My Rival List to Amazon's 100

Short note before I get rolling again. I dropped off the planet for a couple of years after my mother died. But now I am slowly getting back into the things that used to bring me joy.

A lot of lists go around the Internet about things we should all do in our lifetime. I really enjoy most of those lists, and Amazon's List of 100 Book to Read in a Lifetime only stands out to me because the list was disappointing. Did you check it out yet? I fared 19 read, 11 partially read, and 12 added to my new list of To-Read's.

That was a paltry score, but I'm an avid reader since age 6. So what's wrong here? I decided to write down only books I read that I could remember off the top of my head and then I categorized them into Children's, Young Adult, and Adult. Maybe I'm snobbish - I think at least 100 of the books on my list are far better than the ones on Amazon and I'm so snobbish that I am going to post them here for all the world to see. Now, some books that should be read, may have been, I just didn't dig into my memory to find books I didn't thoroughly enjoy. Other great books are still on my To-Read list. Some of these books are great by most accounts, and others were pure fun. Did I enjoy Shakespear, or Tennessee William? Oscar Wilde and Walt Whitman? Or, am I just showing off? Take comfort, I really enjoyed my AP English classes and went on to The American Academy of Dramatic Arts so I am going to say, yes, I truly enjoyed them at the time. The list is perpetually incomplete, no doubt, but outline my joy of reading.

Did you challenge the Amazon Top 100? How did you fare? How should these types of list be comprised?

Children’s:

1.       The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exubery, 1943

2.       Winnie the Pooh – A. A. Milne

3.       Frog & Toad – Arnold Lobel, 1970

4.       Alexander & the Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day – Judith Viorst, 1987

5.       Ramona Quimby, Age 8 – Beverly Cleary, 1981

6.       Ribsy – Beverly Cleary, 1964

7.       Little House on the Prairie – Laura Ingalls Wilder, 1932

8.       The Bobbsey Twins – Laura Lee Hope, 1904

9.       Two Girls & A Mystery – May Hollis Barton, 1922

10.   Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathen Swift, 1726

11.   The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain, 1884

12.   The Adventures of Tom Sawyer – Mark Twain, 1876

13.   Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll, 1865

14.   Alice Through the Looking Glass – Lewis Carroll, 1871

15.   Cinderella – Paul Reade, 1980

16.   Charlotte’s Web – E. B. White, 1952

17.   Goldilocks & the Three Bears – Robert Southey, 1837

18.   The Real Mother Goose – Blanche Fisher Wright, 1916

19.   Tale of Peter Rabbit – Beatrix Potter, 1902

20.   The Cat in the Hat – Dr. Seuss, 1957

21.   Are You My Mother – P.D. Eastman, 1960

22.   One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish – Dr. Seuss, 1960

23.   Madeline – Ludwig Belmelmans, 1939

24.   The Mouse and the Motorcycle – Beverly Cleary, 1965

25.   Henry Huggins – Beverly Cleary, 1950

26.   Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing – Judy Blume, 1972

27.   Where the Sidewalk Ends – Shel Silverstein, 1974

28.   The Peanuts – Charles M. Schultz - 1950

29.   Jack & the Beanstalk – (too many writer’s. Couldn’t find the one that wrote the one I read) 1988

Young Adult

1.       Animal Farm – George Orwell

2.       Babysitter’s Club – Ann M. Martin

3.       Too Young to Die – Lurlene McDaniel

4.       Where the Red Fern Grows – Wilson Rawls

5.       Sweet Valley High Series – Francine Pascal

6.       The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

7.       To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee

8.       Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl – Anne Frank

9.       Old Yeller – Fred Gipson

10.   E.T. – William Kotzwinkle

11.   Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card

12.   Hunger Games Series – Suzanne Collins, 2008

13.   Blue Blood’s P.C. Cast Series

14.   Twilight Series – Stephanie Meyer, 2005

15.   Forest of Hands and Teeth – Carrie Ryan

16.   Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares – David Levithan

17.   Beautiful Disaster – Jamie McGuire

18.   The Fault in Our Stars – John Green

19.   The Spectacular Now – Tim Tharp

20.   Little Women – Louisa May Alcott

21.   13 Reasons Why – Jay Asher

22.   Ms. Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children – Ransom Riggs

23.   Anne of Green Gables – Lucy Maude Montgomery, 1908

24.   Harry Potter Series – J.K. Rowling

25.   Sleepover Friends Series – Susan Saunders

26.   A Streetcar Named Desire – Tennessee Williams,

27.   Romeo & Juliet – Shakespeare,

28.   Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

29.   Hamlet – Shakespeare

30.   The Odyssey – Homer

31.   Julius Caesar – Shakespeare

32.   The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

33.   A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Shakespeare

34.   Death of A Salesman – Arthur Miller

35.   A Raisin in the Sun – Lorraine Hansberry

36.   The Glass Menagerie – Tennessee Williams

37.   Island of the Blue Dolphins – Scott O’Dell

Adult

1.       The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemmingway

2.       Edgar Allan Poe various poems

3.       Walt Whitman

4.       Ezra Pound

5.       Me Talk Pretty One Day – David Sedaris

6.       Freud Megalomania – Israel Rosenfield

7.       Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America with Einstein’s Brain – Michael Paterniti

8.       How to Build a Time Machine – Paul Davies

9.       A Short History of Nearly Everything – Bill Bryson

10.   Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding

11.   This is How You Die – Matthew Bernnardo, David Malki, Ryan North

12.   Fifty Shades of Grey – E.L. James

13.   I Bought Andy Warhol – Richard Polsky

14.   Miserly Moms – Jonni McCoy

15.   Gone Girl (in progress) – Gillian Flynn

16.   God’s Debris: A Thought Experiment – Scott Adams

17.   Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff – Richard Carlson

18.   Unauthorized Freud – Frederick Crewes

19.   Tao of Pooh – Benjamin Hoff

20.   Te of Piglet – Benjamin Hoff

21.   Entanglement – Amir Aczel

22.   Notes to Myself – Hugh Prather

23.   Dharma Bums – Jack Kerouac

24.   Big Fish- Daniel Wallace

25.   Ecstasy Club – Douglas Rushkoff

26.   Bridget Jones the Edge of Reason – Helen Fielding

27.   Politically Correct Bedtime Stories – James Finn Garner

28.   Classic Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Arthur Conan Doyle

29.   Who Moved My Cheese – Spencer Johnson, 1998

30.   Running with Scissors – Augusten Burroughs, 2002

31.   Atlantis Destroyed – Rodney Castleden

32.   The Davinci Code – Dan Brown

33.   Screenplay – Syd Field

34.   Screen Acting – Brian Adams

35.   Screenwriting 434 – Lew Hunter

36.   Shopgirl – Steve Martin

37.   The Picture of Dorian Grey – Oscar Wilde

38.   The Alchemist – Paulo Coelhe

39.   The Screwtape Letters – C.S. Lewis

40.   The Case for Christ – Lee Strobel

41.   The Case for Religion – Lee Strobel

42.   Children of a Lesser God – Mark Medoff

43.   The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Stephen R. Covey

44.   The Quarter Life Crisis – Patrick Anderson Jr.