seeing as to how the book at #1 was in your own words a “dated bore,” one I myself got sick of reading after being assigned it for four separate classes, an anecdote I don’t tire of retelling.

I think the worst part of that book is the part where the monster hides out in the woods and becomes intelligent by observing that family. That whole back story is one of the worst plot diversions I’ve ever seen in a book.

Anyways, I at least liked that I haven’t read most of that list, so it’s not a list I’d be terribly suspicious of. I don’t really read Esquire though.

Looking over the books I haven’t read....er, well, some of them look moderately interesting. Not all of them though.

74 - The Calculating Stars - I didn’t read this, but I just read Seveneves which has a pretty similar plot (terrible disaster on Earth turns Earth into a time bomb so a colony has to be established in outer space). Great, as if I needed to hold anything else against Seveneves.

69 - Snow Crash - See earlier post. Three stars out of five at best. His others are better.

52 - A Clockwork Orange - Was always torn as to whether or not I like this more than the movie.

50 - A Wrinkle In Time - Not bad to read when you’re a kid, I s’pose. I mean, I guess I’m not REALLY bothered by having kids indoctrinated against communism (since they’re unlikely to realize that’s what Camazotz is, anyway–God knows I didn’t.)

49 - The Time Machine - Good enough but I only read it as a kid because there was a million dollar question on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire a long time ago asking what year the time traveller actually visits in the book, and I wanted to know about Eight Hundred Two Thousand Seven Hundred And One AD. The Eloi/Morlocks concept isn’t a bad one as far as kids’ lit goes.

45 - Neuromancer - Gibson’s only particularly good book, barring maybe Idoru, and also the only one of his I’ve ever re-read, and probably the only one I ever WILL re-read. I hated it back in college but it got a lot better when I was older, weirdly enough. In spite of it being the quintessential “cyberpunk” book, it’s not actually a book I can see that many young readers liking!

42 - The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy - Holds the record for fastest I’ve ever read a book, in about four hours. This includes when I read all those godawful Goosebumps books as a kid. I’m only a passing fan of it though.

41 - A Canticle For Leibowitz - Cute little book, a weird mixture of humor and postapocalyptic/reapocalyptic horror.

31 - The Stand - Fun junk for awhile, I s’pose. As I posted back in the day there are some REALLY lame moments in it though. That’s me being generous - I’ve had the misfortune of finding out that a few of my King favorites from my youth aren’t actually very good books.

29 - Dhalgren - Hah, so PKD trashed it? Hilarious. This was a very ambitious book that I wouldn’t deter others from reading but so little of it stayed with me afterwards.

23 - Oryx & Crake - As with Handmaid’s Tale, the setup to this book is absolutely masterful, an eerie detailing of how the planet went wrong due to genetic engineering. The two sequels gradually ruin the trilogy, though.

19 - The Sirens Of Titan - One of Vonnegut’s better ones, if only because his usual pessimism at least didn’t translate into his usual desire to torture and kill all of his deliberately stupid characters. He had some humanity towards them in 1959. And yeah, they didn’t put Slaughterhouse-Five on the list, which is really cool of them.

16 - I, Robot (okay, it’s all of his Robot stories, but I only read that one): Good! I liked it! A long time ago, anyway.

14 - Brave New World - Great book, but needs a re-read. I’ve also considered re-reading some of the other Huxley stuff I read back then. Like Crome Yellow!

12 - 1984 - If I were to re-read this, I probably would still like it, in spite of Orwell not really being a terribly graceful “writer.”

10 - Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? - One of PKD’s best.

6 - The Left Hand Of Darkness - Gets more relevant every day doesn’t it huh!!! Trans trans trans!!!!

3 - The Martian Chronicles - This was okay but I kind of feel like keeping it at arm’s length.

2 - Dune - Currently rereading. Will offer updated opinion in a few days.

1 - Frankenstein - I’ll be nice since she was 19 or whatever, but I’d certainly prefer to never have to read this book again.

Well, that’s 20. Not too bad.