My Totally Random 101 Must-Read Books
November 26, 2010
My brother sent me this BBC 100 Must-Read Books that had all the ones he'd read in bold, so I returned the favor. But I thought, Hmmmm, what about MY list of 101 Must-Read books. So here goes:
1. Hardy Boys by Franklin W. Dixon (in whatever generation you belonged to)
2. A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle
3. The Young Unicorns by Madeleine L'Engle
4. Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey
5. The Deal by Peter Lefcourt
6. Bag of Bones by Stephen King
7. The Stand by Stephen King
8. I is for Innocent by Sue Grafton
9. Dr. Death by Jonathan Kellerman
10. The Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series by Rick Riordan
11. The Harry Potter series by JK Rowling
12. Utopia by Lincoln Child
13. Tyrannosaur Canyon by Douglas Preston
14. The Hot Zone by Richard Preston
15. To The Hilt by Dick Francis
16. L.A. Requiem by Robert Crais
17. Finding Rachel Wallace by Robert B. Parker
18. Walking Shadow by Robert B. Parker
19. Shark Island by Randy Wayne White
20. Winter Prey by John Sandford
21. The Brotherhood of the Rose by David Morrell
22. Old Man's War by John Scalzi
23. Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein
24. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
25. Hamlet by Shakespeare
26. Richard III by Shakespeare
27. Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare
28. A Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare
29. Death Comes For The Archbishop by Willa Cather
30. The Old Man And The Sea by Ernest Hemingway
31. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
32. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
33. 8 Million Ways To Die by Lawrence Block
34. When The Sacred Ginmill Closes by Lawrence Block
35. Out On The Rim by Ross Thomas
36. A Thief of Time by Tony Hillerman
37. In The Electric Mist With Confederate Dead by James Lee Burke
38. John Adams by David McCullough
39. Bad Luck & Trouble by Lee Child
40. Skullduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy
41. Blasphemy by Douglas Preston
42. Thunderhead by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
43. Riptide by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
44. Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill
45. Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer
46. In A Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson
47. Decider by Dick Francis
48. Nightmare Academy by Dean Lourey
49. Angel's Flight by Michael Connelly
50. The Second Perimeter by Mike Lawson
51. The Disappeared by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
52. His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis
53. The Ghost by Robert Harris
54. The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann
55. The Odyssey by Homer
56. Lysistrata by Aristophanes
57. Oedipus Rex by Sophocles
58. The Bible
59. A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift
60. On Liberty by John Stuart Mill
61. The Green Ripper by John D. McDonald
62. The Deep Blue Goodbye by John D. McDonald
63. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
64. Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
65. The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
66. The Diamond As Big As The Ritz by F. Scott Fitzgerald
67. The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaneal Hawthorne
68. The Cider House Rules by John Irving
69. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
70. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
71. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
72. Collected Short Stories by Jack London
73. The Telltale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe
74. The Jungle by Upton Sinclaire
75. War of the Worlds by HG Wells
76. 20,000 Leagues Beneath the Sea by Jules Verne
77. The Invisible Man by HG Wells
78. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
79. The Adventures of Huckleberry FInn by Mark Twain
80. The Adventures of Tom Sayer by Mark Twain
81. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
82. Native Son by Richard Wright
83. The Big Bad City by Ed McBain
84. Make Your Words Work by Gary Provost
85. Dr. No by Ian Fleming
86. The Lives of a Cell by Lewis Thomas
87. The RIght Stuff by Tom Wolfe
88. Sophie's Choice by William Styron
89. Telling Lies For Fun & Profit by Lawrence Block
90. Spider, Spin Me A Web by Lawrence Block
91. The Elements of Style by William Strunk and EB White
92. The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkein
93. Glitz by Elmore Leonard
94. The Medusa and the Snail by Lewis Thomas
95. The Fastest Funny Car by Patrick J. Williams
96. The R-Master by Gordon R. Dickson
97. The Weapon Shops of Isher by AE van Voght
98. Deathworld Trilogy by Harry Harrison
99. The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
100. Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective by Donald Sobol
101. The Danny Dunn books by Raymond Abrashkin and Jay Williams
Now that I've created this list of 101, I think I'm going to have to print it out and tweak it from time to time. Certainly I can write some blog posts talking about some of these different books. And there are certainly some holes in my reading of major "literary" works.
posted by Mark Terry at 9:27 AM
7 Comments:
The Lottery is a short story. :)
Yeah, I know. I think it came with "The Lottery and Other Stories" but I'm not sure if I've read the other stories. I have read "The Lottery" and it's a pretty amazing short story.
I read it in school a long time ago. There was also a very good short film based on it.
A marvelous and eclectic list.
(There are multiple "BBC Top 100 Book Lists" floating about the World Wide Interweeb -- I came upon one on Facebook that included a book by James Patterson!?!?)
I liked that you included the Dav Pilkey book -- my elder grandson (7) has become hooked on Jeff Kinney's "Wimpy Kid" series. (Hurray! Another kid who reads!)
Jim,
I read the first couple Captain Underpants books to my oldest son. Hilarious.
LOVE Captain Underpants!!!!!
Great idea, I also got the BBC list and reposted it. I had read like 84 out of their 100, but was disappointed that Twain wasn't on the list, let alone Hemingway, Faulkner and a number of others. Now I need to make my own list, and I think I'll use yours as a cheat sheet. Love some of your selections.Especially the Block, Parker, Heinlein...etc...
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