Top 100 books

I have seen a lot of top 100 books lists. Most of these lists are comprised of books that are around 100 years old and are great literature. Like academic literature. There is absolutely nothing wrong with these kinds of books. I just haven't read that many of those. So I like this list that a friend sent me on Facebook. I really like it...I've read so many of these books! The titles that are in bold are titles I've read. The titles in italics are titles that I've started to read, or tried to read and just didn't finish. Thought I'd comment on some of them, since this is my blog and I can do whatever I want. I really hope you read through this. Books are so important to me and these are some of the greats. Maybe something I say will get you to read the book. Just maybe!



1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (I love Jane Austen. THIS book made me fall in love with Jane Austen. I've read everything she's written. I've read books based on her books. I've read books based on books based on books she's written. Oh, Elizabeth and Darcy. )
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (Really enjoyed these books. But I'm going to blaspheme. I like the movies better. **GASP** The books are written with from the characters' perspectives. And you follow one character's WHOLE story before you see what happens with another character. So you follow a character all the way to the end, then have to go back and find out what happened to another character at the same time. Just didn't really like that.)
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (What a great story. What agony. What love. Sigh.)
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (I'm a self-professed Potter-head. Love this series. No, I really LOVE this series.)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (One of the best books ever written. Period.)

6 The Bible (haven't read the whole thing. Haven't read most of it, actually. It's a really big book.)
 7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (Another amazing story. This isn't a classic for nothing.)
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell 
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (Great series. After I read the first one, I had to read the rest.)
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (Read it. Follow Pip through his life. Just do it.)

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (One of the first books my mom ever read to me, and have re-read it many times myself. I always wanted to live back in their time.)
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy (A little spoiler. She gets executed in the end. Oopsie!)
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (I read it. It was alright. This may be why I'm not a literary genius, because I don't necessarily think "classics" like this are amazing.)
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (Complete works? Wow, nope, sorry. Just Romeo & Juliet and Hamlet.)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (Great book. Got me interested in fantasy when I was younger)
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (This is another one of those books that people think is great and I didn't really like. Meh.)
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger (This was a little lovey-dovey for me...But a good read overall.)
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot (Tried. But failed. Maybe another time.)
 21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell (Now this is a story. Sweeping drama and all that.)
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (Friends stabbing friends in the back. Love gone awry. Ah, just like high school!)
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (I read it. I did it. This is the only book in my reading career that I ever had to drag my ass through and make myself finish. Don't even ask me what it's about. It's pretty self-explanatory.)
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (Funny stuff. The whole series is great)

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (I tried. But it was going the way of War and Peace and I wasn't doing that to myself again.)
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (I actually just read this in the past year. It had me balling my little eyes out in the end. Great.)
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (Great classic. A little dark, actually)
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame (Great children's classic. Get the illustrated (but not abridged) version.)

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (I'm going to try this again, soon.)
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens (Follow David, or Trot through his life. Go'head.)
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (Great series. Really makes kids think and get the feel for good vs. evil.)
34 Emma -Jane Austen (**Sigh** See #1)
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen (Again, see #1, though this is my least favorite Austen, it's still wonderful)

36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis (My friend Val pointed out to me that this was already in the list at #33. Nevertheless, this is my favorite of the whole series.)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini (Wonderful story. Expand you reading and read about other cultures.)
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres (s'okay. I'll allow you to just go watch the movie.)
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden (Amazing. Amaaazzzing. One of my top 10.)
40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne (Aawww. It's Pooh bear.)

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell (If you read this book, you'll never forget it. It will be seared into your mind for your whole life. Only people who've read the book will get that play on words. Don't you wish you were cool and knew?)
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (Great read. Fast read. Yes, it's written like a movie script. Yes, it was made into a movie. Book's better.
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (This one was a little slow for me, but worth the read.)
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving (Great book One of the first novels I read that made me want to read every single thing by one author. He's an amazing, amazing author.
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (This book made me fall in love with reading. Seriously. I remember being amazed that reading words could be like...seeing into another world.)
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood (Post-apocalyptic story. Need I say more? Way cool.)
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding (I read this book a little too early in life. I think I was about 9. Scary dreams for quite a while!)

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan (Sad story. **Sigh**)
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel (I didn't like this as much as other people did. I was an okay read.)
52 Dune - Frank Herbert (I'm gonna have to read this.)
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen (My 2nd favorite after P & P. That damn Whillouby. And when Edward comes back? Tears. Streaming. Down. My. Face.)
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

 56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon--
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens ("It was the best of times; it was the worst of times." That about sums it up.)
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon (I picked this up because I have a person with a disability in my family. I kept reading it because it was great and interesting.)
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck (What a lonely story. I find it awfully sad.)
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt (Oooh, this is such a great novel! I'm not usually one to like mysteries, but when they're as well-written as this one, I'm all in. Very intriguing.)
 64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold (Told from the viewpoint of a raped and murdered little girl. It's as sad and heart-wrenching as it sounds. Very suspenseful, too. I haven't seen the movie...doubt I will.)
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas (Humongous book. Awesome book. I remember diving right into this book and really loving it. You have to really be able to follow along with that old-timey style of writing, though.)

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding (Really funny book. But the second one wasn't. Bummer)
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie (He's on my to-read list)
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville ("Call me Ishmael." Another classic opening line.Ahh.)

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens (Sucks to be poor)
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
 73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (I loved this story when I was younger. Loved the movie, too.)
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce 

76 The Inferno - Dante (Did you know that Hell is actually ice, not fire? Well, according to Dante, at least. Hmm. That's a thinker!)
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (It's almost Christmas time. Read it!)
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker (Awesome book. What an amazing story.)
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro (Weeeiiiirrrdd. But good.)
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White (I wish I had a friend like Charlotte.)
 88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom (Tear-jerker. Not really my cup of tea, but okay)
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Boy, that Holmes and Watson are quite a pair.)
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams (Aaaww, bunnies!)
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas (I always liked D'Artagnan)
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare  One of the few Shakespeare I have read. Even though you may have to read a line about 20 times to figure out what he's saying, it's worth it.)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl  (Kinda creepy, to be honest.)
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (One of my all-time favorites. What a love story.)


So that's that. Whew! Please read. A book. Any book. But not War and Peace. God it's so difficult to get through!