Theo's Century of ... Novels?

Well, not exactly. This is still a movie site, and won't be going multimedia anytime soon. On the other hand, given that many, if not most, of my readers live in North America, it seems clear they're tuning in primarily for the writing rather than to check out what just opened at their local multiplex (apologies to readers in Tajikistan and Papua New Guinea, who no doubt are tuning in to check out what just opened at their local multiplex). So I thought it might be appreciated if I also offered a few samples of writing far superior to my own, albeit not film-related (a selection of movie writings is a possible future project, though I don't actually own too many film books and none of the ones I've read - with the exception of Phillip Lopate's recently-published "Totally, Tenderly, Tragically" - have affected me as deeply as the books featured here).

Couple of caveats before we start. I'm nowhere near as well-versed in novels as I am in films, nor do I claim to be. I like to read, and I've always got a book going, but like most people I don't read nearly as much as I should, nor do I really keep in touch with current developments. I like to think I'm fairly eclectic - the only authors I've ever given up on in the middle of a book are James Joyce and Patricia Cornwell, which pretty much sums up my range - but I've read very little experimental or avant-garde fiction, nor too many of the critically-acclaimed heavyweights. Many of the books listed here were formative experiences, read for the first time decades ago ; all of them, in one way or another, had a hand in shaping who I am.

There aren't many pre-1900 books here (none at all in the list of favourites, just a couple among the runners-up) - I read the occasional classic, but they rarely stir me, though I always admire them ; I suppose it's the kind of reaction a person who enjoys films, but isn't a film-buff per se, might have to Silent movies. About half the list is made up of American writers, which is odd given that the US doesn't have anything like the same dominance in publishing as it does in movies : I suppose there's just an energy to American writing I respond to. You'll also notice quite a few comic novels here - which is partly because I love comic writing, but mostly because they're easier to excerpt. Copyright of the various excerpts, by the way, belongs to whoever it belongs to ; all I know is, it ain't me.

Oh yeah, one more thing : seeing as I'm no expert in this field, I may well have missed quite a few masterpieces. If you have any favourite excerpt(s) from a favourite book, feel free to send me your ideas - though of course without any guarantee whatsoever that I'll be including them here (I'll give you credit if I do, naturally). All suggestions welcome, though I really wouldn't bother with the Clancys and Grishams ; they just wouldn't fit, as you'll see if you move on to the list itself.

Speaking of which ...

Favourites

• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
• A Flag for Sunrise by Robert Stone
• Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
• The Serial by Cyra McFadden
• Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
• Little Wilson and Big God by Anthony Burgess
• The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene
• Call it Sleep by Henry Roth
• White Noise by Don DeLillo
• The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien
• The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa
• Sixty Stories by Donald Barthelme

Other People's Favourites

• Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace (contributed by Mike D'Angelo)
• Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut (contributed by Max S. Scheinin)
• Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh (contributed by Justin Siegel)
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (contributed by Max S. Scheinin)

Other Books I Like

• THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner (one of the greatest books of all time, but impossible to excerpt)
• A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES by John Kennedy Toole (one of the funniest books of all time, but impossible to excerpt)
• EMMA by Jane Austen
• L'ASSOMMOIR by Emile Zola
• AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner
• VOSS by Patrick White
• THE NAKED AND THE DEAD by Norman Mailer
• ABSALOM, ABSALOM! by William Faulkner 
• THE WIND-UP BIRD CHRONICLE by Haruki Murakami
• SEIOBO THERE BELOW by Laszlo Krasznahorkai
• THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH by Saul Bellow
• BEAT THE DEVIL by Claud Cockburn
• THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY by Patricia Highsmith
• THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE by Muriel Spark
• GORMENGHAST by Mervyn Peake
• SOMETHING HAPPENED by Joseph Heller
• BRAVE NEW WORLD (Aldous Huxley) and, less so, 1984 (George Orwell)
• PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT by Philip Roth
• UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry
• ATOMISED (Les particules élémentaires) by Michel Houellebecq 
• THE HONOURABLE SCHOOLBOY by John le Carré
• THE MAN WHO LOVED CHILDREN by Christina Stead
• THE WAR BETWEEN THE TATES by Alison Lurie
• AUNT JULIA AND THE SCRIPTWRITER by Mario Vargas Llosa
• I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves
• STILL LIFE WITH WOODPECKER by Tom Robbins
• HARD RAIN FALLING by Don Carpenter
• JUSTINE by Lawrence Durrell
• THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER by Davis Grubb
• THE YEARS by Annie Ernaux
• IN THE BEAUTY OF THE LILIES by John Updike
• THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES by Tom Wolfe
• LIFE, A USER'S MANUAL by Georges Perec (though it drove me nuts occasionally)
• TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee (in honour of my childhood)
• THE BONE PEOPLE by Keri Hulme (in honour of my adolescence)
• THE ALIENIST by Caleb Carr (in honour of the potency of cheap literature)
• The short stories of Raymond Carver, Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges.
• The essays of Gore Vidal, Stephen Jay Gould, John Updike, Umberto Eco and David Foster Wallace.
• Anything by Beachcomber, S. J. Perelman, Myles na Gopaleen, Damon Runyon, Stephen Leacock and P. G. Wodehouse.