本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛The 110 Best Books---According To The Daily Telegraph (ZT)
When the spring term is about to end, I've noticed that academics like to start thinking about what they're going to read over the summer. They come up with reading lists. I have mine---at least in my head, if not in the form of actual books lying around my desk. I'm sure you have yours. It's fun to compare and contrast these lists.
With vacation reading in mind, I present to you a non-academic "best books" list. On April 6, the U.K. Daily Telegraph's weekly Seven magazine published a list it called "110 Best Books: The perfect library." Although the original list was annotated, I present to you only the books and subgroups. Here goes:
------------------------------
CLASSICS
1. The Iliad and The Odyssey, Homer (伊里亚特与奥德赛)
2. The Barchester Chronicles, Anthony Trollope (巴切斯特传)
3. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (傲慢与偏见)
4. Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift(格列佛游记)
5. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë(简·爱)
6. War and Peace, Tolstoy(战争与和平)
7. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens(大卫·科波菲尔)
8. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray(名利场)
9. Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert(包法利夫人)
10. Middlemarch, George Eliot
POETRY
11. Sonnets, Shakespeare
12. Divine Comedy, Dante
13. Canterbury Tales, Chaucer
14. The Prelude, William Wordsworth
15. Odes, John Keats
16. The Waste Land, T. S. Eliot
17. Paradise Lost, John Milton
18. Songs of Innocence and Experience, William Blake
19. Collected Poems, W. B. Yeats
20. Collected Poems, Ted Hughes
LITERARY FICTION
21. The Portrait of a Lady, Henry James
22. A la recherche du temps perdu, Proust
23. Ulysses, James Joyce
24. For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway
25. Sword of Honour trilogy, Evelyn Waugh
26. The Ballad of Peckham Rye, Muriel Spark
27. Rabbit series, John Updike
28. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
29. Beloved, Toni Morrison
30. The Human Stain, Philip Roth
ROMANTIC FICTION
31. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
32. Le Morte D'Arthur, Thomas Malory
33. Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Choderlos de Laclos
34. I, Claudius, Robert Graves
35. Alexander Trilogy, Mary Renault
36. Master and Commander, Patrick O'Brian
37. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
38. Dr Zhivago, Boris Pasternak
39. Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
40. The Plantagenet Saga, Jean Plaidy
CHILDREN'S BOOKS
41. Swallows and Amazons, Arthur Ransome
42. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis
43. The Lord of the Rings, J.R. R. Tolkien
44. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
45. Babar, Jean de Brunhoff
46. The Railway Children, E. Nesbit
47. Winnie-the-Pooh, A.A. Milne
48. Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling
49. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
50. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
SCI-FI
51. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
52. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne
53. The Time Machine, H.G. Wells
54. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
55. 1984, George Orwell
56. The Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham
57. Foundation, Isaac Asimov
58. 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke
59. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
60. Neuromancer, William Gibson
CRIME
61. The Talented Mr Ripley, Patricia Highsmith
62. The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett
63. The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
64. The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler
65. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, John le Carré
66. Red Dragon, Thomas Harris
67. Murder on the Orient Express, Agatha Christie
68. The Murders in the Rue Morgue, Edgar Allan Poe
69. The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
70. Killshot, Elmore Leonard
BOOKS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD
71. Das Kapital, Karl Marx
72. The Rights of Man, Tom Paine
73. The Social Contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
74. Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville
75. On War, Carl von Clausewitz
76. The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli
77. Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes
78. On the Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud
79. On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin
80. L'Encyclopédie, Diderot, et al
BOOKS THAT CHANGED YOUR WORLD
81. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig
82. Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach
83. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
84. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
85. The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf
86. How to Cook, Delia Smith
87. A Year in Provence, Peter Mayle
88. A Child Called 'It', Dave Pelzer
89. Eats, Shoots and Leaves, Lynne Truss
90. Schott's Original Miscellany, Ben Schott
HISTORY
91. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon
92. A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Winston Churchill
93. A History of the Crusades, Steven Runciman
94. The Histories, Herodotus
95. The History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides
96. Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T. E. Lawrence
97. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
98. A People's Tragedy, Orlando Figes
99. Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, Simon Schama
100. The Origins of the Second World War, A.J.P. Taylor
LIVES
101. Confessions, St Augustine
102. Lives of the Caesars, Suetonius
103. Lives of the Artists, Vasari
104. If This is a Man, Primo Levi
105. Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, Siegfried Sassoon
106. Eminent Victorians, Lytton Strachey
107. A Life of Charlotte Brontë, Elizabeth Gaskell
108. Goodbye to All That, Robert Graves
109. The Life of Dr Johnson, Boswell
110. Diaries, Alan Clark
------------------------------
Wow, I'm reasonably well read, but have some work to do: I've only read 23 of these entries. Of course several volumes are hidden in some entries (i.e. Lewis, Holmes, Tolkien, Rowling, O'Brian (20 books!)). I mean, if you count volumes, 5 of those entries turn into about 50 books for me!
Still, how is it that I have a Ph.D. in history, and love philosophy, literature, and the great books in general, but have only read 23 of the entries?
First, the list is slanted toward fiction. Seven of the categories---the "classics," poetry, literary fiction, romantic fiction, children's books, sci-fi, and crime---all deal with works of the imagination. Four of the categories, representing 40 entries, deal with topics I rarely touch: romantic fiction, children's books, sci-fi, and crime. I did read the Rowling books last year, but I never read crime or romantic fiction. I'm currently reading Jane Austen's Emma, which could conceivable fit into any of three categories: the classics, literary fiction, or romantic fiction. But Emma isn't on the list. Sigh.
The list is also slanted toward English authors and topics. How many folks in the U.S. have bothered with The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle? A History of the English-Speaking Peoples by Winston Churchill? The Barchester Chronicles by Anthony Trollope? I might get to these or others above, eventually, but they're not high on my list.
So where do you think the Telegraph hit or missed? Do you have other critiques? - TL更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net
When the spring term is about to end, I've noticed that academics like to start thinking about what they're going to read over the summer. They come up with reading lists. I have mine---at least in my head, if not in the form of actual books lying around my desk. I'm sure you have yours. It's fun to compare and contrast these lists.
With vacation reading in mind, I present to you a non-academic "best books" list. On April 6, the U.K. Daily Telegraph's weekly Seven magazine published a list it called "110 Best Books: The perfect library." Although the original list was annotated, I present to you only the books and subgroups. Here goes:
------------------------------
CLASSICS
1. The Iliad and The Odyssey, Homer (伊里亚特与奥德赛)
2. The Barchester Chronicles, Anthony Trollope (巴切斯特传)
3. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (傲慢与偏见)
4. Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift(格列佛游记)
5. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë(简·爱)
6. War and Peace, Tolstoy(战争与和平)
7. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens(大卫·科波菲尔)
8. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray(名利场)
9. Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert(包法利夫人)
10. Middlemarch, George Eliot
POETRY
11. Sonnets, Shakespeare
12. Divine Comedy, Dante
13. Canterbury Tales, Chaucer
14. The Prelude, William Wordsworth
15. Odes, John Keats
16. The Waste Land, T. S. Eliot
17. Paradise Lost, John Milton
18. Songs of Innocence and Experience, William Blake
19. Collected Poems, W. B. Yeats
20. Collected Poems, Ted Hughes
LITERARY FICTION
21. The Portrait of a Lady, Henry James
22. A la recherche du temps perdu, Proust
23. Ulysses, James Joyce
24. For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway
25. Sword of Honour trilogy, Evelyn Waugh
26. The Ballad of Peckham Rye, Muriel Spark
27. Rabbit series, John Updike
28. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
29. Beloved, Toni Morrison
30. The Human Stain, Philip Roth
ROMANTIC FICTION
31. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
32. Le Morte D'Arthur, Thomas Malory
33. Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Choderlos de Laclos
34. I, Claudius, Robert Graves
35. Alexander Trilogy, Mary Renault
36. Master and Commander, Patrick O'Brian
37. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
38. Dr Zhivago, Boris Pasternak
39. Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
40. The Plantagenet Saga, Jean Plaidy
CHILDREN'S BOOKS
41. Swallows and Amazons, Arthur Ransome
42. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis
43. The Lord of the Rings, J.R. R. Tolkien
44. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
45. Babar, Jean de Brunhoff
46. The Railway Children, E. Nesbit
47. Winnie-the-Pooh, A.A. Milne
48. Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling
49. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
50. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
SCI-FI
51. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
52. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne
53. The Time Machine, H.G. Wells
54. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
55. 1984, George Orwell
56. The Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham
57. Foundation, Isaac Asimov
58. 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke
59. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
60. Neuromancer, William Gibson
CRIME
61. The Talented Mr Ripley, Patricia Highsmith
62. The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett
63. The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
64. The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler
65. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, John le Carré
66. Red Dragon, Thomas Harris
67. Murder on the Orient Express, Agatha Christie
68. The Murders in the Rue Morgue, Edgar Allan Poe
69. The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
70. Killshot, Elmore Leonard
BOOKS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD
71. Das Kapital, Karl Marx
72. The Rights of Man, Tom Paine
73. The Social Contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
74. Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville
75. On War, Carl von Clausewitz
76. The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli
77. Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes
78. On the Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud
79. On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin
80. L'Encyclopédie, Diderot, et al
BOOKS THAT CHANGED YOUR WORLD
81. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig
82. Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach
83. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
84. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
85. The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf
86. How to Cook, Delia Smith
87. A Year in Provence, Peter Mayle
88. A Child Called 'It', Dave Pelzer
89. Eats, Shoots and Leaves, Lynne Truss
90. Schott's Original Miscellany, Ben Schott
HISTORY
91. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon
92. A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Winston Churchill
93. A History of the Crusades, Steven Runciman
94. The Histories, Herodotus
95. The History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides
96. Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T. E. Lawrence
97. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
98. A People's Tragedy, Orlando Figes
99. Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, Simon Schama
100. The Origins of the Second World War, A.J.P. Taylor
LIVES
101. Confessions, St Augustine
102. Lives of the Caesars, Suetonius
103. Lives of the Artists, Vasari
104. If This is a Man, Primo Levi
105. Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, Siegfried Sassoon
106. Eminent Victorians, Lytton Strachey
107. A Life of Charlotte Brontë, Elizabeth Gaskell
108. Goodbye to All That, Robert Graves
109. The Life of Dr Johnson, Boswell
110. Diaries, Alan Clark
------------------------------
Wow, I'm reasonably well read, but have some work to do: I've only read 23 of these entries. Of course several volumes are hidden in some entries (i.e. Lewis, Holmes, Tolkien, Rowling, O'Brian (20 books!)). I mean, if you count volumes, 5 of those entries turn into about 50 books for me!
Still, how is it that I have a Ph.D. in history, and love philosophy, literature, and the great books in general, but have only read 23 of the entries?
First, the list is slanted toward fiction. Seven of the categories---the "classics," poetry, literary fiction, romantic fiction, children's books, sci-fi, and crime---all deal with works of the imagination. Four of the categories, representing 40 entries, deal with topics I rarely touch: romantic fiction, children's books, sci-fi, and crime. I did read the Rowling books last year, but I never read crime or romantic fiction. I'm currently reading Jane Austen's Emma, which could conceivable fit into any of three categories: the classics, literary fiction, or romantic fiction. But Emma isn't on the list. Sigh.
The list is also slanted toward English authors and topics. How many folks in the U.S. have bothered with The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle? A History of the English-Speaking Peoples by Winston Churchill? The Barchester Chronicles by Anthony Trollope? I might get to these or others above, eventually, but they're not high on my list.
So where do you think the Telegraph hit or missed? Do you have other critiques? - TL更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net