100 best reads of all time - how many have you read?

[IUHoosier]

51 for me. I think this is the first time I've ever read over half of any 'books that should be read' list. Hurray for me!

[Jen]

Why is Hamlet listed at 98, yet number 12 is The Complete Works of Shakespeare? I realize the difference, but Hamlet is included in the complete works, so it's kind of a waste of space to give Hamlet a number also.

[El]

I've read 64, and I will say I disagree with a lot of the titles on the list.

Along with the Shakespeare confusion, why is Chronicles of Narnia listed and also (separately) The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe?

[Teresa]

I've read 31.

[Andrew]

I've read 14 of those, lots of them in school though !

Spotted the deliberate mistake:
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
(LWW is part of the Chronicles of Narnia series.)

[Robin]

The "complete" works of Shakespere has to come off this list - put a few of the biggies on there but that requirement is ridiciulous especially since Hamlet shows up by itself.

Wife of GR author: Michael J. Sullivan | The Crown Conspiracy (10/08) | Avempartha (04/09)

[Nicholas]

20. Im only 16 tho so i guess im doing pretty well (if you count books im half way through like Lolita and One Hundred Years of Solitude)

[Petra X]

I've read 64 of them and there aren't any others on the list I want to read.

[M.G.]

I have read about 67 of them, but some of those titles may not deserve to be on the list. Hopefully next time they make a list EveryDay Life will be on it.

[Andrew]

EveryDay Life? Never heard of it...what's it aobut, I"m entrigued. (if thats how you spell that word..hehe)

[Monica]

Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Bible (Yes.. the WHOLE thing! I went to a Christian undergrad and took two classes where we read the Old and New Testiment!)
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
Winnie-the-Pooh - AA Milne
Animal Farm - George Orwell
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
Charlotte's Web - EB White
The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
Hamlet - William Shakespeare
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

Alot of the books I haven't read are on my TBR list!!

[Robin]

Andrew wrote: "EveryDay Life? Never heard of it...what's it aobut, I"m entrigued. (if thats how you spell that word..hehe)"

Everday life is the posters - book - I think it was just recently released.

[Pam]

I've read 21 of these books ... I may have read more but only remember 21! That means either I'm too old to remember or the books weren't memorable ... and I choose to think the latter!

[Jaymie]

Only 22 - Does it count if I have the rest added to my TBR list? One day.... I will be a well read person.

5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

[Becky]

Wow... I can't believe that the "average" person has only read 6 of these... I've read 30 and own 15 more that should be read within the year.

Read:
1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman - Currently reading
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
25. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
29. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie-the-Pooh - AA Milne
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White

Owned /To Read:
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
34. Emma - Jane Austen
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare

Haven't Read (yet):
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby-Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - A. S. Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

[Donna]

I read thirty-one. Some of them were required reading (Moby Dick - which is at the top of my 'worst' list). I was surprised to see that there were so many contemporary novels.

[Kim]

I've read 29. This list is great, Mandy. Thanks!

My favorites are Harry Potter, The Hobbit, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Kite Runner, Lord of the Flies, and Les Miserables. I have diverse taste, I know. :)

[Cindy]

I've read 25 of these. But my problem with this list is that some of the reads are whole series' of books, example: number 4, the Harry Potter series (7 books), and other works are listed twice, example: number 14, the complete works of Shakespeare, and number 98, Hamlet by Shakespeare. But I do love lists and I do love reading recommendations so it's all good I guess.

[Bryan]

Dang it...only 6 here.

[Esther]

I've read 52.
I've read all the Harry Potter series so that's 7 for the price of one. The same with the Chronicles of Narnia. Dune I've also read most of the series.


I didn't include the Bible having read a lot but not all of it. The same with Shakespeare - I've read Hamlet and several other plays and sonnets but not all of them.

Several of the Classics I've read in simplified form with EFL students but I felt that was 'cheating' so I didn't include them.

And then there are Moby Dick and Lord of the Rings which I started but just couldn't finish - didn't count those either.

[Becky]

I didn't count the series books as individuals, I only counted them as one book. Harry Potter would be 7, Hitchhiker's Guide would be 6, His Dark Materials would be 3, Lord of the Rings is 3, Chronicles of Narnia is 7.

If counted separately, I've read 51.

[Esther]

Like you Becky I can't believe the average person has read only six on this list. Though that depends what they mean by average - Do they include non-readers or non-novel readers (like most of the men in my family)?

I also didn't count the individual books in a series and was surprised I had read so many. I was expecting 30+.

As with all lists there are some terrible omissions. Dune but not Foundation? Where are Agatha Christie and Solzhenitsyn? And among the modern novels 'The Eyre Affair' would be near the top of my best reads list.

[Becky]

Esther, I was wondering about some of the omissions as well... There is only one book on the list that could be considered "horror": Dracula. I wonder about this, because it almost seems like people don't take horror as a serious genre. The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty really should be on this list. The Shining and The Stand by Stephen King should be there too, in my opinion. I'm sure that there are dozens of other horror novels that should be here, but I won't go into them... :)

Yet, The Da Vinci code and The Lovely Bones are on the list, neither of which would have come anywhere close to a Top 100 list I'd put together.

[Bonnie]

I've read 37. Pretty good at my age. I've got about another half dozen on my shelf to be read in the coming year.

But how did some of those books get on the list? I mean, The Da Vinci Code and The Five People You Meet in Heaven? Really? There weren't two other books that could take their place? The Da Vinci Code was a diverting plane read but far from great literature. Just because it's a bestseller doesn't mean it's good. And The Five People You Meet in Heaven I found incredibly saccharine. I'm still surprised that book is so popular, but I guess the message was good and it's easy to read. But it would never in a million years make my top 100 list--or even my top 500 list.

[Cindy]

A book doesn't have to be "great literature" to be a good read, meaningful, touching, etc. And the definition of "great literature" tends to be somewhat subjective as well.

[Esther]

I think that is why they call it 'best reads'. It i supposed to be popular fiction that is easy/interesting to read rather than having literary merit.
That said I would ask why they have so much Dickens and 2 Orwell both of whom can be a little grim.


Bonnie wrote: "... But how did some of those books get on the list? I mean, The Da Vinci Code and The..."

[Lisa]

40--a lot of the others are still in my TBR pile or on my TBR list. Some of them I've never even heard of and some of them you couldn't pay me to read (Moby Dick, Dune (sorry sci-fi fans but I've sat thru the movie and that's more than enough for me!).

I'm a little confused about how the Chronicles of Narnia counts as one and yet The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe counts as another. Same with The Complete Works of Shakespeare and Hamlet.

[Bonnie]

You are absolutely right Cindy and Esther. I still wouldn't have placed either The Da Vinci Code or The Five People You Meet in Heaven as best reads in my list (I'd say they were okay/not very good and there are slews of books I enjoyed reading more), but considering how very popular both are I know I'm outvoted and a lot of people really liked both. It's all subjective opinion. I'd still say that there are other books that better deserve a place on the list, but, then again, it's not the list of MY best books; it's a collection of what other people said were best books. Even if I disagree, I always love looking at these kinds of lists because I want to see what others think and it helps me to put together my To Be Read list.

I also always wonder how Ulysses by James Joyce ends up on every Best Books list I find. How many people have actually read it? I've never tried because I've always heard it's incredibly dense. Is it on the lists because people have read it and really think it's that great of a book or is it because people think it SHOULD be a Top 100 Book and they have to include it but they haven't actually ever read it themselves?

[Cindy]

I actually read Ulysses when I was in the 8th grade. My teacher loaned it to me when I was looking for stuff to read. (I was way beyond the 8th grade comprehension level) I enjoyed it but it's probably not something I'll ever read again. I wouldn't say it should be on every best books list though.

[Bonnie]

Wow, I'm really impressed you've read Ulysses and even more impressed that you read it in 8th grade! Maybe that will give me the courage to at least try it next time I have access to a public library.

[El]

I feel Ulysses was a serious waste of time. I wouldn't read it again either.

[Esther]

Ulysses is probably some thing I would have read in 8th grade.
I hovered up anything in my path and read some totally unsuitable books as well.
When I was 12 my English teacher refused to believe I had either read or understood Orwell's 1984.

[Cindy]

My 4th grade teacher told my parents to stop letting me read Shakespeare. lol My mother essentially told her to get bent.

It was a blessing when I got into high school though, I had already read Hamlet so many times I practically had it memorized.

[Becky]

Why?? Why would your teacher tell your parents to make you STOP reading anything, regardless of what it was? Oh my gosh, when I have kids, I am homeschooling them.

[Cindy]

I'm with you Becky, when I have kids, if I can't afford a good private school, I'm homeschooling. She told my mom that it made my classmates feel stupid. But I never told my classmates what I read, I only told her. So, let me see, who was feeling stupid?

[Becky]

Yes, I think that she felt threatened by a 4th grader having read and enjoyed what she probably struggled with and hated in college!

[Susanna - Censored by GoodReads]

I don't recall being told not to read by the teacher - but my mother certainly was. In seventh grade, I think. Her parents certainly paid no attention - she ended up getting a Ph.D in English!

I have never been able to decide which was worse - being told to stop reading so much (mom) or having to wear a "this child is a slow learner" sign (dad).

[Melissa]

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie-the-Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby-Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - A. S. Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Only 16. A lot I have seen the movies for, or they are on my TBR list.

[Dr]

Becky wrote: I am homeschooling them.

Becky, we home schooled our daughter and she learned to read before age three and loved it. To be honest, she was self schooled, we called it home school to meet the law requirements. She began teaching in a private school at age 14 and was offered four scholarships to attend Wesleyan where she graduated number one in her class. I approve of home schooling as it provides much more in the way of a true educational experience, but people and conditions must be right for the situation. My daughter is the major editor for all of my books, she has written a book of her own about her mother's horrible escape from the Vietnam War.
As always, nice talking to people who love reading.

[Becky]

Those are some great accomplishments, Dr. You have quite a bit to be proud of there!

[Esther]

Rachel wrote: "Some of mine have commentary, but pretty much everything I do has a commentary. I just can't keep my big mouth shut!"

It is so great to discover a kindred soul. Yes/no answers are almost a physical impossibility for me..

Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov - This was a rough read. Nabokov has a sick mind. I can see why it is considered great, but it was terribly disturbing.
His other books aren't much better. In one book his narrator is spying on people using a public urinal. YUK. After that scene I threw the book away.

[Ros]

I only really started reading much last year and have only done 7 of the books listed.

[Ros]

number 44 is missing what was that book?

[Angie]

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie-the-Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby-Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - A. S. Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

[Ros]

I have looked at big read top 200 and have only so far done 12.

[Leah]

Books I've read:

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte *****FAV BOOK!*****
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
13. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
25. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
29. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie-the-Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (almost the whole thing had to return it to the library and i moved.. but plan on finishing)
68. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

the ones I haven' read are almost all on my list of books I need to read.. haha

[Inna]

I've read 53 from the list

[Claire]

I've read 26 of them - not bad for one of these lists :)

Added my comments below

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen - my first Jane Austen, loved it!
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien - Read in a hurry so I could get through it before the movies. Found the first one a bit slow but loved the rest
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling - Unfortunately discovered this series immediately before my finals at university. Luckily I still passed. I've re-read the series at least 3 times. Reminds me, I lent a few out that haven't come back yet. Need to get those back!
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte - Read it at high school and found it a bit depressing!
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien - didn't like near as much as LOTR
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald - one of my favourite all times, not for Gatsby, but the narrator
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy - This took me years to finally finish, I found the war bits a bit of a struggle to start, but loved all the characters
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky - I'm a little bit obsessed with Russian literature, but this one was particularly memorable and one of those 'life changing books'. Some of the passages I can still recall clearly after about 8 years
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy - My first deviation into the Russian stuff when I was in high school and one of my all time favourites. I'd love to reread it to see my impression of it now.
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini - Funny one, really didn't like the guy to start off with... but I grew to like him despite his flaws. So I guess as a story of redemption it worked.
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres - One of my favourites, except I was a little bit disappointed by the ending.
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell - Just read it recently. I'm reasonably strong on Russian history so it was great to follow the book through, and this book has some great quotes! 1984 is on the TBR pile now.
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - I got hooked by it... thought it was ok.
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery - loved the whole series as a girl!
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy - I thought this one wasn't as depressing as the usual Hardys. Was difficult to get into, but I really like the way Hardy writes.
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding - Read it at school, and ended up loving it.
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan - I actually thought Enduring Love was better than Atonement, but found the story fascinating.
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon - I read this just before I visited Barcelona the first time, which added something to the trip. I know this guy has released another - hoping it gets translated soon!
68. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding - One of my nicknames is Bridget Jones. Not sure how to take that one.
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie - I thought it was a bit strange but engrossing. Actually loved the start of it best.
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White - One of my childhood favourites
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton - and more childhood favourites. I wished that tree existed!
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare - Another school read, but turned out to be my favourite Shakespeare (that I've read, anyhow)
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl - I LOVED Roald Dahl growing up. Still do...

And there are so many more on my to be read pile. Better get too it!

[Sarita]

What a great list! I've read 22 of them; I own about another 5 that I haven't read yet, and probably 10-12 are on my to-read list.

[Meghan]

36 - wish I could say more!