The 100 Greatest Books?
I found this list online, and I thought it would be fun to read through it. I have changed the list around a little bit, in that I tried to stay in the realm of fiction, and I took off as many of the inappropriate books that I knew about. Then I also tried to add some classic books from other Genres like mystery or science fiction. I have highlighted the ones I have read already. You know, these would make great Christmas presents.
In Alphabetical Order (By Author)
Alcott, Louisa May – Little Women
Austen, Jane – Emma
Austen, Jane – Northanger Abbey
Austen, Jane – Pride and Prejudice
Austen, Jane – Sense and Sensibility
Austen, Jane – Persuasion
Asimov, Isaac – Foundation
Beowulf
Bradbury, Ray – Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray – The Martian Chronicles
Bradbury, Ray – Something Wicked This Way Comes
Brontë, Charlotte – Jane Eyre
Brontë, Emily – Wuthering Heights
Browning, Robert – Collected Poems
Carroll, Lewis – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
Christie, Agatha – Murder on the Orient Express
Clarke, Arthur C. – 2001 A Space Odyssey
Conrad, Joseph – Heart of Darkness
Cooper, James Fenimore – The Last of the Mohicans
Crane, Stephen – The Red Badge of Courage
Dante – The Divine Comedy
de Cervantes, Miguel – Don Quixote
Defoe, Daniel – Robinson Crusoe
Dickens, Charles – A Tale of Two Cities
Dickens, Charles – Great Expectations
Dickens, Charles – Oliver Twist
Dickens, Charles – A Christmas Carol
Dickens, Charles – David Copperfield
Dickens, Charles –Nicholas Nickelby
Dickens, Charles –Bleak House
Dickinson, Emily – Collected Poems
Dostoevsky, Fyodor – The Brothers Karamazov
Dostoevsky, Fyodor – Crime and Punishment
Dumas, Alexandre – The Count of Monte Cristo
Dumas, Alexandre – The Three Musketeers
Dumas, Alexandre – The Man in the Iron Mask
Eliot, George – Silas Marner
Eliot, George – Mill on the Floss
Eliot, George – Middlemarch
Emerson, Ralph Waldo – The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson
Faulkner, William – The Sound and the Fury
Fitzgerald, F. Scott – The Great Gatsby
Forester, E.M. – Howards End
Forester, E.M. – A Room with a View
Forester, E.M. – Passage to India
Frost, Robert – Collected Poems
Golding, William – Lord of the Flies
Hardy, Thomas – Tess of the D’Ubervilles
Hammet, Dashiell – The Maltese Falcon
Hawthorne, Nathaniel – The Scarlet Letter
Hawthorne, Nathaniel – The House of Seven Gables
Henry, O. – The Gift of the Magi and other Stories
Hugo, Victor – The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Hugo, Victor – Les Miserables
Irving, Washington – The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Keats, John – Collected Poems
Kipling, Rudyard – Captains Courageous
Lee, Harper – To Kill a Mockingbird
London, Jack – The Sea Wolf
London, Jack – White Fang
London, Jack – The Call of the Wild
Melville, Herman – Moby Dick
Melville, Herman – Billy Bud
Milton, John – Paradise Lost
Montegomery, LM – Anne of Green Gables
Orwell, George – 1984
Orwell, George – Animal Farm
Poe, Edgar Allan – Tales of Mystery and Imagination
Remarque, Erich Maria – All’s Quiet on the Western Front
Salinger, J.D. – The Catcher in the Rye
Scott, Sir Walter – Ivanhoe
Scott, Sir Walter – The Talisman
Shakespeare, William – Hamlet
Shakespeare, William – Romeo and Juliet
Shakespeare, William – A Midsummer’s Night Dream
Shakespeare, William – Macbeth
Shakespeare, William – Julius Ceasar
Shelley, Mary – Frankenstein
Stevenson, Robert Louis – The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Stevenson, Robert Louis – Treasure Island
Stevenson, Robert Louis – Kidnapped
Stoker, Bram – Dracula
Swift, Jonathan – Gulliver’s Travels
Tolstoy, Leo – Anna Karenina
Tolstoy, Leo – War and Peace
Thoreau, Henry David – Walden
Tolkien, JRR – The Hobbit
Tolkien, JRR – Lord of the Rings
Twain, Mark – Huckleberry Finn
Twain, Mark – Tom Sawyer
Verne, Jules – 20,000 Leagues under the Sea
Verne, Jules – Around the World in 80 Days
Verne, Jules – Journey to the Center of the Earth
Wells, H.G. – The Time Machine
Wells, H.G. – The War of the Worlds
Wells, H.G. – The Invisible Man
White, T H – The Once and Future King
Whitman, Walt – Leaves of Grass
Wilde, Oscar – The Picture of Dorian Gray
Yeats, William Butler – Collected Poems
38/100 Read
What? No C.S. Lewis?
Sorry, no CS Lewis, but then I didn’t really make up the list myself. Most of these books probably wouldn’t be on the list if it was my own personal favorite. These are books that frequently pop up on best 100 type lists. I never did see any of CS Lewis’ books on those lists. I haven’t read much of him either, just the first two books in his Space trilogy. I didn’t care for the Chronicles of Narnia Movie, but I have a feeling that that wasn’t as good as the book. I should read them sometime, I know!
Yes — the books are better than the movie. My favorite of the Narnia books is The Horse and His Boy, but they are all good.
I’d also recommend The Weight of Glory, considered one of the best things Lewis ever wrote. I also loved The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, Pilgrim’s Regress, Miracles, and Surprised by Joy, but of those, Screwtape is probably the only one widely enough read to make it onto a list of greatest books.