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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
by
3.77 avg rating — 139,076 ratings
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| 2 |
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Infinite Jest
by
4.25 avg rating — 99,424 ratings
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| 3 |
|
War and Peace
by
4.17 avg rating — 359,223 ratings
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| 4 |
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Swann's Way
by
4.16 avg rating — 66,846 ratings
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| 5 |
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Crime and Punishment
by
4.28 avg rating — 1,038,991 ratings
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| 6 |
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Being and Time
by
4.05 avg rating — 27,269 ratings
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| 7 |
|
The Brothers Karamazov
by
4.39 avg rating — 374,214 ratings
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| 8 |
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Gravity’s Rainbow
by
4.01 avg rating — 47,230 ratings
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| 9 |
|
Finnegans Wake
by
3.68 avg rating — 13,490 ratings
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| 10 |
|
Anna Karenina
by
4.10 avg rating — 913,161 ratings
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| 11 |
|
The Man Without Qualities
by
4.19 avg rating — 7,235 ratings
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| 12 |
|
The Divine Comedy: Inferno - Purgatorio - Paradiso
by
4.08 avg rating — 168,590 ratings
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| 13 |
|
Critique of Pure Reason
by
3.96 avg rating — 41,276 ratings
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| 14 |
|
The Catcher in the Rye
by
3.80 avg rating — 3,825,099 ratings
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| 15 |
|
Waiting for Godot
by
3.84 avg rating — 218,438 ratings
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| 16 |
|
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
by
4.07 avg rating — 171,383 ratings
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| 17 |
|
The Republic
by
3.97 avg rating — 221,670 ratings
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| 18 |
|
The Trial
by
3.94 avg rating — 381,063 ratings
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| 19 |
|
Pride and Prejudice
by
4.29 avg rating — 4,677,927 ratings
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| 20 |
|
Jane Eyre
by
4.16 avg rating — 2,276,113 ratings
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| 21 |
|
Don Quixote
by
3.91 avg rating — 299,359 ratings
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| 22 |
|
Les Misérables
by
4.21 avg rating — 834,111 ratings
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| 23 |
|
Moby-Dick or, The Whale
by
3.56 avg rating — 606,381 ratings
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| 24 |
|
Madame Bovary
by
3.71 avg rating — 366,904 ratings
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| 25 |
|
Bleak House
by
4.02 avg rating — 112,831 ratings
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| 26 |
|
The Sound and the Fury
by
3.86 avg rating — 193,298 ratings
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| 27 |
|
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
by
3.64 avg rating — 161,875 ratings
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| 28 |
|
Atlas Shrugged
by
3.69 avg rating — 403,947 ratings
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| 29 |
|
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge
by
3.93 avg rating — 9,738 ratings
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| 30 |
|
The Odyssey
by
3.83 avg rating — 1,165,538 ratings
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| 31 |
|
Faust, and the Urfaust
by
4.01 avg rating — 1,418 ratings
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| 32 |
|
Time Regained
by
4.51 avg rating — 8,098 ratings
score: 855,
and
9 people voted
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| 33 |
|
Das Kapital
by
3.89 avg rating — 11,450 ratings
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| 34 |
|
Foucault's Pendulum
by
3.91 avg rating — 74,040 ratings
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| 35 |
|
The God Delusion
by
Richard Dawkins (Goodreads Author)
3.90 avg rating — 280,420 ratings
score: 826,
and
9 people voted
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| 36 |
|
A Clockwork Orange
by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 757,671 ratings
score: 822,
and
9 people voted
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| 37 |
|
Mrs Dalloway
by
3.78 avg rating — 346,293 ratings
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| 38 |
|
Middlemarch
by
4.03 avg rating — 176,187 ratings
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| 39 |
|
The Sorrows of Young Werther
by
3.69 avg rating — 150,671 ratings
score: 734,
and
9 people voted
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| 40 |
|
Beyond Good and Evil
by
4.03 avg rating — 110,608 ratings
score: 712,
and
9 people voted
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| 41 |
|
The Art of War
by
3.95 avg rating — 556,023 ratings
score: 701,
and
9 people voted
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| 42 |
|
Phenomenology of Spirit
by
3.96 avg rating — 20,145 ratings
score: 695,
and
8 people voted
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| 43 |
|
Journey to the End of the Night
by
4.18 avg rating — 46,729 ratings
score: 637,
and
7 people voted
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| 44 |
|
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
by
4.29 avg rating — 51,888 ratings
score: 623,
and
7 people voted
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| 45 |
|
The Glass Bead Game
by
4.10 avg rating — 41,604 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 — 11,578 ratings
score: 606,
and
7 people voted
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| 47 |
|
Walden or, Life in the Woods
by
3.77 avg rating — 201,839 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 — 3,420 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 — 39,117 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 — 293,458 ratings
score: 553,
and
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 — 78,165 ratings
score: 544,
and
6 people voted
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| 55 |
|
The Plague
by
4.02 avg rating — 304,069 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 — 9,624 ratings
score: 529,
and
6 people voted
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| 57 |
|
The Canterbury Tales
by
3.52 avg rating — 235,481 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 — 17,315 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 — 193,666 ratings
score: 505,
and
6 people voted
|
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| 60 |
|
The Road
by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 1,010,557 ratings
score: 498,
and
6 people voted
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| 61 |
|
Ethics
by
4.10 avg rating — 20,529 ratings
score: 493,
and
6 people voted
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| 62 |
|
Existentialism is a Humanism
by
3.98 avg rating — 44,751 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 — 111,458 ratings
score: 462,
and
5 people voted
|
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| 64 |
|
2001: A Space Odyssey (Space Odyssey, #1)
by
4.18 avg rating — 332,056 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 — 334,875 ratings
score: 417,
and
5 people voted
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| 68 |
|
History of the Peloponnesian War
by
3.94 avg rating — 40,082 ratings
score: 388,
and
5 people voted
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| 69 |
|
Paradise Lost
by
3.85 avg rating — 179,013 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 — 34,515 ratings
score: 366,
and
5 people voted
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| 71 |
|
Henderson the Rain King
by
3.76 avg rating — 15,958 ratings
score: 361,
and
5 people voted
|
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| 72 |
|
Nausea
by
3.93 avg rating — 135,709 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 — 59,233 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 — 195,411 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 — 98,267 ratings
score: 320,
and
4 people voted
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| 79 |
|
The Society of the Spectacle
by
4.03 avg rating — 22,856 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 — 12,957 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 — 16,125 ratings
score: 272,
and
4 people voted
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| 86 |
|
Man and His Symbols
by
4.19 avg rating — 32,606 ratings
score: 262,
and
3 people voted
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| 87 |
|
To the Lighthouse
by
3.81 avg rating — 209,394 ratings
score: 261,
and
4 people voted
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| 88 |
|
Little Dorrit
by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 49,490 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 — 57,611 ratings
score: 258,
and
3 people voted
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| 90 |
|
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
by
4.04 avg rating — 92,338 ratings
score: 252,
and
3 people voted
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| 91 |
|
VALIS
by
3.91 avg rating — 32,236 ratings
score: 250,
and
3 people voted
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| 91 |
|
Confessions
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3.59 avg rating — 9,228 ratings
score: 250,
and
3 people voted
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| 93 |
|
The Trial and Death of Socrates
by
4.12 avg rating — 45,061 ratings
score: 249,
and
3 people voted
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| 94 |
|
The Prague Cemetery
by
3.51 avg rating — 29,691 ratings
score: 247,
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3 people voted
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| 95 |
|
The Iliad
by
3.93 avg rating — 498,691 ratings
score: 242,
and
3 people voted
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| 96 |
|
The Prince
by
3.84 avg rating — 374,604 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 — 9,574 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 — 25,143 ratings
score: 231,
and
3 people voted
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| 99 |
|
Utopia
by
3.55 avg rating — 81,230 ratings
score: 230,
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4 people voted
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| 100 |
|
The Nibelungenlied
by
3.82 avg rating — 8,757 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
382 books
13 friends
13 friends
Samuel
1106 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.
