The Infinite Echo Lists the Top Twenty Best Novels of All Time

B. Thomas Cooper - Editor

blogment - National News wire - The Infinite Echo

As the year draws to an end, it seems an appropriate time to present our current list of the top twenty novels of all time. I’m certain many readers will feel we have left out books that belong in the list and included some that don’t. You are welcome, and in fact, encouraged to compile your own list and send it to us. We will post all lists submitted, providing of course, the content of your list is appropriate for posting. Enjoy.



Moby Dick
Herman Melville -1851

The Fountainhead
Ayn Rand -1943

The Iliad
Homer -800 BCE

War and Peace
Tolstoy -1865

The Cider House Rules
John Irving -1985

Light in August
William Faulkner -1932



A Tale of Two Cities
Charles Dickens -1859

True at First Light
Ernest Hemingway -1953

The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck -1939

Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe -1852

The Catcher in the Rye
J.D. Salinger -1951

Atlas Shrugged
Ayn Rand -1957

Slaughterhouse Five
Kurt Vonnegut -1969

Something Wicked This Way Comes
Ray Bradbury -1962

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Mark Twain -1876

The Sun Also Rises
Ernest Hemingway -1926

A Prayer For Owen Meany
John Erving -1989

Wuthering Heights
Emily Bronte -1847

1984
George Orwell -1949

The Sound and the Fury
William Faulkner -1929

B. Thomas Cooper - Editor

Sound Foundation Entertainment - National Newswire - The Infinite Echo - Impeachment Now! - Sound&Recording - Skate the Razor - Skate the Razor Blog - blogment

William Faulkner, American Literary Icon

B. Thomas Cooper - Editor

blogment - National News wire - The Infinite Echo

William Faulkner is without question, one of the most unique and influential American literary voices of the last century. His works have influenced many of the giants, including literary legends John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway. Still, no-one would be taken aback more by all the fuss than William Faulkner himself, who wrote to live, and lived to write.


Underwood Universal Portable typewriter,
similar to those used by William Faulkner.

Faulkner, Born William Cuthbert Falkner, September 25th, 1897, cranked out literally hundreds of short stories, novels and novellas during the 1920s and 30s. He was a tireless writer, wearing out countless Underwood Universal Portable typewriters, which he purchased second hand. Still, he remained virtually unknown until 1949, when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. Although his real last name was spelled without the u', a misprint (typo) by his first publisher led him to adopt the new spelling. Faulkner wasn't one for formality. For William Faulkner, it was all about the characters and the story line. Let the critics say what they may.

Just as John Steinbeck wrote of the west during the depression era, Faulkner preferred to write about his home of Mississippi, whose people and culture he understood all too well. His tales of the south's soft underbelly, the hapless pursuits of the poor and the poorly educated, are piqued together through pride and prejudice. They leave behind haunting and perhaps painful shadows with which the reader must cope. Faulkner stands tall alongside other monumental writers of the south, including Tennessee Williams, Flannery O'Connor, and Mark Twain. Faulkner's legacy is one for the ages.

Faulkner is perhaps best known for his novel, Sanctuary, a classic tale of betrayal and tragedy, steeped in a surly broth. Violence seems not so much tolerated in this story, as accepted, almost as a form of currency. And human life, or any form thereof, is rendered incidental, as is exemplified by the child behind the stove. Some things cannot be explained, so much as indemnified. These were dark days for the south. Dark days, indeed!

"Better for her if she were dead tonight, Horace thought, walking on. For me too. He thought of her, Popeye, the woman, the child, Goodwin, all put into a single chamber, bare, lethal, immediate and profound: a single blotting instant between the indignation and the surprise."

William Faulkner died July, 6th, 1962 at age 64. He was buried in Byhalia Mississippi. His works are too numerous to list here. See Wikipedia for a more complete listing of his works.

B. Thomas Cooper - Editor

Sound Foundation Entertainment - National Newswire - The Infinite Echo - Impeachment Now! - Sound&Recording - Skate the Razor - Skate the Razor Blog - blogment