Being That Sort of person, I had to track down the start of the meme... and no, I didn't go so far as to find whose *blog* originated it, but I found the source of the list:

CollegeBoard.com: 101 Great Books Recommended for H.S. Students & Readers of All Ages

I also found that KT's version is missing the last few (someone up the line probably did a messy cut-and-paste), and I include them here for further comment:
Williams, Tennessee — The Glass Menagerie
Woolf, Virginia — To the Lighthouse
Wright, Richard — Native Son

::grins:: And I may be stealing this soon m'self.

To add, then...

Williams, Tennessee - The Glass Menagerie Also did part of play in acting class
Woolf, Virginia — To the Lighthouse
Wright, Richard — Native Son

Oopsie.

Williams, Tennessee ? The Glass Menagerie
Woolf, Virginia ? To the Lighthouse
Wright, Richard ? Native Son

::pushes a copy of Glass Menagerie into JD's hands and sends him off to read::

By the by, I found another booboo... the original list has "Slaughterhouse Five" instead of "Harrison Bergeron" as the Vonnegut selection. I haven't read either of them (:/) but keep meaning to read S5... that's one of the ones I missed out on in high school thanks to the whole "tracking" thing (on the other hand, had I not been tracked, I would've missed a LOT of the ones I'd read from this list.

You've read a *lot* more of the Russians than I have, but I think you have more of a tolerance for looooong, epic novels than I have.

Out of curiosity... what have you read that you think *belongs* on this list? (You don't need to list the *entire* Austen canon, remember. ;) )

Oh dear lord in heaven... list all the books that should be on there and aren't...

Do I have to do it in alphabetical order, or just "as they occur to me"?

Hmmmmm... working on this.

Herman Raucher - Summer of '42
The Outsiders - S.E. Hinton
The Lottery - Shirley Jackson
Tennant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Bronte
Persuation - Jane Austen
O Pioneers - Willa Cather
Little House on the Prairie - Laura Ingalls Wilder
1984 - George Orwell
War of the Worlds - HG Wells
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne
Death of a Salesman - Arthur Miller
A Modest Proposal - Johnathon Swift
The Literary Crimes of James Finnemore Cooper - Mark Twain
The Last Tzar - (dunno, it's the story about Nick II, but I can't find it on amazon)
The Vicar of Wakefield - Oliver Goldsmith
Dracula - Bram Stoker
Lady Chatterly's Lover - D. H. Lawrence
Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
Paradice Lost - John Milton
Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert Heinlein
Grendel - John Gardner
Morte'd Arthur (sp?) - Sir Thomas Malory (even if all of Arthur was spoiled for me by a stupid fuck of an english professor)
Diary of Anne Frank - Anne Frank
Coming Out of the Ice - Victor Herman
Inherit the Wind - Jerome Lawrence
My Antonia - Willa Cather
The Prince - Machiavelli
Taming of the Shrew - William Shakespeare (why does no one ever suggest reading his comedies? they're really really great!)
For Whom the Bell Tolls - LaRocque DuBose
Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Caroll
One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey

Why does no one ever suggest reading Shakespeare's comedies? For the same reason that comedies never win Best Picture at the Academy Awards... Snooty people are convinced that if it's fun, and especially if it's funny, then it can't be "deep." And if it's not deep, then it can't really be worthy of acclaim.

That's soooo stupid. Comedy is MUCH harder to write than serious stuff. And what people find funny tells a great deal about their character. That Shakespeare's comedies have endured and are often still hysterically funny today is a lot more impressive than his tragedies being tragic. Humor is one of the last things to pass over when learning a new language because it's such a difficult concept.

::sigh::

Snooty people have no sense. Why do they get to make the decisions?

Because people with senses of humor don't have *enough* of a sense of humor to endure the utter foolishness of academic politics, so the stuffy people get to keep all the high seats.

My Pre-Elizibethan Drama prof had something interesting to say about comedy v. drama, and I'm going to screw it up a little by not remembering *exactly* what he said. But basically, if you look at the supporting characters in a tragedy, they're all pretty comedic most of the time (think of all the puns in Shakespeare... the best ones are in his tragedies. Think of Mercutio in R&J). And the supporting characters in a comedy are generally pretty tragic (heck, even the main characters... what are Punch and Judy but a shrew and a wife-beating drunkard?). Says interesting things about balance, doesn't it? A tragedy won't work unless you have those sparkly characters to offset it, and a comedy with no tragic elements is just so much saccharine.

I think it'd be a neat variant on the list for people to make up their own "101 Great Books" lists, possibly using the College Board's list as a starting point (or not, I suppose).

And I think the Last Tsar book you're looking for is by Edvard Radzinsky.