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100 Books Meme

By grrlscientist on May 19, 2007.

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I ran across this book meme at The Library Diva -- a blog pal of mine whom I met through Craigslist -- and thought it was interesting.

Look at the list of books below:

  • Bold the ones you've read
  • Italicize the ones you want to read
  • Leave unaltered the ones that you aren't interested in or haven't heard of
  1. The DaVinci Code (Dan Brown)
  2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
  3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
  4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
  5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (JRR Tolkien)
  6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (JRR Tolkien)
  7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (JRR Tolkien)
  8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
  9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
  10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
  11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (JK Rowling)
  12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
  13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (JK Rowling)
  14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving) (I actually have a copy of this book and mean to read it someday)
  15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
  16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (JK Rowling)
  17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
  18. The Stand (Stephen King)
  19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (JK Rowling)
  20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
  21. The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien)
  22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
  23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
  24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
  25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
  26. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
  27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
  28. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
  29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
  30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
  31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
  32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
  33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
  34. 1984 (George Orwell)
  35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
  36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
  37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
  38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
  39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
  40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
  41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
  42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
  43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
  44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
  45. The Bible
  46. Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)
  47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
  48. Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt)
  49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
  50. She's Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
  51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
  52. A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)
  53. Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)
  54. Great Expectations (Charles Dickens)
  55. The Great Gatsby (F Scott Fitzgerald)
  56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
  57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (JK Rowling)
  58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
  59. The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)
  60. The Time Traveller's Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
  61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
  62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
  63. War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy)
  64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
  65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
  66. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Ann Brashares)
  67. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
  68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
  69. Les Miserables (Victor Hugo)
  70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
  71. Bridget Jones' Diary (Fielding)
  72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
  73. Shogun (James Clavell)
  74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
  75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
  76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
  77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
  78. The World According to Garp (John Irving)
  79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
  80. Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)
  81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
  82. Of Mice And Men (John Steinbeck)
  83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
  84. Wizard's First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
  85. Emma (Jane Austen)
  86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
  87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
  88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
  89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
  90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
  91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
  92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
  93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
  94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
  95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
  96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
  97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
  98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
  99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
  100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

So which books on this list did you especially enjoy? Which ones on the list that I haven't read do you recommend?

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That's 99. Where's the 100th?

It is interesting how many on this list I own and want to read yet have not read yet! I better get busy.

wow, that's a good question. since i copied and pasted the entire document, and just now double-checked the list, i don't see how anything could be missing but apparently, something is. hrm.

Nice meme. I've picked it up at my blog also, and given you credit as my inspiration.

I also have a suggestion! I propose that commenters on this meme should pick out a book that you have marked as "not interested", and suggest why you should be interested. I'm guessing "not interested" includes "don't recognize"; so I've asked anyone commenting on my blog to educate me in this way as well.

I now provide for you this same service! It was a tough call, as for the most part the ones you have left are one I also don't recognize or else don't move me much. But one exception is Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. I see that you've read the two Jane Austens in the list; Emily Bronte is another English Victorian female novelist, of comparable caliber and with a totally different style.

While I am on the subject of Victorian female novelists I can't resist a quick plug for "George Eliot", author of one of my faves -- "Silas Marner". This was my muse when I adopted "Sylas" as a pseudonym on webforums. This one is a cheat: it's not on the list and it would be absurd to try and enumerate such omissions: but wotthehell wotthehell

George Eliot was a pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans. She would be of interest to some sciencebloggers because she was a "religious dissenter", an unbeliever in the notion of God.

Lord of the Flies was required in English class at school, a very disturbing and insightful book.

Shogun I found great, all James Clavell's stuff is good. Interesting insight into Japanese and British/Portuguese cultures as well as being a great adventure story, I originally read it over two days. My advise, read it and then read TaiPan.

The hitchhiker books are humorous, but I think you have to be in the right mood (slightly drunk :o)).

Suprised not to see any Discworld books, but it is only 100 books long.

I would have replaced The Hobbit with The Silmarillion. I know that I am probably in a minority in liking it, but the Silmarillion is full of wonder.

By Chris' Wills (not verified) on 19 May 2007 #permalink

Ah, Chris - you did 'O' level English Lit as well!

I can heartily recommend A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry). I bought it in a sale (for 19 Markkaa), but the end has stuck with me: it's an interesting take on how we perceive life.

More generally, India has produced a lot of good literature over the last 20 years of so (e.g. Vikram Seth, Arundhati Roy).

Oh, and don't read any Jeffrey Archer. Except, perhaps, his evidence in court.

Bob

Bob, I did not!!
I did 'O' Grade English.

Scots wahay and all that jazz :o)

By Chris' Wills (not verified) on 19 May 2007 #permalink

Three books I have found almost unputdownable:

War & Peace, Tolstoy (on the list)
Catch-22, Joseph Heller (not on the list)
Shogun, James Clavell (not on list)

Shogun is a fascinating look into 16th century Japan, on the eve of the Tokugawa shogunate. While lacking the depth of the other two, its re-creation of a lost culture (and I can't vouch for its accuracy) is irresistible.

Also, Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse-5" is worth a read.

Toby - War & Peace unputdownable? You must have strong wrists!

Bob
Psst: Catch 22 is at 67 and Shogun at 72.

okay, now there are 100 titles, since i added sisterhood of the traveling pants. so i am going to look around for lord of the flies, catch-22 and shogun, right?

and i am a huge vonnegut fan, having read all his books. unfortunately, i seem to lost his books when i made my cross-country move, so they appear on my wishlist at this time (although i have recently received several of them from my readers and of course, i devoured them immediately).

what is "O" level english? is this part of your "Ordinary Wizarding Level" classes?

...what is "O" level english? is this part of your "Ordinary Wizarding Level" classes?
Posted by: "GrrlScientist" | May 20

'O' Level is what the English do before doing 'A' level exams at secondary school.
'O' Grade is similar to 'O' Level but done in Scotish secondary schools prior to doing 'H' Grade and/or CSYS.

They've introduced some different exams since I was at school.

Not sure what the US equivalents would be.

Wizard exams are normally taken outside the state school system.

By Chris' Wills (not verified) on 20 May 2007 #permalink

okay, now there are 100 titles, since i added sisterhood of the traveling pants. so i am going to look around for lord of the flies, catch-22 and shogun, right?
....Posted by: "GrrlScientist" | May 20, 2007

Fair warning. Don't read "Lord of the Flies" if/when you are feeling depressed. It is a brilliant piece of writing but likely to depress rather than uplift ones spirit.

By Chris' Wills (not verified) on 20 May 2007 #permalink

Those are some good suggestions. I really enjoyed Catch-22, and I've wanted to read Shogun, but have not yet. There are a ton of other books I would love to recommend, having worked at a bookstore for over 4 years, but I can't get my thoughts in order on it right now.

To play an opposing role, I would like to NOT recommend the following book:

#44 - Mitch Albom. He writes the same book over and over again. Its vapid, feel-goody nonsense.

By Brian Thompson (not verified) on 21 May 2007 #permalink

See, the problem with this particular list is that, were I to take you up on it, I would bold approximately half and leave the rest untouched, having no interest in them. Does that reflect some kind of snobbish self-satisfaction about my literary education on my part? Well no: there are literally hundreds of books that I absolutely need to read (right now!;)), but I should build a list of my own to even remember what they are. And that is entirely too much work...