100 Books - how are you doing?

[Janet H]

Amazon has released a list of 100 books to read before you die. It's an interesting and eclectic list. How are you doing? There are about 25 on this list I may need to check out...


Amazon releases list of 100 books to read before you die - AOL Money UK

 

[Meadbh]

[-]I have read 35 of them.[/-]

Edit: on rereading the list I realized I had read 42 of them. Here is the list of those I have read (some many years ago). I'm going to put my ratings out of 5 stars:

1. 1984 by George Orwell *****
2. Alice Munro: Selected Stories by Alice Munro ****
3. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll *****
4. All the President's Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein ****
5. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett ***
6. Beloved by Toni Morrison ***
7. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller ***
8. Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese *****
9. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brene Brown ***
10. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn *****
11. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens ***
12. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared M. Diamond *****
13. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling *****
14. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote ****
15. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov ****
16. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez *****
17. Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl *****
18. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie *****
19. Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham *****
20. On the Road by Jack Kerouac ****
21. Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen *****
22. Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth *****
23. Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen *****
24. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson ****
25. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton *****
26. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger *****
27. The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank *****
28. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald *****
29. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood *****
30. The House At Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne ***
31. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins ****
32. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot *****
33. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien *****
34. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks ****
35. The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe ****
36. The Shining by Stephen King *****
37. The Stranger by Albert Camus (en francais) *****
38. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway ****
39. The World According to Garp by John Irving *****
40. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee *****
41. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand *****
42. Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann ***



 

[Bestwifeever]

Oh good, a booket list!

I just finished Kate Atkinson's Life after Life, the newest book on the list. Which imho it deserves to be on. Will check the rest of the list later to see what else I have read....

 

[REWahoo]

Impressive way for Amazon to pump up sales numbers...

 

[Sarah in SC]

Interesting! And especially that so many are YA fiction, which I haven't read much of the current list. I think I'm under 20 on there, better get cracking!

 

[Louis2]

definitely an odd/random list, but that is why lists are fun. I've read about 30, plus "seen the movie" on a couple, and have a few on my "to read soon" list.

 

[robnplunder]

Does watching the movie version count?

 

[HFWR]

Four...

I read a lot, but mostly non-fiction.

 

[Bestwifeever]

The presence of "Gone Girl" and "Valley of the Dolls" on this list surprises me.

 

[Midpack]

Four...

I read a lot, but mostly non-fiction.

+1. I've read 6, but I've seen the movie that came from many more. I also read non-fiction almost exclusively, right or wrong.

 

[ERD50]

I thought I'd be the low count here. I'm a bit ashamed at how few books I read. I'm kinda ADD, focusing that long just doesn't work - but if I'm really intrigued it's no problem, but most books don't do that for me.

So anyhow, I managed a 10.333 count.

Three are kids books that I've read to the kids. I only got about 1/3rd of the way through ' A Brief History of Time' (not brief enough for me I guess ). But I got far enough to get the Schrodinger's Cat references in The Big Bang Theory

OK, here's my list:

1984
A Brief History of Time
Fahrenheit 451
Great Expectations (barely counts, HS assignment, and I don't remember much)
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
The Right Stuff
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Where the Sidewalk Ends
Where the Wild Things Are


I've read several of them several times, does that help?

1984 and F451 were also HS assignments, but I love those. And if you like The Right Stuff, I highly recommend "Lost Moon" (about the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission).

I only recently read Slaughterhouse-Five, found it on the shelf - one of the kids had to read it in HS. That is one weird book, it really covers a lot of the human condition, and the weirdness isn't necessarily bad, but I have a hard time grasping that that is how the author decided to tell the story. There was a side of me that was thinking "this is trash", but of course it isn't.

Weird, I sorted that alphabetically, and the 3 kids books are at the end.

Actually, other than not really recalling Great Expectations (was there an old wedding cake with rats in it?), I really liked all of those not really counting the kids books in that).

-ERD50

 

[Walt34]

I didn't count, but I've read perhaps 15 of them. Interesting list.

 

[steelyman]

Off that list - 5.

I suppose I'd better not die yet!

 

[Mr. Paul]

No Steinbeck. But then again, that's not my list.

I've read 24 of them but of those there are at least 4 that wouldn't make my top 1000. The nature of lists

 

[W2R]

What a fascinating list! Thank you. So far I have read 39. There are several on the list that look like books that I really should read now that I am retired and have the time to do so.

 

[Payin-the-Toll]

Put me down for 16. Hardest thing is: I know all about this book--have I read it or not?

 

[lemming]

For some reason I was so thrilled when Alice Munro won the Nobel literature prize and I knew that book. I bought it at a used book store, just browsing and loved the old fashioned, mundane setting and fierce personal characters. And then found out-someone agreed with me.!
Now I see she has published in the New Yorker-another proof.

 

[clifp]

That is an eclectic list but not bad at all. I've read 28 (counting 4 that read about 1/2 but not finished) and not counting ones like Portnoy's complaint that I tried twice to read but didn't make it more than a chapter or two.

 

[Moemg]

Amazingly I have read 43 of the books . A very strange list ! Just goes to show that I will read anything and if desperate cereal boxes.

 

[Gumby]

I have read 49 of them. Only some would I rate as "books to read before you die".

 

[Meadbh]

I have read 49 of them. Only some would I rate as "books to read before you die".

I agree, and there are some notable omissions from the list. I guess all such lists have a large degree of subjectivity.

 

[ERD50]

I have read 49 of them. Only some would I rate as "books to read before you die".

Of the few that I've read, I'd only count "1984" and "Fahrenheit 451" as important to read. They just say so much about society.

As much as I liked "The Right Stuff", not everyone could connect with that, I think.

I'll have to see if I can get DW to review the list. She is always reading books. But I don't think they are the kind to make anyone's 'important' list.

-ERD50

 

[Gumby]

Of the few that I've read, I'd only count "1984" and "Fahrenheit 451" as important to read. They just say so much about society.

As much as I liked "The Right Stuff", not everyone could connect with that, I think.

I'll have to see if I can get DW to review the list. She is always reading books. But I don't think they are the kind to make anyone's 'important' list.

-ERD50

This is my list of relatively modern books to read to help you understand yourself and the people around you. I'm sure there are many I'm forgetting, but this would be a good start.

Ernest Hemingway - The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms
William Faulkner – The Sound and the Fury, Light in August
Thorton Wilder -- The Bridge at San Luis Rey
James Michener -- The Bridges at Toko Ri
John O’Hara -- Appointment at Samarra
F. Scott Fitzgerald -- The Great Gatsby
James Jones -- From Here to Eternity, The Thin Red Line
Chinua Achebe -- Things Fall Apart
William Styron -- Confessions of Nat Turner, Lie Down in Darkness
Yukio Mishima -- The Temple of the Golden Pavilion
Harper Lee -- To Kill a Mockingbird
George Orwell -- 1984
Vladimir Nabokov -- Lolita
Paul Bowles -- The Sheltering Sky
Saul Bellow -- Seize the Day
William Golding -- Lord of the Flies
Elie Wiesel -- Night
John Knowles -- A Separate Peace
Upton Sinclair -- The Jungle
Tennessee Williams -- A Streetcar Named Desire
Marsha Norman -- ‘Night Mother
Arthur Miller -- The Crucible
Robert Bolt – A Man for All Seasons
John Updike -- Rabbit Run
Carson McCullers -- The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
John Hersey -- The Wall
Alice Walker -- The Color Purple
Bernard Malamud -- The Assistant
John Steinbeck -- The Grapes of Wrath
J.D. Salinger -- The Catcher in the Rye
Gabriel Garcia Marquez – One Hundred Years of Solitude
Marilynne Robinson – Gilead
Ray Bradbury – Fahrenheit 451

 

[calmloki]

Not really understanding Amazon's criteria in selection. Have read about 25 or so, very few of the books have stuck with me or really had much to recommend them beyond bathroom stall reading matter. OTOH, when I tried to read a Harry Potter book it was just beyond me - Dr. Seuss books felt like they were written from a more adult perspective and I had more respect for that author - so maybe I'm a really poor judge of good books..

 

[growing_older]

It's a strange list. Of the books on the list I have read, only some of them seemed worthwhile and a few I would have recommended friends never read, as I thought they were a complete waste of time. There are lots of books not listed that should probably replace many of these. I wonder how this list was compiled. I've read almost half, but given what I thought of those on the list I did read, I'm in no hurry to try the others. I'm sure some will be good, and some will be terrible. I expect no better or worse than many other lists.