100 Books Everyone Should Read Before They Die (Ranked!)

[Maximus Rex]

JILLIAN D'ONFRO

http://www.businessinsider.com/100-books-everyone-should-read-amazon-goodreads-2015-3

MAR. 3, 2015

To celebrate, start working your way through this list of 100 Books To Read in a Lifetime, as voted on and ranked by users of Goodreads, the largest book recommendation site on the web.

Amazon, which owns Goodreads, had its editors agonize over their own list, but the two turned out very different.

Here's the full, ranked list:

50. "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck

49. "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith

48. "The Count of Monte Cristo" by Alexandre Dumas

47. "The Color Purple" by Alice Walker

46. "The Holy Bible: King James Version"

45. "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley

44. "The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larrson

43. "Macbeth" by William Shakespeare

42. "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain

41."Anne of Green Gables" by L.M. Montgomery

40. "The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green

39. "Wuthering Heights" Emily Bronte

38. "Where the Sidewalk Ends" by Shel Silverstein

37. "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood

36. "The Giver" by Lois Lowry

35. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling

34. "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley

33. "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

32. "A Christmas Carol" by Charles ****ens

31. "The Secret Garden" by Frances Hodgson Burnett

30. "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams

29. "Romeo and Juliet"

28. "A Tale of Two Cities"

27. "Of Mice and Men"

26. "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L'Engle

25. "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare

24. "Night" by Elie Wiesel

23. "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini

22. "The Lord of the Flies" by William Golding

21. "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck

20. "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wadrobe" by C.S. Lewis

19. "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett

18. "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins

17. "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain

16. "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak

15. "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger

14. "Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell

13. "Animal Farm" by George Orwell

12. "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte

11. "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury

10. "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott

9. "The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien

8. "Charlotte's Web" by E.B. White

7. "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald

6. "The Lord of the Rings" (1-3) by J.R.R. Tolkien

5. "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" by J.K. Rowling

4. "1984" by George Orwell

3."The Diary of Anne Frank" by Anne Frank

2. "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen

1. "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee

 

[Watawata]

Ridiculous list
Edit: hope this was posted as a joke

 

[Who Dares Win]

You forgot twilight and 50 shades of grey, just to make sure you hit the trash at a 360 degree.

Its painful to see masterpieces and trash mixed that way.

 

[Fatal Jay]

most of that stuff is children books

To kill a mockingbird was a good movie also

 

[mangotot]

Noticed The Bible features in that list.

 

[dasein]

Terrifically bad, PC, gynocentric list for morons. No wonder our young and supposedly "educated" are so irremediably ignorant and shallow.

 

[hockeyfreak79]

How about a realistic top 10 must read books for men? Anyone?

 

[backbreaker]

I read quite a lot of books I still to this day read at least a chapter of something a night. Right now I'm on a Vince Flynn kick I'm reading American Assassin. Good entertaining book. Consent to Kill is REALLLY good. Every once in a while I will pick up a book where I basically sit on the couch and go into read mode and don't want to put the book down, Concent to kill is that good. Once I got into it I had to finish it. Read that book in 4 days. I've done that since I was a teenager and never stopped.


I did a post a few years ago about a DJ's well rounded book collection but if I had to make a list of 10 books you HAD to read I'd go


1. The fountainhead
2. Brave New World
3. Animal Farm
4. The Bible
5. The brothers karamazov
6. Uylesses
8. The Devine Comedy, this is a big as ****ing book lol so at least daunte's inferno but the entire thing is good
9. Paradise Lost
10. The count of monte crisco


1984 is good but it's basically the same thing as Brave New World and BNW is more entertaining


The book I got the most out of is the fountainhead. My fav book from a pure entertainment standpoint is Paradise Lost of the list above. That would be such an epic kick ass movie.


\more than anything, the books above are important becuase they help you "fit in" there are certain cultural references you're not gonna get, that are gonna go over your head unless you read the above. I did a Daunte's infers parody post about 2 years ago here and that post went over about 80% of the people's head who read it lol.. if i said, All DJs are equal but some Djs are more equal than others, that would fly over your head unless you read Animal farm

 

[backbreaker]

didn't care for the ending of 1984


I would recommend reading animal farm first. It's just like 50-70 pages you can knock it out in a day if you really wanted to though it's a "complex" 50 pages

 

[dasein]

How about a realistic top 10 must read books for men? Anyone?

Assuming you mean fiction, here are a few with some more recent scifi ones tossed in too to combat the insipid Potter books. Some are short stories, in no particular order:

1. The Iliad, Homer.
2. The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber, Hemingway.
3. The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Tolstoy
4. The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway
5. The Red and the Black, Stendahl
6. Aesop's Fables Complete
7. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Heinlein
8. Cryptonomicon, Stephenson
9. Last Legends of Earth, Attanasio
10. A Fire Upon the Deep, Vinge

Can't believe I forgot Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe, the "anti Potter." Kills GOT too.

 

[BetterCallSaul]

I don't see Playboy, Hustler or Swank on that list.

 

[Rainman4707]

Last month i read The Great Gatsby. It was average. Nothing special.

I surprised people rate this book so highly.

 

[AgesDuctPro]

BI is pretty beta, but some decent selections on that list. No idea why the first Harry Potter book is so high though.

 

[Skinnylove]

a book i recomend

Guys guys,you talk to much..
You've never read a book if 'The fault in our stars ain't on your list...its really heartbreaking tale of love,death and meaning of life..(oh and there's a Don Juan wannabe who hits on a chick with cancer)
I cried (honestly)after reading this book...so don't criticize till you read a book or at least the plot summary.
life ain't all about fun,All DJs know that some challenges have to be faced.eg hitting on a perfect 10 vixen for the first time in your life,so read books that inspire you and make you cry and realise that life is fun with all its bull****.
Hope I passed the message...
Peace yall:rockon:

 

[mangotot]

I have just finished reading 'The Holy Bible' from that list, now onto 'The Frankenstein'.

 

[mangotot]

I have just finished reading 'The Holy Bible' from that list, now onto 'The Frankenstein'.

 

[BetterCallSaul]

Since this thread popped up again I decided to actually look at the list and it's total horses#it. You can tell it was written by a woman. I'm not saying I read Shakespeare on a regular basis, but when you put Hunger Games in the same list and compare it to Macbeth or other classics, you pretty much announce to the whole world you're talking out of your ass.

ETA: It was written by a dam woman. Surprise surprise.