These are my ten favorite novels, in roughly the order I would put them if I absolutely had to (which I don't, because it's my list). It is subject to change at whim, which it did for the first time in a long time in 2010.
1. A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell (discussed here);
2. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov;
3. Sophie’s Choice by William Styron (reviewed here);
4. The Road Home by Jim Harrison;
5. Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco;
6. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons (reviewed here);
7. All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren (reviewed here);
8. Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald;
9. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell; and
10. Amsterdam by Ian McEwan.
NOTE
Updated June 19, 2010 (Cold Comfort Farm displaced The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All)
OTHER REVIEWS OF THE BOOKS ON THIS LIST
(If you would like to be listed here, please leave a comment with links to your reviews ans I will add them.)
.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Review of the Day: Thérèse Raquin
Published in 1867, Thérèse Raquin is Emile Zola's first novel and a magnificent proto-noir thriller. All the necessary elements are here -- a hot-to-trot young wife, an invalid husband, a greedy lover – all simmered together in a Parisian stew of lust, murder, deception, debauchery, and guilt. With the macabre ghoulishness of Poe and the diabolical desperation of Cain, Thérèse Raquin should be on any noir-lover's bookshelf.