100 books to read before you die

Edit July 2012: It’s always wonderful to hear young people leaving comments telling me how many books they’ve read, it’s reassuring in a way as sometimes I feel like people don’t read as much as they should anymore. English isn’t my first language and I only started learning it at around 11, really picking it up at 12, and thus I’m still trying to catch up with all the books I’d have loved to read as a child. Feel free to leave more recommendations, and I’ll try to read them all, have a great day.

Edit 16 Jan 11: I’ve been reading a great deal since getting myself a Kindle for Christmas :) If you’re here looking for books to read, I would recommend Haruki Murakami as an author, or Norwegian Wood specifically (he’s more well-known for Kafka on the Shore though). One of the best books I’ve ever been lucky enough to read. Thanks for the comments left, I take a note and hopefully will get to read them soon. Enjoy your reading :)

Edit 18 April: People on the Internet are soo funny! Uhh read the Bible if you want, I personally have no religion really… but everyone in my family and extended family is Buddhist, and if I’m not even going to read the Buddhism Teachings, I’m not gonna read the Bible! Or any other religious books. Because I am not interested! Go ahead and comment on my not reading the Bible —- i’m still not gonna read it. Everyone else, enjoy the list :)

 

There are things I’d like to write about once i find the time and the mood. Probably at a random cafe in town. I’m tired of writing brainless updates that I don’t even know why I do. One day I’m going to read back on these entries, and I’d like to remember more than what I bought at a Mango sale-off.

Meanwhile, here’s a list of 100 books to read before you die. Ticking off the ones I’ve read as [x]. I need to start reading more again. Losing yourself in books is kind of a better alternative, rather than alcohol and blasting night clubs.

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen (I saw the movie? But yes planning to read the book someday.)

2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien (Got through a chapter before giving up)

3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte (Erm I have the book… unfortunately never got around to reading it..)

4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling [x]

5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

6 The Bible - Not planning to read..

7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte [x]

8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens [x]

11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk

18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger [x]

20 Middlemarch – George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell [x]

22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy -

32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis [x]

34 Emma – Jane Austen

35 Persuasion – Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis [x]

37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini [x]

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne – There’s a book about Winnie the Pooh? :|Added to list of Must-read!

41 Animal Farm – George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown [x]

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving

45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins [x] (abridged version though)

46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy (I have the book, but, erm…)

48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding

50 Atonement – Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel

52 Dune – Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons [x]

54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens [x]

58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night – Mark Haddon [x]

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens

72 Dracula – Bram Stoker [x]

73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett [x]

74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses – James Joyce

76 The Inferno – Dante

77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal – Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession – AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens [x]

82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White [x]

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom – I’ve read Tuesdays with Morrie though!

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [x]

90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery [x]

93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks

94 Watership Down – Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl [x]

100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo [x]

I’ve read 21 of them! At 17 I think that’s a pretty decent number although I’m pretty ashamed to not have read the classics like Little Women and the Jane Austen stuff…

All those mentioned in the list (that I have read, of course) are all very beautiful. and definitely worth your time. I’m sure the rest must be, too. So this year my reading resolution is:

1. To Kill a Mockingbird
2. Little Women
3. Catcher in the Rye
4. Alice in Wonderland (I know I’ve only read the children’s version :/)
5. Memoirs of a Geisha
6. Winnie the Pooh
7. Far From the Madding Crowd (gonna read this this week!)
8. Lolita
9. The Five People You Meet In Heaven
10. The Faraway Tree Collection

Some of the classics look so boring on the shelf I don’t even want look at them twice. But I reckon they must be good… oh well.

..

PS:/ Really proud to mention that I read Les Miserables in all its full blown unabridged glory! I even remember crying on the bus whilst holding my phone for light as it was getting dark outside…