I have stolen this from John at the Zeray Gazette (which I need to change from Locusts and Honey on my sidebar), one of the few blogs I keep up with.

In 2000, a board of authors and literary critics created a list for Random House of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th Century. This is that list. I've bolded the works that I've read.

1. (1922) Ulysses James Joyce
2. (1925) The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. (1916) A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce
4. (1955) Lolita Vladimir Nabokov
5. (1932) Brave New World Aldous Huxley
6. (1929) The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner
7. (1961) Catch-22 Joseph Heller
8. (1940) Darkness at Noon Arthur Koestler
9. (1913) Sons and Lovers D. H. Lawrence
10. (1939) The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck
11. (1947) Under the Volcano Malcolm Lowry
12. (1903) The Way of All Flesh Samuel Butler
13. (1949) Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell
14. (1934) I, Claudius Robert Graves
15. (1927) To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf
16. (1925) An American Tragedy Theodore Dreiser
17. (1940) The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter Carson McCullers
18. (1969) Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut
19. (1952) Invisible Man Ralph Ellison
20. (1940) Native Son Richard Wright
21. (1959) Henderson the Rain King Saul Bellow
22. (1934) Appointment in Samarra John O'Hara
23. (1938) U.S.A. (trilogy) John Dos Passos
24. (1919) Winesburg, Ohio Sherwood Anderson
25. (1924) A Passage to India E. M. Forster
26. (1902) The Wings of the Dove Henry James
27. (1903) The Ambassadors Henry James
28. (1934) Tender Is the Night F. Scott Fitzgerald
29. (1935) Studs Lonigan (trilogy) James T. Farrell
30. (1915) The Good Soldier Ford Madox Ford
31. (1945) Animal Farm George Orwell
32. (1904) The Golden Bowl Henry James
33. (1900) Sister Carrie Theodore Dreiser
34. (1934) A Handful of Dust Evelyn Waugh
35. (1930) As I Lay Dying William Faulkner
36. (1946) All the King's Men Robert Penn Warren
37. (1927) The Bridge of San Luis Rey Thornton Wilder
38. (1910) Howards End E. M. Forster
39. (1953) Go Tell It on the Mountain James Baldwin
40. (1948) The Heart of the Matter Graham Greene
41. (1954) Lord of the Flies William Golding
42. (1970) Deliverance James Dickey
43. (1951-1975) A Dance to the Music of Time (series) Anthony Powell
44. (1928) Point Counter Point Aldous Huxley
45. (1926) The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway
46. (1907) The Secret Agent Joseph Conrad
47. (1904) Nostromo Joseph Conrad
48. (1915) The Rainbow D. H. Lawrence
49. (1920) Women in Love D. H. Lawrence
50. (1934) Tropic of Cancer Henry Miller
51. (1948) The Naked and the Dead Norman Mailer
52. (1969) Portnoy's Complaint Philip Roth
53. (1962) Pale Fire Vladimir Nabokov
54. (1932) Light in August William Faulkner
55. (1957) On the Road Jack Kerouac
56. (1930) The Maltese Falcon Dashiell Hammett
57. (1924-1928) Parade's End Ford Madox Ford
58. (1920) The Age of Innocence Edith Wharton
59. (1911) Zuleika Dobson Max Beerbohm
60. (1961) The Moviegoer Walker Percy
61. (1927) Death Comes for the Archbishop Willa Cather
62. (1951) From Here to Eternity James Jones
63. (1957) The Wapshot Chronicle John Cheever
64. (1951) The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger
65. (1962) A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess
66. (1915) Of Human Bondage W. Somerset Maugham
67. (1902) Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad
68. (1920) Main Street Sinclair Lewis
69. (1905) The House of Mirth Edith Wharton
70. (1957-1960) The Alexandria Quartet Lawrence Durrell
71. (1929) A High Wind in Jamaica Richard Hughes
72. (1961) A House for Mr Biswas V. S. Naipaul
73. (1939) The Day of the Locust Nathanael West
74. (1929) A Farewell to Arms Ernest Hemingway
75. (1938) Scoop Evelyn Waugh
76. (1962) The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark
77. (1939) Finnegans Wake James Joyce
78. (1901) Kim Rudyard Kipling
79. (1908) A Room with a View E. M. Forster
80. (1945) Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh
81. (1953) The Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow
82. (1971) Angle of Repose Wallace Stegner
83. (1979) A Bend in the River V. S. Naipaul
84. (1938) The Death of the Heart Elizabeth Bowen
85. (1900) Lord Jim Joseph Conrad
86. (1975) Ragtime E. L. Doctorow
87. (1908) The Old Wives' Tale Arnold Bennett
88. (1903) The Call of the Wild Jack London
89. (1945) Loving Henry Green
90. (1980) Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie
91. (1932) Tobacco Road Erskine Caldwell
92. (1983) Ironweed William Kennedy
93. (1965) The Magus John Fowles
94. (1966) Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys
95. (1954) Under the Net Iris Murdoch
96. (1979) Sophie's Choice William Styron
97. (1949) The Sheltering Sky Paul Bowles
98. (1934) The Postman Always Rings Twice James M. Cain
99. (1955) The Ginger Man J. P. Donleavy
100. (1918) The Magnificent Ambersons Booth Tarkington

What I wonder is how many have read these books, and how many of these books have you read by choice?

Reading


I am an avid reader and have always been (ever since that first time reading Go, Dogs, Go all by myself). I can't remember a time when I didn't like to read (though there was a time in seminary when I was reading an assigned book in a doctor's waiting room and someone asked me what I was reading and I told her that I was reading Ben Witherington's "The Christology of Jesus" and quipped that it was "a chore."


She misunderstood me and answered back brightly, "Honey, any book about Jesus is a joy!"


That put me in my place - it was a joy to be able to attend seminary and grow closer in my walk with Jesus and to better understand who He is, and I didn't have any right to complain.


Anyway, here's what I've been reading and am currently reading. I just finished David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons' unChristian, a book about their research about Christians and our behavior and our reputation.


This is an extremely important book for any (every) American Christian leader to read to help us all examine how to minister to a culture which is increasingly turned off by Christians and our unChristian reputation.



I have just started reading Adam Hamilton's book, "Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White" as he spoke at the Change the World Conference (about which I blogged earlier this week). I bought a package deal of each of the conference speakers' new books, and I decided I'd start with Hamilton's (as he was the first speaker of the conference).



In the second chapter, Hamilton talks about how sometimes we "strain gnats" (taken from Jesus' harangue at the Pharisees in Matthew 23:24, where He accuses them of "straining out a gnat but swallowing a camel"). He makes his point by remembering smashing his Beatles records after listening to a preacher tell him of the evils of rock-n-roll music (I wonder if it was someone like this guy) - and, as Hamilton puts it, "on the day the preacher was telling me that God wanted me to throw away my Beatles albums, thirty-two thousand people around the world died of starvation and malnutrition-related diseases!"


Unfortunately, his example brings a certain natural reaction with it. Why did you trash those Beatles albums? They would have been worth something today (I know that full well; I sold some original Beatles albums to a used bookstore, and the proprietor practically drooled as he offered me a low ball price for them, a price which was far more than they were worth to me), and they weren't offensive in any way (he makes it clear that these were of the "She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah!" variety).


The problem I have with his story and the way he tells it is this: what exactly constitutes "straining gnats" and what "camels" are we swallowing? Does holy living (which includes ridding oneself of distractions from living a holy life, possibly including culling one's music selections) have to keep one from caring about world hunger? Are keeping right doctrine and working for justice mutually exclusive?


I say no; and I believe the church should do both. We should call people to personal holiness and to living it out. We should be calling people to relationship with Jesus Christ, and allowing His love for them to transform them into loving people, people who go out and live the Truth...