Top 30 Books of All Time

[Kevin]

Please list your personal Top 30 books of all time.

Do it in the same format as top 30 movies.

These are books you feel that everyone should read.

This can also include plays and poetry, and book series.

Conan as written by Robert E. Howard

Conan, while officially short stories, is the one Fantasy Anti-Hero who single handed saved Fantasy in the United States of America. During the 1930s the concept of evangelical christian born Book Burning hit new heights. Please, don't try to argue against me on this point, I live right by Fort Collins where the book burning mobiles recently burned over $10,000 worth of Pokemon.

Conan was the first serious series of stories, which spanned over 3 years, that have lasted on 70 years past Howard's suicide. Unlike other "Fantasy" stories of the time, Conan had no formula. There was no hidden messages supporting any one particular country over another. And despite claims by some about racism in Howard's novels. further evaluation has shown that the only remotely borderline depictions are the Khitai with Goldlike Yellow skin. Emphasis on GOLD. To top it off, Howard had harsh words for all the races and countries in Conan, most especially the WHITES. For a 1930's Texan born author, this was a massive departure from race driven literature of the time.

Conan is superior only because he is Conan.

Conan has been a best selling character in Europe for nearly all of the 70 years. In United States his original stories were put on hiatus for nearly 30 due to a very greedy editor named L. Sprague deCamp (litigation ensued because he refused to have the stories re-released without his edits, and he claimed he owned some copyrights which he never owned).

People laugh about Conan and say openly: He was a barbarian, and it isn't literature.

They are wrong.

Robert E. Howard used strong men, tough guys, and dunces to insert heavy political and religious commentary as well as to tell a good story. Yeah, Conan is a barbarian, that doesn't diminish the impact these novellas had on the 20th century.

There are very few "good guys" in the Hyborean Age, but there are plenty of "bad guys".

Without Conan breaking through the anti-fantasy veil of conservative and ultra religious censorship movement in America, there would NOT be H.P. Lovecraft, Lord of the Rings wouldn't have been imported to America until long after the 1950s, and quite frankly, modern horror and fantasy would be held back for several decades. The only upside to that would be a complete lack of Anne Rice novels.

[Jeffbert]

I had only recently taken an interest in literature when I was in Best Buy & there was COREL's CLASSICS ON CD. I read more 'books' on that 1 CD than in all my life up until then. I took 2 upper level classes (300 &400 level) in University on literature, & wished I had not spent so many credit hours on computer languages.

I enjoy watching GREAT BOOKS on cable, sorry, I forgot the channel, & much prefer the classics over the newer books. Having said that, I must put Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea near the top of my list. I cannot at this time post such justifications as Kevin has for his lists, but I will simply say that this novel hooked me & would not let me go. Yes, there were Verne’s visionary views of the future, but I simply enjoyed the novel. Verne failed to envision the nuclear submarines’ ability to extract oxygen from seawater, but when the Nautilus was sandwiched between sheets of ice & everyone was gasping for air, it was very intense.

With respect to Sci-fi, I really enjoy those novels that have been made into films before the days of respectable special effects, though the most well known film version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea had fairly impressive SFX. I also saw the silent version & the anime Nadia: Secret of Blue Water. I think there was a Rankin & Bass version, but am unsure. Verne’s Robur the Conqueror & The Master of the World were likewise great books, & with Vincent Price as the title character, the film version (combined elements from both novels) was also quite enjoyable.

Journey to the Center of the Earth, At the Earth’s Core, From the Earth to the Moon, Round the Moon, by Verne, ) & The First Men In The Moon by Welles (). The film versions are quite entertaining at least by lovers of B-movies. Welle’s The Time Machine was not what I would consider a B-movie, though I did thoroughly enjoy both the novel & the film. I might not include these in my top 30 though I mention them here.

Verne actually wrote several novels that were pure adventure; Five Weeks in a Balloon, Around the World in 80 Days, The Mysterious Island, are three that I have read, the latter was made into a sci-fi film. Although the novel really had no sci-fi elements that I recall other than the presence of a particular character and his invention from one of Verne’s Sci-fi novels. I think Kevin might not like Five Weeks or 80 days because they may have some politically incorrect depictions of certain people. It has been years since I read 80 Days, but only months since I read Five Weeks, which did feature cannibals. Anyway, I included these purely as a discussion relating to 20,000 Leagues.

The d'Artagnan trilogy The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, and The Vicomte de Bragelonne (book better known as “The Man in the Iron Mask”), was also very compelling as was the COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO. Again, for no better reason than that I found myself reading vigorously. Again, too much time has passed since I read these for me to comment further. Again, most were made into films, except perhaps Twenty Years After.

Ok, now I will kindle Kevin’s wrath: Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn were also very enjoyable. Although they were set in the slave-owning South, and featured numerous instances of the N-word, it is clear from the POV of one who has actually read them, that Twain used them not to legitimatize slavery, but in Finn, to tell a story that actually depicted the black guy as having the common sense. It was a radio talk show host who in discussing Finn, piqued my interest in the COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO. He was talking about the absurdity of Sawyer’s insisting that Jim write about his sufferings; be bitten by spiders and such so that he, Sawyer could live out his fantasy of rescuing a prisoner. Jim was the only one with common sense. Moreover, the story depicted him as a human being rather than a sub human who actually needed master to rule his life. Granted, it did depict the slaves that Finn met in his travels down river as living in rather primitive conditions; however, their owners were quite happy to keep them in such conditions because by so doing, the owners could feel superior. Frederick Douglass’ autobiography indicates that on the plantation where he lived children under age ten often went about naked, having only two cheap as could be “coarse tow-linen shirts per year” & no care was given to clothe them when these were worn out. Slaves had no beds, only one blanket, and insufficient time to deal with anything but fieldwork (45, ). I might include Douglass’ autobiography, except this list is exclusively for fiction. Booker T. Washington also indicates that the slaves were reduced to wearing only the refuse material, and that he himself as a little boy preferred nudity to the scratchy shirt he was forced to wear (12, ). Thus, the depictions of privation in Tom & Huckleberry were indeed accurate and provided to shame the owners rather than glorify slavery.

[Kevin]

[Jeffbert]

[Kevin]

[Rock's Sunglasses]

[Jeffbert]

Conseil was a rather large powerful man as I recall, why did they cast Peter Lorre in this role? I believe in 80 Days Passepartout was also a large imposing man, also portrayed by a smaller guy in the 1956 film. Hmm, this could be an intersting thread in itself:

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