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The Goodreads 100: How Did YOU Do?
I saw this over at Helen's Book Blog and thought I would join in the fun. She saw it on Readerbuzz and My Head Is Full of Books. Thanks for letting me play along, ladies!
This is what Goodreads had to say:
"This is a fun one: For the collection below, we decided to take a long-arc overview and try to identify the most popular books published over the past 100 years, as determined by Goodreads members' digital shelves. To do this, we went year by year and picked one title from among the top of each pile.
However, we didn’t always just grab the very top book for several reasons. Repeats, for instance (some entire eras are Very Stephen King). And some years saw multiple Very, Very Important Works published. Ah, the backstage agony of debating the relative merits of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Virginia Woolf, and Franz Kafka!
Mostly we wanted to curate a list that would cover a range of genres and suggest the breadth of reading interests over time. And OK, full confession, it tickled our fancy to be able to put Ulysses and Malibu Rising on the same list."
I'm going to use the same key Ann and Helen did by highlighting the books I've read in yellow, the books on my TBR shelf in aqua, and the books I attempted but didn't finish in green. Let's see how this goes!
1922: Ulysses by James Joyce
1923: The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
1924: We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
1925: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
1926: The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
1927: To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
1928: The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall
1929: Passing by Nella Larsen
1930: As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
1931: The Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer
1932: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
1933: In Praise of Shadows by Jun’ichiro Tanizaki
1934: Murder On the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
1935: Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers
1936: Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
1937: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
1938: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
1939: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
1940: Native Son by Richard Wright
1941: The Library Of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges
1942: The Stranger by Albert Camus
1943: The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
1944: Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges
1945: The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
1946: The Member Of The Wedding by Carson McCullers
1947: No Exit by Jean Paul-Sartre
1948: I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
1949: 1984 by George Orwell
1950: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
1951: Foundation by Isaac Asimov
1952: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
1953: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
1954: The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
1955: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
1956: Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
1957: Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
1958: Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
1959: The Haunting Of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
1960: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (I've read this one multiple times. It's my favorite book of all time!)
1961: Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
1962: Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
1963: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
1964: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
1965: Dune by Frank Herbert
1966: Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard
1967: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
1968: Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
1969: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
1970: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
1971: Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
1972: Ways Of Seeing by John Berger
1973: The Princess Bride by William Goldman
1974: Carrie by Stephen King
1975: Salem’s Lot by Stephen King
1976: The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston
1977: Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
1978: The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
1979: Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
1980: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
1981: Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
1982: The Color Purple by Alice Walker
1983: The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis
1984: The House On Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
1985: The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (I've tried a few times with this one and I just can't ever get into it.)
1986: Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
1987: Watchmen by Alan Moore
1988: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
1989: The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
1990: Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
1991: Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
1992: The Secret History by Donna Tartt
1993: The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
1994: The Wind Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami
1995: The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
1996: A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
1997: Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
1998: The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
1999: Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
2000: House Of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielwski
2001: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
2002: Coraline by Neil Gaiman
2003: The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
2004: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
2005: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
2006: The Road by Cormac McCarthy
2007: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
2008: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
2009: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
2010: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
2011: The Song Of Achilles by Madeline Miller
2012: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
2013: The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
2014: Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
2015: Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
2016: When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
2017: The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
2018: Educated by Tara Westover
2019: Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
2020: The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
2021: Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Interesting. If I counted right, I've only read 24 of these. I'm surprised and not surprised, both.
How many of these have you read? Which do you want to read? In which do you have no interest at all? Ha ha.
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By my count, I've read 15 of these. Like you, I'm both surprised and not at all. I've never been one who feels like I have to read a specific work. In fact, seeing a book on a list of 'must reads' may even make me less inclined to give it a go. It is interesting to see that I've read more of the titles from the last 20 or so years than those that came before.
ReplyDeleteI'm that way too. At least somewhat. I'm not really a FOMO kind of person, you know?
Delete23. I thought that was not bad to be honest as I hadn't heard of quite a few.
ReplyDeleteSame here. I'd never heard of a bunch of the older ones!
DeleteYou did so well to read 24 books off this list! I checked and I've only read 12.
ReplyDeletePillars of the Earth by Ken Follett is actually one of my favourite books - I love how in detail he goes about architecture. I learnt a lot from that book and the next one in the series too. I think a third book may have just come out? I haven't read that one yet though.
There's a few books on the list that I thought were already on my tbr list but when I checked Goodreads they're not on there, e.g. Rebecca and The Grapes of Wrath.
I absolutely did not know that the Haunting of Hill House was a book! I watched the Netflix show and loved it, I really need to find the book now ha ha.
The Golden Compass I read in 2012 and rated it 5 stars - it's SO much better than the movie. Great fantasy novel.
I really want to read The Book Thief, it's such a great story. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society I've seen absolutely everywhere so it must be good lol.
I don't think there's any books I'm not interested in on the list, there's plenty of books I don't know enough about to make a judgement though.
There are definitely some on the list I have no interest in whatsoever. I should have marked those.
DeletePILLARS OF THE EARTH is one I've been meaning to read for forever. I've heard great things about it, so I definitely plan to get to it at some point. Same with HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, although I've seen mixed reviews of the book. I actually have a copy of THE GOLDEN COMPASS around here somewhere, but it's another one I've been meaning to read and just haven't.
THE BOOK THIEF is a great one. I loved it when I read it. It's been a hot minute, though, so I might be due for a re-read!
You did pretty good! Much better than I would have done!
ReplyDeleteHa ha. I read so much that I'm always kind of surprised to realize how much I have NOT read. It's wild! There are SO many books out there.
DeleteFun! You've read more of these than me.
ReplyDeleteThese lists are always interesting. I don't read many classics, so I never do well in that arena!
DeleteI've read 14. :D That's more than other top 100 books lists I've done. Many are on my TBR too. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I like this list because it's kind of a "fan favorite" list instead of just a "These are classics, so you should read them" list. I do better with these sorts, LOL.
DeleteInteresting list. I counted up and I've read 30 of the books on the list. And I'm okay with that number. Some I'm never going to read, like Ulysses or Dr. Zhivago. But it's always fun to see how you match up to lists like these. :D
ReplyDeleteNice! I'm with you on ULYSSES and DR. ZHIVAGO. I've got no interest in those. Same with THE GLASS MENAGERIE, THE SUN ALSO RISES, and lots others. I'm never going to read those. I agree—I just find it entertaining to see how I do on these lists.
DeleteI think it's so interesting to see what we've all read, want to read, and tried but just couldn't read.
ReplyDeleteIt was an interesting exercise for me as well!
DeleteI think it is interesting that you have very few books that you started, but did not finish.
ReplyDeleteI also find it interesting that you have read The Goldfinch, but not The Secret History. If you liked The Goldfinch, I think you will definitely love The Secret History.
Now I think I need to go back and color code my post!
True. I tend to finish books once I start them, even if I'm not loving them. I've gotten better over the years about putting them down if I'm not enjoying them, but I do tend to push on if they're classics or just books I feel like I need to read. For instance, I pretty much hated REBECCA, but I kept going because I wanted to cross it off my list of classics I've read.
DeleteI actually haven't read anything by Donna Tartt. I need to give her a try. Both THE GOLDFINCH and THE SECRET HISTORY are on my TBR list.
The color coding was my favorite part of making this list!
I've only read 8 of these. I've read some of these authors' other books that weren't on here, though.
ReplyDeleteSame. I've read A LOT of Stephen King, for instance. LOL.
DeleteI've read 27 of these. In addition, 17 are on my TBR list, and 3 were DNFs. There are others that I had intended to read at one point, but decided my time was worth too much to read books that I only added to my list because other people thought I should read them... ;-)
ReplyDeleteExcellent point! There are lots of books I want to read just so I can say I've read them and feel like a "well-read" person, but actually have no real interest in. Ha ha.
DeleteYou did great! I've read 7 of these, so I still have some work to do :)
ReplyDeleteHa ha. Better get on that!
DeleteI've only read 14, yikes!
ReplyDeleteHa ha. I read a ton, but it's not always popular books and definitely not classics, so I was surprised I had read so many of them!
Delete