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Pompous Books to Read in Public
Want to increase your literary hipster cred at the local coffeehouse?
Here is a list to get you started.
Conversely, do you suspect a close friend is an insufferable book snob?
Catch them reading the following in public and your suspicions are confirmed!
If you've read most of the books on this list, you may be a book snob... but don't panic! Wear the title with pride, you deserve it.
Here is a list to get you started.
Conversely, do you suspect a close friend is an insufferable book snob?
Catch them reading the following in public and your suspicions are confirmed!
If you've read most of the books on this list, you may be a book snob... but don't panic! Wear the title with pride, you deserve it.
Score
A book’s total score is based on multiple factors, including the number of people who have voted for it and how highly those voters ranked the book.
| 1 |
|
Ulysses
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3.77 avg rating — 139,074 ratings
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| 2 |
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Infinite Jest
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4.25 avg rating — 99,429 ratings
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| 3 |
|
War and Peace
by
4.17 avg rating — 359,254 ratings
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| 4 |
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Swann's Way
by
4.16 avg rating — 66,850 ratings
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| 5 |
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Crime and Punishment
by
4.28 avg rating — 1,039,117 ratings
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| 6 |
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Being and Time
by
4.05 avg rating — 27,273 ratings
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| 7 |
|
The Brothers Karamazov
by
4.39 avg rating — 374,259 ratings
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| 8 |
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Gravity’s Rainbow
by
4.01 avg rating — 47,237 ratings
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| 9 |
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Finnegans Wake
by
3.68 avg rating — 13,490 ratings
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| 10 |
|
Anna Karenina
by
4.10 avg rating — 913,232 ratings
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| 11 |
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The Man Without Qualities
by
4.19 avg rating — 7,236 ratings
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| 12 |
|
The Divine Comedy: Inferno - Purgatorio - Paradiso
by
4.08 avg rating — 168,607 ratings
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| 13 |
|
Critique of Pure Reason
by
3.96 avg rating — 41,277 ratings
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| 14 |
|
The Catcher in the Rye
by
3.80 avg rating — 3,825,318 ratings
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| 15 |
|
Waiting for Godot
by
3.84 avg rating — 218,443 ratings
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| 16 |
|
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
by
4.07 avg rating — 171,403 ratings
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| 17 |
|
The Republic
by
3.97 avg rating — 221,680 ratings
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| 18 |
|
The Trial
by
3.94 avg rating — 381,118 ratings
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| 19 |
|
Pride and Prejudice
by
4.29 avg rating — 4,678,374 ratings
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| 20 |
|
Jane Eyre
by
4.16 avg rating — 2,276,262 ratings
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| 21 |
|
Don Quixote
by
3.91 avg rating — 299,385 ratings
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| 22 |
|
Les Misérables
by
4.21 avg rating — 834,149 ratings
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| 23 |
|
Moby-Dick or, The Whale
by
3.56 avg rating — 606,415 ratings
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| 24 |
|
Madame Bovary
by
3.71 avg rating — 366,934 ratings
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| 25 |
|
Bleak House
by
4.02 avg rating — 112,834 ratings
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| 26 |
|
The Sound and the Fury
by
3.86 avg rating — 193,309 ratings
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| 27 |
|
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
by
3.64 avg rating — 161,884 ratings
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| 28 |
|
Atlas Shrugged
by
3.69 avg rating — 403,957 ratings
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| 29 |
|
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge
by
3.93 avg rating — 9,737 ratings
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| 30 |
|
The Odyssey
by
3.83 avg rating — 1,165,617 ratings
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| 31 |
|
Faust, and the Urfaust
by
4.01 avg rating — 1,419 ratings
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| 32 |
|
Time Regained
by
4.51 avg rating — 8,099 ratings
score: 855,
and
9 people voted
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| 33 |
|
Das Kapital
by
3.89 avg rating — 11,452 ratings
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| 34 |
|
Foucault's Pendulum
by
3.91 avg rating — 74,042 ratings
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| 35 |
|
The God Delusion
by
Richard Dawkins (Goodreads Author)
3.90 avg rating — 280,428 ratings
score: 826,
and
9 people voted
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| 36 |
|
A Clockwork Orange
by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 757,709 ratings
score: 822,
and
9 people voted
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| 37 |
|
Mrs Dalloway
by
3.78 avg rating — 346,339 ratings
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| 38 |
|
Middlemarch
by
4.03 avg rating — 176,198 ratings
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| 39 |
|
The Sorrows of Young Werther
by
3.69 avg rating — 150,694 ratings
score: 734,
and
9 people voted
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| 40 |
|
Beyond Good and Evil
by
4.03 avg rating — 110,622 ratings
score: 712,
and
9 people voted
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| 41 |
|
The Art of War
by
3.95 avg rating — 556,081 ratings
score: 701,
and
9 people voted
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| 42 |
|
Phenomenology of Spirit
by
3.96 avg rating — 20,147 ratings
score: 695,
and
8 people voted
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| 43 |
|
Journey to the End of the Night
by
4.18 avg rating — 46,734 ratings
score: 637,
and
7 people voted
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| 44 |
|
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
by
4.29 avg rating — 51,891 ratings
score: 623,
and
7 people voted
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| 45 |
|
The Glass Bead Game
by
4.10 avg rating — 41,607 ratings
score: 618,
and
7 people voted
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| 46 |
|
The Guermantes Way (In Search of Lost Time, #3)
by
4.27 avg rating — 11,581 ratings
score: 606,
and
7 people voted
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| 47 |
|
Walden or, Life in the Woods
by
3.77 avg rating — 201,853 ratings
score: 601,
and
7 people voted
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| 48 |
|
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume I
by
4.17 avg rating — 3,421 ratings
score: 591,
and
7 people voted
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| 49 |
|
Le Morte d'Arthur: King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table
by
3.92 avg rating — 39,118 ratings
score: 578,
and
7 people voted
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| 50 |
|
The Decline of the West
by
4.06 avg rating — 2,188 ratings
score: 567,
and
6 people voted
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| 51 |
|
The Will to Power
by
4.07 avg rating — 11,087 ratings
score: 565,
and
7 people voted
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| 52 |
|
Our Mutual Friend
by
4.09 avg rating — 31,024 ratings
score: 553,
and
7 people voted
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| 52 |
|
A Confederacy of Dunces
by
3.89 avg rating — 293,470 ratings
score: 553,
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7 people voted
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| 54 |
|
Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
by
4.19 avg rating — 78,166 ratings
score: 544,
and
6 people voted
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| 55 |
|
The Plague
by
4.02 avg rating — 304,112 ratings
score: 543,
and
7 people voted
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| 56 |
|
Sodom and Gomorrah (In Search of Lost Time, #4)
by
4.32 avg rating — 9,627 ratings
score: 529,
and
6 people voted
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| 57 |
|
The Canterbury Tales
by
3.52 avg rating — 235,488 ratings
score: 525,
and
6 people voted
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| 58 |
|
Within a Budding Grove (In Search of Lost Time, #2)
by
4.39 avg rating — 17,317 ratings
score: 519,
and
6 people voted
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| 59 |
|
House of Leaves
by
Mark Z. Danielewski (Goodreads Author)
4.09 avg rating — 193,695 ratings
score: 505,
and
6 people voted
|
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| 60 |
|
The Road
by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 1,010,649 ratings
score: 498,
and
6 people voted
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| 61 |
|
Ethics
by
4.10 avg rating — 20,530 ratings
score: 493,
and
6 people voted
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| 62 |
|
Existentialism is a Humanism
by
3.98 avg rating — 44,756 ratings
score: 471,
and
6 people voted
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| 63 |
|
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
by
3.96 avg rating — 111,466 ratings
score: 462,
and
5 people voted
|
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| 64 |
|
2001: A Space Odyssey (Space Odyssey, #1)
by
4.18 avg rating — 332,072 ratings
score: 461,
and
6 people voted
|
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| 65 |
|
The Sheltering Sky
by
3.89 avg rating — 30,264 ratings
score: 460,
and
6 people voted
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| 66 |
|
Of Grammatology
by
3.97 avg rating — 5,304 ratings
score: 446,
and
5 people voted
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| 67 |
|
The Fountainhead
by
3.89 avg rating — 334,891 ratings
score: 417,
and
5 people voted
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| 68 |
|
History of the Peloponnesian War
by
3.94 avg rating — 40,084 ratings
score: 388,
and
5 people voted
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| 69 |
|
Paradise Lost
by
3.85 avg rating — 179,024 ratings
score: 375,
and
5 people voted
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| 70 |
|
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
by
3.88 avg rating — 34,519 ratings
score: 366,
and
5 people voted
|
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| 71 |
|
Henderson the Rain King
by
3.76 avg rating — 15,960 ratings
score: 361,
and
5 people voted
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| 72 |
|
Nausea
by
3.93 avg rating — 135,734 ratings
score: 359,
and
5 people voted
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| 73 |
|
What Is Philosophy?
by
4.15 avg rating — 2,299 ratings
score: 353,
and
4 people voted
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| 74 |
|
The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages
by
3.87 avg rating — 3,571 ratings
score: 352,
and
4 people voted
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| 75 |
|
Mythology
by
4.03 avg rating — 59,239 ratings
score: 350,
and
4 people voted
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| 76 |
|
The Captive / The Fugitive (In Search of Lost Time, #5-6)
by
4.38 avg rating — 3,326 ratings
score: 340,
and
4 people voted
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| 77 |
|
The Corrections
by
3.84 avg rating — 195,418 ratings
score: 331,
and
4 people voted
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| 78 |
|
Twilight of the Idols / The Anti-Christ
by
4.15 avg rating — 9,589 ratings
score: 330,
and
4 people voted
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| 79 |
|
Ivanhoe
by
3.76 avg rating — 98,275 ratings
score: 320,
and
4 people voted
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| 79 |
|
The Society of the Spectacle
by
4.03 avg rating — 22,862 ratings
score: 320,
and
4 people voted
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| 81 |
|
Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil
by
3.87 avg rating — 1,759 ratings
score: 317,
and
4 people voted
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| 82 |
|
Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits
by
4.19 avg rating — 12,958 ratings
score: 291,
and
4 people voted
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| 83 |
|
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume II
by
4.24 avg rating — 1,223 ratings
score: 290,
and
4 people voted
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| 84 |
|
Poetry, Language, Thought
by
4.11 avg rating — 3,646 ratings
score: 275,
and
4 people voted
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| 85 |
|
Under the Net
by
3.77 avg rating — 16,126 ratings
score: 272,
and
4 people voted
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| 86 |
|
Man and His Symbols
by
4.19 avg rating — 32,613 ratings
score: 262,
and
3 people voted
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| 87 |
|
To the Lighthouse
by
3.81 avg rating — 209,422 ratings
score: 261,
and
4 people voted
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| 88 |
|
Little Dorrit
by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 49,493 ratings
score: 260,
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4 people voted
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| 89 |
|
Complete Works of William Shakespeare
by
4.48 avg rating — 57,609 ratings
score: 258,
and
3 people voted
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| 90 |
|
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
by
4.04 avg rating — 92,339 ratings
score: 252,
and
3 people voted
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| 91 |
|
VALIS
by
3.91 avg rating — 32,237 ratings
score: 250,
and
3 people voted
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| 91 |
|
Confessions
by
3.59 avg rating — 9,227 ratings
score: 250,
and
3 people voted
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| 93 |
|
The Trial and Death of Socrates
by
4.12 avg rating — 45,063 ratings
score: 249,
and
3 people voted
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| 94 |
|
The Prague Cemetery
by
3.51 avg rating — 29,695 ratings
score: 247,
and
3 people voted
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| 95 |
|
The Iliad
by
3.93 avg rating — 498,739 ratings
score: 242,
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3 people voted
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| 96 |
|
The Prince
by
3.84 avg rating — 374,645 ratings
score: 238,
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4 people voted
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| 97 |
|
A Season in Hell and The Drunken Boat
by
4.33 avg rating — 9,575 ratings
score: 236,
and
3 people voted
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| 98 |
|
The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction
by
4.02 avg rating — 25,145 ratings
score: 231,
and
3 people voted
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| 99 |
|
Utopia
by
3.55 avg rating — 81,242 ratings
score: 230,
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4 people voted
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| 100 |
|
The Nibelungenlied
by
3.82 avg rating — 8,759 ratings
score: 223,
and
3 people voted
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307 books ·
153 voters ·
list created March 15th, 2012
by Holly Lindquist (votes) .
Holly
1716 books
61 friends
61 friends
Karen
1868 books
69 friends
69 friends
Adrianne
1710 books
1 friend
1 friend
Matthew
1285 books
25 friends
25 friends
Read Between The Lines
6180 books
61 friends
61 friends
buppyspek
383 books
13 friends
13 friends
Samuel
1107 books
74 friends
74 friends
Susanna - Censored by GoodReads
3384 books
853 friends
853 friends
More voters…
Comments Showing 1-20 of 20 (20 new)
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message 1:
by
Limey
(new)
Nov 08, 2013 05:40PM
Here's a top tip: get hold of a hardback edition of one of these pompous books, cut out the middle couple of hundred or more pages of it, and then you can just put your usual, normal, real people's, non-hipster, pompless, friendly-neighborhood, genuinely readable, unpretentious, happybrow, fun, top-entertainment books inside it, so that people think you're ultra-hip and highbrow and can actually make sense of that wacko shit.
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|
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Read Ulysses today at the Social Security office (it's just what I happened to be reading!), so where do I pick up my pompous card?
Only two women in this list! A little bit unbalanced...
I count 5 female authors in the top hundred, but that's still a very masculine list.
I'm personally thankful that so few female authors have to resort to being overbearingly pompous in order to write quality literature. If they don't make the list, I think that's a success, not a failure...because face it, this list is obnoxious! Pew! PS: Although.. after some reflection I realize Sexual Personae by Camille Paglia belongs on the list. Very much so.
Perhaps a list for Genuinely Thought-Provoking Books or Deeply Intelligent Reading would have better diversity. I know several female authors that could wipe the floor with the competition in that case.
Um. Why is the "The Road" on this list? Its an easy-to-read page turner that was turned into a blockbuster movie, and by far Cormac McCarthy's most accessible mass audience genre novel...
ah yes, glenn beck, the most pompous of them all. riiiight...
must we be ironic and postmodern about good literature? perhaps you just want to read a good book when you read Ulysses.
Grant wrote: "must we be ironic and postmodern about good literature? perhaps you just want to read a good book when you read Ulysses."Well, we are still in the "postmodern" era, so... yes.
Mark wrote: "Here's a top tip: get hold of a hardback edition of one of these pompous books, cut out the middle couple of hundred or more pages of it, and then you can just put your usual, normal, real people's..."this has to be satire
But 'Ulysses' is flat out brilliant. It's one of a handful of books that make me laugh out loud, and yes several times in coffee shops. "Atlas Shrugged" is brilliant entertainment, but basically a pretentious soap opera! Proust is a magnificent writer!
Mark wrote: "Here's a top tip: get hold of a hardback edition of one of these pompous books, cut out the middle couple of hundred or more pages of it, and then you can just put your usual, normal, real people's..."Mark, well, in the 1st grade I had Agatha Christie books hidden within those silly readers like "See Jane Run." I had no other choice but to hide what I really wanted to read.
I'm glad to see Jacques Barzun on a list of pompous people. My only qualm is that he doesn't deserve to be on a list with writers of real ability and insight.
Anyone can add books to this list.
How to Vote
To vote on existing books from the list, beside each book there is a link vote for this book clicking it will add that book to your votes.
To vote on books not in the list or books you couldn't find in the list, you can click on the tab add books to this list and then choose from your books, or simply search.
