My Top 20 Favorite Novels in Classic Literature

Today I was editing my online personality on Facebook (feel free to friend me if you haven’t already (and follow me on Twitter)) and I realized that I had a long list of favorite books. A couple of weeks I was having a conversation with Jenny Jorgs about Infinite Jest and she asked me how it ranked on a list of my faves. “Top 20” I replied. And since I do think about it so often, I realized that was a fair way to rank my favorite books. I ranked them according to how influential they are on my own thinking and writing, as well as how influential they have been in the classic literature tradition. It is how I feel now about all the books I’ve read and the work I’ve done. Like all lists compiling greatness, it will change in time. But for right now, this is how I project myself to the online literary world.