Saturday, August 15, 2009

NPR's Top 100 Beach Books

Allrighty. Let's see how many of these I've read (in green). You know how I love lists. I'll highlight the ones I *want* to read in red.

1. The Harry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling (all of them! and I want to read them again)
2. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee (although I need to re-read it)
3. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini (cried the entire last half)
4. Bridget Jones's Diary, by Helen Fielding (how have I not read this yet?)
5. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
6. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, by Rebecca Wells
7. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
8. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
9. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, by Fannie Flagg

10. The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver
11. The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
12. Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
13. The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan
14. The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien (and LOTR trilogy... like, a million times)
15. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
16. Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell

17. Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett (started it, but did not like it)
18. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
19. Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides

20. Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen (started, did not like)
21. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
22. The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver (although I think I started it...)
23. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, by Alexander McCall Smith
24. The World According to Garp, by John Irving
25. Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
26. The Prince of Tides, by Pat Conroy
27. Like Water for Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel

28. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman
29. The Accidental Tourist, by Anne Tyler
30. Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer (all four)
31. A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole

32. East of Eden, by John Steinbeck (although I might have read it long ago...)
33. The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant
34. Beach Music, by Pat Conroy
35. One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
36. Rebecca, by Daphne Du Maurier
37. Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card
38. Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry (and the sequel)
39. The Thorn Birds, by Colleen McCullough (might be fun to re-read)
40. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon

41. Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett
42. Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy (currently reading)
43. Interview with the Vampire, by Anne Rice (and about a million others by her)
44. Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier (started, not into it)
45. Empire Falls, by Richard Russo
46. Under the Tuscan Sun, by Frances Mayes
47. The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas
48. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, by Tom Robbins
49. I Know This Much Is True, by Wally Lamb
50. Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie
51. Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
52. The Stand, by Stephen King
53. She's Come Undone, by Wally Lamb (although I sort of hated it)

54. Dune, by Frank Herbert
55. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

56. Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
57. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
58. Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov

59. The Godfather, by Mario Puzo (ooh! Is this what the movie was based on?? Must read!)
60. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith
61. Animal Dreams, by Barbara Kingsolver
62. Jaws, by Peter Benchley (I started this a million times when I was a kid)
63. Good in Bed, by Jennifer Weiner
64. Angle of Repose, by Wallace Stegner
65. Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson (started, not into it)
66. The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway
67. The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand
68. Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut
69. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut

70. The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler
71. The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
72. The Hunt for Red October, by Tom Clancy

73. Cold Sassy Tree, by Olive Ann Burns
74. The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
74. Bonfire of the Vanities, by Tom Wolfe (I used to have this... hmm...)
76. Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte
77. Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon
78. The Shell Seekers, by Rosamunde Pilcher

79. Prodigal Summer, by Barbara Kingsolver
80. Eye of the Needle, by Ken Follett
81. Cannery Row, by John Steinbeck
82. The Pilot's Wife, by Anita Shreve [tie]
83. All the Pretty Horses, by Cormac McCarthy
84. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson
85. The Little Prince, by Antoine De Saint-Exupery
86. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
87. One for the Money, by Janet Evanovich
88. Shogun, by James Clavell
89. Dracula, by Bram Stoker
90. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera
91. Presumed Innocent, by Scott Turow
92. Franny and Zooey, by J.D. Salinger (however, do not even remember it)
93. The Secret History, by Donna Tartt
94. Dead Until Dark, by Charlaine Harris (started, did not like)
95. Summer Sisters, by Judy Blume
96. The Shining, by Stephen King
97. How Stella Got Her Groove Back, by Terry McMillan
98. Lamb, by Christopher Moore
99. Sick Puppy, by Carl Hiaasen
100. Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson

So, I have read 62 (or so) out of 100 (more, if you count all the books in the series mentioned). Still, room for improvement. I really enjoyed most of the books I've read on this list, so I'll pick out a few more off of it for my library trip today. Hmm. I will report back.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

oooh i may have to steal this list from you.

why did you hate She's Come Undone? I ask because I read it a long time ago (maybe ten years ago) and i just remember it really bumming me out, although i only vaguely remember the book itself. also, i was already sort of depressed at the time so maybe i just equate the book with that time in my life.

there is a lot on this list i need to read.

Anonymous said...

also...was The Time Traveler's Wife any good? i had always wanted to read it but the previews for the movie are irritating me.

Daphne said...

Tammie: I don't really remember why i hated She's Come Undone, except I remember thinking the main character was really annoying, and I was totally depressed by the end. I have subsequently been highly annoyed by people saying it's "one of the best books I ever read" for some unknown reason. Victim-y main character, bad things happen to her... I didn't and don't get it. However, to be honest, i can barely remember it now, maybe I'd feel differently (probably not -- this kind of book invariably puts me in a bad mood)

I *loved* Time Traveler's Wife, and yeah, the movie reviews sound bad. But the book was very good and very clever. It took me until after the first chapter to really understand what was happening, but over time the book unfolds into something really amazing (I thought). Here is my review from last year: http://never-travelled.blogspot.com/2008/06/book-time-travelers-wife.html

Anonymous said...

the second i read "victim-y main character" a lot of the book came back to me, and yeah there was a lot about it that i just didnt get. i remember thinking that so many of the problems of the main character seemed to be of her own making.
i was relieved to read that the book left you totally depressed. i always thought it was just me and i was missing something that other people were clearly getting out of the book.

im off to read your review of the time travellers wife. i was hoping you had written about it here but was too lazy to look through your book archives myself. :)

Susan said...

I've read quite a few of the books on this list too! A fun beach read list :-D Though I'm not sure Lord of the Flies qualifies as beach reading!

Kate said...

How have you not read Bridget Jones' Diary yet? Get on that!

I read the David Guterson years ago - maybe in high school - and it did nothing for me either.

Lahni said...

These are supposed to be beach reads? Can you imagine reading The Fountainhead on the beach??!! Or Anna Karenina or East of Eden?? There's quite a few that I wouldn't pick to read on the beach!
I, too might have to steal this list. It's a fun list (maybe just not entirely beach appropriate!).