I never do that list because two weeks later it would be different. LOTR would always be on top because of the personal changes it created in me, which lifts it out of objective evaluation. Everything else would be unstable in rankings.
LOTR? I go with the old consensus, War and Peace. I read it again in my 60's and it was even better than I remembered. My only complaint was that it came to an end. Another old favorite of mine, Ulysses, did not fair so well. I now regard Joyce as jejune.
Reading Middlemarch in middle age was an immensely pleasurable experience. George Eliot was wise; I would say that the novel was deepening rather than transformational. Through a glass, wryly: I saw all of my faults, and then some, from various stages of my life, reflected in each of the characters.
AVI, As a fellow LOTR lover, I hope you appreciate this fantastic essay on the backstory between Gandalf and Saruman as much as I did. It's called "The Unquiet Voice of Saruman" at http://www.tor.com/2015/07/15/the-unquiet-voice-of-saruman/
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LOTR? I go with the old consensus, War and Peace. I read it again in my 60's and it was even better than I remembered. My only complaint was that it came to an end. Another old favorite of mine, Ulysses, did not fair so well. I now regard Joyce as jejune.
Such lists are good for recommending the next book to read- if one hasn't already read it. Agreed that no such list is written in stone.
Reading Middlemarch in middle age was an immensely pleasurable experience. George Eliot was wise; I would say that the novel was deepening rather than transformational. Through a glass, wryly: I saw all of my faults, and then some, from various stages of my life, reflected in each of the characters.
AVI,
As a fellow LOTR lover, I hope you appreciate this fantastic essay on the backstory between Gandalf and Saruman as much as I did. It's called "The Unquiet Voice of Saruman" at
http://www.tor.com/2015/07/15/the-unquiet-voice-of-saruman/
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