Ultimate-Fighting: The Book Edition

 


"Ideal Bookshelf", Jane Mount

 

Since I began reading at a young age, I have been a passionate, voracious reader. I love the escape and fantasy of slipping into and losing myself, anxieties, and worries in an imagined world. I went through a borderline-unhealthy period of reading only historical romance novels in high school (don't judge). Thankfully, in the past few years have really diversified my choices. I no longer discriminate by judging a book by its' cover and have read, and loved, works from all genres. I typically try and vary my choices: fiction/nonfiction, romance/fantasy, historical/current, etc. Currently reading: A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin, the fourth in the Game of Thrones series.

My sister recently sent me this Time article, "The 10 Greatest Books of All Time", profiling Peter Zane's The Top Ten, in which 125 famous authors pick their top ten favorite books. The lists were then compiled into one list-of-all lists and came out as follows:

1. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
2. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
3. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
4. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
7. The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
8. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
9. The Stories of Anton Chekhov by Anton Chekhov
10. Middlemarch by George Eliot

I would voice my opinion on these choices, but considering I have only read two of the ten.... I am no expert. Great-Books read: Anna Karenina (I will save my critique on Anna and resist my urge to share any spoilers on this one) and the crowd favorite, The Great Gatsby. I am embarrassed at my poor great-book reading past, and after realizing most of these books are free on my Kindle, will be starting Madame Bovary as soon as I finish up in Westeros (Game of Thrones).

How many have you read? Agree? Disagree? Thoughts?