I saw this list from Entertainment Weekly (I read this magazine religiously. Seriously. It's such a guilty pleasure!) on another blog from the Roof Beam Reader challenge (and from someone who posts comments here every once in a while!).
I'm always of mixed feelings about these lists---how is it possible to winnow down to 100 great books? How do you pick the *best* Harry Potter book? And when you do, is it REALLY better than Beloved? Hmmm...But I thought it was an interesting list. A mix of high and low, fiction and non-fiction, adult and YA.
How many of these books have you read? I'm going to put a J before it if I've read it.
Jenny
[edited by Kelly to add: I've put a K before all of the ones I've ready... this doesn't mean I have to remember them, right? ;) ]
J | 1. The Road ,Cormac McCarthy (2006) | |
J | K | 2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling (2000) |
J | K | 3. Beloved, Toni Morrison (1987) |
J | 4. The Liars' Club,Mary Karr (1995) | |
5. American Pastoral, Philip Roth (1997) | ||
K | 6. Mystic River, Dennis Lehane (2001) | |
J | K | 7. Maus, Art Spiegelman (1986/1991) |
8. Selected Stories, Alice Munro (1996) | ||
J | K | 9. Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier (1997) |
K | 10. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami (1997) | |
J | 11. Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer (1997) | |
J | K | 12. Blindness, José Saramago (1998) |
K | 13. Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (1986-87) | |
14. Black Water, Joyce Carol Oates (1992) | ||
K | 15. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers (2000) | |
J | K | 16. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood (1986) |
J | K | 17. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez (1988) |
K | 18. Rabbit at Rest, John Updike (1990) | |
J | K | 19. On Beauty, Zadie Smith (2005) |
J | K | 20. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding (1998) |
K | 21. On Writing, Stephen King (2000) | |
J | 22. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz (2007) | |
23. The Ghost Road, Pat Barker (1996) | ||
24. Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry (1985) | ||
J | K | 25. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan (1989) |
K | 26. Neuromancer,William Gibson (1984) | |
K | 27. Possession,A.S. Byatt (1990) | |
K | 28. Naked, David Sedaris (1997) | |
K | 29. Bel Canto, Anne Patchett (2001) | |
30. Case Histories, Kate Atkinson (2004) | ||
J | 31. The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien (1990) | |
J | 32. Parting the Waters, Taylor Branch (1988) | |
33. The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion (2005) | ||
J | K | 34. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold (2002) |
35. The Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst (2004) | ||
36. Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt (1996) | ||
J | K | 37. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi (2003) |
J | 38. Birds of America, Lorrie Moore (1998) | |
J | 39. Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri (2000) | |
K | 40. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (1995-2000) | |
J | 41. The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros (1984) | |
42. LaBrava, Elmore Leonard (1983) | ||
43. Borrowed Time, Paul Monette (1988) | ||
44. Praying for Sheetrock, Melissa Fay Greene (1991) | ||
45. Eva Luna, Isabel Allende (1988) | ||
46. Sandman, Neil Gaiman (1988-1996) | ||
47. World's Fair, E.L. Doctorow (1985) | ||
J | K | 48. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver (1998) |
49. Clockers, Richard Price (1992) | ||
K | 50. The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen (2001) | |
51. The Journalist and the Murderer, Janet Malcom (1990) | ||
J | K | 52. Waiting to Exhale, Terry McMillan (1992) |
J | K | 53. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon (2000) |
K | 54. Jimmy Corrigan, Chris Ware (2000) | |
55. The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls (2006) | ||
J | K | 56. The Night Manager, John le Carré (1993) |
J | 57. The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe (1987) | |
58. Drop City, TC Boyle (2003) | ||
59. Krik? Krak! Edwidge Danticat (1995) | ||
J | K | 60. Nickel & Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich (2001) |
61. Money, Martin Amis (1985) | ||
62. Last Train To Memphis, Peter Guralnick (1994) | ||
K | 63. Pastoralia, George Saunders (2000) | |
64. Underworld, Don DeLillo (1997) | ||
J | 65. The Giver, Lois Lowry (1993) | |
66. A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, David Foster Wallace (1997) | ||
J | K | 67. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini (2003) |
K | 68. Fun Home, Alison Bechdel (2006) | |
J | K | 69. Secret History, Donna Tartt (1992) |
J | K | 70. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell (2004) |
J | 71. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Ann Fadiman (1997) | |
K | 72. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon (2003) | |
J | K | 73. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving (1989) |
74. Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger (1990) | ||
75. Cathedral, Raymond Carver (1983) | ||
76. A Sight for Sore Eyes, Ruth Rendell (1998) | ||
J | 77. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro (1989) | |
J | 78. Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert (2006) | |
79. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell (2000) | ||
J | 80. Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney (1984) | |
J | 81. Backlash, Susan Faludi (1991) | |
K | 82. Atonement, Ian McEwan (2002) | |
83. The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields (1994) | ||
J | K | 84. Holes, Louis Sachar (1998) |
85. Gilead, Marilynne Robinson (2004) | ||
86. And the Band Played On, Randy Shilts (1987) | ||
87. The Ruins, Scott Smith (2006) | ||
J | K | 88. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby (1995) |
J | 89. Close Range, Annie Proulx (1999) | |
90. Comfort Me With Apples, Ruth Reichl (2001) | ||
91. Random Family, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc (2003) | ||
J | K | 92. Presumed Innocent, Scott Turow (1987) |
J | K | 93. A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley (1991) |
94. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser (2001) | ||
95. Kaaterskill Falls, Allegra Goodman (1998) | ||
J | K | 96. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown (2003) |
97. Jesus’ Son, Denis Johnson (1992) | ||
98. The Predators' Ball, Connie Bruck (1988) | ||
J | K | 99. Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman (1995) |
J | K | 100. America (the Book), Jon Stewart/Daily Show (2004) |
K,
ReplyDeleteI'm fascinated by the books we have in common! There's a lot of overlap there. Very interesting. I'm not sure why I enjoy these lists so much, but I love the "best of" lists that come out at the end of every year.
J
Sadly, I read Entertainment Weekly religiously also.
ReplyDeleteThat list goes all over the place. I suppose that is one of the nice things about it, its unpretentiousness.