# Amazon's 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazons-100-books-to-read-in-a-lifetime/682032
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [February 23, 2014, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazons-100-books-to-read-in-a-lifetime/682032 "2014-02-23T20:15:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Elemenopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elemenopy)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2014, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazons-100-books-to-read-in-a-lifetime/682032/41 "2014-02-24T12:42:50Z")
> [@Becky2844](#):
>
> I pick books like I eat; some spicy, some filling, and some spare and lean. I don’t care what year they’re written in or who says they’re “good.” A good writer can make changing a tire compelling. A bad writer could make the Second Coming fall flat. I open a book and read a paragraph. If it’s not awful I go to the front and read the beginning. If it’s intriguing, I read…I read.
Cheers! 🙂
I’ve read at least 40 of these. A few, like _The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay_, I couldn’t finish because I dreaded picking them back up; if a book engages me I have trouble NOT reading it in a sitting (or two).
I don’t think the list is meant to be comprehensive or best. After all, it includes _Diary of a Wimpy Kid_, “for reluctant readers.” I read that once because my son left it lying around. It’s to describe a common, popular literary vernacular, as others above have suggested. Nothing wrong with that. I’d throw out the book on running and include something like Pinker’s _The Language Instinct_, for example, but that’s just me.
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### Author:  [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2014, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazons-100-books-to-read-in-a-lifetime/682032/42 "2014-02-24T12:49:40Z")
> [@Baker](#):
>
> Any list like that that includes _The Hunger Games_ is not a list that I could respect. Some great books there, but it reads more like a bestseller list, rather than a list that would mark you as well read.
Agreed.
I read 51 books on that list. I just love reading.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2014, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazons-100-books-to-read-in-a-lifetime/682032/43 "2014-02-24T13:11:12Z")
51 too. But yeah, there is a lot of crap on that list.
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### Author:  [@yellowval](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowval)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2014, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazons-100-books-to-read-in-a-lifetime/682032/44 "2014-02-24T14:11:33Z")
I’ve read 33, and have a few on my “to-read” list. There are also quite a few I have no interest in ever reading (Harry Potter), or that I’ve tried to read and couldn’t get through (Midnight’s Children, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks).
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### Author:  [@Grrlbrarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrlbrarian)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2014, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazons-100-books-to-read-in-a-lifetime/682032/45 "2014-02-24T15:32:45Z")
57 plus others I’ve read in part. Meh on the list generally, although I did enjoy (and have read) all the kid or YA lit on there except **Diary of a Wimpy Kid**.
For breadth and depth in the classics, I like Clifton Fadiman’s **New Lifetime Reading Plan** , although it’s not exactly ‘new’ anymore with a 1999 publication date. It did introduce me to a lot of non-Western classics.
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### Author:  [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2014, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazons-100-books-to-read-in-a-lifetime/682032/46 "2014-02-24T15:35:05Z")
53
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### Author:  [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2014, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazons-100-books-to-read-in-a-lifetime/682032/47 "2014-02-24T15:37:36Z")
Read 25, tried to read a couple others… there are at least several books on that list that are on my personal “Books to Avoid Reading at All Costs” list.
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2014, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazons-100-books-to-read-in-a-lifetime/682032/48 "2014-02-24T16:57:54Z")
1. But not being a teenage girl, I’m not going to read _The Hunger Games_.
And while I never read the graphic novel _Persepolis_, I did see the film, which I would think would be almost the same thing. And if they’re including graphic novels, why no _Maus_?
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### Author:  [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2014, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazons-100-books-to-read-in-a-lifetime/682032/49 "2014-02-24T17:19:27Z")
51 on the Reader list (what you get if you click the picture at the top), which is skewed toward popular novels.
24 on the actual Amazon list, which is skewed toward recent novels.
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2014, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazons-100-books-to-read-in-a-lifetime/682032/50 "2014-02-24T17:19:40Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#):
>
> 1. But not being a teenage girl, I’m not going to read _The Hunger Games_.
But are you going to read _The Very Hungry Caterpillar_?
Whatever its merits, _The Hunger Games_ is at least as worthy of being read by adults (male ones, at that) as some of the other books on the list.
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### Author:  [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2014, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazons-100-books-to-read-in-a-lifetime/682032/51 "2014-02-24T18:19:10Z")
I’ll second the reading of Hunger Games as an adult, male or female. I loved 'em, and I’m practically an old lady.
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2014, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazons-100-books-to-read-in-a-lifetime/682032/52 "2014-02-24T18:34:45Z")
Thanks. I was under the impression it was another _Twilight_. Still might take me awhile to get to it though.
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2014, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazons-100-books-to-read-in-a-lifetime/682032/53 "2014-02-24T18:57:07Z")
34 completely, plus parts of two others.
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### Author:  [@Politzania](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Politzania)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2014, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazons-100-books-to-read-in-a-lifetime/682032/54 "2014-02-24T19:21:32Z")
Around 51 - not counting _Guns, Germs & Steel_, since I know I only made it partway & there’s a few others I vaguely remember reading, but couldn’t tell you much about them (_On The Road, Invisible Man, Beloved, Love in the Time of Cholera_). I counted 21 as “Read in the Last Decade” and 29 in the “Read sometime before that” list. I agree the list is US-centric & biased toward recent books, but it’s a starting point for discussion (obviously!)
Here’s my personal recommendations from the list - books that I either have read multiple times or plan on returning to again someday:
\*In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
\*Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
\*Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
\*Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
\*Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
\*The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
\*The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
\*The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
\*The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks
\*The Shining by Stephen King
\*A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
\*Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
\*To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
I have the following in my Haven’t Read Yet list - any feedback will help bump titles toward the top of the list.
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
All the President’s Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream by Hunter S. Thompson
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
Jimmy Corrigan: Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien ( don’t judge me! 😃 )
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
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### Author:  [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2014, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazons-100-books-to-read-in-a-lifetime/682032/55 "2014-02-24T19:31:48Z")
I have read 20. I am surprised _the Maltese Falcon_ didn’t make it. I love _The Long Goodbye_ so I am happy to see it there. I see people complaining, but this isn’t a list of the greatest books ever, as the title says it is a list of books to have a “well-read life”, not sure what that means exactly, but it could mean that popular books are not great literature but they are cultural cornerstones.
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### Author:  [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2014, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazons-100-books-to-read-in-a-lifetime/682032/56 "2014-02-24T19:36:13Z")
> [@Politzania](#):
>
> I have the following in my Haven’t Read Yet list - any feedback will help bump titles toward the top of the list.
> A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
> All the President’s Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
> Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
> Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream by Hunter S. Thompson
> Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
> Jimmy Corrigan: Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware
> Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
> Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
> Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
> Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
> Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
> The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
> The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
> The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
> The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien ( don’t judge me! 😃 )
> The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
> The Road by Cormac McCarthy
> The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
> Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
> Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
from that list, I can only say that \*Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas \*and \*Team of Rivals \*are both very well done and worth reading. They’re quite different, needless to say.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2014, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazons-100-books-to-read-in-a-lifetime/682032/57 "2014-02-24T19:42:27Z")
34 from the Amazon list and 43 from the Goodreads list. Plus a the beginning of “A Brief History of Time,” but not enough that I can honestly say I’ve read it. A bunch of my very favorite books are on these lists: Lolita, Gatsby, Midnight’s Children, Kavalier & Clay, Brave New World. The only book on either list that I actually hated was On the Road. I’m still not over that burning disappointment. I was sure I’d love that one and was stunned that I didn’t like it at all.
I think the most recent entry that I read is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and I can’t recommend that strongly enough. It’s a great read and it explores issues of medical ethics and American race and poverty in a unique way, and it shows that these things are all tied together in a complex and sad knot.
> [@Procrustus](#):
>
> from that list, I can only say that \*Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas \*and \*Team of Rivals \*are both very well done and worth reading. They’re quite different, needless to say.
I would read the _shit_ out of _Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 1860._
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### Author:  [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2014, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazons-100-books-to-read-in-a-lifetime/682032/58 "2014-02-24T21:49:19Z")
I’ve read 30 of the books on the Amazon list, but don’t think much of the list. I take no real pride in having read “Goodnight Moon” and “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” to my son when he was little. And I don’t feel I’ve lost anything by NOT reading _ **Valley of the Dolls.** _
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### Author:  [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2014, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazons-100-books-to-read-in-a-lifetime/682032/59 "2014-02-24T22:33:03Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#):
>
> Some classics aren’t too hard. Modern readers seem to exclusively love or absolutely hate Dickens, but I don’t think the haters dislike him because he’s a hard read. His mid-19th century prose is actually pretty readable even for a 20th/21st century reader. Mark Twain is another (bit later) 19th / early 20th century author whose novels (aside from having the word nigger in them which gets them banned from schools or threatened with revisionism) are easy to read for a modern reader.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, there’s some fantastic Victorian and Edwardian books out there (Dickens and Twain as you mentioned, and I’d add H Rider Haggard and HG Wells to the list too) but I’ve read plenty of stuff which I thought should have been a cracking yarn and instead it was a a real effort to get through - _The Four Feathers_ and _Beau Geste_ spring to mind as examples.
And that’s without stuff like _Pride & Prejudice_, which I know is quite readable but simply of no interest to the average guy, just as most women aren’t interested in reading _King Solomon’s Mines_. Of course, all eras have those books, regardless of whether the works in question are Classics or penny dreadfuls.
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### Author:  [@psychobunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychobunny)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2014, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazons-100-books-to-read-in-a-lifetime/682032/60 "2014-02-24T23:16:32Z")
25-27, but half I read as a child and half because they were assigned in school. There still are several that I intend to read (I’ve never been able to get through either To Kill a Mockingbird or The Catcher in the Rye)… Does it count if you listened to the unabridged audiobook? Because I’ve not technically _read_ the Harry Potter or the David Sedaris but I feel as if I have.
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