OK, that's horseshit. So is...Top 10 Classic Novels and Top 10 Most Influential Novels. Let me explain, fiction is art and therefore, it's in the eye of the beholder. One guy can have a top 10 of novels written before 1900, claiming that fiction never outlived the 19th Century Russians as another so called expert will have Ken Follett's Pillars Of The Earth in there, claming it's a classic. There is no absolute Top 10. Only the Top 10 of the novels you'd like people to read. The Top 10 of the 10 novels you'd give a non-reader to read to give him a scope of literature.
Here is mine. They are not ranked in order but alongside, there a two to three lines incentive to read the novel. The reason why I think it's important in my understanding and interest in literature.
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk - A rigorous study about the process of enlightenment. Through the painful introspections of a hollow existence, Palahniuk puts words and meaning on the nameless plague created by an age of abundance.
Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson - This non-fiction novel is a method to the disillusionment that turn men into animals. This is the most important of Thompson's work as it's the grave of a great folktale: the American Dream.
Mystic River by Dennis Lehane - There is a clear path traced on how a man can be lead to murder. There's no logic argument as in Crime & Punishment, but instead the visceral motivations that would move any men.
The Wind-Up Bird Chonicle by Haruki Murakami - Here is addressed the myth of the second birth, not without any supernatural flare, but with the necessary coherence and consistence to a thorough introspection. As moving as it is entertaining.
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy - Despite the weight of the mythical Far West, it's an honest and raw testimony on the mechanics of a legend and the beauty of the violence within the human mind.
The Great Gatsby by Francis Scott Fitzgerald - My favorite "universal classic". Fitzgerald has the most subtle and graceful approach to emotional hardships most people can identify with.
The Godfather by Mario Puzo - The great achievement of Puzo is to blur the lines in between good and evil, the lawful and the outlaw. The Corleone are gangsters, true. But they are first a family.
Get In The Van by Henry Rollins - The modern, urban answer to Walden. The inner workings of a young man, striving to beat an alienating society at it's own game. It's not really a novel though, more a journal. But it read like a story.
Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick - A multi-layered reflection on identity and beliefs at an age of technology and contempt. The more you will read it, the more it will haunt you.
The Count Of Monte Christo by Alexandre Dumas - Another "universal classic" entry. This is the longest novel I have ever wrote and one of the most satisfying one. It's serving a bigger purpose than its narration while being happy to just tell an entertaining story.
