{"id":3045,"date":"2019-02-26T16:37:40","date_gmt":"2019-02-26T21:37:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.michaelakahn.com\/?p=3045"},"modified":"2019-02-26T16:40:55","modified_gmt":"2019-02-26T21:40:55","slug":"most-important-books-of-all-time-let-the-debate-begin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.michaelakahn.com\/most-important-books-of-all-time-let-the-debate-begin\/","title":{"rendered":"Most Important Books of All Time? Let the Debate Begin!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Last summer I wrote a post<\/a> about a cool web page that had created road maps for your favorite road-trip novels, from Jack Kerouac\u2019s cross-country trip in On the Road<\/em> to The Cruise of the Rolling Junk<\/a><\/em>, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s description of the journey he took with his wife Zelda from Connecticut to Alabama in a old automobile he called the “Rolling Junk.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keilah Keiser, one of the creators of that post, teamed up with Jennifer Jones to put together another blog post on an equally alluring website, largest.org.<\/a> As its name indicates, that website curates lists of anything and everything that could be labeled “largest,” from the largest baseball stadiums to, I swear, “the 7 largest catfish ever caught.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But in addition to the largest pzzas ever made (and largest toy museums and largest sinkholes), Keilah, Jennifer, and the website team have compiled a list of 25 of what they claim to be “The Books that Made the Largest Impact in the World.” As the creators explained to me:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Books will continue to introduce everyone to fresh and revolutionary ideas, as they\u2019ve done throughout the past. Only a select few titles are held up around the world as international staples \u2014 most of which are known for going against the grain. Each masterpiece exposes a writer\u2019s thoughts through their words.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

That list of 25 begins more than 1,000 B.C.E. with the Torah (the 5 Books of Moses), includes other great religious works (such as the King James Bible and the Qu’ran), and several significant pre-20th-century works that range from Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of the Species<\/em> to The Communist Manifesto<\/em> by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But where the list (and the reactions) get interesting–and controversial–is when we enter the 20th Century. More than half of the books on the list were published after 1900, and the final one, published in 2003, is Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I confess that I did the reader’s version of a spit-take<\/a> when I saw that book on the list. Huh?? Dan Brown’s potboiler on the same shelf as the King James Bible and The Origin of the Species<\/em>? To their credit, the website creators offer the following justification for ending their list with The Da Vinci Code<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It made a huge impact on the world, because it was strongly criticized by the Christian faith, and more specifically by the Roman Catholic Church, for its implications that the original story of Jesus Christ was mistold. However, many readers became enthralled in the story, and it sold 80 million copies worldwide. It was also translated into 44 languages and adapted into a motion picture film.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Well, maybe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can think of at least three other books I’d add to that list–four if you could include Shakespeare’s Hamlet<\/em>, but that masterpiece, as vibrant as ever and performed every year in scores of venues around the world, is a play, not a book. In chronological order, my three additions are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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