My favorites from the Modern 100

As a relatively short follow up, I am not going to list all the books that I did read from the Modern Library's 100 best novels list, though one could figure it out if one was so inclined by going through the ones I have not yet read.  But what might be of interest is what I consider the best of the just under 50 that I have read (probably over 50 when both lists are combined).

These aren't in any particular order, but all of them seem to me to have significant literary merit, as well as a certain cachet, so that one does pick up a certain amount of cultural capital from reading these books.  I guess I am claiming that they are essentially the best of the best, as least given my literary tastes and interests.

The Great Gatsby -- F. Scott Fitzgerald
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man -- James Joyce
Ulysses -- James Joyce 
The Adventures of Augie March -- Saul Bellow
Invisible Man -- Ralph Ellison
Song of Solomon -- Toni Morrison
Absalom, Absalom! -- William Faulkner 
Heart of Darkness -- Joseph Conrad
To the Lighthouse -- Virginia Woolf
Mrs. Dalloway -- Virginia Woolf
1984 -- George Orwell
The Good Soldier -- Ford Madox Ford
White Noise -- Don DeLillo
The Alexandria Quartet -- Lawrence Durrell
A House for Mr. Biswas -- V.S. Naipaul
Under the Net -- Iris Murdoch

And there a few that sort of sneak in under the wire due to having been nominated by average readers:
The Handmaid's Tale -- Margaret Atwood
Gravity's Rainbow -- Thomas Pynchon 
The Deptford Trilogy -- Robertson Davies

I don't really reread books that often, but these are all ones that I would at least consider rereading, and indeed a few are likely candidates to get added to the long reading list over the next few years.

It appears that when I was discussing the books that have been most influential to me here, I selected three from the ones listed above: Song of Solomon, Invisible Man and White Noise.

I actually came fairly close to adding in Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time (Modern Library #43), but that is such a major investment of time and the series really peters out towards the end of book 10 (of 12!).  The one that is probably the most obscure and yet incredibly rewarding is Durrell's The Alexandria Quartet, but really I don't think you could go wrong in reading any of these 19, though I suppose most readers will either really like or dislike Gravity's Rainbow.  To make it an even 20 that I am recommending (before I add any more that I happen to read from the list(s) in the next few years), I will add The Autobiography of Malcolm X (written with Alex Haley), which is on their list of greatest non-fiction books.