Thursday, March 30, 2017

100 (Fiction) Books to Read in a Lifetime

100 (Fiction) Books to Read in a Lifetime - AbeBooks.com: We've seen these lists before - from Amazon to the Telegraph to Time Magazine and beyond. Plenty of folks have lists of the 100 best books of all time, the 100 books you should read, and on. And beautifully, despite overlap, they are all different. The glorious subjectivity of art means that no two of these lists should ever be exactly alike. So this is ours, our special snowflake of a list, born out of our passion for books. We kept it to fiction this time. Some of the expected classics are there, alongside some more contemporary fare. There is some science fiction, some YA, and above all else, some unforgettable stories.

14 comments:

Jeff Meyerson said...

At first glance, I appear to have read 50 of them.

Rick Robinson said...

About 40 here. I have little or no interest in most of the others, though there are a few I'd like to read "as time allows".

August West said...

I'd take McCarthy's masterpiece "Blood Meridian" over "The Road."

Jeff Meyerson said...

I couldn't read THE ROAD at all.

Deb said...

47--mostly the older books. There are too many new books on that list; they need more time to see if many of those newer books "stand the test of time" (and I think most of them won't).

James Reasoner said...

21 for me. Some of the others I would read if I had all the time in the world. Many of them you'd have to pay me to read, and pretty good money, too.

Steve Oerkfitz said...

36 for me. Some odd choices-Sidney Sheldon? Would also take Blood Meridian over The Road. Not that The Roads a bad book. Glad to see the John Wyndham on the list.

Jeff Meyerson said...

Yeah, that Sidney Sheldon jumped out at me too. I mean, I read a couple of his books, but the top 100 list? I don't think so.

mybillcrider said...

Why two by Vonnegut? BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS isn't even close to being one of his best.

Deb said...

Yeah--and trendy YA like THE FAULT IN OUR STARS. Give it a few years to "season" and let's see how it looks then.

Steve Oerkfitz said...

Bill, I would have picked Cat's Cradle over Breakfast of Champions any day.

mybillcrider said...

Me, too.

Cap'n Bob said...

22, plus a couple I started and never finished. I could probably add some Classics Illustrated comics to the mix and half a dozen movies based on these books.

Don Coffin said...

I feel pretty good about this list...I've read 32 & started, but could not complete 11 of the others. (I went through a period in which I tried to read the Russian classics--Anna Karenina, The Brothers Karamazov (I almost got through this one, about 75%), Crime & Punishment; War & Peace--but, man, those books are long.)

And why the hell is The Hobbit on the list? (LOTR, maybe, just to mention another long book.) And I totally agree about Breakfast of Champions; if it's important to have a second Vonnegut, either Mother Night o Cat's Cradle is an infinitely better choice (as is Player Piano, for that matter).