Wow--I'll admit some of those choices surprise me for you, Putin.

Shaw we share (though perhaps for different reasons and to different extents)...

Kipling? Nice novelist/poet, but what about the fascistic leanings he was said to have?

And Jack London, who faced accusations of plagiarism?

I obviously don't mind a bit of authorial theft--if I did, my favorite wouldn't be the Bard, obviously--but you seemed to have a problem with Shakespeare's doing that, and Orwell's allegedly taking his ideas a bit from "We"...

So why London?

(And then, not to nitpick, but--all the great novelists in the last few centuries...and Kipling and London are both good novelists and canonized and all, but I doubt either would crack a Top 10 list anywhere, probably not Top 20, MAYBE a top 30 for Kipling...why those two, out of curiosity?)

And speaking about all that made me remember I forgot to shout out for Orwell earlier.

So--go Orwell. Animal Farm is a work of genius, and I STILL SAY 1984 is *the best book of the 20th century,* and it's hard to pick one to top it...maybe "Ulysses," but not only for the sheer brilliance, scope, and power of the novel, but just how influential it has been and how many concepts it's introduced into the vernacular of political speech and thought, have to shout out for 1984.

(Sorry.) :)

I think Jim Butcher, Alastair Reynolds and Greg Rucka roxor my boxors. I could go on for eons if you allowed me, though, Robert Jordan, Anne McCaffrey, Amanda Downum, Gordon Dickson, Robert Ludlum...

I'm not getting into a literature debate with someone who thinks Ulysses was the greatest novel of all-time.

Anyway the thread title was 'favorite', not 'greatest'. I picked those who entertain me the most.

Um...

1. I said I thought 1984 was best of the 20th century
2. My comments were ABOUT the 20th century
3. Many HAVE named "Ulysses" the best of the 20th century...what, too "blase" a pick?
4. I'l bite--give me YOUR pick for the best of the 20th century
5. Why would Jack London entertain you, who seem to be rather moralistic, when he faced plagiarism charges and was Anti-Asian and possible Anti-Latino as well? You had a problem with Shakespeare doing propaganda for his Queen so as not to lose his patronage or life...why is Shakespeare busted for doing that, but Jack London writing essays such as "The Yellow Peril" and possibly stealing his stories OK?

Again, *I* don't mind as much...
Unless you go Wagner-far and say you want an entire race to burn (literally said that) and actively try and expel them from your profession and are just at the zenith of being a twat, I can enjoy an author with questionable morals...after all, we're all human, and they're somewhat a product of their times...

But YOU are very high on your morals, Putin.

I'm just curious--why do morals take a backseat here to entertainment, but not in other cases?

(On another note...are you an outdoorsman? I somehow wouldn't have pegged the author of "Call of the Wild" and "White Fang" as one of your favorites--good books, but still, not exactly intellectual or political masterpieces or commentaries...George Bernard Shaw--eugenics ideals aside--I can see you liking for sure, but even with his socialist leanings, I'd never have guessed Jack London.)

*On the Wagner comment--

Call it "an entire GROUP to burn," lest we have someone pip up that Jews aren't a race.

Technically they're not, I still say there's a difference between Jews by blood and Judaic Jews by religion, and that the group is an ethno-religious one, so it's at least partway there, but whatever, "group" works fine.

*I'M* the best short story write here!!!! Mwaaaa ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!

Favorite Playwright would have to be Shakespeare, but Sophocles, Aeschylus, Aristophanes, and Euripides are all fantastic as well. My favorite Shakespeare play at this time would have to be Antony and Cleopatra for tragedy, and Much Ado about Nothing for Comedy, although I still haven't read some of his other famous works, so take whatever I say on that with a grain of salt.

My favorite poet is Ovid, but Homer, Virgil, Lucretius, and whoever wrote The Song of Roland are all great as well.

My favorite fiction author would probably be J.R.R. Tolkien. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is still one of the best things I've ever read.

My favorite philosophical writer would be Aristotle.

My favorite overall, however, would have to be John Bunyan.

And now I have to feel bad for not listing so many authors I love.

Shakespeare....Good god, can any more of you be so trite....This only yoru favorite playwright for one of two reasons:

1. You English teacher told you so or,
2. You have never really read many/any other playwrights, but you want to sound smart....

Yeah yeah yeah....survived the centuries, blah blah blah. Picasso is also considered a genius...have you seen the shit they call art? Did Picasso have some talent? Sure as hell did....but most of the crap you see by picasso is juvenile, not deeply inspired...

By the same token, Sheakspear was good for his time....is still good to this day....but universally best of all time....please...How many plays did he write? How many DO YOU KNOW? The ration is not as inspiring as you would hope....

By the equivalent judgement, Flock of Seaguls is the greatest band ever, because they had a couple of hits....

Time for some original thoughts, here....

Best book of whatever category, Ulysses is possibly the single worst book I have had the displeasure of reading.

"Best" book of the 20th century. I don't know - Lolita. Nostromo. The Bell Jar.

I never questioned Shakespeare's quality, and I enjoy some of his works. A lot of his stuff is court propaganda for the Tudors, and that isn't recognized. Some of his stuff is clearly wicked and slanderous, like Richard III & Julius Caesar.

London's views on immigration have really nothing to do with his writings, unlike Richard III. As for plagiarism, as far as I can tell in virtually all cases he recognized where he got some source material from, and unlike Orwell didn't lift entire "masterpiece" novels wholecloth from another person without attribution. But more than Orwell is as about as entertaining as a root canal.

"On another note...are you an outdoorsman?"

No, but I've always liked survivalist type stories. The Hatchet was my favorite book growing up.

1984 is not the best of the 20th century, it loses on grounds of originality alone. I havent read Ulysses as of yet so no comment.

Putin, please can you explain your displeasure in reading Ulysses?

I'm in shock... I had the same favourite book as Putin when I was young!

Well, for a short time at least. My favourite changed a few times and included Danny, Champion of the World and Lord of the Rings at various stages

Krellin, you are a dolt. Shakespeare is the master. So many masterpieces, so many incredibly complex and full characters. Humor, poetry, philosophy, oratory. He is unparalleled. What other writer has had the same staying power, the same influence, the same broad appeal--not just in English either? I knew many Russians who were Shakespeare lovers.

And my bardolatry is sincere. I used to listen to Shakespeare plays when I would drive around delivering pizzas. He'd be a master for Hamlet alone. But to add Lear, Othello, Much Ado, Twelfth Night, the Henriad, Midsummer's Night's Dream, Macbeth, etc. etc. etc. So many masterpieces.

It's about absolutely nothing as far as I can tell, yet takes the patience of Job to get through. It's absolutely like a Salman Rushdie book. Overwritten without purpose. No actual story that anybody can figure out. The massive section that begins with "Yes because he never did a thing like that before as ask to get his breakfast in bed with a couple of eggs since the City Arms hotel " made my eyes bleed due to lack of any punctuation whatsoever.

" "Yes because he never did a thing like that before as ask to get his breakfast in bed with a couple of eggs since the City Arms hotel " made my eyes bleed due to lack of any punctuation whatsoever. "

That is the point though. It's stream of consciousness, at its toughest.

I would disagree that a piece of literature has to necessarily "be about something". It's banality is surely one of its strengths. Of course, we would not want every piece of literature to be like this. But to have produced something like, something one might describe as am anti-novel (yet at the same time this is also a disservice), can be seen as impressive.

Joyce didn't follow the rules, he broke them.

Best books of the 20th Century: Ulysses is brilliant, though I can see why it's not to everyone's taste. I highly recommend the little-known Jennie Gerhardt, by Theodore Dreiser. Thomas Mann's Joseph and His Brothers, Lolita, Lord of the Rings, Clockwork Orange, Brideshead Revisited, Doctor Zhivago are all contenders.

And a shout-out for Robert Heinlein!

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkabhan was a triumph.

"I would disagree that a piece of literature has to necessarily "be about something"."

If it's 700 pages long, it better produce some storyline that is more memorable than lengthy descriptions of urination.

"2. You have never really read many/any other playwrights,"

Sophocles,
Aristophanes,
Euripides,
Moliere,
Whoever Wrote "Everyman" (it's anonymous),
Christopher Marlowe,
Thomas Kyd,
Jean-Paul Sartre (yes, he did plays as well),
George Bernard Shaw,
Oscar Wilde,
Samuel Beckett,
Thomas Stoppard,

And I can keep going...but wait! There's more!

"but you want to sound smart...."

Well, of course I do. I think everyone would like to sound smart...show me someone who wants to sound like an imbecile (I might be, sure, doesn't mean I want to be.) ;)

"1. You English teacher told you so"

I don't know what English teachers you have had, krellin, but mine have never instilled in me that Shakespeare is great...and I didn't read or see (or act) most of the plays of his that I have read, seen, or acted in via an English class, at least not before I read them first myself.

Sorry--the Yankees are the best team in baseball history.
Trite to say?
Well, maybe it's said a lot...but...
There's a REASON...and I'm a METS FAN...but there's a reason. :)

Same with Shakespeare, Dante, Homer, and all the other titans.

Same with the Bible (or may I call your liking that "trite" as well? That's about as "trite" as you can get, if we're going on sheer popularity and readership...)

"Yeah yeah yeah....survived the centuries, blah blah blah. Picasso is also considered a genius...have you seen the shit they call art? Did Picasso have some talent? Sure as hell did....but most of the crap you see by picasso is juvenile, not deeply inspired..."

I may not know art--but I know what I like.
And I LOVE Picasso.
And I'd LOVE to hear why you think PICASSO is "Crap" and "Juvenile."

Go ahead--go.

Tell us why "Guernica" is juvenile. :)

"By the same token, Sheakspear was good for his time....is still good to this day....but universally best of all time....please...How many plays did he write?"

37.
38 if you count "The Two Noble Kinsman," which he helped on after his retirement.
Possibly more if you attribute plays like "Edward III" and "Sir John Oldcastle" and "Arden of Favisham" to Shakespeare, as those plays are subject to authorship debate and there have been cases made for each that they were one of Shakespeare's, at least in part (haven't read them myself, so I can't tell how likely those guesses are.)

"How many DO YOU KNOW?"

How many do *I* know, and have read/seen?

Let's keep track:
1. Hamlet
2. Macbeth
3. King Lear
4. Othello
5. Romeo and Juliet
6. Antony and Cleopatra (show me where THAT is taught in schools)
7. Coriolanus (ditto)
8. Titus Andronicus
9. Henry IV Part 1
10. Henry IV Part 2
11. Henry V
12. Richard III
13. The Taming of the Shrew
14. The Merchant of Venice
15. Much Ado About Nothing
16. Twelfth Night
17. The Merry Wives of Windsor
18. A Midsummer Night's Dream
19. Richard II
20. Julius Caesar
21. The Comedy of Errors

Aaaaaand that's it.

21/37.

That's not bad.

And then there are the Sonnets...all 154 of them...

And then the individual poems--anyone here been taught "The Phoenix and the Turtle" lately in school?

:p

"The ration is not as inspiring as you would hope...."

*ratio...

And I'd say 21 plays, most of them in his top or second-tier, and then a good many sonnets and a couple of the long poems...

That's a pretty sizable amount, wouldn't you say, krellin?

As a kicker (and because I'm in for a penny already, may as well go for the pound) on DVD--9 of those:

Hamlet (1996, Branagh's version)
Macbeth (1970s with Ian McKellan and Judi Dench)
King Lear (2008, Ian McKellan again)
Much Ado About Nothing (1993, Branagh again)
Richard III (1995, Ian McKellan AGAIN)
The Taming of the Shrew (1968, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor)
Twelfth Night (1996, Helena Bonham Carter)
Titus (2000, Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange)
The Merchant of Venice (2002, Al Pacino)

And more on the way.

So, I may reference the Bard like mad...and I may say he's my favorite author...

But--not only do I mean it...but I *CAN* back up my love for the man's body of work.

"Time for some original thoughts, here...."

I agree--

Shakespeare Bashing is NOTHING original!

It wasn't original when Samuel Johnson did it...
It wasn't original when Leo Tolstoy did it...
It wasn't original when George Bernard Shaw (half) did it...

And it sure isn't original when YOU do it! ;)

THE REST IS SILENCE. (Who am I kidding...I'm NEVER silent!) :p

"Best book of whatever category, Ulysses is possibly the single worst book I have had the displeasure of reading."

Wow. Fair enough if you really dislike it I guess, Putin...not a fan of Joyce overall, or just that? (I like "Ulysses," I love how Joyce plays with style, and the idea of playing off the voyage of the Odyssey in the context of a single day's odyssey in the modern world is a great idea. I recommend "The Dead," though, if you haven't read it, part of his collection "Dubliners," and I think it's fantastic, and the ending is so poetic and open to interpretation...best use of snow ever.)

@dipplayer2004:

+1!

That is all. :)

Enemy Mine by Barry Longyear, a sci-fi novella as wonderful as it is overlooked.
Eyes of God by Philip Babcock. He absolutely nails the atmosphere of revolutionary Indonesia as Suharto's reign came to a sudden and surprising end.

@krellin: "2. You have never really read many/any other playwrights, but you want to sound smart...." Actually, I'd say citing Shakespeare as your favorite playwright is the standard, boring answer, not the "sounding smart" answer. However, in my case like many others, it also happens to be true.

After seeing your post, I did a little exercise for my own amusement. Below are the plays and musicals I can recall off the top of my head seeing live on stage (not just reading the script). As you can see, there is a wide variety and Shakespeare is still my favorite.

SHAKESPEARE PLAYS

Coriolanus
Hamlet (with Daniel Day Lewis)
King John
Macbeth
The Merchant of Venice
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Othello
Richard III (with Ian McKellen)
Romeo & Juliet
The Tempest
Twelfth Night

NON-SHAKESPEARE PLAYS

The African Company Presents Richard III (Carlyle Brown)
American Night: The Ballad of Juan Jose (Culture Clash)
A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens)
The Clay Cart (Sudraka)
Cyrano De Bergerac (Edmond Rostand)
Equivocation (Bill Cain)
Ghost Light (Tony Taccone)
Gibraltar (Octavio Solis)
An Inspector Calls (J.B. Priestley)
Intimate Apparel (Lynn Nottage) - 2004 Critics Circle for Best Play
Life Is A Dream (Pedro Calderon de la Barca)
The Mousetrap (Agatha Christie)
Napoli Millionaria (Eduardo De Filippo)
Rabbit Hole (David Lindsay-Abaire) - 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Ruined (Lynn Nottage) - 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, 2009 Critics Circle for Best Play
The Servant of Two Masters (Carlo Goldoni)
Tamara (John Krizanc)
Three Sisters (Anton Chekhov)
Throne of Blood (Akiro Kurosawa)
Tracy’s Tiger (William Saroyan)
Two Sisters and a Piano (Nilo Cruz)

MUSICALS

42nd Street
Billy Elliot
The Fantasticks
In The Heights
Les Miserables
The Mikado
Miss Saigon
The Music Man
My Fair Lady
The Pirates of Penzance
Oklahoma
Oliver
Phantom of the Opera
RENT - 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
The Scarlet Pimpernel
Spider-Man: Turn Out The Dark
Spring Awakening
Sweeney Todd
Wicked

I see live theater often. Later this month, I have tickets for:

All the Way (Schenkkan)
Animal Crackers (George Kaufman)
As You Like It (Shakespeare)
Medea/Macbeth/Cinderella (Bill Rauch)
Party People (Universes)
Troilus and Cressida (Shakespeare)
The Very Merry Wives of Windsor, Iowa (Alison Carey)

If any of them bump Shakespeare off the top, I'll mention it.

+1...

And I forgot The Tempest on my list, so 22/37, krellin

Actually, I'd say citing Shakespeare as your favorite playwright is the standard, boring answer, not the "sounding smart" answer. However, in my case like many others, it also happens to be true.

....Yeah....whatev...be a good sheep and pretend you like Shakespear the BEST...THE BEST, JERRY!!!! lol And I really love how you typed all the names of the authors in your college course syllabus....REALLY makes you look SMART....lol...NOT.

What a bunch of pretentious assholes populate this web site....I think I'd punch most of you in the face if I met you and you spewed all this pretentious bullshit...and then you would cry like a bitch, and I'd laugh and walk away....

HAnged Man -- How old are you? ARe you like 70 fucking years old that you hve seen ALLLLL the great stage plays? Or are you just some sort of young social deviant, the one kid amongst millions who has actually had the resources and will to see EVERY greatest hit of the stage? YOu are so full of fukcing shit is it **unbelievable**....Good god....come up with a believable lie. I'll believe you were forced to read various things for a college course....but to suggest that you have seen everything and anything that might be considered classic just makes you....well, a trite, gullible, pretentious asshole...or a liar.

I choose the later...as do most with any intellectual integrity reading this, whether they publicly express it or not.

CAn't wait until morons liek Obi leave academia and have to deal with REAL human beings in the REAL world...where all his pretentious bullshit earns him a job doing dishes at MCDonalds...moron

I like 6 degrees of seperation. Who wrote that again?