If you haven’t heard about “Project Fill in the Blanks,” check out this post from my favorite recovering Editorial Assistant: Moonrat. I stole her list wholesale, but I might make some substitutions on down the line…
Update (4/24/2009): I’ve deleted all the books from Moonrat’s list which I’ve already read and added some Hugo/Nebula/Pulitzer Award winners in their place. I’ve also crossed out Shirley Jackson’s Lottery, which is really a short story, not a novel. (It feels cheap to count it.) AND, I’ve tried to weed the list of any books by a duplicated author, so that I could get additional authors on the list. I’ve probably skipped a few. So…I reserve the right to edit or at least make another list (a second hundred). I’m certain there’s a few books on this list that I’ve already read, but I just can’t remember them. If I start reading and find that I do remember, I’ll cross them off as well and add something else.
Here was my refining criteria:
- Classics I hadn’t read
- Hugo and Nebula Winners I Hadn’t Gotten to Yet
- Pulitzer Winners
- Some Writers I’d Never Heard Of…
- No duplication of authors
(Red means “read”)
Edit 9/20/2009 – I exchanged “The Three Musketeers” for “The Count of Monte Christo” for Alexander Dumas because I found the Three Musketeers first. It could be I wind up reading both… I’ve also realized there are a few more duplicates in the list. I’ll be weeding those out later…
Edit 6/15/2013 – I’ve read over 50 books on the list, and I feel like I can’t read another one. The problem is, of course, that “literary” books are not my cup of tea. I knew that going in, but I enjoyed the idea of reading all those classics that I’d missed in high school.
And the fact is, 50 of those is pretty darned good. My school(s) would not have assigned all 50 of them at any rate, so I’m really ahead of the game.
Thus: I’m changing my game plan. I really enjoy reading speculative fiction–and I write a lot of it– so I’m going to concentrate there for a while — reading science fiction, fantasy and horror classics that I haven’t yet read. You’ll see some changes to this list over the coming months as I add and delete books. I’m not discounting the literary classics on the list altogether, I still plan to read many of them, just not for the sake of this challenge.
Updated List:
1. The Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham (10/08/2013)
2. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett (11/21/2013)
3. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand (04/02/2011)
4. Watership Down, Richard Adams (01/24/2012)
5. A Widow for One Year, John Irving (7/16/2011)
6. Middlemarch, George Eliot (4/2011)
7. 1984, George Orwell (4/2009)
8. Women in Love, D.H. Lawrence (8/11/2009)
9. The Scarlet Pimpernel, Baroness Orczy (11/01/2013)
10. Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott (5/2011)
11. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Michael Chabon (Hugo) (4/28/2012)
12. Moby Dick, Herman Melville (11/2011)
13. Moll Flanders, Daniel Defoe (04/15/2013)
14. The Beautiful and Damned, F. Scott Fitzgerald(04/30/2013)
15. Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt (4/2009)
16. House of Mirth, Edith Wharton (03/28/2013)
17. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (10/2009)
18. Chocolate War, Robert Cormier (7/9/2011)
19. Arm of the Law, Harry Harrison (12/4/2013)
20. The Big Time, Fritz Leiber– 1958 Hugo – (11/20/2013)
21. The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde (4/10/2013)
22. Badge of Infamy, Lester Del Ray (6/17/2013)
23. Space Prison, Tom Godwin (6/22/2013)
24. Of Human Bondage, Somerset Maugham (5/15/2013)
25. And Then the Town Took Off, Richard Wilson (6/09/2013)
26. The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd (4/2009)
27. The Lost Diary of Don Juan, Douglas Carlton Abrahms (4/26/2011)
28. The Best Short Stories, O. Henry (3/24/2011)
29. The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky (8/11/2013)
30. Jimbo: A Fantasy, Algernon Blackwood (8/30/2013)
31. Digging to America, Anne Tyler (9/3/2011)
32. Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
33. The Stupidest Angel, Christopher Moore (12/2010)
34. The Colors of Space, Marion Zimmer Bradley (12/14/2013)
35. The Privilege of the Sword, Ellen Kushner (Nebula Nominee)
36. The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane (8/7/2010)
37. The Jungle, Upton Sinclair< (2/17/2013)
38. Edith Nesbit, The Book of Dragons (7/1/2013)
39. Carry On, Jeeves, P.G. Wodehouse (8/25/2010)
40. The Three Musketeers, Alexander Dumas (10/2009)
41. Rainbow’s End, Vernor Vinge (Hugo)
42. The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner (1/20/2010)
43. The Number of the Beast, Robert A. Heinlein (9/26/2013)
44. The Man Who Was Thursday, G.K. Chesterton (09/05/2013)
45. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke (Hugo) (6/3/2009)
46. Ultima Thule, Mark Reynolds (11/25/2013)
47. Tuesdays with Morie, Mitch Albom (5/4/2010)
48. The Snow Queen, Joan D. Vinge (Hugo)
49. The Plague, Albert Camus
50. From the Earth to the Moon, Jules Verne (07/15/2013)
51. The Art of War, Sun Tzu (09/26/2013)
52. Sappho: A New Rendering, H. De Vere Stacpoole (Translator) (09/26/2013)
53. Cauldron, Jack McDevitt (Nebula Nominee)
54. An Authurian Miscellany, Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Others (01/31/2014)
55. The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin (Nebula)
56. Ulysses, James Joyce (08/12/2014)
57. The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli (07/02/2012)
58. A Princess of Mars, Edgar Rice Burroughs (6/02/2013)
59. The Known World, Edward P. Jones (5/30/2011)
60. Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery (9/18/2013)
61. The Wasteland, T.S. Eliot (04/30/2013)
62. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz (8/5/2009)
63. My Antonia, Willa Cather (4/18/2012)
64. A Canticle for Liebowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr. (6/03/2013)
65. The Dueling Machine, Ben Bova (3/10/2014)
66. The Tale of Despereaux, Kate DiCamillo (Newberry) (2/17/2014)
67. The Skylark of Space, E. E. ‘Doc’ Smith (3/26/2014)
68. The Spanish Bow, Andromeda Romano-Lax, (Stopped Reading: 9/12/2011)
69. One Writer’s Beginnings, Eudora Welty (8/15/2011)
70. Operation: Outer Space, Murray Leinster (08/10/2013)
71. Hounds of Baskerville, Arthur Conan Doyle
72. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë (01/25/2011)
73. The Five Jars, M. R. James (03/13/2014)
74. Possession, A.S. Byatt (Could Not Finish This One)
75. Card Trick, John Berryman (04/3/2014)
76. Housekeeping, Marilyn Robinson (06/17/2011)
77. Anything You Can Do, Randall Garrett (02/19/2014)
78. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles, Haruki Murakami
79. Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clark (12/04/2014)
80. The Warden, Anthony Trollope (02/10/2014)
81. Middlemarch, George Eliot (04/26/2011)
82. Riders of the Purple Sage, Zane Grey (02/03/2014)
83. Beggars in Spain, Nancy Kress (02/08/2014)
84. The Pact, A Love Story by Jodi Picoult (5/29/2010)
85. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy (7/8/2011)
86. The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, Oscar Hijuelos (4/28/2012)
87. A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley
88. American Pastoral, Philip Roth (8/27/2011)
89. Brokeback Mountain AND Fine Just the Way It Is, E. Annie Proulx (1/25/2011)
90. Neuromancer, William Gibson (09/11/2009)
91. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens (7/2/2012)
92. The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields
93. Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
94. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick (2/18/2014)
95. Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham (11/02/2013)
96. Rebecca, Daphne DuMaurier (9/10/2009)
97. The Trial of Callista Blake, Edgar Pangborn (4/02/2014)
98. Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (09/26/2013)
99. Watership Down, Richard Adams (01/24/2013)
100. Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift(7/3/2011)
Total: 89/100
Update 8/1/2010: Replaced:
5. Ragtime, E.L. Doctorow with 5. A Widow for One Year, John Irving
Update 8/1/2010: Replaced:
36. The Conservationist, Nadine Gordimer with 36. The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane
Update 10/3/2009: Replaced:
17. Persuasion, Jane Austen with 17. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (Found it First.)
Update 8/5/2009: Replaced:
62. Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen with 62. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz (Another Austen repeat on the list.)
Old List with Edits:
1. Native Son, Richard Wright
2. Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
3. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
4. Watership Down, Richard Adams
5. Ragtime, E.L. Doctorow
6. Middlemarch, George Eliot
7. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
7. 1984, George Orwell
8. Women in Love, D.H. Lawrence
9. The French Lieutenant’s Woman, John Fowles
10. The Lottery, Shirley Jackson (04/21/2009)
10. Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott
11. Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon
11. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Michael Chabon (Hugo)
12. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
13. Moll Flanders, Daniel Defoe
14. Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald
15. Foundation, Isaac Asimov
15. Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt
16. House of Mirth, Edith Wharton
17. Persuasion, Jane Austen
18. Chocolate War, Robert Cormier
19. The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer
20. Dead Zone, Stephen King
20. Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Truman Capote
21. Underworld, Don DeLillo
22. The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing
23. Swann’s Way, Marcel Proust
24. Of Human Bondage, Somerset Maugham
25. Bless the Beasts and Children, Glendon Swarthout
26. The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd
27. While I Was Gone, Sue Miller
28. American Wife, Curtis Sittenfeld
28. The Best Short Stories, O. Henry
29. The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky
30. The Radetsky March, Joseph Roth
31. Digging to America, Anne Tyler
32. Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
33. War & Peace, Leo Tolstoy
33. The Stupidest Angel, Christopher Moore
34. East of Eden, John Steinbeck
35. A Light in August, William Faulkner
35. The Privilege of the Sword, Ellen Kushner (Nebula Nominee)
36. The Conservationist, Nadine Gordimer
37. The Good Terrorist, Doris Lessing
38. Memoirs of a Good Daughter, Simone DeBeauvoir
39. Carry On, Jeeves, P.G. Wodehouse
40. The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexander Dumas
41. Gotham, Edwin Burrows and Mike Wallace
41. Rainbow’s End, Vernor Vinge (Hugo)
42. A Fable, William Faulkner (Pulitzer)
43. The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter
44. American Tragedy, Theodore Dreiser
45. Finnigan’s Wake, James Joyce
45. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke (Hugo)
46. Sophie’s Choice, William Styron
47. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Raymond Carver
47. Tuesdays with Morie, Mitch Albom
48. The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen
48. The Snow Queen, Joan D. Vinge (Hugo)
49. The Plague, Albert Camus
50. Miss Lonelyhearts, Nathaniel West
51. White Teeth, Zadie Smith
52. Charming Billy, Alice McDermott
53. Push, Sapphire
53. Cauldron, Jack McDevitt (Nebula Nominee)
54. Farming the Bones, Edwidge Danticat
55. Silence, Shusaku Endo
55. The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin (Nebula)
56. Ulysses, James Joyce
57. Temple of the Golden Pavilion, Yukio Mishima
58. The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
58. Paladin of Souls, Lois McMaster Bujold (Nebula)
59. The Known World, Edward P. Jones
60. Kokoro, Natsume Soseki
61. The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot
62. Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen
63. My Antonia, Willa Cather
64. Go Tell It on the Mountain, James Baldwin
65. The House of Spirits, Isabel Allende
66. Herzog, Saul Bellow
67. The Adventures of Augie March, Saul Bellow
67. The Stories of John Cheever, John Cheever (Pulitzer)
68. The Boat, Nam Le
69. Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
69. The Optimist’s Daughter, Eudora Welty (Pulitzer)
70. Three Lives, Gertrude Stein
71. Hounds of Baskerville, Arthur Conan Doyle
72. As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner
72. Stories of Your Life and Others, Ted Chiang
73. Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
74. Possession, A.S. Byatt
75. Under the Net, Iris Murdoch
76. Housekeeping, Marilyn Robinson
77. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
78. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles, Haruki Murakami
79. Runaway, Alice Munro
80. In America, Susan Sontag
81. The Stories of John Cheever
82. God’s War, Christopher Tyerman
83. Valley of the Dolls, Jacqueline Susann
84. A Model World, Michael Chabon
85. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
86. The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, Oscar Hijuelos
87. A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley
88. American Pastoral, Philip Roth
89. The Shipping News, E. Annie Proulx
90. The Book Borrower, Alice Mattison
91. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
92. The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields
93. Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
94. Bad Behavior, Mary Gaitskill
95. Empire Falls, Richard Russo
96. Rebecca, Daphne DuMaurier
97. March, Geraldine Brooks
98. The Second Sex, Simone DeBeauvoir
99. Gilead, Marilyn Robinson
100. Werewolves in Their Youth, Michael Chabon
100. Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift
Total: 07/100