Author Topic: The Library  (Read 2306606 times)

Frybabe

  • Posts: 10079
Re: The Library
« Reply #10520 on: January 28, 2013, 01:03:12 PM »

The Library

Our library cafe is open 24/7, the welcome mat is always out.
Do come in from daily chores and spend some time with us.

We look forward to hearing from you, about you and the books you are enjoying (or not).


Let the book talk begin here!



Marcie, I think it depends on the course as to whether or not it is as good as in-person classes. I can tell you that I and some of my classmates agree that accounting classes are better in-person. However, the Technical and Report Writing class I took was excellent on-line. As part of our classwork, we were required to do an on-line presentation in conjunction with a paper we had to write, and a collaborative report complete with divvying out responsibilities as to who wrote what sections and who was responsible for tying it altogether and submitting it. These were both worthwhile efforts designed to use today's technologies to work with co-workers or co-authors who may be working at distance, and alleviate the problem of getting a crew together all at one time to go over work at hand on a regular basis.

Oh dear, I'm afraid I had to bookmark all three listed sites. Each on has something interesting. This, of course, is in addition to the other on-line ed sites I already have bookmarked. That brings my education bookmark folder up to seventeen sites.

  

marjifay

  • Posts: 2658
Re: The Library
« Reply #10521 on: January 28, 2013, 01:50:58 PM »
Thanks, Marcie.  I just signed up for a course thru Coursera, Introduction to Philosophy. 

As to the question/debate over in-person classes or on-line classes, I have taken both.  Took a couple of online courses for credit back when I was working towards my degree.  We read online lectures and the textbook, but went to the college for the semi-final and final exams.  I wouldn't have wanted to take all my classes that way because I liked the interaction with other students and the professors.

I was just reading in the LA Times, that the LA School District is planning to make hand-held computers (cost around $600 each) available to every student within a couple of years. They will have some classes which will not involve lectures by the teachers, just info on the computers. They are working out the details now.  Apparently it will cost the city around $500 million.  The students won't be able to take them home, they say, but will use them only in school.  School is getting to be a lot more interesting than when I was young.

Marj
"Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill."  Barbara Tuchman

kiwilady

  • Posts: 491
Re: The Library
« Reply #10522 on: January 28, 2013, 05:11:03 PM »
Many schools now have their own sites where kids log in and where they obtain their homework. Things like Math can be done online. Kids working at their own pace and often going well above the levels of attainment required in National Standards. Children today find nothing unusual in working online and learning online.

Carolyn

marcie

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Re: The Library
« Reply #10523 on: January 28, 2013, 08:39:40 PM »
In the future, it might be practical to provide a video feed for many online classes and use technology somewhat like SKYPE to view other participants. I know that some educational institutions do that now but I'm thinking of something that would be more ubiquitous.

Steph

  • Posts: 7952
Re: The Library
« Reply #10524 on: January 29, 2013, 06:32:27 AM »
I think for my purposes I like the cd courses, but I know that a lot of teens love the online.. I suspect that science needs labs and that cannot be done on line.
Stephanie and assorted corgi

Frybabe

  • Posts: 10079
Re: The Library
« Reply #10525 on: January 29, 2013, 08:44:25 AM »
A little treasure I found today on Project Gutenberg, an issue of The Boston-School Cooking Magazine complete with the old ads, photos, articles, poems, menus, and recipes. There is an interesting recipe for Spanish Green Beans in which you finely chop the green beans, tomatoes and the like. I never thought of "finely" chopping green beans.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41940

Babi

  • Posts: 6732
Re: The Library
« Reply #10526 on: January 29, 2013, 09:38:06 AM »
MARJ, it sounds like a very costly program, but they may believe they can replace
some teachers with the computer-based lessons. You can't hire a teacher for $600.
a year!
   I would love to take some of the courses I see available, but lectures are useless to me.
I need materials I can read!
"I go to books and to nature as a bee goes to the flower, for a nectar that I can make into my own honey."  John Burroughs

JeanneP

  • Posts: 1231
  • Sept 2013
Re: The Library
« Reply #10527 on: January 29, 2013, 01:23:18 PM »
Frybabe.

I don't have a Reader Yet. would love to know how the do the Chopped Green Bean Recipe. Tired of eating them the old way. If you make them will you copy it out for us?.

JeanneP

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  • Sept 2013
Re: The Library
« Reply #10528 on: January 29, 2013, 01:30:04 PM »
I found the Chopped Green Bean Salad on Google.

pedln

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Re: The Library
« Reply #10529 on: January 29, 2013, 02:05:20 PM »
That's an interesting link, Frybabe.  Thanks for posting.

Frybabe

  • Posts: 10079
Re: The Library
« Reply #10530 on: January 29, 2013, 04:01:15 PM »
JeanneP, you don't have to have a reader for Project Gutenberg. Click on the link and at the top of the list, click  on HTML. That brings up the readable version without downloading the file or needing a reader app. Almost all the PG books have an HTML or Generated HTML version for viewing on the web.

JeanneP

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  • Sept 2013
Re: The Library
« Reply #10531 on: January 29, 2013, 07:09:52 PM »
Frybabe.

I went back and ran through that site again. Not quite understanding it but will Keep that web site on my file.

Frybabe

  • Posts: 10079
Re: The Library
« Reply #10532 on: January 29, 2013, 09:17:14 PM »
www.gutenberg.org is the main page. It is a bit daunting to look at. The Recently Added link at the top of the main page gets me to books added in the last 24 hours since I like to check for new additions to the site every day. For those with a Kindle Fire, the little app they have for directly downloading their books works very well. The files drop into the Docs folder and will not show up in the Kindle bookshelf, though. www.manybooks.net has many of the same books as Gutenberg, but in a little more user friendly format.

Steph

  • Posts: 7952
Re: The Library
« Reply #10533 on: January 30, 2013, 06:19:15 AM »
I cannot begin to catch up with my reading at this point. Waiting for my course to arrive on CD.. which for me is something I can use at home or in the car.
Stephanie and assorted corgi

PatH

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Re: The Library
« Reply #10534 on: January 30, 2013, 09:19:14 AM »
I copied the recipe here.    I can't quite imagine how it comes out.

String Beans, Spanish

Take two pounds of green string beans and chop fine. Put one tablespoonful of bacon drippings in a frying pan and one onion, cut fine, half a dry red pepper, cut fine; let onion and pepper fry brown, then add three ripe tomatoes, cut fine, and stir in one tablespoonful of flour; then add one quart of cold water; then the chopped beans, with salt and pepper to taste, and let the beans cook until tender; keep adding water as needed, so as not to let them get too dry.

MaryPage

  • Posts: 3725
Re: The Library
« Reply #10535 on: January 30, 2013, 09:22:35 AM »
I have tried them on both CD and DVD, and I like the DVD lectures better because you can see all the photos, paintings, maps, etc. that go along with the course.  Unfortunately, greedy old me got carried away and bought more lectures from The Teaching Company than I have had time to watch, so I have had to bring my instincts to a screeching halt until such time as I catch up and actually need more.

I am pretty sure it was in this forum that we were discussing books set in ancient Greece and I mentioned my love of Mary Renault and several others agreed with me.  Well, FYI, in the January 7, 2013 issue of THE NEW YORKER, the one with that oh so poignant cover of the school children entering their school with the parents outside looking on anxiously, there is a great and true article about a once young man who corresponded with Mary Renault.  Fascinating.  I highly recommend it.  It is titled THE AMERICAN BOY and is by Daniel Mendelsohn.

JeanneP

  • Posts: 1231
  • Sept 2013
Re: The Library
« Reply #10536 on: January 30, 2013, 02:12:58 PM »
PatH.

Now I like the sound of your Recipe for the cut Beans better than the Salad one I found. Wonder how it would be with the Can of the "Glory seasoned country style string beans" that I have here.? Green beans in the Stores fresh isle not looking good these day. Won't hurt to try them. I have the bacon and peppers

PatH

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Re: The Library
« Reply #10537 on: January 30, 2013, 03:24:43 PM »
That's not my recipe, I copied it from the link Frybabe gave, since some were having trouble opening it.

maryz

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Re: The Library
« Reply #10538 on: January 30, 2013, 03:25:44 PM »
I didn't think the Learning Company (Great Courses) was putting any out on CDs any more.  Ours are all DVDs.  I know when they started out, all the courses were audio only.
"When someone you love dies, you never quite get over it.  You just learn how to go on without them. But always keep them safely tucked in your heart."

Tomereader1

  • Posts: 1870
Re: The Library
« Reply #10539 on: January 30, 2013, 04:44:22 PM »
The Great Courses are now available in various modes.  You can download to your computer or device; get DVDs (some courses only available in DVD); get CDS.  I usually get mine in DVD, as Im not in my car long enough at any one time to listen to a CD.  Myportable CD player is non-functional right now. 
The reading of a fine book is an uninterrupted dialogue in which the book speaks and our soul replies.


André Maurois

Steph

  • Posts: 7952
Re: The Library
« Reply #10540 on: January 31, 2013, 06:19:14 AM »
I have a small stereo ( old) and that is what I will use to listen to the cd's.. besides the car of course.. I think I listen better than I watch..We will see. I also rooted through my tbr pile and found The Red Tent and am reading this as well. I figure this will give me  flavor to the true stuff..
Stephanie and assorted corgi

JeanneP

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  • Sept 2013
Re: The Library
« Reply #10541 on: January 31, 2013, 02:04:32 PM »
I loved the "Red Tent" read it a couple years ago.  I don't like the way women live there but do like the Idea of all being together at that time of month away from the Men.Private. I think that our personalities  changed for the 5 days at that time of month.

BarbStAubrey

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Re: The Library
« Reply #10542 on: February 01, 2013, 12:06:49 AM »
Yes, how women were honored during their Menstruation before others demanded change that made their monthly cycle appear un-social almost un-natural
“A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.” ~ Goethe

Steph

  • Posts: 7952
Re: The Library
« Reply #10543 on: February 01, 2013, 06:10:34 AM »
Actually from what I have read before.. The Red Tent was an isolation measure.They were considered to be taboo.. Parts of that remain in a good deal of the world to this day. Never felt any different for all those years . Mostly inconvenient since it seemed that every time we were going somewhere special,, boom.. wrong time of month..
Stephanie and assorted corgi

BarbStAubrey

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Re: The Library
« Reply #10544 on: February 01, 2013, 12:47:08 PM »
Not that I understood - it only became taboo after the other more powerful brother took over - sorry forgot the characters - all biblical which is not my forte - but the group that was with Ruth and I do not remember the brother who was leader of that group - the women in that group thought women's monthly was to be hidden and not honored where as the small group with Jacob had the practice of the Red Tent where the women had a comfortable place with straw to sit on and chatter among themselves - we know now women who live close together do menstruate at the same time each month - these women had to change when the two groups joined after Jacob's group crossed a river and no longer making a ceremony for young girls when their time came to be a member of the Red Tent. Lot of plots going on in that story - something about sisters all married to Jacob and then his awful awful act with his sons of demanding the men in the village of the man Dinah marries be circumcised and while in pain recuperating he and his sons murder the lot. Sheesh - that and the incest helped turn me off the Bible and still do not understand it being pushed today as a book of wisdom.  
“A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.” ~ Goethe

Tomereader1

  • Posts: 1870
Re: The Library
« Reply #10545 on: February 01, 2013, 01:56:33 PM »
I have always understood that separation was always  a Hebrew custom.  I believe to this day, the Mikvah is a ritual bath that is to purify a woman after she finishes her period. (also other purification rituals)
The reading of a fine book is an uninterrupted dialogue in which the book speaks and our soul replies.


André Maurois

JeanneP

  • Posts: 1231
  • Sept 2013
Re: The Library
« Reply #10546 on: February 01, 2013, 09:04:03 PM »
I think that now it is only in the Orthodox Jewish Religion do they follow the Bath ritual . Not in the Reform or Conservative.  Many of the young  have turn to the conservative now. I believe there was the separation at one time. Lots of rules. Husbands and wives did not touch. Couldn't touch foods being cooked.  You still will see women wearing wigs in the big cities.
Looks like it would be very hard now. Specially in US. UK. places like that for some of the old ways to remain.  I live close to the big Amish area and even things there are changing with the young people.

I hope that not all of the things change in any of these cultures. I think a lot of them really good. Some outdated.  The world has changed so fast and so much.

Steph

  • Posts: 7952
Re: The Library
« Reply #10547 on: February 02, 2013, 06:42:03 AM »
I know it is silly, but with the women in combat new idea, what happens if they are in the field with no resupply and a woman menstruates.. not a fun thing.
The book has a lot of legend along with what she feels was the beginning of the one god approach, which thus far is very very restrictive.. Dinah is interesting, but her father is simply horrid.. and most of her brothers are really beasts.. Interesting though since when my course comes, it is supposed to talk a lot about the beginnings of Christianity.
Stephanie and assorted corgi

Babi

  • Posts: 6732
Re: The Library
« Reply #10548 on: February 02, 2013, 09:27:12 AM »
 Goodness, BARB! The Bible isn't saying those things that happened are wise, or good,
and certainly not Godly. It's reporting what happened. The very fact that they have
not omitted such shameful things from their history is to me evidence of it's honesty.

 There are a number of things that perturb me about the idea of women on the front lines,
STEPH.   Look what being in modern combat is doing to our men!  They are supposed to be
by nature more aggressive, yet even so many of them are emotionally damaged.  I don't
doubt the courage of the women; I just think this sort of experience would give rise to even
more horrific problems.
"I go to books and to nature as a bee goes to the flower, for a nectar that I can make into my own honey."  John Burroughs

MaryPage

  • Posts: 3725
Re: The Library
« Reply #10549 on: February 02, 2013, 11:32:45 AM »
The VA reports that TWENTY-TWO (22) veterans of these wars we send our children out to fight are committing suicide every day.  Every day.  Twenty-two of them.
154 every week.
660 every month.
8,008 every year.
That is unacceptable.  We have to stop condoning it.  We have to stop sweeping it under the rug.
We have a volunteer army filled with young men and women who have not been able to find paid work elsewhere.  They are not noticed by most of us.  Their trials and travails go without the vast majority of the public giving them one single thought.
If we went back to the draft, every household would be thinking about it constantly.  "Will my son or daughter be called up?"  Every voting citizen would suddenly care rather desperately whether we gather up our tools of war and send our young off to invade far off countries.
But these who come back having seen women and children killed, and their best mates blown to pieces;  they are never the same again.  Nor would you be.  Nor would I.
So they are choosing to die.
Twenty-two of them yesterday. 
Twenty-two of them today. 
Twenty-two of them tomorrow.

kiwilady

  • Posts: 491
Re: The Library
« Reply #10550 on: February 03, 2013, 02:21:23 AM »
You know what I think about sending our young ones to these ideological wars Mary P. Its just plain unnecessary. How many of our political representatives have sons serving? The Queen has two grandsons serving -one on active duty. I dont know of any politician in my country that has a child on active service.

These young suicide victims must have endured horrors we will never hear of for many years. The rest will suffer various health issues all their lives. I would like to see them all come home and instead we all protect our local economic zones and our coastlines.

Steph

  • Posts: 7952
Re: The Library
« Reply #10551 on: February 03, 2013, 06:23:28 AM »
War is horrible and unnecessary. Since WWII, we have tried interfering in many other countries internal affairs and that is so wrong that I cannot believe we do it.. Now the screams from the military establishment for being forced to cut back are scary..We hire killers in private countries to protect diplomats..Why...We just flat out do not seem to grip that we are not the rulers of the world. I hate it.
Universal Draft.. male and female seems to make more sense than anything. Citizen soldiers.. Switzerland has them.. The suicides seem to be despair. They saw things that no one should. and possibly inViet Nam did things they knew was wrong.
Stephanie and assorted corgi

Babi

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Re: The Library
« Reply #10552 on: February 03, 2013, 08:59:05 AM »
  I wouldn't say we're condoning it, MARYPAGE.  Actually, we're weeping and lamenting
over it all over the country. We all agree soomething must be done. The question is
what, and how, and who?  Actually, the work Mrs. Obama has been doing the past few
years for our veterans and their families seems to be the most worthwhile plan out
there right now. If there are any other successful programs going, they need to be
broadened and supported strongly. What programs are out there?  Does anybody here
know?  Let's find out about them.
"I go to books and to nature as a bee goes to the flower, for a nectar that I can make into my own honey."  John Burroughs

Frybabe

  • Posts: 10079
Re: The Library
« Reply #10553 on: February 03, 2013, 09:16:42 AM »
Quote
...we have tried interfering in many other countries internal affairs and that is so wrong that I cannot believe we do it.

Steph, I actually thought that interfering with the internal affairs of another country was against the law here. Am I mistaken? Where I got the notion, I don't know, but I've had it for a very long time.

Babi

  • Posts: 6732
Re: The Library
« Reply #10554 on: February 03, 2013, 09:29:16 AM »
  I think the ideal is that we would not want outsiders interfering in our internal affairs, and we should not
interfere with theirs.  I think the key is 'internal'.   When you asked the question, FRYBABE,  I realized I didn't
know the answer either.  So here's some info. for both of us:
  The officially stated goals of the foreign policy of the United States, as mentioned in the Foreign Policy Agenda of the U.S. Department of State, are "to create a more secure, democratic, and prosperous world for the benefit of the American people and the international community."[2] In addition, the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs states as some of its jurisdictional goals: "export controls, including nonproliferation of nuclear technology and nuclear hardware; measures to foster commercial intercourse with foreign nations and to safeguard American business abroad; international commodity agreements; international education; and protection of American citizens abroad and expatriation

  We seem to be especially active under the "safeguard America business abroad"  segment, don't we?
"I go to books and to nature as a bee goes to the flower, for a nectar that I can make into my own honey."  John Burroughs

marjifay

  • Posts: 2658
Re: The Library
« Reply #10555 on: February 03, 2013, 02:37:58 PM »
I  know of only one program (there are probably more) that works to help returning veterans -- The Wounded Warrior program where for $19/month you can help the rehabilitation of wounded veterans.
  
A good book on the subject is Rachel Maddow's DRIFT; THE UNMOORING OF AMERICAN POWER where she tells how far the U.S. has drifted from the America's original ideals, i.e, Thomas Jefferson's idea to never keep an unnecessary soldier, and become a nation at peace with perpetual war.

I've heard that fewer and fewer males are enlisting.  I think this war mentality might cease if we were to re-instate the draft, especially since females might be subject to it.

Marj
"Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill."  Barbara Tuchman

BarbStAubrey

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Re: The Library
« Reply #10556 on: February 03, 2013, 03:44:26 PM »
the impression I have from the various news articles quoting the women is there is no area of war that is the back area so to speak - they are all under the same risk for combat, death and being captured so why should they not be paid the same and have the same benefits and be counted as equal since the risk is equal - the public seems to see females now as subject to equal drafts by those who are upset with the status of women equal in the army - look at them when they are on TV complaining - it is all about male superiority and are probably the same ones who complained about gays in the military - as to what the draft would be like - who knows - by the way doesn't Israel draft women and men equally - does anyone know. I just do not like seeing moms separated from their kids -

I guess we are so used to the idea of Dads being separated for jobs but Moms tears at me and I wonder the abandonment that these kids will be dealing with when they are adults - as the books tell us abandonment issues even come about because a parent was in their own world of drink, work, even parents who had no eyes for anyone than each other and then as grown adults the kids have abandonment issues to deal with.
“A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.” ~ Goethe

MaryPage

  • Posts: 3725
Re: The Library
« Reply #10557 on: February 03, 2013, 04:13:18 PM »
I agree with so much said here.

We have a bunch of old white males running the country who are so certain of our innate, get that innate, superiority that they want us to strut our stuff in every nation of this world whose government or religion they do not approve of (but oh, if they are run by far right-wing dictators, they get our approval and our war-making artillery!) or whose resources they want to acquire for their own world-wide business networks, most of which pay no taxes whatsoever as they claim off shore business addresses which are only mail pick-up places.  Does not matter how many mother's sons and daughters are slaughtered in the doing.  Bothers them not one whit, as they have arranged things to keep their own kids from getting sucked into service to their country.

I don't really like the thought of women in combat, but the fact on the ground is that they are there already and the rule against them has only resulted in their not getting combat pay, not getting their service in combat zones in their service records, and not getting promotions the men get that are based on their having seen combat.  Our nation's hypocrisy on this subject has been abject, ever since the WASPS in World War II. 

My own mother, an army nurse, flew back and forth and back and forth between Korea and Japan picking up our wounded and taking them to hospitals.  They were shot at all the time, but only the men were given credit for being under fire.  Planes went down, but only the men were killed in the line of duty.  Ask the women you have known who served.  Ask the nurses and female doctors and all the rest.  You will be blown away by the lies our government has been perpetuating just to ease the public opinion regarding "women in combat."

I cringe, and a frisson runs down my  back, at the thought of mothers dying from enemy fire.  But why should my sensitivities influence our congress to refuse to admit they are doing so?  Why should only our males get pay and credit for being heroes?

kiwilady

  • Posts: 491
Re: The Library
« Reply #10558 on: February 03, 2013, 06:07:13 PM »
Women were in the thick of the Gulf war too Mary P. Thats another war where although not as long lived as the current two, much damage was done both physically and mentally to both women and men. Oh when will it ever end. Not to mention the dreadful civilian casualties. I am sure this has something to do with the suicide rate.

The thing is there are so many soldiers on active duty and not enough jobs to go round. What will they do in civvy street? Thats another issue to look at. The jobless figures would go way up if everyone came home right now?

It makes me sick to see all those young faces on the Roll of Honour. I purposely dont watch channels where this is likely to be shown. Its just got too much.


BarbStAubrey

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Re: The Library
« Reply #10559 on: February 03, 2013, 06:46:46 PM »
Don't like changing subject but this is a great list of books put out but the Telegraph in London and fashioned by John Updike, who died in 2009 -

Of those books you have not read which ones do you still want to read?


100 The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkein
WH Auden thought this tale of fantastic creatures looking for lost jewellery was a “masterpiece”.

99 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
A child’s-eye view of racial prejudice and freaky neighbours in Thirties Alabama.

98 The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore
A rich Bengali noble lives happily until a radical revolutionary appears.

97 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Earth is demolished to make way for a Hyperspatial Express Route. Don’t panic.

96 One Thousand and One Nights Anon
A Persian king’s new bride tells tales to stall post-coital execution.

95 The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Werther loves Charlotte, but she’s already engaged. Woe is he!

94 Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
The children of poor Hindus and wealthy Muslims are switched at birth.

93 Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré
Nursery rhyme provides the code names for British spies suspected of treason.

92 Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
Hilarious satire on doom-laden rural romances. “Something nasty” has been observed in the woodshed.

91 The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki
The life and loves of an emperor’s son. And the world’s first novel?

90 Under the Net by Iris Murdoch
A feckless writer has dealings with a canine movie star. Comedy and philosophy combined.

89 The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
Lessing considers communism and women’s liberation in what Margaret Drabble calls “inner space fiction”.

88 Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin
Passion, poetry and pistols in this verse novel of thwarted love.

87 On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Beat generation boys aim to “burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles”.

86 Old Goriot by Honoré de Balzac
A disillusioning dose of Bourbon Restoration realism. The anti-hero “Rastingnac” became a byword for ruthless social climbing.

85 The Red and the Black by Stendhal
Plebian hero struggles against the materialism and hypocrisy of French society with his “force d’ame”.

84 The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
“One for all and all for one”: the eponymous swashbucklers battle the mysterious Milady.

83 Germinal by Emile Zola
Written to “germinate” social change, Germinal unflinchingly documents the starvation of French miners.

82 The Stranger by Albert Camus
Frenchman kills an Arab friend in Algiers and accepts “the gentle indifference of the world”.

81The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
Illuminating historical whodunnit set in a 14th-century Italian monastry.

80 Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey
An Australian heiress bets an Anglican priest he can’t move a glass church 400km.

79 Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Prequel to Jane Eyre giving moving, human voice to the mad woman in the attic.

78 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Carroll’s ludic logic makes it possible to believe six impossible things before breakfast.

77  Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Yossarian feels a homicidal impulse to machine gun total strangers. Isn’t that crazy?

76 The Trial by Franz Kafka
K proclaims he’s innocent when unexpectedly arrested. But “innocent of what”?

75 Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee
Protagonist’s “first long secret drink of golden fire” is under a hay wagon.

74 Waiting for the Mahatma by RK Narayan
Gentle comedy in which a Gandhi-inspired Indian youth becomes an anti-British extremist.

73 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Remarque
The horror of the Great War as seen by a teenage soldier.

72 Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler
Three siblings are differently affected by their parents’ unexplained separation.

71 The Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin
Profound and panoramic insight into 18th-century Chinese society.

70 The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
Garibaldi’s Redshirts sweep through Sicily, the “jackals” ousting the nobility, or “leopards”.

69 If On a Winter’s Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino
International book fraud is exposed in this playful postmodernist puzzle.

68 Crash by JG Ballard
Former TV scientist preaches “a new sexuality, born from a perverse technology”.

67 A Bend in the River by VS Naipaul
East African Indian Salim travels to the heart of Africa and finds “The world is what it is.”

66 Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Boy meets pawnbroker. Boy kills pawnbroker with an axe. Guilt, breakdown, Siberia, redemption.

65 Dr Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
Romantic young doctor’s idealism is trampled by the atrocities of the Russian Revolution.

64 The Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz
Follows three generations of Cairenes from the First World War to the coup of 1952.

63 The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Stevenson’s “bogey tale” came to him in a dream.

62 Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
Swift’s scribulous satire on travellers’ tall tales (the Lilliputian Court is really George I’s).

61 My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk
A painter is murdered in Istanbul in 1591. Unusually, we hear from the corpse.

60 One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
Myth and reality melt magically together in this Colombian family saga.

59 London Fields by Martin Amis
A failed novelist steals a woman’s trashed diaries which reveal she’s plotting her own murder.

58 The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño
Gang of South American poets travel the world, sleep around, challenge critics to duels.

57 The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse
Intellectuals withdraw from life to play a game of musical and mathematical rules.

56 The Tin Drum by Günter Grass
Madhouse memories of the Second World War. Key text of European magic realism.

55 Austerlitz by WG Sebald
Paragraph-less novel in which a Czech-born historian traces his own history back to the Holocaust.

54 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Scholar’s sexual obsession with a prepubescent “nymphet” is complicated by her mother’s passion for him.

53 The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
After nuclear war has rendered most sterile, fertile women are enslaved for breeding.

52 The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
Expelled from a “phony” prep school, adolescent anti-hero goes through a difficult phase.

51 Underworld by Don DeLillo
From baseball to nuclear waste, all late-20th-century American life is here.

50 Beloved by Toni Morrison
Brutal, haunting, jazz-inflected journey down the darkest narrative rivers of American slavery.

49 The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
“Okies” set out from the Depression dustbowl seeking decent wages and dignity.

48 Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin
Explores the role of the Christian Church in Harlem’s African-American community.

47The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
A doctor’s infidelities distress his wife. But if life means nothing, it can’t matter.

46 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
A meddling teacher is betrayed by a favourite pupil who becomes a nun.

45 The Voyeur by Alain Robbe-Grillet
Did the watch salesman kill the girl on the beach. If so, who heard?

44 Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre
A historian becomes increasingly sickened by his existence, but decides to muddle on.

43 The Rabbit books by John Updike
A former high school basketball star is unsatisfied by marriage, fatherhood and sales jobs.

42 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
A boy and a runaway slave set sail on the Mississippi, away from Antebellum “sivilisation”.

41 The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
A drug addict chases a ghostly dog across the midnight moors.

40 The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
Lily Bart craves luxury too much to marry for love. Scandal and sleeping pills ensue.

39 Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
A Nigerian yam farmer’s local leadership is shaken by accidental death and a missionary’s arrival.

38 The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
A mysterious millionaire’s love for a woman with “a voice full of money” gets him in trouble.

37 The Warden by Anthony Trollope
“Of all novelists in any country, Trollope best understands the role of money,” said W?H Auden.

36 Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
An ex-convict struggles to become a force for good, but it ends badly.

35 Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
An uncommitted history lecturer clashes with his pompous boss, gets drunk and gets the girl.

34 The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
“Dead men are heavier than broken hearts” in this hardboiled crime noir.

33 Clarissa by Samuel Richardson
Epistolary adventure whose heroine’s bodice is savagely unlaced by the brothel-keeping Robert Lovelace.

32 A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell
Twelve-book saga whose most celebrated character wears “the wrong kind of overcoat”.

31 Suite Francaise by Irène Némirovsky
Published 60 years after their author was gassed, these two novellas portray city and village life in Nazi-occupied France.

30 Atonement by Ian McEwan
Puts the “c” word in the classic English country house novel.

29 Life: a User’s Manual by Georges Perec
The jigsaw puzzle of lives in a Parisian apartment block. Plus empty rooms.

28 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
Thigh-thwacking yarn of a foundling boy sewing his wild oats before marrying the girl next door.

27 Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Human endeavours “to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world” have tragic consequences.

26 Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
Northern villagers turn their bonnets against the social changes accompanying the industrial revolution.

25 The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
Hailed by T?S Eliot as “the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels”.

24 Ulysses by James Joyce
Modernist masterpiece reworking of Homer with humour. Contains one of the longest “sentences” in English literature: 4,391 words.

23 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
Buying the lies of romance novels leads a provincial doctor’s wife to an agonising end.

22 A Passage to India by EM Forster
A false accusation exposes the racist oppression of British rule in India.

21 1984 by George Orwell
In which Big Brother is even more sinister than the TV series it inspired.

20 Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne
Samuel Johnson thought Sterne’s bawdy, experimental novel was too odd to last. Pah!

19 The War of the Worlds by HG Wells
Bloodsucking Martian invaders are wiped out by a dose of the sniffles.

18 Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
Waugh based the hapless junior reporter in this journalistic farce on former Telegraph editor Bill Deedes.

17 Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
Sexual double standards are held up to the cold, Wessex light in this rural tragedy.

16 Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
A seaside sociopath mucks up murder and marriage in Greene’s literary Punch and Judy show.

15 The Code of the Woosters by PG Wodehouse
A scrape-prone toff and pals are suavely manipulated by his gentleman’s personal gentleman.

14 Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Out on the winding, windy moors Cathy and Heathcliff become each other’s “souls”. Then he storms off.

13 David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Debt and deception in Dickens’s semi-autobiographical Bildungsroman crammed with cads, creeps and capital fellows.

12 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
A slave trader is shipwrecked but finds God, and a native to convert, on a desert island.

11 Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Every proud posh boy deserves a prejudiced girl. And a stately pile.

10 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Picaresque tale about quinquagenarian gent on a skinny horse tilting at windmills.

9 Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Septimus’s suicide doesn’t spoil our heroine’s stream-of-consciousness party.

8 Disgrace by JM Coetzee
An English professor in post-apartheid South Africa loses everything after seducing a student.

7 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Poor and obscure and plain as she is, Mr Rochester wants to marry her. Illegally.

6 In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
Seven-volume meditation on memory, featuring literature’s most celebrated lemony cake.

5 Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
“The conquest of the earth,” said Conrad, “is not a pretty thing.”

4 The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
An American heiress in Europe “affronts her destiny” by marrying an adulterous egoist.

3 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Tolstoy’s doomed adulteress grew from a daydream of “a bare exquisite aristocratic elbow”.

2 Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
Monomaniacal Captain Ahab seeks vengeance on the white whale which ate his leg.

1 Middlemarch by George Eliot
“One of the few English novels written for grown-up people,” said Virginia Woolf.
“A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.” ~ Goethe