The 100 Best Books of All Time
Are these the 100 best books of all time? I discuss this list of fiction and nonfiction which Reader's Digest has labelled the most critically acclaimed and popular titles. Click ‘Show More’ for info.
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Reader's Digest 100 Best Books of All Time: www.rd.com/list/books-read-be...
Books discussed:
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
The Shining by Stephen King
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
All the President’s Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
Beloved by Toni Morrison
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah
Dune by Frank Herbert
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Daring Greatly by Brené Brown
1984 by George Orwell
Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
Selected Stories, 1968-1994 by Alice Munro
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Love Medicine by Louise Eldrich
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Moneyball by Michael Lewis
Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
The Age of Innocence by Edith Warton
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Color of Water by James McBride
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
The Giver by Lois Lowry
The Night Watchmen by Louise Erdrich
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Liars’ Club by Mary Karr
The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Olive Sacks
The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan
The Power Broker by Robert A. Caro
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Stranger by Albert Camus
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
The World According to Garp by John Irving
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
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Dostoievski missing on this list is just unforgivable 😱
He's forgiven for including the liberal barf
Nothing is unforgivable. You need to grow up!
@@claudialawrence9573 nothing is unforgivable except the unforgivable
Do you mean Fyodor Dostoevsky if you do I agree
Right? But Stephen King is? Nuts.
every list like this is flawed but i don't know how they found space for on the road and fear & loathing in las vegas but not a single dostoyevsky (or for that matter virginia woolf). also never let me go over the remains of the day is criminal.
I agree!
Wow thank you as well as your follower who suggested this list. I can tell it was hard work but you did, as always a remarkable job.🎉
Thanks so much! It took a long time to make. 😊📚
Ahh, I do recommend The Kite Runner! It is extremely hyped, but it's a devastating story and so well done.
Loved the List! Read many of them and added some to my TBR. I would defintely add to the list The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough, Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden, and The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.
I really enjoyed reading Memoirs of a Geisha and The Goldfinch. Thanks!
This made me think of the PBS Series The Great American Read, which listed 100 novels and asked us to vote for our favorites. I’ve read over 70 of the titles you list (lots of high school books on the list and books from college English courses). Some quibbles: no Faulkner? Why Wuthering Heights and not Jane Eyre? I was hoping you’d name A Little Life but sadly no. This list includes many of my favorite authors but I would selected different titles (one example: On Beauty instead of White Teeth). Thanks for taking the time to walk through them all!
Totally agree about On Beauty instead of White Teeth!
Thanks for sharing this list. So many great books to be read and re-read. My partner and I had a reading from "The Little Prince" at our wedding. I have a preference for David Sedaris's more recent darker work. But everything he writes is brilliant. Raymond Chandler is an author I go back to over and over. "The World According To Garp" Is underrated and I was very pleased to see this one on the list. I read "1984" in 1984. 🙂
That's so great about reading a section of The Little Prince at your wedding!
Sixty-four. And read The Kite Runner! It is SO good. I read it not long after it came out and I still remember exactly where I was when I realized (right at the beginning) that I was going to really really love it. (In the optometrist's waiting room.)
Thanks for sharing. I've read 47 but have many more. So glad Jennifer Egan made the list!
I have read 26 books on this list. One of my favourite East of Eden by Steinbeck is there!! Thank u for the wonderful videos!
Steinbeck was brilliant.
I've read 40 off the list and was familiar with most of the titles - definitely given me a nudge to pick up a few that I know are waiting patiently on my shelves!
Absolutely 100% recommend The Kite Runner. I promise it will touch you, stir you, and stay with you for a long time.
Ah great, thanks! 😊
Agree; Hosani is a fantastic writer, especially of short stories, tho this best-seller works as a novel.
@@jamesduggan7200 I was unaware of his short stories - will have to seek those out!
@@angie_the_gemini Allow me to clarify: Altho certainly Hosani has written short stories, as a body of it work he's known as a novelist. That notwithstanding, the "novel", And the Mountains Sing, properly is a collection of short stories with one unifying theme, without a conventional plot or conflict. Coming from a short story background, I'd guess it's possible they were published as a novel because they tend to do better commercially, but ofc that's only my guess.
I am reading Anna Karenina right now and I am really loving it! This list feels pretty comprehensive and relatively expected to me. I will say I read Slaughterhouse Five several years ago and genuinely I do not understand why it is so revered.
Personally, I think that Vonnegut's presentation of the inner workings of Billy Pilgrim's broken brain is one of the best, and genuinely sympathetic too. As an anti-war novel though I don't know it's so powerful.
@@jamesduggan7200 I love that book, beginning with the first chapter in which he explains, among other things, why Mary O'Hara was mad at him, but I personally think I prefer Breakfast of Champions, which also involves a "broken brain." As does another of my favorite Vonnegut titles, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. H'mmmm.
@@SDYoungren Yes, it wouldn't be a stretch to say Vonnegut believed Modern America had become too stressful, and I do agree that in S-5 he recognized that it wasn't simply outside forces making these people crack; they were vulnerable, in ways our society was particularly dangerous.
I’ve read 38 on this list. A Visit from the Goon Squad is so good! I also recommend The Kite Runner. I’ve been thinking about doing a challenge to read one of the many “100 Best” lists, but I’m having a hard time deciding which one to do!
I hope to read both at some point. The Modern Library's 200 best novels in English since 1950 is a good list - though quite ambitious! 😅📚
I just read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. IMO a lot of people don't understand all this book achieves and how now more than ever how important this book. I love it. Another book written back then that remains a favorite is At Swim, Two Boys.
I love lists too. Have you ever read Larry McCaffery's 'greatest English-language novels of the 20th century' list? Published online. It's interesting, especially as it's intended as a direct response to the (not great) Modern Library list, when it came out.
Many great books on the list, but they left out the very best books: In Search of Lost Time, Proust; Mrs. Dalloway/To the Lighthouse/The Waves, Woolf; Austerlitz, Sebald; Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky; The Sound and the Fury, Faulkner; Gilead, M. Robinson; War and Peace; Moby Dick....
I have just finished “The New Life” by Tom Crewe, upon your recommendation Eric. I very much enjoyed it, thank you 🙏
Oh great! I'm so glad you enjoyed Crewe's novel!
I have read 33. I have a lot of the others in my library.....to be read..... I am now inspired!!!
You're the kind of bibliophile I can spend time with. Great work, cool vibes.
Thanks! 😊📚
I’ve read 34 so some way to go! Many were obvious but there were a few surprises! Interesting that only Louise Erdrich got 2 - and I might have put Plague of Doves above both of those. What on earth is Fear and Loathing doing on there 😱! Hard to know where to begin with what’s missing - there wasn’t much translated fiction and where was Ducks Newburyport?
My score is 15/100... great video, Eric! Thanks 😊
Thank you! 😊📚
54, better than I first thought! Interesting list!
Impressive! 📚
I’ve only read 21 books from this list. A Little Life by Yanighara is missing-one my favorite books of all time, but heart shattering.
I'm going to see the stage version of A Little Life in a couple months.
@@EricKarlAnderson Instead of a handkerchief, I would need a dishtowel to dry my tears from seeing that show. The book was heart shattering, can’t even imagine a stage performance! Just be prepared to sob your soul out!!! I’m pretty sure you read the book, correct? Would love to hear in upcoming video how the show was!
@@JanuarieTimewalker13 Yes, such a heartbreaking book. I posted about it here: lonesomereader.com/blog/2015/10/14/a-little-life-by-hanya-yanagihara I am apprehensive about how sad the stage show will be but interested to see how it's performed.
@@EricKarlAnderson yes, I am too. Please let us know!!
Good job. This is quite an undertaking. Many of these books I long considered classics…that is until I finally began reading Henry James. He elevated my expectations of what a good novel should be. The language is so elevated and precise, the characters so deeply defined, the inner conflict so poignant. Lately, I’ve been digging in vain for engaging fiction but reading James is like finally discovering a goldmine. The Portrait of a Lady is a good place to start.
I love The Kite Runner and I think about it often.
You should read Count of Monte Cristo. Forget about any media adaptations you’ve seen. The second half of the story is vastly different and epic!
I have to watch this again, there are so many book that I have read, in this list,, and so many that are missing…
Definitely! 📚📚📚📚
Lots of good books but what a strange list! There's no Dostoyevsky, no Oscar Wilde, no Virginia Wolfe so should be revised!
I’ve read 17 I own 63 Some I’ve never heard of. I would recommend The Kite Runner, but you have to be ready to forgive. Absolutely worth the time!
I loved White Teeth and Cutting for Stone but there will always be an extra special place in my heart for Are You There God it’s Me Margaret. I want to read The Joy Luck Club His Dark Materials, The World According to Garp, Atonement and the Dave Eggers.
Great! I definitely recommend getting to The World According to Garp.
I used to love that book, Are you there God...- it helped turn me into a true lover of reading! I still love it actually. I need to re-read it now that you mentioned it. Thanks for bringing up the memories for me!
@@kelseywood174 I want to read it again too!
I have read 27 an interesting list.Thanx for video
Read Pride and Prejudice , Angela’s Ashes, The Fault in Our Stars, Things Fall Apart, White Teeth, Atonement and Wuthering Heights There are a few books on the list that I would like to read, like Anna Karenina and The color Purple and I actually own a copy of great expectations, but haven´t read it yet
Great Expectations has such a memorable ending, well worth the effort.
Great! The Color Purple is quite quick to read and it's a book that will really stay with you. 📚
@@climatedeniersbelonginasyl4191 I will read it, but I have the titles of the books I own in a jar and pull one out so I just don´t know WHEN
I have read most of the books on this list and would recommend many for being representative of their time, genres or author’s popularity in the literary Canon and also for obviously being great reads; although personally I don’t think Harry Potter is that great a read despite it being so popular with children and adults alike. Plus, I was very surprised to see David Sedaris make this list because although I enjoyed that book to some degree, I don’t think it’s one of the top 100. I do love Gatsby and Cutting for Stone though which would definitely be in my top 100. If I was adding books to the list , some I’d personally like to see would be Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, The Infernal Desire Machine Of Doctor Hoffman or Nights At The Circus by Angela Carter and The Vegetarian by Han Kang.
Have you read Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart?
Interesting list. Thank you very much. ❤️ Read 27. In my TOP 5 THOUSAND: The Magic Mountain, Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann; The Trial, The Castle by Franz Kafka; 2666 by Roberto Bolano; Blindness by Jose Saramago; Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse; The Collector, The Magus by John Fowles; Disgrace, Elizabeth Costello by J.M.Coetzee; The Ogre by Michel Tournier; One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kessey; The Third Policeman by Flan O'Brien; The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster; Old Masters by Thomas Bernhard; I Served the King of England by Bohumil Hrabal; Homo Faber by Max Frisch; Solaris, Fiasco, The Invincible by Stanislaw Lem; Under the Skin by Michel Faber; The Elementary Particles by Michel Houellebecq; The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi de Lampedusa; The Horseman on the Roof by Jean Giono; The Infinities by John Banville; The Story of San Michelle by Axel Munthe; Levels of Life, Love, etc. by Julian Barnes; Freedom, Crossroads, Purity by Jonathan Franzen; Ein Ganzes Leben by Robert Seethaler; Stoner by John Williams; The Children Act, Saturday, Nutshell by Ian McEwan, Journey to the End of the Night by Louis Ferdinand Celine; ...♾
😊📚
Amazing list! Immaculate taste 🥹
Hey ur amazing
All in all a list I like much more then most, especially for its extensive nonfiction titles and inclusion of children’s and young adult books, but it’s interesting they didn’t include any picture books and Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things Are should be here too. Also, it seems like there is not much Asian writer representation, God of Small Things definitely should be on it and perhaps Brick Lane or A Fine Balance as well.
Yeah, good they tried to mix it up a bit but definitely agree with you about it's omissions and shortcomings.
34 for me, but tbh many of them I know I read but really have little recall of.
Yes a lot of good books but very US skewed and how come 2 Louise Erdrich but no Trollope or George Eliot.
True! I'd have loved to see a Trollope on there! And George Eliot.
you are good in this job.
My favourite novel is 'Black Beauty' by Anna Sewell.
I've read more than Eric! Yea me! 62 I'm not sure I will read many of those I haven't read as they are largely nonfiction and I have no interest in reading Lolita. Many of my favorites are on this list, but I love the Brothers Karamozov. Also, I would choose Stephen King's The Stand over The Shining. I would also add Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to the list as one of the best children's books of my childhood. As you said, there are so many wonderful books, there can never be only 100. Oh, and Ms. Oates' books are not on the list! What? I would add The Falls. One of my favorite books. Thank you! I enjoyed this so much! I watched it twice!
😄 Thank you! It would have been great if The Falls was on the list.
İncredible video!
An interesting list. I've read twenty five for sure, plus a couple I'm hazy on. As for the list, I have a hard time taking it seriously. A dozen or more of those wouldn't make my top 1000 best, let alone top 100 best. Reads more like a 'Literary Stocking Stuffers' list from 2012 has been repurposed and updated. Still, no stinkers on there. (Well, maybe one or two...)
Most importantly I like the photo on the wall I read 21 on the list. I think it’s unfair say what you think you either add or leave off when I haven’t read them all. But I loved Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas but I know it wouldn’t hold up today
Thanks!
Wow. So many omissions - Virginia Woolf, Jean Rhys, Hilary Mantel, James Joyce to name a few. Even the books that they did choose from authors IMO were not the best. Also Dickens changed the ending of Great Expectations because of other authors reaction who were friends of his x
Yeah, I agree. Lots of omissions and some odd choices. Ah right, I remember a teacher telling me it was the public who objected to the original end of Great Expectations but she probably got it wrong.
I think "The Poisonwood Bible" ought to be on this list. Also, how can it not have "Frankenstein"?! Ludicrous! I've read 42.
I've read 47 of 100. It's got some odd selections. Brene Brown? Really?
Ah, To kill a Mockingbird! I never finished the book, because at the time I tried to read it my English was simply not sufficient. I will try again now after 20 or 30 years. And my favorite is "Madame Bovary". Not on this list but surely on my list.
I’ve read 16 on the list. My favourite Pride & Prejudice is there. My score would be lower if there were not so many classics on my school English literature exam reading.
Yeah, there are a number of these I read because I was assigned them in school.
I suggest catch 22 first & it's not challenging to read, it's a fun read.
Oh goodie!! Gonna have to make a cup of coffee, cut some fruit, and settle in for this one! ❤📚☕️ Edit: I’ve only read 23 of them 😅
Fab, hope you enjoyed. 😊📚
I loved The Kite Runner. I think you would too.
Never Let Me Go, 😢. 5 stars!
I find you’re the most wholesome booktuber on here
😊😇📚
I've read 19 on this list but my favorite Frankenstein isn't there. So many books, so little time. I have to agree with you about Catcher in the Rye.I was quite taken by that novel as a teen in the 60's but a re-read as an adult was less impressed. Thank you for the reviews.
Frankenstein isn’t on it?! Is this list even to be taken seriously?! (Sorry, just started watching but this comment made me pause). 😢
Yes! Frankenstein is a definite classic.
I was very surprised to not see any Virginia Woolf! However, I know that her style is not necessarily for everyone. Some books that I did audibly apply as you mentioned them were: Middlesex, Of Human Bondage, and Beloved.
I know and Woolf is one of my top of all time.
Yes, read the Kite Runner!
I know this is mainly a fiction book tube channel but did anyone besides myself find the non-fiction selections dated? The most recent book (the self-help book) is from 2012. Also, RD didn’t list what may be the most influential science writer to non-scientists, Charles Darwin (Yes, I am aware that Darwin is dated too, there are newer authors writing about evolution, Adam Rutherford for one.) As much as I admire Louise Erdrich I was surprised that she was the only author with 2 books on the list as well. What about Trollope, Kingsolver, Oates, Elliot, Wilde, Wilder… ? I have a feeling that RD’s motive was more about their Amazon affiliate links than an honest listing of best books.
"Catch 22" is a marvelous novel, but one antiwar novel that gripped me more was "Johnny Got His Gun" by Dalton Trumbo. Wonderfully surreal and unforgettable.
I've not heard of that. I'll look it up, thanks!
❗️ warning ❗️ it’s amazing but very disturbing
Is this the one that the film was used on the Metallica video? The short amount I saw on that was enough to disturb my soul for life 😔
Catch 22 is amazing and witty and crazy! I studied it in Advanced English and reread it again to really appreciate it
Lists are fun. As long as one sees them as reading suggestions and not as dogma.
No Dostoïevski?
That does seem odd.
But then again, if we're saying "all time", it's strange that there isn't a Homer title on here...
Roberto Bolano 2666 and in general some more brilliant Latin American authors.
Valley of the Freaking Dolls?? 💊 ⭐️💀 This is kind of a weird list. My recollection of Reader's Digest from back in the day is that they published books in condensed form. Like soup! Have read a little over a third of the books on this list (in their entirety 😉) including Valley of the Freaking Dolls, and have about 10 more on my Kindle. I love lists! Even weird ones.
Well, my grandmother gifted me [us] a subscription to RD and often included a condensed volume (usually 3 or 4 novels) at X-mas. There were some excellent selections, Dick Francis for example, though not many I would include on a serious best book list. Approaching the subject from a different angle, I can think of several books, some of them classics, that could have been edited. As for Valley of the Dolls, I haven't read it yet. There was a time - during the 60s and 70s - when it was considered cutting edge. Time's change but in the final analysis I think that the Reader's Digest comes out on the plus side of the ledger.
Yeah, Reader’s Digest was definitely lowbrow. I remember being insulted that my dad sent me a subscription as a gift.
I read 21 of these books (2 of them this year actually)
I don't patrickly care for catches in the ride. I read it later in life. And it just didn't grab me but a great book is. This is my beloved By walter Benton A collection of poetry written like a diary
Anna Karennina, Atonement, A handmaid's tale, Pride and Prejudice, Corrections, Wuthering Heights are wonderful novels but a list of the best books of all time with no Dostoyefski or Virginia Wolf is not very complete in my opinion.
I'd like to add They Were Her Property by Stephanie Jones-Rogers, which was written by a black woman about the way white women enslavers were raised to exercise mastery over enslaved people. I'd also like to add The Field of Blood by Joanne Freeman, which chronicles honor violence in the antebellum US congress.
A good list, but, in my opinion, a bit flawed. I am happy to see children's books and YA lit, and I do think the list is trying to be diverse. But--- Two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward's "Sing, Unburied, Sing" is missing? Two-time Pulitzer winner Colson Whitehead's "Underground Railroad" doesn't make the list? And the Eastern canon is pretty much dealt with by throwing one Murakami on the list? I know this sounds nitpicky, and no list like this can be perfect. But, again, there are great books on this list. It is better than many I have seen of this type.
Oh, by the way, I have read 36, and another even dozen of them are on my book shelf waiting to be read.
So Agree about Ward. I just finished Salvage the Bones. What a master writer!
@@rebeccamaclean6242 She may be my favorite living American writer. Her new book is coming out in October--- I can't wait!
I just saw Ward has a new novel coming out which is very exciting.
@@EricKarlAnderson Let Us Desend. So excited!
55/100, not bad I guess. Nothing specific to miss, just how western/white the list is though...
The Color Purple
“And I’ve never forgiven her “ 😂 💚💚💚
For me, both “Bluebeard” and “Galapagos” by Vonnegut were better than “Slaughterhouse Five”.
Ah okay, interesting. I've not read those yet.
I was thinking also that it's impossible to put only one KV on a best list. Either you love his work - as I do - or you don't, so there will always be several, like Cat's Cradle, Breakfast of Champions, and the two you mentioned, or none at all.
@@jamesduggan7200 Agreed James. I had a period of absolutely loving his work. I seem to recall that my reading of KV was interspersed with the works of PK Dick …
@@nigelericogden3200 The thing that gets me is how contemporary readers immediately pick-up on the anti-war theme of S-5 but completely miss how KV presents the mind's working in a nice person who obviously has lost contact with reality.
Sirens of Titan and Player Piano are my 2 favorite Vonnegut
30/100
Many books
I've read 59 of these. It's a decent list but it could be more diverse.
Wow, that's a good amount! 👏📚
I read The Kite Runner based on this list. I didn't care for it. I know how popular it was. But I had problems with this book. Sorry. 🤔
They should have called it "100 Best Books of West" prob!
These lists are always a bit arbitrary. This one appears to be fairly mainstream. I've read 59 of these. There may be a handful more that I would like to read ("The Power Broker", "The Things They Carried") and a few that I'm pretty sure I never will (Judy Blume, David Sedaris, Brené Brown). There are definitely worse lists out there.
Yeah, that was my feeling overall too.
Kite Runner ⭕️ Goon Squad ❌
Roald Dahl, any parent knows these books are fantastic. All Harry Potter books are not just for kids. Adults - please try a Harry Potter book.
Oh no you missed James Herriot😔
35
The Count of Monte Cristo!!!! Can you list the books in the comments?
Found it!
Jayne eyre?
I don’t hate this list.
Where’s Ulysses??
Just picked up Goon Squad and East of Eden recently which will be 2023 reads + Little Women. I would say you don't want to pass on The Kite Runner. I was surprised to see The Power Broker over A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Outsiders or Lord of the Flies but glad to see The Color Purple and Louise Erdich. I still want to get to her bookstore Birchbark Books and Native Arts.
Yes, I'd love to visit Erdrich's bookstore one day!
Wow you did a real marathon here! I have to say, again such an Anglo-Saxon list with some exceptions here and there. Why putting John Green for example and not Flaubert, Mann, Zweig, Marias, Pahmuk, Joseph Roth to name a few? So much more inventive and deep writing that will be remembered in literary history still in 100 years. You can never do it right with such a list, I do realise, but this is a poor effort to my humble opinion.
Well, this doesn’t put Reader’s Digest very high on my list ! Quite a few of the books you showed are of relevance and importance, but so many masterpieces are absent from this list. Do us a favor, stick to your personal selection, that way we’ll feel less lost !
"The Adventures of Augie March" Saul Bellow "A Fan's Notes" Frederick Exley "Blood Meridian" is McCarthy's best. No Cheever or Updike!?! Yikes!!
to kill a mockingbird❤funny and educative
Why so very few LGBTQ authors? Brown, Baldwin, Capote, yes, but no novels that represent the modern gay experience. Andrew Holleran, Larry Kramer, Edmund White. Surely one of them deserves a place. I know Reader's Digest has a conservative reputation, but come on.
Yes, it would have been good if they'd mixed it up some more.
Margaret Atwood is a great author!
Fairly lowbrow, populist list with many omissions, but it's Reader's Digest, so I guess that's expected. 40 for me, and I'd say that almost half of these aren't all-time best or classics. I'm also done praising J.K. Rowling for anything, so that's one I'd immediately remove, for starters.
Reader's Digest, eh?
I can confidently say that I have read all 100. I can also confidently say that I’m lying right now. Fun recap of the list, thanks for doing this.
Best book by woman.?..and it can't be by Austen or Bronte (either) or Atwood or Woolf
Big James M.Cain fan Raymond Chandler trashed him James Ellroy raves about him (Love controversial people the only ones worth anything)!!!!!
I hate sounding like a snob, but there are just too many good books left off this list to justify stuff like "The Right Stuff" or "The Joy Luck Club" or even "Harry Potter" Also, this list is odd: is it fiction? Non-fiction? Poetry? Why does Louise Erdrich (as good as she is) get 2, but Tolstoy's War & Peace doesn't crack a nod? It's all very odd. One can't escape the feeling that there's a huge slant towards Caucasian, mostly Western, authors. And there's definitely an English-language bias. Where are the African authors? Yes, you've gone some like Gyasi, Adichie and Achebe, but they are still massively underrepresented. No Naguib Mahfouz? Ngugi wa Thiong'o? Wole Soyinka? Nadine Gordimer? Latin American authors other than Garcia Marquez? Fuentes? Allende? No love for Indian authors other than Rushdie? No Naipaul? No Eastern Europeans? Japanese/Chinese (Ishiguro doesn't really count. He's British)? Where is Dostoevsky? You could take your pick between Crime & Punishment, Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot. Where's Hardy? No love for Tess of the D'Urbevilles or Far from the Madding Crowd? LGBTQI authors are also massively underrepresented (but nice to see Ruby Fruit Jungle in there). I know that a list like this will never please everyone, and if it gets more people to try cool new books, that's amazing. But I must confess, this particular list just makes me scratch my head in bemusement.