Today I came across a list of The 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime as selected by Goodreads readers. I was curious to see how I have done on the list. In reading through it, I was not surprised by how many of the books are on my 2014 reading list, since I made up my list according to 'great' books I've never gotten around to reading.
The list follows. Ones I have already read are struck through. Ones on my 2014 list are in red.
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
1984 by George Orwell
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone by JK Rowling
The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
Charlotte's Web by EB White
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
The Hobbitt by JRR Tolkien
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontё
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Catcher In The Rye by JD Salinger
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Lion the Witch & the Wardrobe by CS Lewis
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Night by Eli Wiesel
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Where The Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontё
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
The Holy Bible
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
The Stand by Steven King
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Watership Down by Richard Adams
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince by JK Rowling
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Odyssey by Homer
Celebrating Silence by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Helen Keller: The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
The Phantom Toll Booth by Norton Juster
From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler by EL Konigsburg
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Yikes. If I counted correctly, I have only read forty of those on the list. Some I loved. Some I loved so much that I have read them repeatedly. Others I wish I could have the hours back to spend on something else.
I will look into some of the ones I haven't read yet, but some I refuse to, because I couldn't care less. (Yes, Harry Potter fans, I'm talking about them...one was enough. And the Odyssey...no...just no.)
The list follows. Ones I have already read are struck through. Ones on my 2014 list are in red.
Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
1984 by George Orwell
The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
The Hobbitt by JRR Tolkien
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The Catcher In The Rye by JD Salinger
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
The Lion the Witch & the Wardrobe by CS Lewis
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
I
The Stand by Steven King
Watership Down by Richard Adams
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince by JK Rowling
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Odyssey by Homer
Celebrating Silence by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Phantom Toll Booth by Norton Juster
From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler by EL Konigsburg
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Yikes. If I counted correctly, I have only read forty of those on the list. Some I loved. Some I loved so much that I have read them repeatedly. Others I wish I could have the hours back to spend on something else.
I will look into some of the ones I haven't read yet, but some I refuse to, because I couldn't care less. (Yes, Harry Potter fans, I'm talking about them...one was enough. And the Odyssey...no...just no.)
I had only read 23 so you beat me!! I was surprised there were more 'recent' titles than most 'you should read these books in your lifetime' lists I have previously seen!!
ReplyDeleteI read either three or four of the Harry Potter and decided that was enough. The other series that everyone seems to love that I just couldn't get into was Twilight. Ick.
ReplyDeleteThe ones that I've read that you haven't that I would encourage you to move up on your list are, The Help, The Glass Castle, The Book Thief and The Hunger Games.
I hope you don't mind but I think I'll copy your blog and see how many of these I've read. I suspect much fewer than you!
I haven't counted, but I'm sure my numbers are shocking. I did recently buy a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, which I studied and school and loved, and fancied re-reading. As for Harry Potter. No. Just no.
ReplyDelete