Posts
There are many 100 book lists out there, often claiming to be must read books. Invariably, most people have only read a handful of the list, making them feel like they're bad readers. This is silly. There are far more than 100 good books out in the world. All it really tells you is whether you share reading tastes with the lister.
So this list has no pretence. These are not the best books in the world. Nor do you have to read them to call yourself a reader. They're 100 books I enjoyed reading (with a leaning towards fantasy and science fiction). But if you have read lots of them, chances are you share my reading tastes.*
This is a list of whole stories (fiction and narrative non-fiction). Things published in other books (like short stories and most poems) aren't listed. Where a series is listed (marked with #)**, I make no guarantee that I've read the entire series. The books may be in alphabetical order by author surname, if you're lucky.***
How many of these have you read?
Picture Books
1. By the Light of the Moon - Sheridan Cain
2. The Very Hungry Caterpillar - Eric Carle
3. The Gruffalo - Julia Donaldson
4. Peter Potato and Alice Apple - Jayne Fisher
5. Dinosaurs and All That Rubbish - Michael Foreman
6. There's No Such Thing as a Dragon - Jack Kent
7. # Griffin Reader Series - Sheila K McCullagh
8. Toby Claypot's Wishing Well - John Patience
9. The Lorax - Dr. Seuss
10. Timothy Goes to School - Rosemary Wells
Children's and Young Adult Novels
11. # Chronicles of Prydain - Lloyd Alexander
12. Peter Pan - J.M. Barrie
13. The Dragon Paths - Frena Bloomfield
14. # The Faraway Tree Series - Enid Blyton
15. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
16. The Ghosts of Motley Hall - Richard Carpenter
17. Through the Looking-Glass - Lewis Carroll
18. The Demon Headmaster - Gillian Cross
19. James and the Giant Peach - Roald Dahl
20. Firestorm (Dinotopia Series) - Gene Deweese
21. # The Changes Trilogy - Peter Dickinson
22. A Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair - Nicholas Fisk
23. The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman
24. The Weirdstone of Brisingamen - Alan Garner
25. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
26. A Quest for Orion - Rosemary Harris
27. Comet in Moominland - Tove Jansson
28. A Tale of Time City - Diana Wynne Jones
29. The Sheep-Pig - Dick King-Smith
30. Diary of a Wimpy Kid - Jeff Kinney
31. # The Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
32. The Voyage of QV66 - Penelope Lively
33. Winter Quarters - William Mayne
34. # Winnie the Pooh Series - A. A. Milne
35. # Anne Series (Anne of Green Gables) - L.M. Montgomery
36. # The Worst Witch Series - Jill Murphy
37. Five Children and It - E. Nesbit
38. Moon of Three Rings - Andre Norton
39. Zahrah the Windseeker - Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu / Nnedi Okorafor
40. Tom's Midnight Garden - Philippa Pearce
41. # Song of the Lioness Series - Tamora Pierce
42. # Harry Potter Series - J.K. Rowling
43. The Silver Sword - Ian Serraillier
44. Black Beauty - Anna Sewell
45. Alpha Centauri - Robert Siegel
46. The Witch of Blackbird Pond - Elizabeth George Speare
47. Ballet Shoes - Noel Streatfeild
48. Charlotte's Web - E.B. White
49. # Little House Books - Laura Ingalls Wilder
50. Gobbolino the Witch's Cat - Ursula Moray Williams
Adult Novels
51. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
52. Watership Down - Richard Adams
53. # The Helliconia Trilogy - Brian Aldiss
54. # The Foundation Series - Isaac Asimov
55. Nemesis - Isaac Asimov
56. # The World of the Alfar - Elizabeth H. Boyer
57. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
58. # The Shannara Trilogy - Terry Brooks
59. # Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
60. # Chronicles of an Age of Darkness - Hugh Cook
61. Jurassic Park - Michael Crichton
62. # Miss Marple Stories - Agatha Christie
63. The Lost World - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
64. # The Belgariad - David Eddings
65. # Riftwar Saga - Raymond E. Feist
66. # Spellsinger Series - Alan Dean Foster
67. Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
68. Legend - David Gemmell
69. King Solomon's Mines - H. Rider Haggard
70. Star Beast - Robert A. Heinlein
71. Dune - Frank Herbert
72. Domain - James Herbert
73. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
74. # The Deverry Cycle - Katharine Kerr
75. To Kill a Mocking Bird - Harper Lee
76. # Earthsea - Ursula K. Le Guin
77. # Brain Ship Series - Anne McCaffrey
78. # The Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
79. Myst: The Book of Atrus - Rand Miller
80. # The Moonshae Trilogy - Douglas Niles
81. # Temeraire Series - Naomi Novik
82. # Cadfael Chronicles - Ellis Peters
83. The Theatrical Tapes of Leonard Thynn - Adrian Plass
84. # Discworld Series - Terry Pratchett
85. Relic - Douglas J. Preston and Lincoln Child
86. Saturn Over the Water - John Boynton Priestley
87. Colditz: The Colditz Story - P.R. Reid
88. The Shadow of Heaven - Bob Shaw
89. Walden Two - B. F. Skinner
90. Journey to the Centre of the Earth - Jules Verne
91. # The Deathgate Cycle - Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
92. The Midwich Cuckoos - John Wyndham
Graphic Novels
93. Father Christmas - Raymond Briggs
94. When the Wind Blows - Raymond Briggs
95. Dinotopia - James Gurney
Plays and Poetry
96. Beowulf - Anon
97. Percival, the Performing Pig - Dilys Owen
98. Mort - Terry Pratchett and Stephen Briggs
99. Julius Caesar - William Shakespeare
100. A Midsummer Night's Dream - William Shakespeare
-
* And if you don't share my reading tastes, I won't hold it against you. Stay for the sparklies and mushroom men instead.
** Including series was a cunning way to go over 100 books.
*** Yes, I chickened out of rating them in order of goodness.**** I'm also very bad at putting things into alphabetical order, so don't expect miracles.
**** You might also notice I've avoided listing the same author twice, except in cases where their other works were distinctively different in some way.
6 ink splashes:
I've heard of most of these and read maybe half.
There's a wonderful feeling of recognition when you've chosen something I love, such as There's No Such Thing as a Dragon - Jack Kent, The Faraway Tree Series - Enid Blyton and The Midwich Cuckoos - John Wyndham, although I loved all John Wyndham's books and my favourite was The Chrysalids.
This was fun. Thank you!
Yay! A number of the books I listed, I've never seen on a 100 book list. It's nice to know I'm not the only one who likes them...
Great list! There were books on there I'd long since forgotten about until I saw them mentioned again, like Serraillier's Silver Sword. Very glad to see Earthsea on there, I still love that series. I was surprised you classed Lord of the Flies as childrens/YA though!
It's odd with 'The Silver Sword', as quite a few people have read it and enjoyed it... but it doesn't get on many lists.
I consider 'Lord of the Flies' a young adult / adult crossover, as it has themes common to both age categories. But I had to pick a place to put it, so I put it in young adult. It's obviously debatable, but age categories are only guidelines. I read quite a few of the books in the adult section when I was a child.
We were assigned The Silver Sword for an English Literature class in high school. I still remember the children's names - Ruth, Edek, Bronia and Jan.
I'd read about thirty of the books on the list.
Yay for thirty books!
Quite a few of the books were read when I was at school, but they didn't assign many set books. We mostly picked our own.
Post a Comment