When I first started this blog, one of the things on my 25 before 25 list was to read all of the books on the Newsweek's Top 100 List. I later changed that to half realizing that the task was tremendously ambitious when books like Middlemarch, War and Peace, and Anna Karenina were on there. I read 49 of them and gave up. I hated most of the books I read. I abandoned the list in an effort to read books I actually wanted to read.
Recently, my friend Carolann sent me a new list - Amazon's Top 100 list. Thinking this might be more of an accurate reflection on what the world is reading since the list is based on readers' picks, rather than book sales, I decided to check it out to see how many I've read.
Note: The books aren't ranked, rather, they're listed alphabetically 'to ensure that no book is deemed more important than another.'
Recently, my friend Carolann sent me a new list - Amazon's Top 100 list. Thinking this might be more of an accurate reflection on what the world is reading since the list is based on readers' picks, rather than book sales, I decided to check it out to see how many I've read.
Note: The books aren't ranked, rather, they're listed alphabetically 'to ensure that no book is deemed more important than another.'
1984 by George Orwell- A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
- A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah- A Series of Unfortunate Events #1: The Bad Beginning: The Short-Lived Edition by Lemony Snicket (I have this on my Kindle)
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle- Alice Munro: Selected Stories by Alice Munro
- Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
- All the President’s Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein (I have this on my bookshelf)
Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourtAre You There, God? It’s me, Margaret by Judy Blume- Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Beloved by Toni Morrison- Born To Run – A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall
- Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat
Catch-22 by Joseph HellerCharlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald DahlCharlotte’s Web by E.B. White- Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese
- Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brene Brown
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Book 1 by Jeff Kinney
- Dune by Frank Herbert
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream by Hunter S. Thompson
Gone Girl by Gillian FlynnGoodnight Moon by Margaret Wise BrownGreat Expectations by Charles Dickens- Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared M. Diamond
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling- In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
- Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison- Jimmy Corrigan: Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware
- Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
- Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls WilderLolita by Vladimir NabokovLove in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez(I loved this book and was sad to hear of Marquez's passing yesterday at the age of 87).- Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich
- Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
- Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
Middlesex by Jeffrey EugenidesMidnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie- Moneyball by Michael Lewis
- Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
On the Road by Jack Kerouac- Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
- Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
- Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth
Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen- Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
- Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
- Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
- The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
- The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
- The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley
- The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot DiazThe Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger- The Color of Water by James McBride
- The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
- The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank- The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (no interest)
- The Giver by Lois Lowry
The Golden Compass: His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman(loved this book)- T
he Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret AtwoodThe House At Pooh Corner by A. A. MilneThe Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
- The Liars’ Club: A Memoir by Mary Karr
- The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1) by Rick Riordan
- The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
- The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien- The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks
- The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan
- The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel by Barbara Kingsolver(may be my favorite book ever)- The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert A. Caro
- The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
- The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Secret History by Donna Tartt- The Shining by Stephen King
The Stranger by Albert Camus- The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (really want to read this after reading The Paris Wife)
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien(read this in college, excellent book)- The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
- The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
- The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: A Novel by Haruki Murakami (highly recommended to me)
- The World According to Garp by John Irving
- The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Things Fall Apart by Chinua AchebeTo Kill a Mockingbird by Harper LeeUnbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand- Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel SilversteinWhere the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
So 39 out of 100. I won't say I plan to read all of them. Some, I just have no interest (Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Fault in Our Stars)...but I definitely plan to read some of them and I'm glad I have a new book list to choose from. I've just about finished all of the books I bought at last year's library sale so I think a trip to the library is in order...that is, until I make it to another library book sale!
Updated on 4/27/15: 6 books read since original post.
Updated on 4/27/15: 6 books read since original post.
How many have you read?
22
ReplyDeleteWow! I've read most of these and most of unread ones are on my kindle. I love that the list includes children's books!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed The Fault in Our Stars, I wasn't sure I would, and I might have enjoyed it more because I listened to it driving to and from work instead of reading it.
ReplyDeleteBook Thief is fantastic, and I am currently listening to Gone Girl, and while it got a little slow at first, I am really enjoying it now.
Oh wow, I will have to keep this around to add on books to my list!
ReplyDeleteWait, stop. Please tell me you're kidding about not having read Goodnight Moon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yu_g5x3ZoQ
ReplyDeleteoh I like this list, I barely read any of these books but might start. thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteI am not a novel reader. I found this out a long time ago after putting myself down for years. Then, I realized, I like information. I read - constantly - I just like to read about nutrition, health, the environment (sustainable agriculture), exercise and running ... and of course, your blog!:D
ReplyDelete