Raye's Top 100 Novels Part II 34 through 66

As stated in the Part I post, these are in no particular order.

34. The Last Picture Show (1966) by Larry McMurtry
This may not be an accepted classic, but anyone who grew up in the '50s in a small town in Texas, as I did, will know that McMurtry tells it like it was.

35. The Master and Margarita (1966) by Mikhail Bulgakov
The satirical tale of the devil's visit to atheistic Russia. A really fascinating book (Translated from Russian.)

36. Kafka on the Shore ((2002) by Haruki Murakami
Two intertwined stories, of a young boy trying to escape a family curse and of an old man who is a finder of lost cats. Japanese magical realism. (Translated from Japanese) The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is also excellent.

37. The Secret History (1992) by Donna Tartt
Precocious students at an elite college commit murder. Why?

38. All the Pretty Horses (1992) by Cormac McCarthy
A teenaged Texas boy heads to Mexico to be a cowboy and finds love and a pile of trouble. Not as dark and violent as most others by McCarthy.

39. Moby Dick (1851) by Herman Melville
Mad Captain Ahab hunts for the Great White Whale. People are still arguing about the symbolism.

40. Brighton Rock (1938) by Graham Greene
Murder in a British seaside resort. I picked this almost at random from the many by Greene that I love. This is one of those he called his "entertainments." He also wrote very serious novels, such as The Power and the Glory and The End of the Affair and even very humorous novels, such as Our Man in Havana.

41. The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955) by Patricia Highsmith
A chilling portrait of an amoral killer.

42. Emma (1815) by Jane Austin
The story of a well-meaning but inept matchmaker. My favorite Austin book because Emma is a charming character. Of course, all of Austin's novels are outstanding.

43. The Handmaid's Tale (1985) by Margaret Atwood
A dystopian novel about the sad plight of women in a theocracy. Quite timely in today's political climate.

44. Empire Falls (2001) by Richard Russo
One man's life in small town Maine. Funny and sad and totally engrossing.

45. Jane Eyre (1847) by Charlotte Bronte
I love the early parts with little orphan Jane, but not so much the rest. Mr. Rochester is a prick and Jane should have kicked him to the curb.

46. 1984 (1949) by George Orwell
A prophetic dystopian novel about a nation engaged in perpetual war and a government that spies on every move of its citizens. Guess what? Big Brother is still watching us. Also prophetic: Animal Farm. Some animals are still more equal than others.

47. Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891) by Thomas Hardy
A country girl becomes the victim of a judgmental society and of hypocrisy. May be the saddest book I have ever read. All of Hardy's are complex and meaningful.

48. Madame Bovary (1856) by Gustave Flaubert
Also very sad, but this time the victim is the man, whose wife betrays him.(Translated from French.)

49. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979-1992)) by Douglas Adams
Wacky, off-the-wall comic adventures in outer space.

50. Captain Corelli's Mandolin (1994) by Louis de Bernieres
About love, music, and the insanity of war. A beautiful book.

51. Lord of the Flies (1954) by William Golding
Boys stranded on an island without adults turn savage. Can be taken literally or as an allegory.

52. Lolita (1955) by Vladimir Nabokov
A professor's sexual obsession with a 12-year-old nymphet. It's hard to believe that such a distasteful premise could result in such an good book, but it does.

53 Tom Jones (1749) by Henry Fielding
The history of a good-hearted but somewhat rakish young man. Very funny.

54. Cloud Atlas (2004) by David Mitchell
Six stories ranging in setting from the South Pacific in the 19th Century to the apocalyptic far future, connected thematically and by the reincarnation of souls. All Mitchell's books are wonderful.

55. Never Let Me Go (2005) by Kazuo Ishiguro
A dystopian science fiction novel about clones raised to be organ donors. Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day is also excellent. His Unconsoled is so well done that it made me unbearably anxious and I couldn't even finish it.

56. Swan Song (1987) by Robert R. McCammon
This one is kind of obscure. A post-apocalyptic story of a group of people traveling to find a place to build again. Very similar in theme and content to Stephen King's The Stand, but this one is better and it was written first.

57. Vanity Fair (1848) by William Makepeace Thackeray
Biting satire, with deliciously amoral Becky Sharp and her insipid friend Amelia.

58. A Passage to India (1924) by E.M. Forster
A friendship ruined by racial tensions and prejudices in 1920s British India.

59. The Last Unicorn (1968) by Peter S. Beagle
The magical tale of the quest by the last unicorn to find out what happened to the others. Fantasy that takes itself seriously.

60. The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) by Oscar Wilde
Dorian stays young and beautiful while living the wild life. Maybe we all secretly wish we had such a picture hidden away somewhere.

61. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962) by Ken Kesey
A mental hospital perhaps stands for society as a whole in its inhumane treatment of the "different," with Nurse Ratched, one of the meanest villains of all time.

62. Grendel (1971) by John Gardner
The story of Beowolf and his monster from the monster's point of view.

63. The Dark Tower series (1982-2004) by Stephen King
The 7-book series about the quest by The Gunfighter to defeat the evil of The Dark Tower. Kind of a combination of King Arthur and a spaghetti Western, with some science fiction thrown in.

64. I, Claudius (1934) by Robert Graves
Written as the autobiography of the man who became the Roman Emperor Claudius. So well done that you could swear it is actually the emperor's own account.

65. Giants in the Earth (1925) by O.E. Rolvaag
The hardships of early Norwegian settlers in the Dakota Territory. The best account of pioneering I have ever read. (Translated from Norwegian.)

66. The Killer Angels (1974) by Michael Shaara
An account of the Battle of Gettysburg from the viewpoints of several of the participants. Examines the question of how good men of conscience can bring themselves to kill each other.