The fifth goal in my 101 things to do in 1001 days project is to read all of the books on the Time Magazine Top 100 Books list. I’ve been working on this list for a little while now, but have fallen by the wayside a little bit in choosing these books when deciding what to read next. I’ve gone through the list and bolded the titles that I’ve already read. I’m going to try to work some of the unread titles into my upcoming reading list so that I can catch up…
- The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
American Pastoral by Philip Roth
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Appointment in Samarra by John O’Hara
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
The Assistant by Bernard Malamud
At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O’Brien
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
Call It Sleep by Henry Roth
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell
The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West
Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
A Death in the Family by James Agee
The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
Deliverance by James Dickey
Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone
Falconer by John Cheever
The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles
The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh
The Heart is A Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene
Herzog by Saul Bellow
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul
I, Claudius by Robert Graves
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Light in August by William Faulkner
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Loving by Henry Green
Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
Money by Martin Amis
The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Naked Lunch by William Burroughs
Native Son by Richard Wright
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
1984 by George Orwell
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion
Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth
Possession by A.S. Byatt
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
Rabbit, Run by John Updike
Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow
The Recognitions by William Gaddis
Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
The Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
The Sportswriter by Richard Ford
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John le Carre
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
Ubik by Philip K. Dick
Under the Net by Iris Murdoch
Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
Watchmen by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
White Noise by Don DeLillo
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
How many of these books have you read? Any suggestions as to which I should start with first?
I’ve read:
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Appointment in Samarra by John O’Hara
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
The Assistant by Bernard Malamud
Atonement by Ian McEwan
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Heart is A Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (got bored halfway through the first book and gave it up as a lost cause)
Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
Naked Lunch by William Burroughs
Native Son by Richard Wright
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow
Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Watchmen by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
I really like Catch 22 and The Great Gatsby, and I like anything by Carson McCullers.
That is an impressive selection Dee! I really want to read The Great Gatsby before the new film is released with Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan.
To be fair, a few of them I read in high school, and I also studied literature. But I have read a lot of books in my time. 🙂
I would consider myself a ‘reader’ but have hardly read any on this list.
Challenge accepted!
Excellent! Good luck with your reading Emily, I look forward to hearing how you go!
From those, I’ve read:
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Death in the Family by James Agee
The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Heart is A Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Naked Lunch by William Burroughs
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
1984 by George Orwell
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
Possession by A.S. Byatt
Rabbit, Run by John Updike
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
My top 7 (tried to do 5!) of those would be:
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Rabbit, Run by John Updike
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
I should read the rest on that list. There’s so many there that I know the basic plots of so I’ve never read them, or started them and never finished, and I should!
PS My most hated from that list are:
The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing (Not really hated, but it’s SO COMPLICATED it made me feel very stupid. I feel like I literally had to have been a communist to understand it.)
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner – I found this IMPOSSIBLE to read, and I’ve got a feeling it was designed that way.
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie (I just can’t get over how much I hate Rushdie, he’s a jerk).
Also I’ve only read Animal Farm, Catch 22, A Clockwork Orange, 1984 and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest because I’ve had to for school/uni, I didn’t particularly like them.
OK I’ll stop talking now 🙂
I’m working on this list myself (amongst about 5 other lists!). I’ve only got 22 of 100. Right now I’m working more on another list, so I’ll have to focus on this list later.
Way to go with your progress thus far!
Okay I’ve only read 4- and thats including Revolutionary Road, which Im not even finished yet!!
I would also consider myself a reader but have only read about a dozen and there’s plenty on there I’ve never even heard of.
I’d second the recommendation re Wide Sargasso Sea – it’s based loosely on Jane Eyre.
I consider myself to be pretty well read but Ive only read seven books on this list.