I love to read. I majored in English in college, and those classes were so important to me.
Before I moved to Hawaii, I was in a Masters program, planning a wedding, and working full time. I stopped reading for pleasure, and I hated it. Now that I have slowed down a lot, I am back to reading whatever I want. Mostly at the beach.
Earlier this year, Amazon released a list of 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime. I’ve been looking for a list like this for a while, and what I love about this list is that there are classic works alongside picture books, children’s books, young adult books, modern books, graphic novels, fantasy, and nonfiction books, among others. The list was created by Amazon’s book editors and the idea is to become a well-rounded reader.
I like that this list is not called something like, “the 100 greatest books ever written.” That’s not what Amazon’s list is about. It’s about books you should read to open yourself up to genres you may not have read otherwise, and just learn about different things. Granted, I know that it was really difficult for the editors to come up with just 100 books, so I kind of feel like this is a starting point for to just explore different types of literature. I sometimes find myself reading the same kind of books and I want to branch out, so this list is perfect for me.
This year, I have read 7 books on the list. It should have been more by now, but I have been sidetracked by other books not on this list, which is completely okay with me. I’ve become obsessed with Game of Thrones. Each book is long, detailed, and complex, and the series has taken me a long time to read. I have about 400 pages left of A Dance with Dragons, the last book in the series for now. As soon as I finish that book, I plan to get back on track with this list.
I read a lot of these books in high school and college, but if I read the book before I moved to Hawaii, I am going to re-read it, so it is not crosses off on my list. I want to be able to read these books through fresh eyes that do not have to rush and do not have to worry about tests or papers. I also hope that the books I read in college will have a deeper meaning for me after studying them and writing about them. My goal is to be finished with this list by the time we leave Hawaii, so I better get reading.
There are a lot of books on this list that I have always wanted to read. But honestly, in looking at this list, there are also some books that I really do not have a desire to read. But, I think, that’s the point of reading a list like this – to explore new genres, new ideas that I may not have been open to otherwise. If I truly hate a book, I know that I can just stop reading it. But at least I checked it out.
Here is the list, in alphabetical order. I have Included links to the reviews of books I have finished.
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
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
Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt
Are You There, God? It’s me, Margaret by Judy Blume
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 Heller
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
Charlotte’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 Flynn
Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
Great 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 Wilder
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Midnight’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 Diaz
The 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
The Golden Compass: His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
The House At Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
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
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
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
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
The World According to Garp by John Irving
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Unbroken: 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 Silverstein
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
Which books on this list have you read? What do you think about this list?
In Cold Blood (Not the only one i read for sure from this list hehehe) is a bit raw. In the sense that it involves murder and its based on a real story. Not sure if you will absolutely love it. To kill a mockingbird, however, is a true masterpiece!
Hey there, friend! In Cold Blood is at the top of my list of books I am dying to read, so that is interesting to hear. I can’t wait to read it and then talk to you about it!
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