The Top Ten Project Lynette Robertson & Rhonda Seamons
The Top Top Ten List from the Book at Barnes & Noble 1. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy 2. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert 3. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy 4. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov 5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain 6. Hamlet by William Shakespeare 7. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald 8. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust 9. The stories of Anton Chekhov 10. Middlemarch by George Eliot
The Task Please provide us with a list, ranked, in order, of what you consider to be the ten greatest books you have read. Please don’t include the scriptures (we all love them). Other than that, there are no limits. You can choose fiction or non-fiction, any work, any writer, and any time period.
“Top Ten” is terribly vague: do you mean top ten most influential or most life-changing or most interesting or best written or most entertaining or most irritating or most provocative or...? Well, obviously you are aware of this but intentionally left it vague in order not to give the list any particular bias. So, here’s my top ten list, based on... well, what first popped into my head, then ranked in order of...ummm, I have no idea. Mostly, they’re books that have engaged, troubled, challenged, or changed me in valuable ways both because they are beautifully written and because they profoundly affected my mind and heart.
I’m certainly no intellectual...and my favorites tend toward the “action - romance” genre. Most of the ones I listed I read as a boy or a young student — in fact — Great Expectations was read in the 7th grade — I just remember the tremendous impact it had on me then.
This list of influential books is constantly shifting — literally from minute to minute — and I worry about its longevity, because it is hard to tell if some authors I have read recently, like Berry and Bushman, will survive on this list over time.
This has been much, much harder than I anticipated that it would be. After writing down the top 15 or so books shortly after your invitation, I then let it “slow cook” until now. The order has changed from the first list to this one. They are now in order of the most profound effect they have had in my life, which I suppose, would also then justify them for being the “greatest” books I have read.
This was like trying to pick which child is a favorite.
In making my selection, I was surprised to notice a common theme for nearly all of the books. Almost without exception, the main character was a rather ordinary person, often a child or a woman, who found within her/himself surprising goodness, courage and strength to overcome difficult circumstances. I find that very encouraging, even inspiring.
I feel a little guilty about this list. All of the authors on my list are American (how ethnocentric!). All of them are men (how sexist!). And five of them are still alive (how shallow and contemporary!). Mea culpa – mea maxima culpa.
Of all the books I left off my top ten list, I am feeling most guilty about Heidi . How could I live with myself without at least an attempt to add it? I understand if it is too late, but I feel better just sending the email. I would not be true to myself without including this book that had such an impact on me as a young girl.
In the summer of 1976 I was living with my parents in Sugar City and lost everything the day of the flood. That day I was prompted to take my scriptures and journal. The lessons learned from that experience are many and varied but one is that you need great characters and great stories with you in times of disaster. These are the books I would take with me to read and share with others when another disaster comes into our lives.
De gustibus disputandum non est. (There’s no disputing tastes.)
The Top Top Ten List from the BYU-Idaho Faculty Survey Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl 1. 2. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J. R. R. Tolkien 3. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo 4. Jesus the Christ by James E. Talmage 5. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee 6. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen 7. The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom 8. Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis 9. The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis 10. King Lear by William Shakespeare
10. King Lear by William Shakespeare Considered one of Shakespeare’s four “core tragedies” – with Hamlet , Othello , and Macbeth — King Lear commences with Lear, having achieved great age but little wisdom, dividing his kingdom among his three daughters in return for their proclamations of love for him. Two of his daughters, evil to the core, falsely profess their love, while Cordelia, his good and true daughter, refuses his request. Enraged, Lear gives his kingdom to his evil daughters and banishes Cordelia. Lear pays a dear price for this rash act. The play systematically strips him of his kingdom, title, retainers, clothes, and sanity in a process so cruel and unrelenting as to be nearly unendurable. ( The Top Ten )
9. The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis The Chronicles of Narnia is one of the very few sets of books that should be read three times: in childhood, early adulthood, and late in life. In brief, four children travel repeatedly to a world in which they are far more than mere children and everything is far more than it seems. Richly told, populated with fascinating characters, perfectly realized in detail of world and pacing of plot, and profoundly allegorical, the story is infused throughout with the timeless issues of good and evil, faith and hope. (Amazon)
8. Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis C.S. Lewis was a rare individual. One of the few non-clerics to be recognized as a theologian by the Anglican church, he put forth the case for Christianity in general in ways that many Christians beyond the Anglican world can accept, and a clear description for non-Christians of what Christian faith and practice should be. Mere Christianity was originally a series of radio talks, published as three separate books: The Case for Christianity, Christian Behaviour, and Beyond Personality. Lewis’ style is witty and engaging, the kind of writing that indeed lives to be read aloud. (Amazon)
7. The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom The Hiding Place proves that the light of God's love can penetrate even the darkest recesses of despair, places like the Nazi extermination camp at Ravensbruck. After protecting Dutch Jews in a secret room in their home, Corrie ten Boom, her sister and father were discovered, arrested, and imprisoned. Only Corrie survived, but her faith in God remained strong-so strong that, after the war, she could forgive a former camp guard in a face-to-face meeting. More than just a spellbinding adventure, The Hiding Place is a life-changing story. (Amazon)
6. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife,” reads this novel’s famous opening line. This matching of wife to single man — or good fortune — makes up the plot of perhaps the happiest, smartest romance ever written. Austen’s genius was to make Elizabeth Bennet a reluctant, sometimes crabby equal to her Mr. Darcy, making Pride and Prejudice as much a battle of wits as it is a love story. ( The Top Ten )
5. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee Tomboy Scout and her brother Jem are the children of the profoundly decent widower Atticus Finch, a small-town Alabama lawyer defending a black man accused of raping a white woman. Although Tom Robinson’s trial is the centerpiece of this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel – raising profound questions of race and conscience – this is, at heart, a tale about the fears and mysteries of growing up, as the children learn about bravery, empathy, and societal expectations through a series of evocative set pieces that conjure the Depression-era South. ( The Top Ten )
4. Jesus the Christ by James E. Talmage The author has departed from the course usually followed by writers on the Life of Jesus Christ, which course, as a rule, begins with the birth of Mary’s Babe and ends with the ascension of the slain and risen Lord from Olivet. The treatment embodied in these pages, in addition to the narrative of the Lord’s life in the flesh comprises the antemortal existence and activities of the world’s Redeemer, the revelations and personal manifestations of the glorified and exalted Son of God during the apostolic period of old and in modern times, the assured nearness of the Lord’s second advent, and predicted events beyond — all so far as the Holy Scriptures make plain. ( Jesus the Christ )
3. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo Twenty years in the writing, this masterpiece of melodrama sweeps across unspeakable poverty, assumed identities, the sewers of Paris, and the battle of Waterloo while also making time for love, politics, architecture, history, and Hugo’s burning invective against social inequities. The novel’s central struggle — between good-hearted prison escapee Jean Valjean and the indefatigable, by-the-book detective Javert — is about the need to temper the law with mercy and redemption, qualities often sorely lacking in Hugo’s time. ( The Top Ten )
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