Time Magazine lists these books as the best English language novels from 1923 to present. As a book lover, I must have bad taste in books because most of these look like that list you got in high school English where you're thinking, "My lord there isn't one single book on here I'd actually want to read." Then again I have read a few (see the red ones) and read some other novels by same authors -- Like I've read just about everything ELSE Margaret Atwood has written...

A list like this just makes me feel guilty about the stuff I do read -- but that's why I'm no longer a student. After 19 1/2 years of education, I can now read what I want.

Funny little side note about Kurt Vonnegut. When I was a junior in high school I got one of those aforementioned lists and my teacher said we could only read Vonnegut with permission from our parents. I promptly went home and asked my mother if I could read Vonnegut. My mother, who is not a reader of much more than "Organic Gardening" said she trusted me to read whatever I wanted. I proceeded to read about a half dozen Vonnegut books, all of which I liked until the last (Galapagos, for those keeping score). Having satisfied my rebel instincts, I once again retired to tamer fare, such as Watership Down and Nicholas Nickleby.

The Adventures of Augie MarchSaul Bellow
All the King's MenRobert Penn Warren
American PastoralPhilip Roth
An American TragedyTheodore Dreiser
Animal FarmGeorge Orwell
Appointment in SamarraJohn O'Hara
Are You There God? It's Me, MargaretJudy Blume
The AssistantBernard Malamud
At Swim-Two-BirdsFlann O'Brien
AtonementIan McEwan
BelovedToni Morrison
The Berlin StoriesChristopher Isherwood
The Big SleepRaymond Chandler
The Blind AssassinMargaret Atwood
Blood MeridianCormac McCarthy
Brideshead RevisitedEvelyn Waugh
The Bridge of San Luis ReyThornton Wilder
Call It SleepHenry Roth
Catch-22Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the RyeJ.D. Salinger
A Clockwork OrangeAnthony Burgess
The Confessions of Nat TurnerWilliam Styron
The CorrectionsJonathan Franzen
The Crying of Lot 49Thomas Pynchon
A Dance to the Music of TimeAnthony Powell
The Day of the LocustNathanael West
Death Comes for the ArchbishopWilla Cather
A Death in the FamilyJames Agee
The Death of the HeartElizabeth Bowen
DeliveranceJames Dickey
Dog SoldiersRobert Stone
FalconerJohn Cheever
French Lieutenant's WomanJohn Fowles
The Golden NotebookDoris Lessing
Go Tell it on the MountainJames Baldwin
Gone With the WindMargaret Mitchell
The Grapes of WrathJohn Steinbeck
Gravity's RainbowThomas Pynchon
The Great GatsbyF. Scott Fitzgerald
A Handful of DustEvelyn Waugh
The Heart Is A Lonely HunterCarson McCullers
The Heart of the MatterGraham Greene
HerzogSaul Bellow
HousekeepingMarilynne Robinson
A House for Mr. BiswasV.S. Naipaul
I, ClaudiusRobert Graves
Infinite JestDavid Foster Wallace
Invisible ManRalph Ellison
Light in AugustWilliam Faulkner
The Lion, The Witch and the WardrobeC.S. Lewis
LolitaVladimir Nabokov
Lord of the FliesWilliam Golding
The Lord of the RingsJ.R.R. Tolkien
LovingHenry Green
Lucky JimKingsley Amis
The Man Who Loved ChildrenChristina Stead
Midnight's ChildrenSalman Rushdie
MoneyMartin Amis
The MoviegoerWalker Percy
Mrs. DallowayVirginia Woolf
Naked LunchWilliam Burroughs
Native SonRichard Wright
NeuromancerWilliam Gibson
Never Let Me GoKazuo Ishiguro
1984George Orwell
On the RoadJack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's NestKen Kesey
The Painted BirdJerzy Kosinski
Pale FireVladimir Nabokov
A Passage to IndiaE.M. Forster
Play It As It LaysJoan Didion
Portnoy's ComplaintPhilip Roth
PossessionA.S. Byatt
The Power and the GloryGraham Greene
The Prime of Miss Jean BrodieMuriel Spark
Rabbit, RunJohn Updike
RagtimeE.L. Doctorow
The RecognitionsWilliam Gaddis
Red HarvestDashiell Hammett
Revolutionary RoadRichard Yates
The Sheltering SkyPaul Bowles
Slaughterhouse-FiveKurt Vonnegut
Snow CrashNeal Stephenson
The Sot-Weed FactorJohn Barth
The Sound and the FuryWilliam Faulkner
The SportswriterRichard Ford
The Spy Who Came in From the ColdJohn le Carre
The Sun Also RisesErnest Hemingway
Their Eyes Were Watching GodZora Neale Hurston
Things Fall ApartChinua Achebe
To Kill a MockingbirdHarper Lee
To the LighthouseVirginia Woolf
Tropic of CancerHenry Miller
UbikPhilip K. Dick
Under the NetIris Murdoch
Under the VolcanoMalcolm Lowry
WatchmenAlan Moore & Dave Gibbons
White NoiseDon DeLillo
White TeethZadie Smith
Wide Sargasso SeaJean Rhys