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It is a fast-and-furious list by the editors, not complete by any means (I'm not sure it meant to be such)...Maybe those 100, the BBC staff read (including kids)...
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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Yes - its difficult to pick the top 100; from the beginning-of-time till this moment. New ones tend to nudge out some great oldies.
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In the S.F. category, I would add:
Arthur C. Clarke - Childhood's End
Isaac Asimov - The Foundation Trilogy (without the later additions)
Robert A. Heinlein - "The Number of the Beast..."
Larry Niven - Ringworld
I feel that Science Fiction tends to be shortchanged in lists of the "100 best books", presumably because the so-called literati consider it beneath them.
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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And no Pterry Pratchett?
No Orson Scott Card?
Harry Potter gets in, but Belgarion doesn't?
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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I didn't like the Diskworld novels when I originally read them (many years ago). Perhaps I should try them again, now that I am (slightly) more mature. Orson Scott Card's books are a good read, but with the possible exception of Ender's Game, I don't feel that they are in the running for a "100 best books" list.
As for Belgarion, I'll leave the task of compiling the fantasy list to someone who is better-versed in the field.
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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Daniel Pfeffer wrote: I didn't like the Diskworld novels
Burn the heretic!
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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Well, I'm a Terry Prachett fan (I have read all his fiction books, including the non-Discworld ones).
But, like Orson Scott Card's SF, Pratchett's books are not to include in a Top 100 list.
After reading a Disc-world novel, particularly one of the later ones where flashes of absolute genius are popping up here and there, one gets a kind of "chinese meal" syndrome - delicious at the time, but you are hungry again an hour later.
So much more could have done Terry! To bring to life characters and relationships like The Patrician and Drumknott, and just leave them hanging as cardboard cut-outs is some kind of literary sin of omission.
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Daniel Pfeffer wrote: Orson Scott Card's books are a good read, but with the possible exception of Ender's Game
I think I might help stoking the fire.
While I believe Ender's Shadow is his best book, it wouldn't have been anything without the predecessor.
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Jörgen Andersson wrote: I think I might help stoking the fire.
De libris non est disputandum
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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Good point! I must have read more than ten of the Discworld books in the space of a year or two as a teen in the mid 1990s. Each one struck me as more enjoyable and more interesting than the first Harry Potter book (admittedly, the only one of the series I've read... aloud, to my daughter, so a very different reading experience).
Speaking of HP... no H.P. Lovecraft?
No Journey to the Centre of the Earth? No Around the World in 80 Days? No Chronicles of Thomas Covenant?
Well fine... I'm a bit embarrassed to say "23"
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I don't read a lot, so I got 4,5 (LOTR is the 0,5).
I did see 20 of the movie adaptions though
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I hope you didn't wasted your time to watch the other half of LOTR...
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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I've seen all LOTR movies four or five times I think.
I love them
And The Hobbit movies too, of course.
Although I like LOTR better.
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Hobbit was a disgrace even to the LOTR movies - Peter Jackson re-wrote the storyline...
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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He added and removed some stuff.
I've read the book (one of few) and I recognized the story, so it can't be that bad.
Still pretty good movies.
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I concur. He added a few bits a left out a few bits but the Hobbit was still basically the same. The original book would not have made a good movie without some changes and in these times to have a movie without a major female warrior character would have brought more criticism than leaving her out - plus she was cool! I enjoyed the book a lot and enjoyed the movie(s) a lot as well. Same with LOTR - my favourite book(s) of all time; some of my favourite movies as well.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Forogar wrote: plus she was cool hot! Otherwise agreed!
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Forogar wrote: The original book would not have made a good movie without some changes
Yes it would, but it couldn't have been stretched into three movies.
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I may have claimed one that I have seen on TV/Film rather than read but cannot remember. There are a few on that list that are on my "to be read" list, but when I will actually read them ...
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32.
They missed out Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go although they did include The Remains Of The Day.
Glad to see Donna Tarte's Secret History there - probably one of the best novels I have read in the past 10 years.
+ how about the translations of Iliad, the Oddysey and the Aeneid?
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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GuyThiebaut wrote: They missed out a lot Kazuo Ishiguro... FTFY
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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GuyThiebaut wrote: how about the translations of... the Aeneid?
I translated six of the books myself. (BTW - Google translate just skips virumque)
There are strangers on the Plain, Croaker
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- A bit weird though that they list both Chronicles of Narnia (7 books) and The LW&W separately.
Marc
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That maybe to check you
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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Not so weird, or at least not so inconsistent.
They listed "The Complete Works of Shakespeare" and "Hamlet" separately. "Hamlet" happens to be the one play most widely read.
And "The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe" is the first book in the Narnia series. And is the most widely read.
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