Amazon has a list of 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime. This is an extensive list of good books across several categories and these books were selected by Goodreads readers and Amazon editors.
I have had a lifelong love affair with books- especially the classics- and I think this is an excellent list. There is definitely something for everyone and looking through this list is like seeing old friends for me. Catcher in the Rye, The Good Earth, Gone with the Wind… all such beautiful books. There are some current bestsellers included as well like several of the Harry Potter books and Gone Girl (which I loved). Plus the Secret Life of Bees (another old friend of mine) and The Help.
So you might take a look at this list and see if you want to add some things to your bookshelf. You can click the links to be taken to the main page where all 100 books are listed. There are (4) pages in total.
I read a lot of books and I actually have a Pinterest board for books I liked or ones I want to read so that can be a great way to keep track. I have read 55 of these books so I guess I have some work to do!
Here are the top 100 books:
- “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee
- Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen
- “The Diary of Anne Frank” by Anne Frank
- “1984″ by George Orwell
- “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” by J.K. Rowling
- “The Lord of the Rings” by J.R.R. Tolkien
- “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- “Charlotte’s Web” by ER White
- “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott
- The Hobbit by JRR Toiken
- “Fahrenheit 451″ by Ray Bradbury
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
- Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
- Animal Farm by George Orwell
- The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
- The Help by Kathryn Stockett
- The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
- The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis
- The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
- The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
- Lord of the Flies by William Golding
- The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
- Night by Elie Wiesel
- Hamlet by William Shakespeare
- A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
- A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
- The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
- A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
- Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
- The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
- Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
- The Little Prince by Antoine de St-Expupery
- Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
- The Giver by Lois Lowry
- Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery
- MacBeth by William Shakespeare
- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
- The Holy Bible: New King James Version by Thomas Nelson
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson
- The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas pere
- The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
- The Color Purple by Alice Walker
- East of Eden by John Steinbeck
- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
- Catch-22 by Joesph Heller
- In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
- The Stand by Stephen King
- Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
- Watership Down by Richard Adams
- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
- Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
- Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
- Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
- Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling
- The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
- A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin
- The Princess Bride by William Goldman
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
- Life of Pi by Yann Martel
- The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
- Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
- The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Dracula by Bram Stoker
- Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by JK Rowling
- Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
- Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
- The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe
- The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
- Outlander by Gabaldon
- A Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
- The Good Earth by Pearl S Buck
- The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
- The Odessy by Homer
- Celebrating Silence: Excerpts from 5 Years of Weekly Knowledge by Sri Sri Ravi Shanker
- A Prayer for Own Meany by John Irving
- And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
- The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullogh
- The Glass Castle by Jeanette Wall
- Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
- The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
- The Road by Cormac McCarthy
- Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
- Beloved by Toni Morrison
- Helen Keller: The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
- The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
- From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler by EL Konigsburg
- Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
- Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
What others would you add to this list? I have to say I was a little disappointed not to see The World According to Garp. That is one of my favorites of all time.
Hey thanks for sharing the list. honestly, I feel it would have been better if you had included some description on why these are the must read books. Picking up books just from the name is tough.
Also, Links to the books aren’t working. Thought you would want to know.
Write a paragraph for 100 different books? I see your point Manpreet but that would be a crazy long post. Many of these books are classics so hopefully people see a few familiar faces. Otherwise you can click the links in the post and get a full description of each book 😉
I’ll check those links. Thanks for letting me know!
Many of my favs aren’t on the list. 🙁
The girl with a pearl earring
Angela’s Ashes
The Mammy
The Red Tent
Gone with the Wind
Anything written by Amy Tan
I love Gone with the Wind too 🙂
Thanks, I read almost a 75 books of the list but someones like lord of the ring are a very hard read….
Wow that is a ton Jaime 🙂 I haven’t read Lord of the Rings either 😉
Hey, I’ve read 31 of them! Not too shabby. I’m currently on a non-fiction kick, so the rest will have to wait.
Water For Elephants is one of my favorites
Tree Grows in Brooklyn ❤️❤️, the only book I have read more than once.
Andrea that was a favorite of mine too. Beautiful book!
Hawaii by James Michner
The Witching Hour by Ann Rice
The Screwtape Letters changed my life. Unbroken, Robinson Crusoe
Hi Kim, Unbroken is for sure one to read. I think this was written before Unbroken came out.
Can’t understand why From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler by EL Konigsburg was on this list, and Gone With the Wind was not. There are other, also. Why was Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins on the list and not Exodus or The Book Thief?
Hi Henryetta,
The Book Thief was a wonderful book for sure. Have you read The Paris Architect? You might like that. The Book Thief was written after this list. I am not familiar with Exodus but Gone with the Wind is a classic for sure and you are right, it should have a spot!
I am disappointed that the majority of these are western writers. And, I think that the list should be closer to 500 books, as I have read most of these and would like more.
Hi Ke Patrick- this is written by American reviewers so the books are definitely geared toward Western readers.
Happy Reading,
Charlene
Shantaram and Out of Africa.
I would add The Scarlett Pimpernel-the forerunner to Zorro, Superman, Batman, etc.
I would like to add, Flowers For Algernon, and Johnny Got His Gun
I’ve read only ten out of a hundred