This one is going to be hard because I hardly ever read anymore. I 99% of the time listen to books. In that sense I am "well-read". I always get the feeling that I'm cheating though. Too bad. I'll never get through 100 novels by actually reading them. That's a full-time job for me. I'm a super slow reader. Here are the sites I reviewed to compile my list.
http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/17/the-100-best-novels-written-in-english-the-full-list
http://www.listchallenges.com/101-best-selling-books-of-all-time
http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-nonfiction/
The original list I came up with was daunting. Let's just be realistic here. I'm not sure five years is long enough to get through just The Call of the Wild, much less Invisible Man, both books I have picked up and put down, because I thought they were no fun to read. So I went into problem solving mode. I went to Overdrive, my handy dandy audiobook service through my local library and started to look up which of the beauties on the list had audio versions. Out of the original 100 I had either read or there were audio versions of 50 of the books. So I started going down each list looking for more audio books. When I ran out of those, I started looking at the best non-fiction books of all time and then I really got desperate and looked at the best selling books of all time. I finally found a list of 100 audiobooks that are considered to be top 100. So here it is. It's time to get cracking.
Original Lofty yet abandoned List of Books to Read
A Brief History of Time, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, A Tale of Two Cities, Age of Innocence, Anna Karenina, Atlas Shrugged, Babbitt, Beloved, Brave New World, Brideshead Revisited, Candide, Catch-22, Crime and Punishment, David Copperfield, Don Quixote, Dracula, Dreams from My Father, Emma, Farenheit 451, Frankenstein, Gravity's Rainbow, Guilty Pleasures, Gulliver's Travels, Hamlet, Heart of Darkness, Heidi, I, Claudius, In Cold Blood, It, Joy in the Morning, Kidnapped, Leaves of Grass, Lolita, Madame Bovary, Middlemarch, Moby Dick, My Antonia, Naked Lunch, On the Road, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Paradise Lost, Poe Collected Stories and Poems, Robinson Crusoe, Slaughterhouse Five, The Alchemist, The Big Sleep, The Call of the Wild, The Canterbury Tales, The Divine Comedy, The Eagle Has Landed, Fountainhead, The Grapes of Wrath, The Haunting of Hill House, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Hobbit, The Interpretation of Dreams, The Lord of the Rings, The Maltese Falcon, The Mark of Zorro, The Metamorphosis, The Odyssey, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Red Badge of Courage, The Stand, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, The Trial, The Wind in the Willows, The Year of Magical Thinking, Think and Grow Rich, Tom Jones, Vanity Fair, Walden, Watership Down, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, War and Peace-8/24/16, Read-Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Read-Animal Farm, Read-Anne of Green Gables, Read-Black Beauty, Read-Charlotte's Web, Read-Ender's Game, Read-Great Expectations, Read-In His Steps, Read-Jane Eyre, Read-Les Miserables, Read-Little Women, Read-Lord of the Flies, Read-Pride and Prejudice, Read-The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Read-The Catcher in the Rye, Read-The DaVinci Code, Read-The Diary of a Young Girl, Read-The Great Gatsby, Read-The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Read-The Old Man and the Sea, Read-The Portrait of a Lady, Read-The Scarlet Letter, Read-To Kill a Mockingbird, Read-Wuthering Heights
New list of not quite so lofty and much more enjoyable books to read
- A Visit from the Goon Squad
- Between Shades of Gray
- Quiet
- The 5th Wave
- Ready Player One
- What Is the What
- Water for Elephants
- Where'd You Go, Bernadette
- Fangirl
- Freedom
- The Raven Boys
- The Art of Fielding
- Hex Hall
- Defending Jacob
- The Ocean at the End of the Lane
- The Paris Wife
- The Selection
- 11/22/63
- Unaccustomed Earth
- People of the Book
- Three Cups of Tea
- The White Tiger
- Cinder
- The Book Thief
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
- The Help
- Life of Pi
- Catching Fire
- The Time Traveler's Wife
- Gone Girl
- The DaVinci Code
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
- Mockingjay
- The Lovely Bones
- Twilight
- The Shack
- Sarah's Key
- Blink
- Unbroken
- Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
- The Secret Life of Bees
- The Lightning Thief
- Angels and Demons
- Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
- The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
- Eat, Pray, Love
- The Graveyard Book
- Freakonomics
- The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
- Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
- Marley and Me
- The Devil in the White City
- Me Before You
- The Art of Racing in the Rain
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows
- The Hunger Games
- A Short History of Nearly Everything
7/9/16 It is freaking time consuming to reach your goals. I need five years to get all this stuff done. I just put all these books into my wish list in Overdrive. I was going to just start at the top of the list and work my way down, but now that I see the Stephen Hawking book is at the time, I have changed my mind. Plus, I have a Fannie Flag book I'm already listening to and I would really like to finish it first. I already downloaded Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I think I will just go by the first one on my list in overdrive that is available. That way even if I don't really want to read it, I will force myself. I won't save all the vegetables for the end of the meal.
7/11/16 Finished Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and surprisingly, it was actually pretty good. I laughed out loud several times and enjoyed the imagery and writing style of Lewis Carroll. It was just odd enough to hold my interest, plus it was short which makes perfect sense since it is directed toward children.
I decided to go ahead and download my next book before I finished Alice, because I knew it wouldn't take too much longer. I had already uploaded all the titles to my overdrive wish list and I told myself that I would not pick and choose the books. I would just go down the list and the first available title would be the one I would listen to. Of course the first available book is War and Peace. They already highlighted in the introduction the book length is over 1300 pages. I have yet to look at how long it will take to listen to it. This is a book I was dreading. I sure hope it lives up to the hype.
7/13/16 So I am two hours into War and Peace. I broke down and went hunting for a plot summary today. I didn't even get far in the notes. I don't think the book is bad. I think its daunting and that is what has me going a bit numb all the time. I space out every now and then and wonder what I've missed. At this point it just seems like lots of aristocrats talking and talking and talking some more. This book needs a good fight scene. Better yet, it needs a good sex scene. I wonder if Tolstoy will get racy anytime soon.
7/19/16 Yep, I'm on part 6 of 53 in War and Peace. This is going to take a while.
7/30/16 I'm not quite halfway in War and Peace. Definitely not a thriller. It's more a commentary on life during war, but not for every walk of life. It's focused on the elite. I will admit, I usually listen to books at an accelerated speed (1.25), but for this one I have stepped it up to 1.5. I have to really be on my toes so I don't miss anything. I'm going to have to renew the book because it expires in 3 days and there is no way I can finish. We do plan to be in the car a lot this weekend, so maybe I can conquer a lot then.
I just got on my Goodreads account to update some settings and I went to my want to read list because I was wondering if I had added all these books to that list. Definitely have not, but there are so many wonderful books on my list. After War and Peace, I may have to pause to read one of those. Or maybe I just break my promise of checking out the first available book on my 100 greatest list. Maybe that is every other time. Next time, I go for a book that I am excited about reading like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Weird title and sounds totally interesting.
8/2/16 Two wonderful character names in W & P is a man whose name sounds like Jackoff and a soldier named Major Buzzoff. Book is worth it just for those two names.
8/14/16 Yes, still on W & P. I've revved it up to 1.75 x the speed, which is about an hour's worth of listening in 37 minutes. Right now they are going over the horrors of war, people dying beside you, soldiers not really knowing what they are fighting for, limbs being removed without true reflection, loved ones left behind and the emotional trauma left with returning fighters and the ones they love.
8/20/16 I might listen to W&P while hiking today. I'm now on part 48 of 53. The end is in site. I can taste it and am so ready. I checked out the movie from the library. I sure hope the movie is better than the book.
8/24/16 It's down to the epilogue, which is talking history and why it is interpreted the way it is. It gives a little explanation of the circumstances surrounding the book. It's actually a little more interesting than the book itself. I decided to motivate myself by downloading my next book. I have no idea if this next book will be any good, but the title at least intrigues me...Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. When I started this project, I told myself that I would just download the first book available on my Overdrive list. Well, we see where that got me with War and Peace. It was probably just like summiting Bierstadt. I had to convince myself to finish. If I can get through War and Peace, I can get through just about anything. Truth be told, I zoned out through much of the book and I was listening at it so fast, I am sure I missed things. I got the overall idea of the book though. I'm talking as if it is finished and I still have about 30 minutes left. AAAHHHHH!!!!
8/26/16 Well, thank the good Lord for a new book. I am reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. At first I thought it was just going to be a regular memoir, but the author has introduced content about going his boy being mentally ill and now he's relaying a story about waking up in a mental institution himself. He keeps talking about some historical character that I have never heard of. Or may be it is a mythical character. I'm not quite sure. At any rate, I am on part 3 of 15 and enjoying this way more than War and Peace. Funny thing is I checked War and Peace, the movie, out from the library thinking it would be good to watch the old film with Audrey Hepburn and Henry Fonda so I could get a better idea of what all the hype was about, but it turned out to be three and a half hours long and there was no way I could watch all that before the due date. Watching that movie was definitely not on my 50 before 50 list, so I gave that up quickly.
9/3/16 There is something not quite right about the author of the Zen book. He has explained that his son is in the beginning stages of a mental disorder and he has eluded to him having some sort of breakdown himself, but he has not explained. He keeps going back and forth between his own personal story and the story of some guy named Fedris. The thing about listening to books rather than reading them is I have no idea if I am spelling something correctly. I briefly tried to look up the name on the internet the other day, but didn't get very far. Granted, I did not try too long either. I just wanted to know a bit more about the person he is referring to over and over. We are getting his life story and I assume somehow it parallels his own. I'm about halfway through the book. Still interesting, although I wouldn't mind if the story stuck with him and his journey. I guess this Fedris fellow played and integral role in his journey.
9/20/16 Well, that's it. I've had all I can stands and I can't stands no more. I started listening to Vanity Fair and it might as well be War and Peace all over again. I decided to get a little help from a cliff's notes summary. After the summary it talked about how the writing style may be difficult for modern day readers because it was originally done in installments. The author sometimes calls the characters totally different names and the basic story line can be hard to follow as well with long drawn out descriptions. So why is it one of the 100 greatest novels? I love good stories and I am falling out of love with books. I can't have that so I need a new plan of action.
I took a look at the goodreads best books of the year awards. They only started in 2009, but it spans all genres which would give me a wide variety of experiences. I'm going to compile a list and take a look to see if it better fits the spirit of what I am trying to do, which is to expand my horizons and read things I may not ever choose to read. I want to break out of my mold. It's almost like dating. You should go out with all kids of different people in order to figure out what you really like. Taste all kinds of things at a restaurant, because you never know when you will find something amazing. Recently I have really enjoyed all the documentaries I've been watching. And I would never have realized that unless I hadn't forced myself to try new things. So a new list is coming.
9/27/16 I have taken a page from my main list of 50 Before 50 and listed more than 100 books below so I have some wiggle room. I am not really keen on reading the rest of the Twilight series so if I happen to get to 100 other books before I get to those, then so be it. Feel the same way about the Divergent series. Don't know if the movies ruined the books, but I couldn't bring myself to watch the second movie so why would I want to read the books? The list is taken from goodreads best of the 21st century and best of 2000-2010.
11/28/16 Since we last met, I've logged several books including The Paris Wife, Steelheart, Firefight, Dad is Fat and 11/22/63. Only The Paris Wife and 11/22/63 were on my list below, but that is OK. The others are books I listen to with the boys in the car. The Paris Wife is a story written from the perspective of Ernest Hemingway's first wife. I thought it was well written and I enjoyed learning about him through her eyes. I find it amazingly sad that some people live with such brilliance and such pain all at the same time. My first Stephen King was probably a wussy way to enter his world, but I really enjoyed the book. He drew me into the story and I wanted more. I'm not a far of horror, but I am contemplating reading more King just to see how I will like it. I think there is another King on my list. I am also reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. It is not wondrous and I'd like it to be over. It goes down like cough syrup.
1/21/17 I didn't care so much for Unaccustomed Earth. I kept thinking the stories were related, but then not and i would hold on to a story line and then it was over. Just not my cup of tea. I did enjoy People of the Book. It had history, mystery, romance and introspection. Probably could have had a bit more humor, but it wasn't a major loss. Now I just downloaded White Tiger. I have no idea what it is about. Crossing my fingers it is a good one.
1/31/17 Reading White Tiger right now. It's set in India and is supposed to be a letter written by a man who has killed someone to the leader of China who is coming to visit India. A strange concept and I'm intrigued, but not sure by what exactly. I'm about halfway through now. Can't complain. Also started Cinder with the boys. Thought since it was a Cinderella story, the boys wouldn't like it, but Cinder is a cyborg which makes it wayyyy cooler. So far, I like it better than White Tiger.
2/3/17 Well, White Tiger was mildly interesting, but I can't say it was one of the greatest books I've ever read. It may be better if I knew more about Indian culture. I am sure much of the story line is lost on me because I can't relate. Glad to move on.
2/10/17 So Cinder was actually really good. I think the boys even liked it even though it had some romance in it as well. I have book two on hold, but in the meantime I have a Neil Gaiman book to listen to called The Ocean at the End of the Road. I'm not sure if it is appropriate for the boys though. I should probably look that up before I start it. I read the excerpt and I can't tell if it is appropriate or not. I guess I will give it a try and if it starts to get sketchy, I will find something else for everyone to listen to.
2/11/17 I just know Defending Jacob is going to turn out bad and since I don't really like to read things I know have no hope of redemption, I am really going fast through this one. The story is actually very good, but I think with all of the reality check movies and documentaries I have watched lately, I just need something a little lighter.
2/12/17 Whoa! that was an unexpected ending for Defending Jacob. By the way, I know I should be underlining or Italicizing or at a minimum putting the titles in quotes, but I am just too lazy to do it. I won't give away the ending just in case someone wants to read it, but the last 15 minutes brought the whole book together with a big surprise and left me saying, No Way! Who would do that? I don't know. Maybe I would do that. Very impressed. I definitely think the story could have been told in half the amount of words, but all in all, I liked it.
2/12/17 Hex Hall is such a very typical teenage girl book. Vampires, fairies, warlocks and witches all going to a school in order to learn how to control their powers. Of course the main character is clueless and not liked and is paired with a roommate that is the bottom of the barrel in terms of popularity potential. And a double of course, there is a handsome privileged guy who initially treats the main character with disdain, but eventually sticks up for her. I am 100% certain they will get together if not in the book, then the second in the series. If it isn't until book two, then alas I will miss it, because I shan't be reading beyond this one. I think Abby could write a better book with a deeper less used plot line than this one.
2/13/17 Well, just before they hooked up and I mean hooked up in the being known biblical sense, she discovered that he was her enemy and of course it all went downhill from there. Not my fav and I will definitely not be moving on to book 2.
2/13/17 OK, I didn't even scroll through my list of books. Since everything on my wish list is a book I'm supposed to read for my 50 before 50, I just downloaded the first one that showed up as available. I have no idea what it is about. It is called The Art of Fielding. I'll keep you posted.
2/14/17 Since we finished Cinder and the second book is still on hold, we had to choose another book for our morning and afternoon car rides. The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman is interesting and odd. At this point, I can't totally tell what is happening. Is this a flashback to a child's strange fantasy or some misconception of reality. At any rate, it is keeping us wanting more. Also, The Art of Fielding, while not appropriate for the boys has proven enjoyable thus far. I am halfway through. I will say I feel like it should be nearing the end though, but alas I think that quite often. Get to the point author. Get to the point. What is all this talking about nonsense and feelings? Some is ok, but after we hash something out a few times, maybe we need to just move on. Oh, if life were that easy.
2/22/17 Finished The Art of Fielding. Would not call it one of my favorites, but it was mostly a good read. Nothing life changing and would not tell others to pick it up. Moved on to Freedom which I am halfway through now and feel about the same as I did with the last book. I guess I am just not all that enthused reading about people's screwed up lives and their depression and just general crap. The boys and I are listening to The Raven Boys, which is mystical and strange and other worldly. I like it better than Freedom so far.
2/27/17 Well, thank goodness Freedom is over. What an annoying book following the lives and pitiful people who can't make a good or happy decision to save their lives. This was all about some very screwed up people in this world and I just don't have the desire to read about the morally bankrupt. I have moved on to The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes.
8/24/17 Water for Elephants, Where'd You Go, Bernadette, and Fangirl. I read these three books in the last 6 months and not too much more because of the move. Fangirl was a twist on a romance that turned out to be fairly interesting. Water for Elephants was a book that has been made into a movie. I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't call it amazing. Now Where'd You Go, Bernadette was an amazing book. It was so well written and I laughed all throughout. In fact, I need to see if the author has written anything else. Well, she has. I just put that book on hold even though it is not on my list. Hopefully it will be as good as this one.
9/9/17 What is the What is definitely not a comedy and the cover is nothing to get excited about. In fact, it made me not want to read the book, but this is a classic case of don't judge the book by the cover. The story so far is not a happy one, but there is an underlying element of hope throughout the pain. It makes me want to keep reading.
10/19/17 I was trying to do too many things at once and actually checked What Is the What out Twice and didn't finish yet. In fact, I also did not finish Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. So after I read Ready Player One for shear (or is it sheer?) pleasure and not because it is on my list, I will go back and finish those two. That will put me at 54 books read so I must have more books on the list than just 100. That means I'm on the downward slide of this one as well.
11/11/17 FINALLY!!! It took three checkouts from the library to finish What is the What and I had to look up the meaning of the title, but I did enjoy it and it reminds me of how good I have it. Most of the world lives in poverty. Most of the world lives with struggle and my biggest struggle is what not to eat so I don't get fat. In the end, the what is not to settle in life. It is to grab life by the horns and experience it even through adversity. That is a message I can buy into. Now it is time to finish Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.
11/21/17 I am going to continue to work on this list but it will be for enjoyment from now on and not to accomplish a goal. I counted and I have read 58 books on this list and I am glad I have, but I do not want a goal to dictate how I spend my time and that sounds weird, but I think I have become a wee bit obsessive about this and the movies and the documentaries. It is no longer about experiencing life to the fullest. It is about crossing something off the list. And I know good and well I have plenty of time until I turn 50 to read 100 books, but I just don't feel it will enhance my life to keep it going as a goal. I want more out of life than just books and movies. I want life itself.
- Radium Girls - 2017
- Astrophysics for People in a Hurry - 2017
- Talking as Fast as I Can! - 2017
- Sleeping Beauties - 2017
- Without Merit - 2017
- Fantastic Beasts - 2017
- Before We Were Yours - 2017
- Little Fires Everywhere - 2017
- All the Light We Cannot See
- Across the Universe
- American Gods
- A Million Little Pieces
- Anansi Boys
- And the Mountains Echoed
- Atonement
- Before I Fall
- Daughter of Smoke & Bone
- Delirium
- Eleanor & Park
- Gilead
- God Is Not Great
- In the Garden of Beasts
- John Adams
- Kafka on the Shore
- Life After Life
- Middlesex
- My Sister's Keeper
- Never Let Me Go
- Nineteen Minutes
- On Writing
- Pandemonium (Delirium #2)
- Room
- Scarlet
- Shatter Me
- Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
- Station Eleven
- The Corrections
- The Cuckoo's Calling
- The Fall of Giants
- The Fellowship of the Ring #1
- The Girl on the Train
- The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest #3
- The Girl Who Played with Fire #2
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo #1
- The Goldfinch
- The Great Hunt
- The Hobbit
- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
- The Kite Runner
- The Light Between Oceans
- The Memory Keeper's Daughter
- The Night Circus
- The Passage
- The Red Queen
- The Road
- The Two Towers #2
- The Way of Kings
- The Year of Magical Thinking
- The Shadow of the Wind
- Walden
- Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
12/7/17 I have dragged my feet on reading this series because I heard there was a rape scene and I typically don't like to read about rape. Such a violation seems hard to write about without crossing lines. Not even sure what I mean by that. It sometimes feels like some authors misuse rape scenes and end up glorifying it. Let's just say, when I hear there is a rape scene, I am deterred. I just got past the rape scene and the subsequent vindication of the victim. So often it is surprising who is a victim of sexual assault. The character in this books seems so badass and I did not expect her to be vulnerable. All women are vulnerable, even the strongest among us. However, like the main character in this book, we do not have to stay victims.
I added the best books of 2017 and even though I am finished with this adventure, I will continue to read from this list because I know I will find great books like the dragon tattoo. This is one I can't stop just because I crossed it off my list. You can never cross reading off the list.