion, several "mistakes." My top choices would look like this:
1. "Gone With the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell
2. "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austin
3. "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee
4. "The Giver" by Lois Lowry
5. "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte
6. "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" by Ken Kesey
7. The Harry Potter Series by J.K Rowling
8. "North and South" by Elizabeth Gaskell
One book that I think should be forgotten is "The Catcher in the Rye," I truly cannot understand why anyone would consider it a great book.
I could find no two websites that agreed on the best book ever written, clearly the question is a highly subjective one and will likely never be answered, but is still a fun topic to debate and discuss.
Comments
Favorite Books Depend on the Times
I have to say that making a favorites list of anything (music, movies, television shows, books, etc) for me depends on the present.
In other words, one book, movie, tv show, etc might have really spoken to me one year, but the following year, reviewing that piece just doesn't resonate the same way as it did when I first came across it.
For me, anyways, life experience, the zeitgeist, heck -- even my mood, depends on how well i enjoy, digest, and engage a work of art.
For instance, in high school, getting through a William Burroughs book (i tried several times) never happened.
After a few years of college, and many new experiences later, I was able to read "naked lunch" and finally start to appreciate it.
Currently, one of my favorite authors is Michel Houellebecq -- the book, Atomised is a modern knock-out piece of literature.
Right now -- a movie that has stuck with me over the years is Little Children, because at the time i saw it, i was involved in an affair similar to one of the main characters and i really connected with the story, theme, final outcome, etc.
I often reflect back on the moment in my recent past, since it shaped my present, which is why the movie has remained under my skin.