The MLA Top 100: Jocks or Nerds

by Joey Stern · February 16, 2016

Fact: All lists and things being listed can be subdivided as for Jocks, or for Nerds.

The Modern Library’s Top 100 Novels list—hilariously compare to the Reader’s list, featuring “Battlefield Earth” (Jocks), and 2 Ayn Rand books (JOOOOCKKKKKS)— is no exception. Joey (and our gorgeous illustrator, Bridget) have started you off, you go from here in the comments. Please also feel free to disagree with him and amongst yourselves.

  1. “Ulysses,” James Joyce – Jocks
  2. “The Great Gatsby,” F. Scott Fitzgerald – Jocks
  3. “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” James Joyce – Nerds
  4. “Lolita,” Vladimir Nabokov – Jocks
  5. “Brave New World,” Aldous Huxley – Nerds
  6. “The Sound and the Fury,” William Faulkner – Jocks
  7. “Catch-22,” Joseph Heller – Jocks
  8. “Darkness at Noon,” Arthur Koestler – Jocks
  9. “Sons and Lovers,” D. H. Lawrence – this review makes me assume it’s for nerds… but things about men up to age 25 might be inherently jocky?
  10. “The Grapes of Wrath,” John Steinbeck – Jocks
  11. “Under the Volcano,” Malcolm Lowry – Jocks
  12. “The Way of All Flesh,” Samuel Butler – Nerds
  13. “1984,” George Orwell – Nerds
  14. “I, Claudius,” Robert Graves – Jocks
  15. “To the Lighthouse,” Virginia Woolf – Nerds
  16. “An American Tragedy,” Theodore Dreiser – Jocks
  17. “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter,” Carson McCullers – Jocks
  18. “Slaughterhouse Five,” Kurt Vonnegut – Nerds (Nicole disagrees with this and some other placements -Ed.)
  19. “Invisible Man,” Ralph Ellison – Nerds
  20. “Native Son,” Richard Wright – Jocks
  21. “Henderson the Rain King,” Saul Bellow – Jocks
  22. “Appointment in Samarra,” John O’ Hara – Jocks
  23. “U.S.A.” (trilogy), John Dos Passos – Jocks
  24. “Winesburg, Ohio,” Sherwood Anderson – Jocks
  25. “A Passage to India,” E. M. Forster – Nerds
  26. “The Wings of the Dove,” Henry James – Nerds
  27. “The Ambassadors,” Henry James – Nerds
  28. “Tender Is the Night,” F. Scott Fitzgerald – Jocks
  29. “The Studs Lonigan Trilogy,” James T. Farrell – Nerds
  30. “The Good Soldier,” Ford Madox Ford – Jocks
  31. “Animal Farm,” George Orwell – Nerds
  32. “The Golden Bowl,” Henry James
  33. “Sister Carrie,” Theodore Dreiser
  34. “A Handful of Dust,” Evelyn Waugh
  35. “As I Lay Dying,” William Faulkner
  36. “All the King’s Men,” Robert Penn Warren
  37. “The Bridge of San Luis Rey,” Thornton Wilder
  38. “Howards End,” E. M. Forster
  39. “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” James Baldwin
  40. “The Heart of the Matter,” Graham Greene
  41. “Lord of the Flies,” William Golding – Nerds’ Horror story
  42. “Deliverance,” James Dickey – Jocks’ Horror Story
  43. “A Dance to the Music of Time” (series), Anthony Powell
  44. “Point Counter Point,” Aldous Huxley
  45. “The Sun Also Rises,” Ernest Hemingway – Jocks (SO OBVIOUS)
  46. “The Secret Agent,” Joseph Conrad
  47. “Nostromo,” Joseph Conrad
  48. “The Rainbow,” D. H. Lawrence
  49. “Women in Love,” D. H. Lawrence
  50. “Tropic of Cancer,” Henry Miller
  51. “The Naked and the Dead,” Norman Mailer
  52. “Portnoy’s Complaint,” Philip Roth
  53. “Pale Fire,” Vladimir Nabokov
  54. “Light in August,” William Faulkner
  55. “On the Road,” Jack Kerouac
  56. “The Maltese Falcon,” Dashiell Hammett
  57. “Parade’s End,” Ford Madox Ford
  58. “The Age of Innocence,” Edith Wharton
  59. “Zuleika Dobson,” Max Beerbohm
  60. “The Moviegoer,” Walker Percy
  61. “Death Comes to the Archbishop,” Willa Cather
  62. “From Here to Eternity,” James Jones
  63. “The Wapshot Chronicles,” John Cheever
  64. “The Catcher in the Rye,” J. D. Salinger
  65. “A Clockwork Orange,” Anthony Burgess
  66. “Of Human Bondage,” W. Somerset Maugham
  67. “Heart of Darkness,” Joseph Conrad
  68. “Main Street,” Sinclair Lewis
  69. “The House of Mirth,” Edith Wharton
  70. “The Alexandria Quartet,” Lawrence Durrell
  71. “A High Wind in Jamaica,” Richard Hughes
  72. “A House for Ms. Biswas,” V. S. Naipaul
  73. “The Day of the Locust,” Nathaniel West
  74. “A Farewell to Arms,” Ernest Hemingway
  75. “Scoop,” Evelyn Waugh
  76. “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,” Muriel Spark
  77. “Finnegans Wake,” James Joyce
  78. “Kim,” Rudyard Kipling
  79. “A Room With a View,” E. M. Forster
  80. “Brideshead Revisited,” Evelyn Waugh
  81. “The Adventures of Augie March,” Saul Bellow
  82. “Angle of Repose,” Wallace Stegner
  83. “A Bend in the River,” V. S. Naipaul
  84. “The Death of the Heart,” Elizabeth Bowen
  85. “Lord Jim,” Joseph Conrad
  86. “Ragtime,” E. L. Doctorow
  87. “The Old Wives’ Tale,” Arnold Bennett
  88. “The Call of the Wild,” Jack London
  89. “Loving,” Henry Green
  90. “Midnight’s Children,” Salman Rushdie
  91. “Tobacco Road,” Erskine Caldwell
  92. “Ironweed,” William Kennedy
  93. “The Magus,” John Fowles
  94. “Wide Sargasso Sea,” Jean Rhys
  95. “Under the Net,” Iris Murdoch
  96. “Sophie’s Choice,” William Styron
  97. “The Sheltering Sky,” Paul Bowles
  98. “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” James M. Cain
  99. “The Ginger Man,” J. P. Donleavy
  100. “The Magnificent Ambersons,” Booth Tarkington

Joey Stern is an aspiring writer who lives in Brooklyn with his husband and their two cats. He most closely identifies with Bender in the episode of Futurama where he builds a giant flame belching statue of himself that screams “Remember Me.” Please forward all writings you find by Joey to friends and (ideally) young people so that he can have a Wikipedia page and soothe his crushing fear about facing his own mortality.

Bridget Gibson is a graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art and currently lives and works in Monmouth County, New Jersey.


191 Comments

  2. sigaloenta +76

    Wait no. How ON EARTH is I Claudius for jocks and not for nerds? It’s like the nerd-fantasy-est book ever

    3. Household_Opera +18

      Agreed. Classics nerds are some of the nerdiest nerds out there (says a former classics nerd who’s still one at heart).

  3. Biblioholic +31

    Parade’s End is Team Nerd, but… posh old-world nerd, which I think is the 19th-century equivalent of Jock in terms of privilege and entitlement.

    Heart of Darkness is for Jocks. On the Road is Team Jock (post-high school).

    I’m really unsure where to classify Wide Sargasso Sea.

    Midnight’s Children should not be on this list. Satanic Verses was better.

    1. sausagedog +7

      +1,000 to Satanic Verses being better. I liked Midnight’s Children, but I cannot remember anything about it except the descriptions of the chutneys at the chutney factory.

      Going to posit that Satanic Verses – Jocks, Midnight’s Children – Nerds?

      1. elisarebecca +7

        Satanic Verses chapter 1, where they’re falling from the plane and you can’t tell what’s happening and what/if the metaphors are that you’re missing – Nerds. Rest of book – Jocks

  4. Lizzie_Sidds +46

    Heart of Darkness- I would say nerds except it spawned Apocalypse Now so Jocks. Also I hated it in high school so jocks.

    2. uemmak +22

      I also feel like anything that colonial MUST fall to jocks? There’s just something inherently jock-ish and bully-like about the book. (And I’m talking classic 80’s movie bullies, not Nice Guy, gatekeeping geek bullies.)

      1. Lizzie_Sidds +12

        I agree with all of this, especially the colonialism. But I mean the literal actual starting quarterback was in my AP English class when we did Heart of Darkness and SPOILER he loved it. He was a nice guy, but c’mon. Quarterback. He was also ruggedly good-looking. There’s no saving HoD from JOCK.

        1. uemmak +15

          There is not. Although, I find it hilarious what the jocks in my high school liked. I was in grade ten history with pretty much the entire boys hockey team and they all LOVED “Fiddler on the Roof.” (Why we were watching Fiddler on the Roof is another story.)

    3. Zelenka +4

      Marlow is a nerd who spends most of his time observing jocks. Kurtz is a jock, obviously, and Jim is a nerd who thinks he’s a jock.

    1. Buck the Chorkie +18

      Can it be Nerd if you’re ironically quoting it to your purse dog as she poops in the snow? I think it’s more Nerd then.

  7. Sarah +112

    I really enjoyed counting all the non-white non-male authors on this list. I used almost all of my fingers!

  8. readalongcassidy +15

    Anything by Dreiser is for jocks. (Any naturalist.) Anything by Tarkington, too.

    Anything by Henry James is for nerds.

    2. thejcar +7

      Strongly agree on Pale Fire for nerds (the allusions! the structure! the phrase “backyard auto-da-fé”). In fact, I really question how the original list classifies Lolita as for jocks? I can’t imagine any Nabokov that way! And while there is certainly some spiritual distance between ~hurricane Lolita~ and say, Pnin, I still can’t quite get there…

      1. Queenjulie +5

        I think Lolita makes the jock list if you read it literally, and it makes the nerd list if you understand the concept of an unreliable narrator.

    1. atlasblue85 +8

      yes! I am currently reading it and there are WAY too many feelings in there for jocks tbh. A high school boy (who is a huge nerd) /cries/. major nerd reading material right there.

  11. sausagedog +36

    Has there ever been a book more for Nerds than Brave New World?

    As I Lay Dying – Nerds (because they like to claim to get the mom/fish bit)
    Kim – Jocks (my mom likes it; my mom is a Jock)
    Catcher in the Rye- Jocks, fight me (may not fight back, am at work)

    1. britomartian +9

      oh man I thought this said nerds claim to like the mom/fish bit and I DO!! I don’t claim to get it, though

      1. irishbreakfasttime +6

        just seeing a reference to that line takes me RIGHT back to high school, when most of my nerd friends were at a different school and had to read that book while I didn’t. It took me ages to figure out why they kept saying it.

        1. sausagedog +12

          That diagnosis was based very much on my AP Lit class in high school, when two of my friends, one jock and one nerd, got into an argument about whether the line was brilliant or obtuse.

          Actually, those two framed a lot of the stuff we read in AP Lit into jock/nerd dichotomies for me, thanks guys!

      2. Drea +7

        I don’t claim to get that bit either, but goddamn if it isn’t one of the most vivid bits of any book I ever had to read in college. This may partially be because while musing over it my class ended up translating, “My mother is a fish,” into as many languages as we could manage.

    2. manuscriptgeek +71

      A *boring* sausagefest. I can’t think of anything I’d less like to do than read this many twentieth-century novels by old or dead white men.

      1. bookwormV +16

        I feel less bad about how few I have read now. (Especially as I have an English degree. It didn’t cover much after 1600 or so, though.)

  13. fathomsdeep +27

    Pale Fire is so Nerds. I base this assessment on my memories of reading it around four years ago and also on the following extract from the linked review:

    ‘[Nabokov] likes inventing words—even phrases from imaginary languages. He likes mockery for its own sake. He likes submitting to the intoxication of rhetoric, so that tropes and fancies mingle with wonderfully precise pieces of observation. Trained lepidopterist as he is, the smaller the object under his microscope the better he sees it, the more lovingly he describes its rarity. He uses English—to him only one of several possible languages and not the best—as a child demonstrates a toy railway. Look, the trains go backward and forward; they dash through toy tunnels; they stop at toy stations; sometimes it is rather fun to set the points so that they fall off the rails at a corner. Then they lie on their backs and the wheels whiz uselessly in the air.’

    I rest my case.

    1. Sean_Sullivan +8

      Shade and Nabokov are nerds, but I feel Kinbote is a jock:

      …Then as now
      I walked at my own risk: whipped by the bough,
      Tripped by the stump. Asthmatic, lame and fat,
      I never bounced a ball or swung a bat.*

      *Frankly I too never excelled in soccer and cricket; I am a passable horseman, a vigorous though unorthodox skier, a good skater, a tricky wrestler, and an enthusiastic rock-climber.

      1. fathomsdeep +8

        This is very true! Unless his unreliability as narrator extends even as far as his assessment of his sporting ability – could he be a Nerd who just fantasises about being a Jock?

        I love how Pale Fire really invites in-depth conversations even about topics like whether it’s a book for Jocks or Nerds.

    2. bird_internet +18

      Any book that requires you to flip back and forth and look for clues and references is definitely for nerds.

    2. jimmyjimjimjim +20

      It’s pretty easy, can you imagine “I’m a big fan of Ulysses” being used to get laid? That criteria moves 1984 into jock category but I’m okay with that.

      1. uemmak +15

        But could you actually use this line to get laid? I have trouble imagining the person that line would work on. I mean, either you are not a huge lit. nerd and you don’t care- or you are a huge lit. nerd and you instantly either 1) hate this person on principle, or 2) geek out about Ulysses. I can’t see any of those options resulting in sex, especially if you were lying.

        1. jimmyjimjimjim +8

          Well, you could try.

          It’s that stereotype of the semi/pseudo intellectual-chauvinist liberal-arts lothario. There’s books that “having an opinion on” marks you as deep and intellectual.

          I’m not saying it works, just that it is of a certain type that often pops up in fiction (I was a physicist in an engineering school so I can’t speak to it’s veracity).

          1. uemmak +7

            I totally agree! I would just be interested to hear of any real-world instances of this working.

            (Full disclosure: through a series of unfortunate sabbatical decisions on the part of the English Department at my university I did my fourth-year major project on Ulysses. I STILL can’t imagine it either working on or for me. Maybe it’s different for men.)

    3. Kwyjor +16

      Maybe it’s one of those things where nerds aren’t going to try to read it, meaning its utility lies solely in its ability to be wielded as a weapon?

      Or maybe it’s like the book, personified, is a jock? “Oh, so you think you’re going to read me? Ha ha, you’ll give up three pages in, you wimp!”

      1. Meg +1

        I’m definitely leaning towards option 2. Books written as a structural feat (Ulysses, House of Leaves, etc.) are pretty much inherently jock-y.

    2. thezlot +3

      But isn’t Brideshead about Charles’s longing to be an aristocratic jock, and that’s why Sebastian has to fade away into gay nerd death? (But I guess Rex Mottram, the novel’s Big Jock, is not great jock representation)

    4. aurorabirdialis +3

      Heart of Darkness being a jock book would explain why I hated it so much. Because I did.

      Strangely, I have loved other Conrad works.

  17. irishbreakfasttime +24

    I’m feeling VERY conflicted on Slaughterhouse-Five! And Vonnegut in general. He’s so nerdy, but in this over the top, self conscious way that doesn’t put off the jock reader. And if you’re going to categorize war books as jock books…hmm…but c’mon, what nerd doesn’t have a shelf full of his books? I’m TORN.

    1. jimmyjimjimjim +16

      I haven’t read any Vonnegut except for his excellent rules for good writing (I am one of perhaps two people in the world [Vonnegut having been the third] that agrees with “Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense…”) however what I associate Vonnegut with more than anything is people (about 35% libertarians and 25% acoustic guitar players) who read Slaughterhouse Five and the spark notes of Harrison Bergeron in highschool (and nothing else remotely “literary” [unless they’re the 35% libertarians and/or judge literature by weight and thus include Atlas Shrugged]) and really want me to know how important they are (any structural ambiguity as to whether “they” refers to the people or the books is intentional).

      1. irishbreakfasttime +11

        HMMM at first pass that sounds like something a nerd would do but on deeper thought, a nerd wouldn’t show off such shallow knowledge of the subject. You can nerd out on Vonnegut if you like but having the full set (with uncreased spines) displayed prominently on your shelf is a jock move.

  18. jlper +13

    “The Bridge of San Luis Rey,” “Tropic of Cancer,” and “The Ginger Man” are all clearly for Jocks; “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” “All the Kings Men,” and “The Moviegoer” are for Nerds.

  19. Doctor Jay +5

    That “Catch-22” is even on this list surprises me, let alone that it’s number 7. Not that I don’t like it, it just seems to me to be past its time.

    1. jimmyjimjimjim +46

      I don’t read a lot of ‘good’ books but one thing that Catch-22 does really well is that it starts out being humorous and ends being horrifying with out ever actually changing tone. That’s a timeless trick to be able to pull off.

      1. uemmak +10

        This is one of my favourite things in literature. When it’s pulled off well (and I agree about Catch-22) it’s absolutely chilling. You just feel like you have to question how wrong you are about everything.

      2. neuromanticism +33

        Yes. The book kind of circles around it, as if the desperation and horror is so impossible to stand that you can’t even look at it. But the text keeps coming back, like when you have a sore tooth that you can’t help touching with your tongue. I don’t like it when people call this book funny, even. It has lots of jokes, sure, but that’s not the same thing. The undercurrent is there from the beginning, but you don’t notice it until it’s already pulled you down. The Snowden of yesteryear? That’s not funny, that’s how you try to ask an unspeakable question when everyone’s refusing to hear it.

        Yossarian’s conversation with whatshisname (Clive?) where he says “they’re trying to kill me” and the other guy mansplains that it’s not personal, they’re trying to kill everybody, and Yossarian flips out? That’s not funny either, because he’s right. It’s just that there’s no sane way left to speak the truth, because “sanity” now sounds like Clive, who thinks it’s okay that the Germans are trying to kill Yossarian because it’s not personal.

        Honestly I recognise a lot of feminist conversations on abuse and domestic violence and such, that crazy-making pain and grief when people Just. Won’t. Hear. It. Sometimes they have something to gain from standing by, even though you might be really, really badly hurt.

        Catch-22 is about that knowledge. What it feels to realise it, to try to speak up, to try to find the right words that will make them pay attention so that they’ll stop it. And then, to realise that they aren’t ignorant, they do know, they’ve just accepted that you’re collateral damage. They not only know that you’re dying, they’ve had the funeral already. You’re a ghost.

        I love that book, and it’s NOT jockish. The jocks just think it’s funny! Did they never read past the first half??

        1. GruntledDave +12

          This was a fantastic unpacking of the novel and a great comment. Thanks for writing it! 🙂

          1. neuromanticism +3

            Thank you for reading it! I have so many thoughts on this book and I don’t know anyone else who’s read it (it’s not assigned in schools here)

        2. jimmyjimjimjim +6

          Yeah I’m with Dave. We’ve all moved on to Gryffindor bashing but this is great and helps me put-to coherent sentences quite a bit of the thought I’ve had about the dread in the book.

        4. Queenjulie +4

          This is the best commentary on Catch-22 I’ve ever read, and I love Onymous’s “It starts out being humorous and ends being horrifying with out ever actually changing tone.” You guys are awesome and totally encapsulated why I love Catch-22 but probably won’t ever read it again–its dedication to showing how strongly people will simply look away from terrible things is fucking terrifying.

          1. neuromanticism +2

            Thank you. I’m really humbled that people said so many nice things.

            I get what you mean, it’s been years since last time I read it, but some chapters are impossible to forget. Everything you thought you knew (this is what the book is like, these are the characters, this is the general “feel” of the story) drops away and everything goes wrong. I mean… Kid Sampson and the pilot. Arfy the navigator and the girl. JESUS.

    2. bird_internet +16

      I mean, half of Classic Literature is about 19th-century nobles vying to inherit tracts of land, so by comparison I’d say it’s pretty cutting-edge.

    3. octopoda +14

      Really? It is one of my favorites and I’ve re-read it several times. I think the humor / horror that Onymous mentioned holds up.

  20. GingerHawk +9

    Also, I’m loving how much genre fiction there is on the reader’s list in comparison to the library’s list once you get past the Ayn Rand.

    1. irishbreakfasttime +9

      welp, the reader’s list answers the question “so, was there a date limit on this list? because that would explain why Beloved isn’t on it” for me. 🙁

    2. dcbrierton +12

      So much genre fiction by super specific authors! I like Charles de Lint, but, really?

      It appears the Reader’s List was compiled via poll (I’m guessing at least partially an internet poll) in 1998. That explains some stuff.

  21. Kevin Thomsen +21

    I like how the jock looks like she’s gonna spike Ulysses in the end zone when she finishes it.

  22. irishbreakfasttime +16

    I could be convinced either way on A Clockwork Orange, but I’m calling it for Nerds because what nerd doesn’t love a book full of references they can drop later to identify fellow nerds?

  23. Readerbeth +28

    I am very conflicted by the placement of F. Scott Fitzgerald books on the jock list, for I was taught that he was the natural antithesis to High King Jock Ernst Hemingway. That should make him the nerdiest nerd who ever nerded, right?

    1. vividshivers +45

      That’s fascinating because to me F. Scott Fitzgerald is just SO CLEARLY in the jock category, like what nerd really *feels* the ennui and disillusionment of having to go to so many parties that eventually you realize your life is vapid and nothing?

      At least that’s what I got out of the Great Gatsby, maybe that’s the Nerdist reading.

      1. Readerbeth +25

        I get it. But there is absolutely no denying that Hemingway was a jock, and everything he had to say about Fitzgerald in a Moveable Feast just made him sound like the fluffiest sensitive little nerdy bunny rabbit who had somehow managed to get a Hot Party Wife he was desperate to keep up with and keep happy, and maybe that hits my Nerd sensors more than it should?

        Also, I kinda assumed that going to parties all the time was a mandatory pastime in the 20s, and as such my nerdy social anxiety tendencies would have made it nightmarish and alienating (much like my impression of all the party descriptions in Gatsby). All the (privileged) horrible people in that book are jocks, which made me think the book is actually anti-jock: Tom Buchanan is a former jock, and I tend to think he is THE WORST (Daisy is clearly a former cheerleader and also a close second in worstness). Jordan: cheating jock. But Nick and Gatsby are nerds: Nick is just lost in a sea of social confusion around him, and Gatsby has the classic nerd trait of being super obsessive and delusional over his interests. Like me, debating Star Wars).

        I guess what I’m saying is I LIKE Fitzgerald and I want him on my team (Team Nerd)

        1. irishbreakfasttime +17

          ooh, that is so interesting, I read Nick as a jock because his role is basically to fit in, be easygoing, and navigate unfamiliar social situations without thinking too deeply about them until later. But now I can see why nerd applies just as easily, that’s an inherent jock thing but Nick is working at it, it’s a nerd SKILL. oooooh.

          and now I wonder how many opinions in this thread are based on bad English teacher spite. the list is old and white enough that I’m sure mine would approve [giant exasperated eyeroll]

          1. Maryaed +17

            Nick’s a jock who wants to be a nerd. The one guy in the frat who read a couple of books and thinks that makes him better and he should score smart chicks as a result. And Hemingway was just trying to prove he was straighter than the other jocks, as a defense.

        2. Queenjulie +3

          Tom is not the worst; he’s just being himself, and unfortunately, himself is a pretty terrible guy. But at least he’s genuine. Nick is the WORST. The WORST worst. I hate Nick and his shitty, insincere refusal to be an actualized human being with the fire of a thousand suns.

          (Sorry. I apparently have strong feelings about Nick.)

      2. Readerbeth +24

        Also I had a terrible misogynist American literature teacher in high school who loved Hemingway and used him as proof that Fitzgerald was a wimp and probably Gay for Hemingway (which was synonymous with wimp in his eyes) and I hated that teacher and subsequently adopted Fitzgerald as my own to cherish and love and protect. I realize that, as a result, my view of Fitzgerald is not necessarily an accurate portrayal of a real human being but a testament to everything that horrible teacher was against, but I have lived for over twenty years with this teacher-hatred/Fitzgerald-worship and I am not changing my world view now.

      3. irishbreakfasttime +24

        Gatsby is SO CLEARLY a jock book to me too!
        1. Nick’s a jock, SUCH a jock
        2. The symbolism and stuff is so obvious, it doesn’t present enough of a challenge for the nerd reader
        3. It can be a fun party theme but only if you don’t overthink it

    2. RocktheDebit +24

      To me Gatsby seems like someone who made himself into a Jock by study and diligence… so a closet Nerd?

  24. Frumiosa +44

    This needs a second pass based on Harry Potter houses. Which I suggest because I’m a nerd. And a Ravenclaw.

  25. Readerbeth +9

    Am I missing a joke about Ulysses being misspelled in the picture? Is it implying that jocks are too dumb to know the difference? Because that seems unduly cruel…especially to whatever copy editor worked on getting that book published.

  26. Either_Ada +54

    I can’t even contemplate jock v. nerd when the paucity of ladies on this list just makes me want to punch it.

  27. Hoolia +21

    Any top books list that includes A Catcher In the Rye lacks all credibility to me. Such a stupid book. And for it to rank higher than Of Human Bondage, which is basically the same annoying story but slightly better, is absurd. Although ACITR is at least a shorter, quicker read, so I guess that’s a point in its favor.

    I hate a lot of these book. I’m not sure a lot of them are for Jocks or for Nerds so much as for People Who Want to Seem Well-Educated More Than They Want To Read Anything Good.

    1. Teacherlady +8

      Yes! Basically my reaction, too. Though maybe replace People Who Want to Seem Well-Educated with White Men who Want to Seem Well-Educated…

    1. jimmyjimjimjim +12

      London and Hemingway both.

      (though having grown up in Alaska I am required by law to have a great deal of fondness for White Fang, Call of the Wild and To Build a Fire)

  29. diaryofamadeditor +88

    I believe Anthony Burgess slammed Jane Austen by saying that her novels fail because they “lack the masculine thrust of the pen.” And I have to be like, “well, at least her books are readable, written with a pen & ink instead of splooge”

    JOCK.

  30. wallpaperori +21

    All Forster (Howard’s End, Passage To India on the list) is Nerds, EXCEPT Maurice, which is JOCKS.

  31. thesaureye +50

    I could be wrong about this, but I get kind of a jock vibe from some Orwell fans? Not all, obviously, but the kind of people who “don’t normally read literature” but will jump right to Animal Farm when you bring up progressive taxation or to 1984 when you ask them not to use slurs.

      1. melbacoast +5

        Animal Farm can be classified as “Nerd” if the appreciator appends it with, “well, it’s my favorite novella, if that counts…”

    2. bird_internet +39

      Are these people even Orwell fans, or just people who haven’t learned any new metaphors since sophomore English?

      1. uemmak +35

        Yes, when someone tells me that their favourite books are 1984, or Animal Farm (or To Kill a Mockingbird) all I hear is “I haven’t read a book since high school.”

        1. Biblioholic +14

          My bf’s favorite book is Animal Farm. He does read 6-10 books a year, but it’s all Dan Brown type stuff. I think he likes Animal Farm because of its brevity, and saying that’s his fav. book sounds more impressive than saying the Da Vinci Code or some book about pirates.

          Meanwhile, I can pontificate for 20 minutes on whether Lolita or Pride and Prejudice are my favorite books, then usually settle on Harry Potter in the end. Opposites attract.

    3. fakely_mctest +18

      I think that Orwell’s jock fans are the ones who are really into his work as a rough and tumble journalism guy. Like this: “Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations”? Pure jock-bait.

  32. ramina +6

    I was gonna say that anything Joseph Conrad is jocks, but somehow the wires in my brain got tangled and I thought he wrote Death Be Not Proud but that wasn’t him, it was John Gunther, which isn’t anything LIKE Joseph Conrad. Oops. Guess my nerd card needs to be revoked.

    Also, hi illustrator! I too live and work in Monmouth County, it’s so nice to see that I’m not the only one! (It feels that way sometimes.)

  33. theinstagrahame +17

    Pretty sure Clockwork Orange is a book that Jocks like, but don’t understand. Nerds understand it, and have mixed feelings about it (largely epending on whether you read the English or American abridged version.)

      1. felaleof +23

        A book about how a woman’s destiny is determined by the intersection of her sex, race, class, and society definitely fits under Nerds.

        I’d classify most books that are even tangentially related to the Brontës, bookish women with Great and Terrible Secret Passions, as Nerd books. (Yes, even The Eyre Affair.)

        1. uemmak +16

          I LOVE the Eyre Affair. (And it is totally for nerds. It exists in a universe with door-to-door Shakespeare authorship proselytizers.)

  35. itiresias +13

    Also, Slaughterhouse Five is definitely for Jocks, but most (if not all) other Vonnegut is for the Nerd camp. (Sirens of Titan and Slapstick fans, anyone?)

    1. neuromanticism +10

      Slaughterhouse Five is the unmanliest book I’ve ever read (certainly the unmanliest war novel), which I mean in the best possible way. There’s not a macho bone in its body. People just stumble around and fail a lot and try to forgive each other and feel sorry for hurt horses and starving Russians. There’s no bravado, none. I have to vote Nerd, maybe even Dork (also in the best possible way).

    2. rolotomassi5 +5

      Cat’s Cradle is fixated on chemistry destroying the world and new languages and religions developing in the wake of said destruction. NERDS!

  36. catcet +16

    I feel like Lolita switches between being Jock and Nerd based on what you think the point of it is.

    Also, The Magus is definitely Jock, despite the truckload of references and puzzles. It’s just so much about This Guy and it’s full of people stating hard opinions and it feels like Fowles pushing to see how much literature he can fit into one book, which seems like a very Jock thing to do.

    1. alula_auburn +6

      oh my God, my brother and uncle–who I normally think have decent taste–teamed up to nag me into reading The Magus a couple of years ago and this explains so much of why I felt gaaaaaah the whole time. (And perhaps it reads better if you haven’t had to read a lot of Freud-influenced lit theory I GET IT FOWLES). Although, um, my Goddamn Novel in process is stuffed with references to things I love which I thought made it quintessentially Nerdy.

      1. uemmak +3

        I feel like it’s the love that makes it nerdy? Like if you really love all the references you are throwing in (think Sayers or even Willis) then that will shine through and make it seem slightly less like an endurance course.

        1. alula_auburn +4

          heh, thanks. I sometimes say one of the things the book is about is having been a lonely child who got a lot of their emotional needs filled by nerding out about stuff, and learning to try to depend on/gain comfort from actual people, too. So I’m big on the love. <3

      2. catcet +3

        Oh, references to things you love are awesome and very definitely Nerdy. The Jockishness comes from that feeling that it’s all there as a challenge and to prove how much you know. Like, I read it for English class in my senior year of high school, essentially as an exercise in understanding allusions and literary tools, and while it was interesting at the time to pull it apart and figure out what it all meant I don’t actually have any affection for it. A Jock book makes you feel accomplished for getting to the end, while a Nerd book done right makes you want to read it again.

  37. freshwaterpearl +14

    Dance to the Music of Time: nnnneeerrrrrrds. Some of the most emotional parts of that series are when friends get together to talk about what art is. One of the books in the series is called Books Do Furnish a Room. There are some cheerful healthy young men who might approach jockhood but they mostly disappear once the narrator finishes secondary school. And this is how he approaches his time in the army during World War II: “A French writer who’d been a regular officer said the whole point of soldiering was its bloody boring side. The glamour, such as it was, was just a bit of exceptional luck if it came your way.”

    “Did he?” said Gwatkin.

    He spoke without a vestige of interest. I was impressed for the ten thousandth time by the fact that literature illuminates life only for those to whom books are a necessity. Books are unconvertible assets, to be passed on only to those who possess them already.

    1. Ms__M +4

      “…literature illuminates life only for those to whom books are a necessity.”

      Y’know, I’ve been meaning to read this series for a long time. This might have sealed the deal. (AHHHHHHHH, internal screaming)

  38. Zigzaggings +31

    I feel like we need sub-categories. Some ideas:

    Disillusioned jock (age of innocence)
    Jock who thinks of themself as a nerd (slaughterhouse five)
    Nerd who wants to be a jock (Gatsby)

    Also basically all man vs nature stories are inherently jock-y

    1. builtahouse +19

      I am HERE for “nerd who wants to be a jock” nature of Gatsby. The entire thing is Nick wanting to be Gatsby and then DISILLUSIONMENT which is inherently un-jock-like.

  41. highjump +12

    Main Street is another nerd horror story, possibly even more horrible than Lord of the Flies. As a nerd my secret fear is that I’m not intellectual at all, just a banal crank and the smart women around me see right through me.

  42. queenofbithynia +13

    your misapprehension of Ford Madox Ford has led me into a towering rage from which there is no escape, no exit, no hope of rescue

  43. francienolan04 +30

    Lord of the Flies is a definite Jock book, if only because it is the ultimate favorite-book-choice of dudes who haven’t read a book since high school. See also Catcher in the Rye, anything by Hemingway.

    Every time I see the MLA list I am newly enraged. It’s like something from the Eisenhower era.

    1. child_hands +11

      the book is nerdy as hell but here’s my question – is Brodie herself a Jock?

      I mean
      “Who is the greatest Italian painter?” “Leonardo da Vinci, Miss Brodie.” “That is incorrect. The answer is Giotto, he is my favourite.”

      also she literally has hoes in different area codes

        1. child_hands +11

          ah of course
          “for those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like”

    1. fakely_mctest +14

      I don’t think Mailer was capable of writing a book that wasn’t 100% jock. He probably dipped his wang in ink and just went from there.

      1. DoubtfulGuest +6

        Agreed … and I am both thoroughly amused and thoroughly disturbed by that image (but mostly amused).

  46. fakely_mctest +21

    The House of Mirth is a tough one, but I vote for nerds in the end. It’s a tragedy of not quite being able to spur yourself to an action because: overthinking.

    I look at this list and I’m just like, goddamn maybe institute a rule that you can only pick one thing per author? That way if you absolutely needed to have your fusty old white dudes (Dreiser is NOT A GOOD WRITER) there would be space left for other people.

  47. Riekeoka +6

    I really hope Wide Sargasso Sea is for Nerds. Also, how isn’t there more Jean Rhys on EVERY list? Also also, how are there only eight women authors on this entire list? I hope I miscounted, but still D:

  48. builtahouse +16

    SCOOP IS A LOVE LETTER TO NERDS. <3 (baby journalist here.)

    I have a soft spot for Waugh, after knowing who he was after a political theory professor of mine jokingly told the class he’d give them a thousand extra credit points of they knew who he was. (he had quoted Brideshead Revisited, and I was the only one who knew it.) It puts all of Waugh squarely in Nerd territory for me. Who, despite his “bright young thing” credentials, was too over-thinking & disillusioned to be a Jock.

    (also Forster is for nerds)

    2. uemmak +2

      Scoop is amazing!

      (Also, can we just talk for a moment about how strange Vile Bodies is? I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a book take quite so complete a turn right at the end. I know there’s a lot about Waugh’s personal life and convictions involved in that, but knowing that doesn’t stop reading it from being a surreal and unsettling experience.)

  49. somsomsom124 +6

    If I may, “The Good Soldier” by Ford Madox Ford is partly about a jock (the titular soldier Edward Ashburham) but is narrated by the nerdy asexual John Dowell, who has a total mancrush on Edward. Ford’s original title was “The Saddest Story,” which describes every nerd’s high school years, so I humbly ask it be considered for nerds only.

  50. GrumpyPants +16

    I know it’s not the topic of discussion but HOW is Beloved not on here? Toni Morrison gets no love from MLA canon

  51. ladyschatte +5

    All the King’s Men is jocks, On the Road is jocks, Age of Innocence is nerds (?), Pale Fire is nerds

  52. readerbeth +16

    The gender bias on the list has me thinking: I am guilty of associating a lot of what I would consider “jockish” traits with aggressive maleness and flat-out misogyny, and nerdness with more female stuff. While this is certainly a product of my own experience (a midwest upbringing in what could easily be called a Jockocracy, and me a girl nerd who was particularly hassled and bullied at times) and clearly not reflective of all people’s experiences, I wonder if a list with more female (or let’s face it, general non-privileged-white-male) authors would change my opinion. Can we get some female jocks to represent? In a positive way, especially? Name me some heroic jock girls, please.

    Also, if we extended the list of Canon back out of the twentieth century, would definitions of Jock v Nerd still apply? Are any of Jane Austen’s women jocks? (Many of them are excellent walkers). Shakespeare–where the heck does HE stand?

    1. Chance_Hale +7

      I’m gonna take a stab at the Shakespeare plays I’m most familiar with.

      Nerds: The Tempest, Hamlet, Othello

      Jocks: Romeo and Juliet, Henry V

      Not sure: King Lear, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

      1. sigaloenta +6

        Alls Well That Ends Well– nerds
        Much Ado About Nothing– jocks
        Twelfth Night– jocks
        Macbeth– jocks
        Measure for Measure — nerds (?)
        Merchant of Venice — jocks (?)
        Comedy of Errors– jocks
        Richard II– nerds
        Henry IV I & II — jocks
        Richard III– jocks

        1. Readerbeth +3

          Merchant of Venice: in which all the jocks get surprise-pwned by secret-nerd-girl-cross-dressing-“civil doctor” Portia.

          1. sigaloenta +3

            hmm, I think Portia is more the “not one of those nerds” intellectually competent jocks who is cool enough to hang with the jocks and share her notes/saves the day when they get themselves involved in a prank war and can’t get themselves out of it.

            (I mean — without compounding stereotypes or trivializing antisemitism — Shylock makes a pretty good nerd-turned-evil out for revenge on the jocks who I have bullied him for so long.)

    2. sigaloenta +10

      I think P&P and Emma are jocks all the way and Mansfield Park is definitely nerds. Not as sure about the others but I suspect Persuasion is nerds and Sense and Sensibility might be jocks.

      1. Readerbeth +4

        Yes, Emma is a total jock/popular kid, as proven by both Jane Austen and Amy Heckerling when she gave us Clueless.

    3. irishbreakfasttime +7

      hmm, so my first thought was Toni Morrison, because she feels like the most glaring omission from the list. But I can’t think of a single jock book of hers, just because they are so hard to read and understand, she makes you work your brain and read slowly, which is a very nerd thing to do.

      Austen, though…I kind of want to say Pride & Prejudice is a jock book. It’s not an easy breezy read, but it’s funny and straightforward. Nerds recognize themselves in the quiet, bookish, tea-sipping, card-playing characters, but they aren’t misfits. Everyone gets some gentle ribbing, except maybe Jane. Being able to laugh at yourself and your social circle like that is pretty Jock; they have the security to do that and nerds don’t.

      I also want to say a lot of Barbara Kingsolver novels are Jock, because the heroines are defying the odds against them and succeeding on their own terms, but that often means rejecting or redefining traditional feminine roles, so it fits the pattern you’re pointing out. Same for some Isabel Allende and Louise Erdrich, maybe? They definitely cover a lot of resilience and toughness and the kind of smartness that isn’t nerdy intellect.

      1. cleoreads +2

        I think Toni Morrison’s Sula could be a jock book. It’s been a long time since I’ve read it, but what I remember about it is the physicality of both the language and the characters. And that seems like a jock thing.

    4. Keely +2

      I would actually say that as a general rule Jane Austen is jocks (whereas the Brontes are mostly nerds–excepting Wuthering Heights which is total jocks).

    5. cleoreads +4

      Midwestern nerdy girls represent! (I have SO much football damage from high school).

      I think Toni Morrison’s Sula is a jock book because of the physicality of the characters and the language.

      I’d say a lot of Marge Piercy’s characters are more jock than nerd – they’re smart but they’re so firmly in their bodies.

      1. Readerbeth +3

        “In their bodies” may be one of the most interesting and excellent descriptors of jock v nerd qualities that I have ever heard! That completely sums up how I, as a nerd, have always tended to reject the physical world and live in my own head.

  53. Maryaed +7

    Kipling: love him, but jock. Stegner, nerd. Bennett and Murdoch, totally nerd books, all of them.

    I feel like Lawrence and Miller are so invested in their bodies versus their brains, they have to be on team Jock.

    1. OliviaPJones +3

      Reading Henry Miller under the covers as a teen only left me thinking that he really didn’t understand how vaginas work. Also that sex sounded awful.

  55. zlionsfan +2

    Hmm. Well, Ironweed is definitely _about_ jocks – I actually read it in college in a Sports and Lit class – but I think it’s _for_ nerds. I mean, it’s basically saying “whoa this dude’s messed up, also he plays/played sports, CAUSATION”.*

    *OK honestly I read it nearly 30 years ago and had to read the linked review to refresh my memory, but I think that’s pretty accurate. But then I would classify myself as a nerd rather than a jock, and I could only remember that I had read it once, so …

  56. sarachim +3

    Oh god, A High Wind in Jamaica. The first page explains that Jamaican slaves only wanted emancipation because they were lazy. It’s not even relevant to the plot! It’s just a random racist aside that contributes nothing to the story except to make sure the reader is in the worst possible mood. I would have thrown it at the wall if it hadn’t been recommended by my grandmother, who I love dearly enough to put up with anything. Or a quarter of anything, at least, because that’s how far I got.

    Anyway, until this moment I thought that Nana must be the only person who enjoyed A High Wind in Jamaica and everyone else in the universe was on my side.

    1. Nausikaa +2

      The first chapter of A High Wind in Jamaica is indeed very racist, but once you get past the opening, race becomes irrelevant to the book, and I think the rest is brilliant. It has that quality that We Have Always Lived in the Castle has, of making you identify with a character because she seems odd and quirky in a charming, imaginative way, and then revealing that she’s actually batshit insane and homicidal. It’s not a book that I like, exactly; I don’t think of it as likable. But i do think it’s a weird, fucked-up work of genius.

    2. cleoreads +3

      Yes!! My big revelation of this thread is that jocks = in their bodies and nerds = in their heads but that leaves out FEELINGS etc and goths round it out (I’m using the broadest definition of goths here and including emo under the goth umbrella).

      I’ve been having way too much fun thinking about this:

      nerds = head
      goths = heart
      jocks = gut

      nerds = thoughts
      goths = emotions
      jocks = physical sensations

  59. thezlot +6

    HOWARDS END: NERDIEST NERD BOOK EVER. It’s basically a nerds vs. jocks PLOT but trust me, the nerds are the good ones.

    Brideshead Revisited is a jock book, but I will say that A Handful of Dust is a nerd one.

    Parade’s End: nerd goes to war, remains nerd.

    Most D.H. Lawrence novels (but not The Rainbow) are nerd fantasies of being a jock.

  60. tachyonpython +5

    176 comments and nobody talking about how Winesburg, Ohio is woefully miscast! It’s CLEARLY a nerd book if I’ve ever read one. It’s just begging to have the lines drawn between its interconnected stories, with potential for countless charts linking the narratives, people, places, and timelines of the town to each other. Either that, or I was even more of a weirdo in grad school than I thought.

  61. amoderngirl +2

    Agree with the designation of all Henry James books as Nerd but how the hell is The Golden Bowl on this list? I have never hated a book so much in my life.

  62. cleo

    I think Toni Morrison's Sula could be a jock book. It's been a long time since I've read it, but what I remember about it is the physicality of both the language and the characters. And that seems like a jock thing.

  63. cleo

    Midwestern nerdy girls represent! (I have SO much football damage from high school).

    I think Toni Morrison's Sula is a jock book because of the physicality of the characters and the language.

    I'd say a lot of Marge Piercy's characters are more jock than nerd – they're smart but they're so firmly in their bodies.

  64. missstirling +4

    Since the criteria of jocks vs. nerds seems to involve notions of masculinity, we should be relieved there are so few female authors on this list of the 100 Greatest Novels, right? ……right?

    *weeps*

  65. C

    Since the criteria of jocks vs. nerds seems to involve notions of masculinity, we should be relieved there are so few female authors on this list of the 100 Greatest Novels, right? ……right?

    *weeps*

  66. cleo

    Yes!! My big revelation of this thread is that jocks = in their bodies and nerds = in their heads but that leaves out FEELINGS etc and goths round it out (I'm using the broadest definition of goths here and including emo under the goth umbrella).

    I've been having way too much fun thinking about this:

    nerds = head
    goths = heart
    jocks = gut

    nerds = thoughts
    goths = emotions
    jocks = physical sensations