A few weeks ago I sent out this SOS call on Facebook, on another Blog I write, and on a forum I frequent:

My new goal is to conquer one of those “100 Top Books” lists. However, all the one’s I’ve found are heavy on things like… Vonnegut and Lord of the Flies… you know, books that have the power to make me feel tortured merely by remembering them. So – you are now charged with helping me create my own. Give me your top 5 [at least] favorite books…

I’m happy to say, that my list of 100 books recommended by my friends, family, and fellow bloggers is complete! I will be reading each f the books and blogging on them as I go.  If anyone would like to take this epic journey along with me, feel free. I will be starting off with the #1 suggested book - Stephen King’s The Stand.

Many of the books I own, some of which I haven’t even read yet! This is organized by the number of votes a book received, then alphabetically within books that received the same recognition. I may not read them in order, as I’d like to read the ones I have first.

 I will be re-reading books I have already read, as I would like to write about things as I come across them. I may have read the Mists of Avalon 8 times already, but that doesn’t mean I remember every page!

 I will be blog about the books as I read them on my art/ literature blog [that seldom gets used!]:

 I’m even happier to say that my two favorite books of all time are on this list! [The Mists of Avalon and Deerskin].

 I’m less happy to report that the DaVinci Code made the list and I have to re-read it. Super. My brain can melt all over again.

 And without further adieu…

  1. The Stand – Stephen King – 8 Votes
  2. The Mists of Avalon – Marion Zimmer Bradley – 6 Votes
  3. The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger – 6 Votes
  4. To Kill a Mocking Bird – Harper Lee – 5 Votes
  5. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving – 4 Votes
  6. Frankenstein – Mary Shelley – 4 Votes
  7. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden – 4 Votes
  8. Sellevision - Augusten Borroughs – 4 Votes
  9. The Golden Compass [His Dark Materials] – Philip Pullman – 4 Votes
  10. The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams – 4 Votes
  11. Water for Elephants – Sara Gruen – 4 Votes
  12. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith – 3 Votes
  13. Atonement – Ian McEwan – 3 Votes
  14. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky – 3 Votes
  15. Dracula – Bram Stoker – 3 Votes
  16. Dry – Agusten Borroughs – 3 Votes
  17. Fight Club – Chuck Palahniuk – 3 Votes
  18. Me Talk Pretty One Day – David Sedaris – 3 Votes
  19. North & SouthElizabeth Gaskell – 3 votes
  20. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen – 3 Votes
  21. Running with Scissors – Augesten Borroughs – 3 Votes
  22. The Corrections – Jonthan Franzen – 3 Votes 
  23. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien – 3 Votes
  24. The Secret Life of Bees – Sue Monk Kidd – 3 Votes
  25. A Thousand Spelndid Suns – Khaled Hosseini – 2 Votes
  26. A Wrinkle in Time – Madeline L’Engle – 2 Votes
  27. American Gods - Neil Gaiman – 2 Votes
  28. Angela’s Ashes – Frank McCourt – 2 Votes
  29. Animal, Vegetable, Mirale - Barbara Kingsolver – 2 Votes
  30. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy - 2 Votes
  31. Beach Music – Pat Conroy – 2 Votes
  32. Behold Your Queen – Gladys Malvern – 2 Votes
  33. Bitter is the New Black - Jennifer Lancaster – 2 Votes
  34. Bleak House – Charles Dickens – 2 Votes
  35. Briar Rose – Jane Yolen – 2 Votes
  36. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller – 2 Votes
  37. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens – 2 Votes
  38. Deerskin – Robin McKinley – 2 Votes
  39. Desperation – Stephen King – 2 Votes
  40. Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card – 2 Votes
  41. Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer – 2 Votes
  42. Glass Castles - Jeannette Walls – 2 Votes
  43. Gone with the Wind – Margaret Mitchell – 2 Votes
  44. Good Omens - Neil Gaiman - 2 Votes
  45. Heart Shaped Box - Joe Hill – 2 Votes
  46. The DaVinci Code – Dan Brown – 2 Votes
  47. House of Leaves - Mark Danielewski - 2 Votes
  48. Howard’s End - EM Forster – 2 Votes
  49. Lamb: Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Friend - Christopher Moore  – 2 Votes
  50. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo – 2 Votes
  51. Life of Pi – Yann Martel – 2 Votes
  52. Little Earthquakes – Jennifer Weiner – 2 Votes
  53. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Marquez – 2 Votes
  54. Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold – 2 Votes
  55. Memory & Dream - Charles De Lint – 2 Votes
  56. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil - John Berendt – 2 Votes
  57. Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman – 2 Votes
  58. On the Road - Jack Kerouac – 2 Votes
  59. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Marquez  – 2 Votes
  60. Outlander – Diana Gabaldon – 2 Votes
  61. Prince of Tides – Pat Conroy – 2 Votes
  62. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier – 2 Votes
  63. Sabriel- Garth Nix – 2 Votes
  64. Sarah’s Key - Tatiana de Rosnay – 2 votes
  65. Sex, Drugs and Coco Puffs – Chuck Klosterman – 2 Votes [Author]
  66. Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle – 2 Votes
  67. Such a Pretty Fat - Jennifer Lancaster – 2 Votes
  68. The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood - 2 Votes
  69. The Blue Sword – Robin McKinley – 2 Votes
  70. The Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger – 2 Votes
  71. The Color Purple - Alice Walker – 2 Votes
  72. The Complete Works – William Shakespear – 2 Votes
  73. The Confessions of Max Tivoli - Andrew Sean Greer – 2 Votes
  74. The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas – 2 Votes
  75. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night time – Mark Haddon – 2 Votes
  76. The Glass Lake - Maeve Binchy – 2 Votes
  77. The Golden - Lucius Shepard – 2 Votes
  78. The Great Train Robbery – Michael Crichton – 2 Votes
  79. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Maryann Shaffer – 2 Votes
  80. The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova – 2 Votes
  81. The Iliad – Homer – 2 Votes
  82. The Little Prince - Antoin De Saint Exipery – 2 Votes
  83. The Man in the Iron Mask - Alexandre Dumas – 2 Votes
  84. The Name on the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss – 2 Votes
  85. The Odyssey – Homer – 2 Votes
  86. The Once and Future King – T.H. White – 2 Votes
  87. The Pickwick Papers – Charles Dickens – 2 Votes
  88. The Riddle Master – Patricia McKillip – 2 Votes
  89. The Shining – Stephen King – 2 Votes
  90. The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway – 2 Votes
  91. The Three Muskateers - Alexandre Dumas – 2 Votes
  92. The Velveteen Rabbit - Margery Williams – 2 Votes
  93. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami – 2 Votes
  94. The Witch of Portobello - Paolo Coelho – 2 Votes
  95. Tigana - Guy Gavriel Kay - 2 Votes
  96. Tuesdays with Morrie - Mitch Albom – 2 Votes
  97. Waking the Moon – Elizabeth Hand – 2 Votes
  98. Watership Down - Richard Adams – 2 Votes
  99. White Oleander - Janet Fitch – 2 Votes
  100. Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame – 2 Votes
Advertisement