My Own 101 ‘Awesome Books to Read Before You Die’ List

My Own 101 ‘Awesome Books to Read Before You Die’ List

I recently downloaded ‘50 Masterpieces you have to read before you die‘ onto my Kindle for a princely sum of less than a euro (around a dollar) because I wanted to read Don Quixote and couldn’t see why I wouldn’t take an extra 49 books thrown in for good measure.

It turns out I only bought Volume 1 of two so I’ll have to dredge up another euro for the other Volume of 25 books. It also turns out that Don Quixote is sooooooo long. And a bit boring to be honest.

(By the way, don’t you also hate the ‘before you die’ bit? I always find that a bit of a morbid tagline even though I used it myself in the heading. What would be a nicer alternative do you think? What about ‘Awesome books to read and so would life be if you read them, so read them while you can’?).

I used to be the type of person who felt compelled not only to eat all the food on my plate but also to read a book through to the bitter end, even if I dozed through or was confused by most of it. Now I feel like there are too many good books to read in the world to waste my time reading the ones that aren’t satifying my proverbial appetite.

However, although I didn’t make it through to the last page of D.Q., I did manage to bravely plow my way through Aldous Huxley’s ‘Crome Yellow’ in the same volume. It was satirical and witty and I’m sure a whole lot better written than I can give it credit for. I am also slightly gratified to see I’ve read a few other titles in the volume already so I’m not a complete classics ignoramus.

I’ve decided I’m not going to feel compelled to read any specific books just because they’re on a ‘Classics or Masterpieces’ list, but I do appreciate the value in finding out what others have read and enjoyed. I have found some real gems that way.

This led me to thinking about all the wonderful books that have read in my life, written from all corners of the globe, and on the encouragement of my blogger friend Martina of Empty Nest Mummy, I have compiled my own list.

This list was meant to be my recommended 50 books but when I sat down to compile it, I soon went past the 50 mark and ended up with 101 titles! This is actually not even a list of only 101 books as some of them are series of up to 7 books each.

I am not claiming that these are all literary classics at all. They are not from a specific genre or era, these are just books that I have read throughout my life, ranging from my childhood to the teen years and up until today, that have all resonated with me in some way. They have left enough of an impression on my memory that I can recall characters and events in the books and all of them I would pick up and read again tomorrow.

As a fun exercise why don’t you count up how many of these you have read and see how well we match up in our reading choices.

Here is my list of 101 awesome books to read before you die because they’re awesome:

1. Alcott, Louisa May: Little Women (have you seen the film yet? Is it any good? I’d hate to spoil a good book).
2. Austen, Jane: Emma
3. Austen, Jane: Pride and Prejudice
4. Backman, Frederik: A Man Called Ove
5. Barry, Sebastian: The Secret Scripture
6. Bender, Aimee: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
7. Bible, the
8. Boylston, Helen Dore: The Sue Barton Series
9. Boyne, John: The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
10. Bronte, Charlotte: Jane Eyre
11. Bryson, Bill: Down Under
12. Bryson, Bill: Notes From a Big Country
13. Burnett, Frances Hodgson: The Secret Garden
14. Carroll, Lewis: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
15. Chang, Jung: Wild Swans
16. Chesterton, G.K.: Father Brown Stories
17. Coelho, Paulo: The Alchemist
18. Coetzee, J.M.: Age of Iron
19. Coetzee, J.M.: Disgrace
20. Dahl, Roald: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
21. Dahl, Roald: Danny the Champion of the Word
22. Dahl, Roald: Going Solo
23. Dahl, Roald: James and the Giant Peach
24. De Berniérs, Louis: Captain Corelli’s Mandolin
25. Defoe, Daniel: Robinson Crusoe
26. Diamant, Anita: The Red Tent
27. Dickens, Charles: Great Expectations
28. Dinesen, Isak: Babette’s Feast
29. Dostoyevsky, Fyodor: The House of the Dead
30. Du Maurier, Daphne: Rebecca
31. Eco, Umbo: The Name of the Rose
32. Ende, Michael: The Never Ending Story (I have to say the film adaptation was a huge disappointment!)
33. Esquivel, Laura : Like Water For Chocolate
34. Faulks, Sebastian: Birdsong
35. Frankl, Viktor: Man’s Search for Meaning
36. Golden, Arthur: Memoirs of a Geisha
37. Golding, William: Lord of the Flies
38. Grahame, Kenneth: The Wind in the Willows
39. Hayes, Terry: I Am Pilgrim
40. Hawthorne, Nathaniel: The Scarlet Letter
41. Hemingway, Ernest: A Farewell to Arms
42. Holme, Anne: I am David
43. Honeyman, Gail: Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
44. Hosseini, Khaled: The Kite Runner
45. Ishiguro, Kazuo: An Artist of the Floating World
46. Ishiguro, Kazuo: The Remains of the Day
47. Jerome, Jerome K.: Three Men in a Boat
48. Kidd, Sue Monk: The Secret Life of Bees
49. Larsson, Stieg: The Girl with the Dragoon Tattoo trilogy
50. Lawhead, Stephen: The Song of Albion Trilogy
51. Lee, Harper: To Kill a Mockingbird
52. Lessing, Doris: Alfred and Emily
53. Lewis, C.S.: The Chronicles of Narnia
54. Lewis, C.S.: The Screwtape Letters
55. Magorian, Michelle: Goodnight Mr Tom
56. Márquez, Gabriel García: One Hundred Years of Solitude
57. McCarthy, Pete: McCarthy’s Bar
58. McCourt, Frank: Angela’s Ashes
59. Milne, A.A: Winne the Pooh
60. Moggach, Deborah: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
61. Mosely, Charlotte: The Mitfords, Letters Between Six Sisters
62. Nichols, Beverly: The Tree that Sat Down Trilogy
63. Orwell, George: Animal Farm
64. Paton, Alan: Cry the Beloved Country
65. Petzer, Dave: A Child Called It
66. Potok, Chaim: My Name is Asher Lev
67. Potok, Chaim: The Chosen
68. Proulx, Annie: The Shipping News
69. Rivers, Francine: The Scarlet Thread
70. Rivers, Francine: The Lineage of Grace Series
71. Shute, Neville: A Town Like Alice
72. Shakespeare, William: Romeo and Juliet
73. Shakespeare, William: King Lear
74. Sixsmith, Martin: Philomena
75. Smith, Zadie: White Teeth
76. Smith, Alexander McCall: The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series
77. Steinbeck, John: Of Mice and Men
78. Steinbeck, John: The Pearl
79. Steinbeck, John: Travels with Charley
80. Stockett, Katheryn: The Help
81. Stone, Irving: Lust for Life
82. Stone, Irving: The Agony and the Ecstasy
83. Stowe, Harriet Beecher: Uncle Tom’s Cabin
84. Styron, William: Sophie’s Choice
85. Swift, Jonathan: Gulliver’s Travels
86. Tan, Amy: The Joy Luck Club
87. Tartt, Donna: The Secret History
88. Thackeray, William Makepeace: Vanity Fair
89. Tolkien, J.R.R.: The Hobbit
90. Tolkien, J.R.R: The Lord of the Rings
91. Tolstoy, Leo: Anna Karenina
92. Townsend, Sue: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 ¾
93. Twain, Mark: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
94. Uris, Leon: Exodus
95. Uris, Leon: Trinity
96. Verne, Jules: Journey to the Centre of the Earth
97. Walker, Alice: The Colour Purple
98. White, E.B: Charlotte’s Web
99. Wilde, Oscar: The Picture of Dorian Gray
100. Wilkerson, David: The Cross and the Switchblade
101. Williams, Niall: The Four Letters of Love

I am sure that I have forgotten a whole bunch of amazing books that I have read and perhaps this list will grow with time as I remember and add them, until I’m going to have to change the title to 202 books. Which will no doubt be terrible for my website’s SEO.

What’s your score, how many of these have you read and how well do we compare?

What are your absolute Must Reads that you feel I have left off this list?

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