The Amazon books editors got together and chose 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime. You can see that list here: http://www.amazon.com/100Books/ref=10...
This list was compiled by Goodreads readers.
This list was compiled by Goodreads readers.
15,128 books ·
17,328 voters ·
list created February 3rd, 2014
by Chris Schluep (votes) .
1969 likes · Like
Lists are re-scored approximately every 5 minutes.
Chris
155 books
145 friends
145 friends
Mari
12 books
107 friends
107 friends
Sara Nelson
57 books
204 friends
204 friends
Oma
440 books
3 friends
3 friends
Joliene
511 books
15 friends
15 friends
Heath
820 books
135 friends
135 friends
Janice
1533 books
70 friends
70 friends
Cyd
1564 books
31 friends
31 friends
More voters…
Comments Showing 1-50 of 286 (286 new)
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Jane
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Feb 04, 2014 06:18AM
Tiny Sunbirds Far Away
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Some good ones - but also some truly weird or idiotic choices. Will be VERY interesting to see how this goes ... nice poll!
Lynette wrote: "Where is 100 YEARS OF SOLITUDE??????????????!!!!!!!!!!Madame Bovary or ANY TWAIN? Not pleased."
Wait, I take that back, I see Tom Sawyer. Mi malo.
No Hemingway, but a nod to Stieg Larsson? Hmmm... And as a side note: Where the Red Fern Grows, fave as a child. Ok, thanks for the list. Sorry if I come off as a complainer; this stuff just really hits home for me.
The list on Goodreads is a list composed by readers. You can add your favorites and vote. The Amazon editors' list is here - http://www.amazon.com/100Books
There's some interesting crossover, and many of the books on the readers' list are ones that we struggled over. Alas, we could only pick 100.
I've read 66 of the 100. I think it's lame that 4 Harry Potter books are on the list; I've only read the first one and that should suffice. The same goes for the Hunger Games - I've read all of them, but I think just the first one should be listed.
I agree with Linda, it also seems most of the books were written or made into a movie in the last 10 years, this only has some of the classics, but the ones it does have are really good.
Roy - God of Small ThingsSeth - A Suitable Boy
Naipaul - A House for Mr. Biswas
Hemmingway - most any of his work
Mantel - Bring Up the Bodies
Rushdie - Midnight's Children
Marquez - 100 Years of Solitude
Theodore Roosevelt's listhttp://www.artofmanliness.com/2014/02...
Im going for instead of amazon's list its too modern for my tastes and contains too many clunkers
Just added 16 unread from this list to my to-read. I've read the rest, excluding the Bible of which I've only read parts.
JAWS by, I think, Peter Benchley. Way scarier than the movie, with an extra romantic duo smartly left out of the movie.
Leanne wrote: "Mark Twain???The Alchemist"
I'm sure I voted for both Huckelberry Finn and Tom Sawyer!
If Lord of the Rings (v. 1-3) is one entry, so should the Hunger Games and Harry Potter series be counted as one entry each. Was there a goal % to divide between children's books and adult books (what percentage of each on the list)? I think I'd like to see these as two separate top 100 lists, to allow room for both types of reading.
We tried to cover all stages of reading, so children's books and adult books are on the same list. Someday in the future we'll break it down-- 100 Children's Books to Read in a Lifetime, 100 Science Fiction & Fantasy Books to Read in a Lifetime, 100 Biographies, etc. That will hopefully be an easier task.
Lynette wrote: "Lynette wrote: "Where is 100 YEARS OF SOLITUDE??????????????!!!!!!!!!!Madame Bovary or ANY TWAIN? Not pleased."
Wait, I take that back, I see Tom Sawyer. Mi malo."
AND Huck Finn..
This list is completely ridiculous... No Homer, no Plato, no Aristotle, no Dante, no Milton, no Shakespeare, no Augustine, no Virgil, no Descartes, NO DOSTOEVSKY???? Yet harry potter and the hunger games... All faith in society is gone.
How about Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy? Or Zurcher's Buddhist Conquest of China? After reviewing the list of 100 titles, my sense is I've got it wrong... "Must Read" to me means those books which one should read to gain knowledge, perspective and intellectual stimulation about the world around us. Some of the suggested titles on this list are "entertainment" and lack substantive observation / challenging points of view. I've read Water for Elephants and Memoirs of a Geisha and enjoyed the read immensely. But I hardly consider those two titles as "MUST READ" books.
It was clearly compiled by 20-year old.Harry Potter, and The Lion, the Witch, and the shitty Wardrobe,
and nothing of Wells or Azimov or Lem?
BOO, goodreads, and goodbye
I agree there are many more wonderful books to be added to this list such as: Toad In the Mud ... In 1932 a young black Mobile Alabama woman became part of a secret scientific research project that was funded by the US government. She was put to sleep in a hibernation test as part of the experiment (for 5 weeks). They (the scientists) failed to detect that the young woman was pregnant, prior to the experiment. The experience was a success from the government’s point of view, the experiment proved that there was a process that would allow a person to be put to sleep for an indefinite period of time without undue hardship on the body. The process was to duplicate the same process that frogs incur when they are buried in the mud during long drought periods. The scientists did not know nor had a way to determine the true effects the experiment would have on the human body for any period of time. Over the months and years the experiment was forgotten until the spring of 1997 when some young medical student happened upon the body of a body they thought was a mummy in an old abandoned research facility somewhere in Los Angeles County.
Agreed, list looks like it was written for adolescents. In no world are the Hunger Games a "must read". Not a single non-fiction title to be found and completely skewed to western lit. And Poe's The Raven is a book? Really? How about Tales of Mystery and Imagination instead of listing a poem as a book.
Chief ones missing that I can think of are Twain's "Roughing It" and "The Innocents Abroad." Also more of Steinbeck and at least one Saroyan.
Mark Twain...duh.David Foster Wallace
How about some poetry? Poetry's nice!
I had an entire grad school course on Milton...no Milton?
Burroughs?
Kerouac, Frost, Updike...so many great ones missing.
But whaddya' gonna' do when you only have 100 slots to fill, right? AMIRITE???
Twain is on it with Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, but there are others that should arguably be there, too.
Diary of a Young Girl by Ann Franks is my favorite.I find great satisfaction by seeing people share their pain and struggle to be set free.
You all fancy yourselves as readers but many have not even read the top of this page where it indicates that this is the list of "Readers' Picks."The list above is NOT the Editors' List. The link for that site is also provided at the top of this page.
The Hunger Games books are in no way important to read in a lifetime. The writing is not of high enough quality. Gone Girl? That book will not be remembered as a great book in 10 years even.
I know there is only room for 100, but two key ones missing for me are "Cry the Beloved Country" and "The Red Tent". Yes, I think Hunger Games and Gone Girl are there for the sake of "Current" selections...not that I have read them :)
Linda wrote: "I've read 66 of the 100. I think it's lame that 4 Harry Potter books are on the list; I've only read the first one and that should suffice. The same goes for the Hunger Games - I've read all of the..."I agree. Listing several books in a series like Harry Potter rather "weights" the results unjustly.
We're missing some classic sci-fi on the list:"I Robot" by Isaac Asimov
"20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" by Jules Verne
"War of the Worlds" by H. G. Wells



















