Two days after Random House Modern Library released a controversial list of its picks for the top 100 books of the twentieth century, students at the Radcliffe Publishing Course released their own version of the list Tuesday, which includes more women authors and a more diverse selection of works.
While the Modern Library's list--which hopes to raise awareness of great books and begin a discussion on the canon of twentieth century English literature--drew criticism from many for including only 10 books by women, about a third of the writers on the Radcliffe list are women. Both the Modern Library's and Radcliffe's lists were meant to be released today at Radcliffe, but both were given to the press early.
"Our list reflects a young, more feminist crowd," said Lindy Hess, director of the publishing course. "[It] shows a difference of age and taste." The six-week class, which is open to men and women, is comprised mostly of recent college graduates and newcomers to the publishing industry.
The Modern Library's list was compiled by an advisory committee of scholars and publishers, including historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. '38, author William Styron, Modern Library board chair Christopher B. Cerf '63 and historian Gore Vidal.
James Joyce's Ulysses topped the Modern Library's list, while The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, took Radcliffe's top spot. Two other books--Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck and The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner--won spots in the top 10 of both lists.
But both lists also had books in their top 10 that didn't even make the other's list. Radcliffe's fifth choice, The Color Purple by Alice Walker, wasn't on the Modern Library list, and Arthur Koestler Darkness at Noon, Modern Library's eighth choice, didn't make Radcliffe's top hundred.
Radcliffe's list also included a few more unconvential works, including several children's books and A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.
Hess warned the lists should not be compared against each other. Echoing the Modern Library, she said the lists are meant to start a discussion on this century's literary canon. "The importance of this exercise is to get word-of-mouth out on old books," she said.
Hess said the Modern Library asked the publishing course to compile their own list in conjunction with the advisory panel's.
Students chose their top 100 from the same initial list of 400 the Modern Library panel started with.
"They were very curious to see what a group like ours thought," she said.
Cerf--whose father lead the fight to lift the ban against Ulysses in the United State--will speak tonight at 7:30 at the Cronkhite Graduate Center to discuss the book lists with students.
Drawing from 400-plus titles provided by the Modern Library, students of the Radcliffe Publishing Course selected these novels:
1.The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
2.The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger
3.The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
4.To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
5.The Color Purple, Alice Walker
6.Ulysses, James Joyce
7.Beloved, Toni Morrison
8.The Lord of the Flies, William Golding
9.1984, George Orwell
10.The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
11.Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
12.Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
13.Charlotte's Web, E. B. White
14.A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
15.Catch-22, Joseph Heller
16.Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
17.Animal Farm, George Orwell
18.The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
19.As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner
20.A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
21.Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
22.Winnie-the-Pooh, A. A. Milne
23.Their Eyes Are Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
24.Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
25.Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison
26.Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
27.Native Son, Richard Wright
28.One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
29.Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut
30.For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway
31.On the Road, Jack Kerouac
32.The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
33.The Call of the Wild, Jack London
34.To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf 35. Portrait of a Lady, Henry James,class of 1863 36. Go Tell It on the Mountain, JamesBaldwin 37. The World According to Garp, JohnIrving 38. All the King's Men, Robert PennWarren 39. A Room with a View, E. M. Forster 40. The Lord of the Rings, J. R. RTolkien 41. Schindler's List, Thomas Keneally 42. The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton 43. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand 44. Finnegans Wake, James Joyce 45. The Jungle, Upton Sinclair 46. Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf 47. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. FrankBaum 48. Lady Chatterley's Lover, D. H.Lawrence 49. A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess 50. The Awakening, Kate Chopin 51. My Antonia, Willa Cather 52. Howards End, E. M. Forster 53. In Cold Blood, Truman Capote 54. Franny and Zooey, J. D. Salinger 55. Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie 56. Jazz, Toni Morrison 57. Sophie's Choice, William Styron 58. Absalom, Absalom! William Faulkner 59. Passage to India, E. M. Forster 60. Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton 61. A Good Man Is Hard to Find, FlanneryO'Connor 62. Tender Is the Night, F. ScottFitzgerald 63. Orlando, Virginia Woolf 64. Sons and Lovers, D. H. Lawrence 65. Bonfire of the Vanities, ThomasWolfe 66. Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut 67. A Separate Peace, John Knowles 68. Light in August, William Faulkner 69. The Wings of the Dove, Henry James,class of 1863 70. Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe 71. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier 72. A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,Douglas Adams 73. Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs'36 74. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh 75. Women in Love, D. H. Lawrence 76. Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe 77. In Our Time, Ernest Hemingway 78. The Autobiography of Alice B.Toklas, Gertrude Stein, class of 1898 79. The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett 80. The Naked and the Dead, NormanMailer '43 81. The Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys 82. White Noise, Don DeLillo 83. O Pioneers! Willa Cather 84. Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller 85. The War of the Worlds, H. G. Wells 86. Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad 87. The Bostonians, Henry James, classof 1863 88. An American Tragedy, TheodoreDreiser 89. Death Comes for the Archbishop,Willa Cather 90. The Wind in the Willows, KennethGrahame 91. This Side of Paradise, F. ScottFitzgerald 92. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand 93. The French Lieutenant's Woman, JohnFowles 94. Babbitt, Sinclair Lewis 95. Kim, Rudyard Kipling 96. The Beautiful and the Damned, F.Scott Fitzgerald 97. Rabbit, Run, John Updike '54 98. Where Angels Fear to Tread, E. M.Forster 99. Main Street, Sinclair Lewis 100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdi
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