A BYT Listopia List...?

[Ally]

If the Bright Young Things were to create a 'Listopia' list containing the top 20 books from 1900-1945, what would be on it?

[Ivan]

Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood

Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather

Hindoo Holiday by J.R. Ackerley

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Howards End by E.M. Forster

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

[Bronwyn]

Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
Loving / Living / Party Going by Henry Green
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Something by Hemingway, though I'm not quite sure what...
Maybe Homage to Catalonia by Orwell or All Quiet on the Western Front by Remarque?

[Bronwyn]

Also, I haven't read it, but one of our German exchange students recommended Berlin Alexanderplatz The Story of Franz Biberkopf. I don't know if it really fits, but it's another country, another perspective, that seems important.

[Ally]

My choices would be...

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

The Collected Stories by Katherine Mansfield

The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

[Nigeyb]

Some great choices however any list of this era should include Orwell, Maugham, Rhys.....and Patrick Hamilton.

[Nigeyb]

Ah. Just noticed the Maugham.

By the by, I am currently reading Of Human Bondage, Maugham's supposed masterpiece, and thoroughly enjoyed it. About one sixth of the way through so early days.