Sunday, August 10, 2014

My Top 100 Favorite Books of All Time (in no particular order, except for #1, which is my fave)

     
Because a number of people have asked me lately what my all-time favorite books are, and a couple even asked me to put together a list of my top 100 that I would recommend...
 
      I submit this list without much commentary. It's eclectic -- new and old books, fiction and nonfiction, at least one graphic novel, even some poetry. Because I don't believe in age dictating what a person should read, there are both adult books and young adult books and even some books originally marketed to children. There are classics, there are chick lit masterpieces, and there are books about rock and roll. There are some favorite books about spirituality and a few about writing -- I was going to leave those off but then decided that was dumb, because they are good books and have something to teach anyone who reads them.

      So without further ado... 

1)               The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon 
2)               Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, JK Rowling
3)               Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, JK Rowling
4)               Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, JK Rowling
5)               Voyager (Outlander series), Diana Gabaldon
6)               Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi
7)               A Little Princess, Frances Hodgson Burnett
8)               Eleanor and Park, Rainbow Rowell
9)               Fangirl, Rainbow Rowell
10)                    Attachments, Rainbow Rowell
11)                    The Dovekeepers, Alice Hoffman
12)                    Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman
13)                    About a Boy, Nick Hornby
14)                    A Long Way Down, Nick Hornby
15)                    The Perks of Being A Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky
16)                    Tell The Wolves I’m Home, Carol Rifka Brunt
17)                    Ten Thousand Saints, Eleanor Henderson
18)                    The Fault In Our Stars, John Green
19)                    The Mockingjay Trilogy, Suzanne Collins
20)                    Sister of My Heart, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
21)                    The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
22)                    Skipped Parts (and the rest of the Grovont Trilogy), Tim Sandlin
23)                    Girl, Blake Nelson
24)                    Exodus, Leon Uris
25)                    The Outsiders, SE Hinton
26)                    Persuasion, Jane Austen
27)                    Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen
28)                    Unbroken, Lauren Hillenbrand
29)                    Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, Helen Simmons
30)                    Bridget Jones’ Diary, Helen Fielding
31)                    Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, Helen Fielding
32)                    Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
33)                    Gospel: A Novel, Wilton Barnhardt
34)                    Microserfs, Douglas Coupland
35)                    Life After God, Douglas Coupland
36)                    Ellen Tebbits, Beverly Cleary
37)                    The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, JRR Tolkien
38)                    Tales of the City (whole series), Armistead Maupin
39)                    The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
40)                    The Collected Short Stories, Ernest Hemingway
41)                    Kitchen, Banana Yoshimoto
42)                    Good In Bed, Jennifer Weiner
43)                    In Her Shoes, Jennifer Weiner
44)                    The Amulet of Samarkand (Bartimaeus trilogy), Jonathon Stroud
45)                    The Fact of A Doorframe (poems), Adrienne Rich
46)                    44 Scotland Street (series), Alexander McCall Smith
47)                    No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency (series), Alexander McCall Smith
48)                    The War of Art, Steven Pressfield
49)                    NP, Banana Yoshimoto
50)                    A Tale For the Time Being, Ruth Ozeki
51)                    Chocolat, Joanne Harris
52)                    Mandy, Julie Edwards
53)                    The Commitments, Roddy Doyle
54)                    Anne of Green Gables (series), LM Montgomery
55)                    Emily of New Moon (series), LM Montgomery
56)                    Any Man of Mine, Rachel Gibson
57)                    Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
58)                    Istanbul Passage, Joseph Kanon
59)                    A Storm of Swords, George RR Martin
60)                    The Murder Room (Adam Dalgliesh series), PD James
61)                    The Confessor (Gabriel Allon series), Daniel Silva
62)                    The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova
63)                    A Game of Thrones, George RR Martin
64)                    Allen Ginsberg: Collected Poems 1947-1980, Allen Ginsberg
65)                    An Actual Life, Abigail Thomas
66)                    Getting Over Tom, Abigail Thomas
67)                    The Moralist of the Alphabet Streets, Fabienne Marsh (out of print)
68)                    Peace Is Every Step, Thich Nat Hanh
69)                    Death At La Fenice (Commisario Guido Brunetti series), Donna Leon
70)                    Nowhere But Home, Liza Palmer
71)                    Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris
72)                    The Idiot Girl’s Action Adventure Club, Laurie Notaro
73)                    The Majic Bus, Douglas Brinkley
74)                    The Great Deluge, Douglas Brinkley
75)                    Homecoming, Cynthia Voigt
76)                    All The Lonely People, Jess Riley
77)                    The Unlikely Spy, Daniel Silva
78)                    Help Thanks Wow, Anne Lamott
79)                    Bird By Bird, Anne Lamott
80)                    A Writer’s Life, Annie Dillard
81)                    The Feast of Love, Charles Baxter
82)                    Floating In My Mother’s Palm, Ursula Hegi
83)                    Fasting, Feasting, Anita Desai
84)                    Life, Keith Richards
85)                    Just Kids, Patti Smith
86)                    Chronicles, Vol. I, Bob Dylan
87)                    Self-Inflicted Wounds: Heartwarming Tales of Epic Humiliation, Aisha Tyler
88)                    Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Jenny Lawson
89)                    Arranged, Catherine McKenzie
90)                    Forgotten, Catherine McKenzie
91)                    Hey, Nostradamus, Douglas Coupland
92)                    Killing Yourself to Live, Chuck Klosterman
93)                    Song Yet Sung, James McBride
94)                    The Good Lord Bird, James McBride
95)                    Whistling Past the Graveyard, Susan Crandall
96)                    Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, Chuck Klosterman
97)                    Possession, AS Byatt
98)                    We’ll Always Have Paris, Jennifer Coburn
99)                    The Paris Wife, Paula McLain
100)        The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories, Christopher Booker


1 comment:

Julio said...

Your number one is also my number one. Such a good book!