Number Twelve: The Odyssey

Obviously The Odyssey by Homer is one of the oldest and best known books in all of history.  It was even one of the foundational books for the ancient Greek religion. I had all of this in mind when I started reading this book, and I really wasn't disappointed.  This book was very captivating and it had a much more complicated plot than I had ever heard.  I would not, obviously, have chosen to read this book before the Iliad, but one of my classes in college required me to read the Odyssey.  This is the story of a man, named Odysseus, trying to get home from the Trajan war and his son back home attempting to become a man without him.  Odysseus takes many years to get home because the gods are preventing his return and in that time, he is believed to be dead.  Half of this story is his son's attempts to grow up and take care of his family without Odysseus, and the other half is about Odysseus's adventures as he tries to come home.
The two major themes I see through this book are courage in the face of adversity and the importance of growing up and taking responsibility for the things going on around you.  Odysseus faces dozens of challenges across this book, but his courage nearly always holds as he dreams of returning home.  This is a great (although, not altogether uncommon in many of these books) image of courage.  The other theme is shown through Telemachus (Odysseus's son) as he takes possession of his home and his life.  For years, he allowed other people to run his life, but just before his father returned, he began to grow up.  We can all learn a lot from Telemachus's example and begin to take responsibility for our own lives.
Now the important question is what exactly to say about this fascination book.  As I said, it was extremely interesting and I quite enjoyed reading it, but that does not necessarily mean that it is okay for everyone to read.  First of all, it is a relatively hard book to get through and some of the language is pretty hard (depending on which translation you choose to read).  I would definitely not recommend this book for someone will a low reading level.  The other issue that I see in this book is that of its religion.  I would caution anyone in carelessly reading a book about anything that was believed for centuries.  People really did believe that these gods were real and that seems to give them slightly more power than characters in other books.  I would just suggest some caution when reading this book and definitely wouldn't recommend it for younger teens who don't have their faith well founded yet.

Number Eleven: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) is undoubtedly one of the most classic children's books of all time and not without good reason.  The big question when reading a children's book is whether or not there is anything of value to an adult, but in this case that question has a very simple answer: YES!  This book is an exceptionally well written adventure which, although written using language a child can understand, contains ideals which can have application for everyone.  In this book, Twain manages to pull together an incredibly fun story which teaches children and adults alike the importance of maturing (both mentally and physically) and helping others to mature.
The obvious theme of this book was the idea of maturation.  At the start of this book, the characters in this book were as immature as possible.  Tom played jokes on everyone who cared about him and switched girls every other day (while claiming to love each of them).  By the end of the book, everything was different.  Tom had become a young man who took responsibility for his actions.  He cared enough for his girl at the end that he was quite willing to sit in a cave and die with her.  When he and Huck discovered where the secret treasure was, Tom used it to try to help Huck grow up in a good home and learn how to be a gentleman himself.  Truly, across this book, Tom grew up.
Now the question which is undoubtedly being asked right now is how exactly this theme is helpful to adults.  Well the truth is that everyone, young and old, has areas which they need to grow up in.  Also, the world today has taught people to NEVER grow up.  People now do not learn how to be adults and take responsibilities for their actions until they are extremely old.  This trend in society is extremely troubling and people could learn a valuable lesson from this book.
This book really was an extremely good book both for pleasure and for purpose.  I would recommend this book to just about anyone.  It is easy to read and has very few problems.  The only issue that I found in this book is a slight racist tendency indicative of the time in which it was written, but this tendency is not severe and can be relatively easily ignored.  I would recommend to parents of younger children reading this book that they remind their kids that attitudes like this are wrong, but that's my only caution.
Once again, hoping you are all out there reading these,
Jodath

Number Ten: A Tale of Two Cities

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens is both one of the most popular and wonderful books ever written.  Admittedly, when I started this book I was very unenthusiastic about reading it.  Having just finished The Three Musketeers, which was exciting and easy to read, I was not excited about reading a much more poetically written book with an immensely more complicated plot line.  Even after starting this book, I still found this book extremely difficult to follow, but when I had finally gotten to somewhere near the middle of the book, I was hooked.  At that point, the book was utterly captivating and had one of the most important messages in any book that I have ever read.
The extremely clear message in this book was, cheesy as it seems, Love.  Now Love is an extremely common theme in books, but I have never seen it portrayed in such an amazing way as this.  One of the main characters of this book, a man named Sydney Carton, appeared at the beginning of the book to be relatively pathetic, a man with no course in life who spent all of his time drinking.  This man was in love with a woman who loved another man.  She married the other man and Sydney accepted it.  A few years passed and the woman's family was drawn into the revolution going on in Paris.  The woman's husband was accused of a crime and sentenced to death.  Sydney took the man's place at the guillotine.  He died not for the woman who he loved but rather for the man who she was in love with.  Now that is True Love.
In the many books I have read, I have never seen a picture of love which measures us to this one.  To stand in line waiting for death knowing that a single word could save your life yet standing there nevertheless because it is the only way to save the heart of the woman you love is incredible.  Many people would have taken advantage of the demise of his rival but Sydney didn't do that.  Just before he died Sydney was able to say truly "It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done; it is to a far, far better rest i go to, than I have ever known.
This book is undoubtedly one of my favorites.  It is true that I did not enjoy the first half of this book because of the complex language, but the second half of the book infinitely more than makes up for the first half.  The complex language does make it difficult to understand and I would definitely not recommend this book to younger people, but if someone is old enough to understand it then they should definitely recommend that they read this book ASAP - it really is one of the best books that I have ever read.

Begging you to read this book,
Jodath

Number Nine: The Three Musketeers

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas is one of the most classic stories that has ever been told.  When I started this book I was a little afraid of the length, but the fame of this book dispelled most of my fears.  Everyone knows about The Three Musketeers, and I was excited to read it.  I was certainly not let down by this book.  The most important theme that I found in this book was one that I really did not expect at all.
There are tons of wonderful themes in this book, but the one that made the biggest impression on me was the theme of true, pure evil.  Never before in any book have I found a character so devoid of virtue and so consumed by evil as Milady de Winter.  She really is the embodiment of evil who is capable of turning all but the best man to evil.  She kills and destroys people for the mere pleasure of it.  She is capable of making the most trustworthy man entirely untrustworthy with a few words from her mouth.  She is an adversary like no other.  Truly, death was the only solution to a disease such as her.
This depiction of evil is so vivid and so valuable that it has helped engrave much of this book into my mind.  When I consider evil, I think about that character every time.  Even with this picture of evil, most of this book was just plain fun.  With exceptional depictions of swordplay and jocularity, most of this book was exceptionally light.  The only problem that I had with this book was the relatively limited moral content.  Certainly courage, friendship, and sacrifice were very well depicted in this book, but adultery is considered to be quite normal in this book.  The protagonist, D'Artagnan, spends much of this book attempting to seduce a married woman and another main character, Porthos, spends much of this book manipulating another married woman, who he is already having an affair with, to give him tons of money.  The author does make a note early in the book that behavior such as this is quite unacceptable but it is still quite prevalent throughout the book and I did not approve of major characters acting like this.  Despite any problems I had with this book, I still highly recommend this book to anyone old enough to get through it, and especially to people old enough to really understand it.  This book was one of the most fun books I have ever read and it is one of the books which sticks out in my memory the best.

Really hoping that all of you will read this great book,
Jodath

Number Seven: The Red Badge of Courage

The Red Badge of Courage by Steven Crane is a pretty interesting book.  When I read this short book, I really didn't know anything at all about it so I had very little idea of what to expect.  As it turned out, this book was actually quite interesting.  It certainly did have an excellent message to it.
Obviously given the title, the major theme of this book is courage.  As the protagonist, Henry, learns how to behave on the front lines of The Civil War.  In the first skirmish Henry participates in, he sees the enemy coming and he does not believe that they can be stopped so he runs away. When he runs away, Henry runs into many other Union soldiers fighting on different fronts and he realizes that others are not fleeing but rather fighting till the last breath.  Henry is quite shamed when he realizes that he is a coward.  He realizes that it would have been better to die than to run away.  He sees wounds received in the line of duty as "red badges of courage" and he realizes that they really are evidence of courage and they are preferable to running.  Eventually Henry returns to his men and fights alongside them again, but now he is fearless as the enemy comes.  Rather than fleeing Henry became the most courageous of the men there.
Undoubtedly the theme of this book is very good.  Courage is something that everyone needs to learn to understand.  I would definitely recommend this book to a somewhat older crowd because many younger children would neither understand nor enjoy a lot of the symbolism in this book.  This book is also a little gruesome for younger children.  I cannot say that I loved this book, but it was a pretty good read with a great message.

Recommending that you get out there and read it,
Jodath

Number Six and Eight: The Complete Sherlock Holmes Volume One and Two

Sherlock Holmes, created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is undoubtedly one of the most renown characters in fiction.  In each of these four novels and fifty-six short stories, we learn a little more about this astounding character.  I thoroughly enjoyed this wonderful journey through Holmes various cases as the reader discovers the secrets of his amazing logic together with his astounding morality.
Holmes is the very picture of logic.  He is able, throughout each of these stories, to completely read situations and people with mere observation.  While his incredible memory and thorough education in nearly every subject are priceless in his investigation, his instinct is by far his most valuable tool.  Holmes can, quite literally in many cases, determine much of the life history of someone through a mere glance at them.  He really is amazing at investigating, but his nobility and morality are equally as important to Holmes character.  Holmes is not a police officer and he does not behave like one.  On more than one occasion throughout these stories, Holmes actually let the guilty party escape because he decided that their crimes were justified.  Holmes works for free for people who are unable to pay.  Holmes's supposed death at the end of The Adventure of the Final Problem came as he refused to give up his case against a vicious murderer even at the cost of his own life.
There can be no question whatever about the inspirational qualities of Holmes's character in these stories.  I would highly recommend this collections to anyone of any age group.  They are exciting, easy to read, and they have wonderful morals.  My only warning would be against reading all of them very quickly as I did.  There are just so many stories and each of them is so wonderful that it is a shame to read through them very quickly.  Also, if they are read too quickly then they do become slightly repetitive by the end.  Either way, they are simply wonderful stories.

Hoping that everyone will get out there and read these ones,
Jodath

Number Five: Moby-Dick

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville is certainly one of the most well known books in American Literature.  I'm not going to pretend that I enjoyed this book.  When I read it, I expected it to be an exciting adventure, but it turned out to be little more than a tech manual on how to go whaling.  The storyline that there was in the book was at least interesting.
The theme of this book is obviously revenge and its consequences.  The captain of the vessel in which the protagonist has embarked on a whaling expedition, Captain Ahab, was once maimed by a white whale, named Moby-Dick, and he has sworn a vendetta against this whale.  Throughout the book, Ahab focuses on nothing other than killing this whale.  He does not enjoy the successes he and his crew achieve throughout the book because he is blinded by his hatred for the whale.  When he and his crew finally sight the whale, he stops at nothing in his attempts to kill it.  Moby-Dick eventually destroys the ship killing all of the crew other than the protagonist.  Ahab's hatred for this whale eventually cost the lives of him and his entire crew.
This theme really is great.  I can not say a word against the ideals of this book, but the ideals are not the problem.  The first problem in this book is the language.  Sadly, some parts of this book had to be read extremely slowly because the language was just too complicated.  This is not a huge issue, and it certainly wouldn't have condemned the book alone, but there was a far bigger issue.  This bigger issue was the massive breaks in the storyline in which the author attempted to teach the reader everything he or she could ever need to know about whaling.  This information had absolutely nothing to do with the story, and it took up at least half of the book.  These gaps were frustrating and nearly pointless.  In my opinion, this book was really not worth the time it required to read.  I would not recommend this book to anyone who does not have an extremely great interest in whaling and the ocean in general.  I certainly wouldn't recommend it to children because I do not expect that most would enjoy so much as a word of it.

Sorry to have to give any classic book a review like this,
Jodath

Number Four: Robinson Crusoe

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe really is a remarkable book.  When I first read it, I found it to be relatively long, but still an excellent book.  Now that I am old enough to understand the book a bit better, I find it to be truly wonderful.  As a Christian, very few books have ever had a greater impact on me than this.
The overarching theme of this book is without question God's just punishments tempered by his merciful providence.  The main Character in this book, Robinson Crusoe, chose to break with the wishes of his father and God himself time and again during the first part of the book.  Twice, God made it very clear to Crusoe that if he should continue down that path then he would come to destruction and then God blessed him for obeying him for a time.  Crusoe chose to disobey God again, and God marooned him on an island all alone.  Crusoe hated his life on this island for a very long time until he became extremely ill and nearly died.  After this, he saw everything in a different light.  From that point in the book on, Crusoe was no longer miserable, but rather understood the amazing blessings God had given him on the island.  Crusoe became content with his lot, and God blessed him.  After a time, God sent Crusoe a companion on the island, and not long after that God gave him release from the island.  In his absence, God blessed Crusoe with enough wealth to last him a lifetime.  Crusoe's life was not perfect after this, but he trusted God completely for the rest of his life.
From a Christian perspective, it doesn't get much better than this.  Crusoe's life illustrates how important it is to submit to God in an amazingly simplistic yet powerful way.  There have been books that I enjoyed more, but this book is certainly one of my favorites.  I wouldn't entirely recommend this book for people who are too young, because it is pretty long and doesn't have a particularly exciting plot line for long stretches, but for anyone old enough to get through it, I would highly recommend this book.

Sincerely hoping that you all read this one,
Jodath

Number Three: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne really was a fascinating book.  When I read this book around four years ago, I found it to be quite enjoyable despite a relatively slow moving storyline.  This book was full of amazingly real and complex characters and a wonderful story describing the wonders of the world under the sea.
When I read this book, I found the character of Captain Nemo to be fascinating.  He was an extremely well educated man who loved science, literature, and music, but he was also an extremely troubled man who harbored many demons.  This man truly loved his men as if they were his children, but he also ruthlessly hated those who lived on land.  Throughout this book, he used his vessel to explore the world of science in ways in which they had never been explored before, but he also used the same vessel to end the lives of many people.  In the end, Nemo sailed his submarine into a whirlpool where it was likely destroyed.  Without question, Captain Nemo is one of the most complex characters I have discovered in literature.  With amazing characters like Captain Nemo, this book couldn't help but be good, but this book also contained several good life lessons.
There were only two issues that I had with this book.  The first is a relatively minor problem, and this problem was the scientific nature of the writing.  Clearly Verne had a great love for science which he put very prevalently in this book.  Throughout the narrative, there were many pauses in which the author explained the many different scientific principles of the submarine or explained the various life forms which the crew were studying.  This type of writing could be extremely interesting to some people, but I didn't exactly love these breaks in the narrative.  The other issue that I had was the lack of really heroic characters.  There were a plethora of interesting characters throughout this book, but there were none who were really heroes.  To me, a book without true heroes cannot truly be considered great.
My conclusion: this was a really good book.  It wasn't the best book I have ever read, but it was certainly far from the worst.  I wouldn't necessarily suggest if for a younger audience, but for people who are old enough to understand the scientific and psychological studies which are explored throughout this book, I would definitely say that its worth reading.

Hoping that you are out there reading these books for yourself,
Jodath

Number Two: Gulliver's Travels

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift was certainly an interesting read.  When I read this book around six years ago, I was too young to understand much of the symbolism of the first three quarters of the book, and I certainly didn't fully understand it.  Luckily, I have been blessed with a relatively good memory, and after a brief review of the facts, much of the book returned to me.  Even when I read it the first time, I knew that it was absolutely full of the authors opinions about human kind.  Sadly, I disagree with most of the author's conclusions, and I find the book to be a relatively unimpressive read.
The idea which struck me when I read this book, and has remained with me ever since, is the idea of humans being no better than animals at heart.  At the fourth island that Gulliver visits, he finds animals called Yahoos which are exactly like humans in every way other than their minds which are the minds of brutish animals.  Living near these animals, he finds horses which speak with the tongues of men and have far more intelligence than any men described in the story.  Gulliver begins living amongst these horses and eventually decides that humans really aren't very different from the Yahoos.  Eventually, Gulliver was cast off of the island because the horses decided that he really was an animal himself and they couldn't allow him to live amongst them.  At the end of the story, Gulliver returned home but found that he couldn't be part of human society any longer because humans really were nothing more than disgusting animals.
Personally, I find this theme to be extremely far from the truth.  Human's are not animals, but rather beings created in God's own image.  They are damaged by their sin natures, and many do live their lives in sin, but they still aren't animals.  This book truly praises nothing.  It contains no bravery, it makes a mockery of religion, of law, and of humans in general.  There really are very few redeeming qualities in this book.

Hoping that someone enjoyed it more than I did,
Jodath

Number One: Treasure Island

Treasure Island by Robert Lewis Stevenson is truly a wonderful book.  When I read this book, I was only eleven years old, but even then it seemed absolutely amazing to me.  Now, eight years later, it is every bit as good as it was then.  Before writing this review, I decided to refresh my memory on some of this story, and in doing so I once again found myself lost in wonder of this excellent story.  Like most classic books, this one truly can be read at any age and still thoroughly enjoyed.
The biggest thing which stuck out to me in this book was Jim Hawkins progression from the obedient, but relatively uninteresting, young boy to the confident and assertive young man he becomes by the end of the book. He goes from a mere passenger on board the ship to the hero who saved the ship in the end of the book.  There is an amazing progression from a boy seeking adventure to the man who, instead, cares about saving his friends and keeping his personal honor above all else.  In the end, he was unquestionably willing to sacrifice whatever was necessary to save his friends.  In the end, he truly was a hero.
Not a page in this book was wasted.  There was absolutely no drag in the story in any place, and there was enough adventure to keep even an eleven year old boy excited.  Few books can equal this in excitement, and at the same time it manages to convey an excellent message.  In Treasure Island Stevenson really did manage to pull of a Great Book which I would highly recommended absolutely everyone reading.  I hope that I can find the time to read it again soon.

Hoping that you will enjoy this book as much as I did,
Jodath

The Destination

Around six months ago I set out on a quest (Now it is important to note that our lives are in fact full of journeys and it would be entirely untrue to say that I have chosen this journey in exclusion of others) to learn as much as I could about the Great Literature of Human History.  To this end, I searched for a list of the all-time best classic literature, and eventually I discovered a list of two hundred such books.  I made it my goal to read each and every one of these books.  Certainly, I am far from achieving this goal and it will take many years before I can accomplish this quest, but I am still attempting to do so.  When I discovered this list I had read a meager five of these books, but I decided to take on the challenge all the same.  Six months later, I have read 11 of these books leaving 189 to go.  Sadly, this list does not contain every book that I would like to read, and most likely I shall have read twice this number by the time I finish the list, but I do hope that someday - if I am spared - I will read this entire list.  

1. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
2. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
3. The Aeneid by Vergil
4.  Aesop's Fables by Aesop
5. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
6. Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë
7. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
8. The Ambassadors by Henry James
9. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
10. The Arabian Nights by Anonymous
11. The Art of War by Sun Tzu
12. The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man and Other Writings by James Weldon Johnson
13. The Awakening and Selected Short Fiction by Kate Chopin                                                                                        
14. Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
15. Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope
16. The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
17. Beowulf Translated by John McNamara
18. Billy Budd and The Piazza Tales by Herman Melville
19. Bleak House by Charles Dickens
20. The Bostonians by Henry James
21. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
22. Bulfinch's Mythology by Thomas Bulfinch
23. The Call of the Wild and WhiteFang by Jack London
24. Candide by Voltaire
25. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
26. A Christmas Carol, The Chimes, & The Cricket on the Hearth by Charles Dickens                                                                                                                                                                                        
27. The Collected Oscar Wilde
28. The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson
29. Common Sense and Other Writings by Thomas Paine
30. The Communist Manifesto and Other Writings by Karl Marx
31. The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Volume I by Arthur Conan Doyle
32. The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Volume II by Arthur Conan Doyle
33. The Confessions by St. Augustine of Hippo
34. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
35. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
36. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
37. Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand
38. Daisy Miller and Washington Square by Henry James
39. Daniel Deronda by George Eliot                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
40. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
41. Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
42. The Death of Ivan Ilych and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy
43. The Deerslayer by James Fenimore Cooper
44. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes 
45. Dracula by Bram Stoker
46. Emma by Jane Austen
47. The Enchanted Castle and Five Children and It by Edith Nesbit
48. Essays and Poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson
49. Essential Dialogues of Plato by Plato
50. Essential Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
51. Ethan Frome & Selected Stories by Edith Wharton
52. Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen                                                                                                                                   
53. Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
54. Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev
55. The Federalist by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, & John Jay
56. Founding America: Documents from the Revolution to the Bill of Rights Edited by Jack N. Rakove
57. The Four Feathers by A. E. W. Mason
58. Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
59. Germinal by Emile Zola
60. The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford
61. Great American Short Stories: From Hawthorne to Hemingway Edited by Corinne Demas
62. Great Escapes: Four Slave Narratives Introduction and notes by Daphne A. Brooks
63. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
64. Grimm's Fairy Tales by Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm
65. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift                                                                                                                                                                                        
66. Hard Times by Charles Dickens
67. Heart of Darkness and Selected Short Fiction by Joseph Conrad
68. The Histories by Herodotus
69. The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides
70. The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
71. The House of the Dead and Poor Folk by Fyodor Dostoevsky
72. The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
73. Howards End by E. M. Forster
74. The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
75. The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
76. The Iliad by Homer
77. The Importance of Being Earnest and Four Other Plays by Oscar Wilde
78. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs                                                                                                                                           
79. The Inferno by Dante Alighieri
80. The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud
81. Ivanhoe by Walter Scott
82. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
83. Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
84. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
85. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
86. The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling
87. Kim by Rudyard Kipling
88. King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard
89. Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence
90. The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
91. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman                                                                                                                               
92. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Writings by Washington Irving
93. Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
94. The Life of Charlotte Brontë by Elizabeth Gaskell
95. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
96. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
97. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
98. Lost Illusions by Honoré de Balzac
99. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
100. Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and Other Writings About New York by Stephen Crane
101. The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington
102. Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
103. Man and Superman and Three Other Plays by George Bernard Shaw
104. The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas                                                                                                                              
105. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
106. The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
107. Metamorphoses by Ovid
108. The Metamorphosis and Other Stories by Franz Kafka
109. Middlemarch by George Eliot
110. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
111. Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
112. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
113. My Ántonia by Willa Cather
114. My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass
115. Narrative of Sojourner Truth
116. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave
117. Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
118. Night and Day by Virginia Woolf
119. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
120. Nostromo by Joseph Conrad
121. Notes from Underground, The Double and Other Stories by Fyodor Dostoevsky
122. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
123. The Odyssey by Homer
124. Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
125. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
126. The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
127. Paradise Lost by John Milton
128. Paradiso by Dante Alighieri
129. Persuasion by Jane Austen
130. Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie                                                                                                                               
131. The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
132. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
133. The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
134. Poetics and Rhetoric by Aristotle
135. The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
136. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners by James Joyce
137. Possessed by Fyodor Dostoevsky
138. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
139. The Prince and Other Writings by Niccolò Machiavelli
140. The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain
141. Pudd'nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins by Mark Twain
142. Purgatorio by Dante Alighieri
143. Pygmalion and Three Other Plays by George Bernard Shaw                                                                                                                                               
144. The Red and the Black by Stendhal
145. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
146. Republic by Plato
147. The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy
148. The Rise of Silas Lapham by William D. Howells
149. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
150. A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
151. Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum
152. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
153. The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy
154. The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad
155. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
156. Selected Stories of O. Henry by O. Henry                                                                                                                                   
157. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
158. A Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert
159. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
160. Silas Marner by George Eliot
161. Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
162. Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence
163. The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois
164. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Stories by Robert Louis Stevenson
165. Swann's Way by Marcel Proust
166. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
167. Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
168. Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
169. Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy                                                                                                                                                 
170. This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
171. Three Lives by Gertrude Stein
172. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
173. Three Theban Plays by Sophocles
174. Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche
175. The Time Machine and The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells
176. Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
177. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
178. The Turn of the Screw, The Aspern Papers, and Two Stories by Henry James
179. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
180. Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana
181. Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
182. Utopia by Thomas More                                                                                                                                                                                                 
183. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
184. The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James
185. Villette by Charlotte Brontë
186. The Virginian by Owen Wister
187. The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf
188. Walden and Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau
189. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
190. The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
191. Ward No. 6 and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov
192. The Waste Land and Other Poems by T. S. Eliot
193. The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope
194. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
195. The Wings of the Dove by Henry James                                                                                                                                                 
196. Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
197. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
198. Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
199. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
200. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Quite the list, isn't it?  Yes, it is a little intimidating, but I think I can get through it.  If you know anything at all about literature, I am sure that you noticed that many of the books on this list are somewhat on the feminine side... Sadly, discrimination based on the intended audience of books would make this quest nearly useless.  I will have to persevere through all of the books on this diverse list.  

Now, I would guess that you are wondering why exactly I am writing all of this out.  The answer to this very good question is that using this blog, I will be able to write my own feelings on each of these books (and almost certainly many other books which I have read and will read throughout this journey).  Without doubt, I will not always remember how I felt about all of these books merely because there are too many books to remember.  My hope is that in the future I will be able to look back at this blog and remember something of these books.  I have little hope that this blog will ever be of much interest to anyone else, but perhaps at some point someone else will read my views of these books and decide to read them for themselves.  Either way, for my own sake or for others, I am going to do this.  If nothing else, it will give me a chance to write.  

Wishing you all the best,

Jodath

P.S. If anyone wishes to comment on my opinions of these books, I am certainly open to other views.  Also, if there are any other books which you would recommend that I read, please feel free to mention them - I am always looking for more books to read.