100 Books Bucket List

[Hayley]

I was going to post this on my own book log because I got this list as a Christmas present (it's actually a 'scratch off' poster by Gift Republic) but I thought I'd post it here instead, just in case anybody else feels like joining in the challenge! 

(Sorry that the picture is terrible, it's very springy so I had to weight it down with books so it didn't roll back up)

 

I've actually read about a quarter of the books before but I still haven't decided whether to scratch off the ones I've already read now, or to re-read them before scratching them off.

 

I do think it's cheating a little that they've included entire series/trilogies as one entry!

 

(Listed in the order they appear on the poster, by rows running right to left, although I can't see any actual purpose to the order they're in...)

 

1. American Gods - Neil Gaiman

2. Lord of the Flies - William Golding

3. Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse

4. Sophie's World - Jostein Gaarder

5. A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking

6. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott FItzgerald

7. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

8. Matilda - Roald Dahl

9. The Complete Art of War - Sun Tzu

10. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick

11. Long Walk to Freedom - Nelson Mandela 

12. Murder on the Orient Express - Agatha Christie 

13. The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat - Oliver Sacks

14. Noughts and Crosses - Malorie Blackman

15. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote

16. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley

17. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carrol 

18. The Secret History - Donna Tartt

19. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

20. Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell

21. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck 

22. Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami

23. One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest - Ken Kesey

24. The Man in the Iron Mask - Alexandre Dumas

25. The Colour Purple - Alice Walker

26. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson

27. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

28. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

29. Harry Potter (series) - J.K. Rowling

30. His Dark Materials (trilogy) - Philip Pullman

31. The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway

32. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

33. The Road - Cormac McCarthy 

34. Ulysses - James Joyce

35. Bad Science - Ben Goldacre

36. I Capture the Castle - Dodie Smith

37. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson

38. Les Misérables - Victor Hugo

39. The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger 

40. Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

41. Wild Swans - Jung Chang

42. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

43. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - John Le Carré

44. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

45. The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver

46. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain

47. Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift

48. The War of the Worlds - H.G. Wells

49. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

50. Freakonomics - S. Dubner S. Levitt

51. A Game of Thrones - George R. R. Martin

52. The Help - Katheryn Stockett

53. Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes

54. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou

55. American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis

56. Notes from a Small Island - Bill Bryson

57. Macbeth - William Shakespeare

58. The Lord of the Rings (trilogy) - J.R.R Tolkien 

59. A History of Venice - John Julius Norwich

60. The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins

61. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

62. A Wild Sheep Chase - Haruki Murakami

63. Schindler's Ark - Thomas Keneally

64. London Fields - Martin Amis

65. The Hound of the Baskervilles - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

66. My Man Jeeves - P.G. Wodehouse

67. The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje

68. The Mill on the Floss - George Eliot

69. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

70. The Commitments - Roddy Doyle

71. Gladys Aylward: The Little Woman - Gladys Aylward

72. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie

73. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

74. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas - John Boyne

75. Hamlet - William Shakespeare 

76. Goodnight Mister Tom - Michelle Magorian

77. Dissolution - C.J. Sansom

78. The Time Machine - H.G. Wells

79. Winnie the Pooh (complete collection) - A.A. Milne

80. Animal Farm - George Orwell

81. The Diary of a Young Girl - Anne Frank

82. The Enchanted Wood - Enid Blyton

83. Dracula - Bram Stoker

84. All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque

85. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding

86. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

87. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

88. To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf

89. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

90. Misery - Stephen King

91. The Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis

92. Watership Down - Richard Adams

93. The Odyssey - Homer

94. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

95. Bird Song - Sebastian Faulks

96. Tell No One - Harlan Coben

97. Moby Dick - Herman Melville

98. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

99. Middlemarch - George Eliot 

100. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

 

[Raven]

I've read 14⅓ of those (the ⅓ being The Northern Lights, as I never got any further with His Dark Materials, but having enjoyed the TV series - so far - I may go back to them).

 

There are several on the list that I have started and not finished as well (Watership Down, Moby Dick & Tess of the D'Urbervilles, amongst them...)

 

I wouldn't waste time on The Time Machine (no pun intended!) as it's a pretty weak story and more heavy-handed social commentary, really, and I can't say Do Androids Dream... is all that special either (there are far better and more imaginative sci-fi novels out there.  Hell, it's not even Phil Dick's best book!  It largely owes its popularity to Blade Runner, with which it has very little in common!)

 

[Madeleine]

I've  read 23 of them, although if you count the series - Game of Thrones, LotR, Narnia, Potter - it's a lot more, I agree counting a whole series as one book is a bit of a cheat. And the Orwell books weren't my choice (set books at school).

[France]

I've read 50 on the list, and maybe a few more, I can't remember if I've actually read them or just talked about them with people who have.

 

I read The Wind in the Willows and Alice in Wonderland when I was 8.

 

It annoys me when these lists include Shakespeare's plays because though a lot of people are familair with Hamlet and Macbeth it's because they've studied them at school or seen the plays, not because they've picked them up voluntarily. Likewise with the lists that include "the Bible", my bible knowledge is pretty good due to having an amazing strip cartoon bible when I was a child and stories like Daniel in the lions' den are fantastic in cartoon form! I've never met anyone though who has genuinely read the whole bible (maybe some theological students do).

[Athena]

I've read either 20, 19 or 18, depending on:

1) I read a lot of the Chronicles of Narnia books when I was a kid, but they were library loans and I am not 100% sure I read all 7.

2) I translated parts of the Odyssey for my ancient Greek class in high school, but since we did not do the whole book (that'd be too much obviously), I don't know if I can count it as read or not..? We were taught about it, and we translated parts of it from ancient Greek to Dutch. But I'm pretty sure we didn't read every bit of the whole book 100%.

 

Here are the other ones I've read:

4. Sophie's World - Jostein Gaarder (I loved this as a teenager)
7. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (for English class in high school)

8. Matilda - Roald Dahl (loved this as a kid)
10. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick (my first Philip K. Dick novel and it made me want to read more of his works).

12. Murder on the Orient Express - Agatha Christie (loved it)
15. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote (for English class in high school)

29. Harry Potter (series) - J.K. Rowling (book 1 for English class in high school, I read the rest of my own accord)

30. His Dark Materials (trilogy) - Philip Pullman (I quite enjoyed this trilogy, I read it in 2019/2020 with several other people)
42. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (read this as a teenager and loved it)

48. The War of the Worlds - H.G. Wells (loved it)

51. A Game of Thrones - George R. R. Martin (I read all 5 books years ago and found them very enjoyable, but I am still waiting for books 6 and 7 to be released..)

53. Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes (I read this when I was in my twenties I believe, and liked it).

57. Macbeth - William Shakespeare (for English class in high school)
78. The Time Machine - H.G. Wells (meh.. this was kind of disappointing to me to be honest.).

80. Animal Farm - George Orwell (loved it)

81. The Diary of a Young Girl - Anne Frank (loved it, I read the original Dutch version since I'm Dutch and it is my first language)
85. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding (loved books 1 and 2, liked book 3, really didn't like book 4)
91. The Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis (see in the beginning of this post)

93. The Odyssey - Homer (see in the beginning of this post)

100. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (loved it)

 

 

Edited February 17, 2021 by Athena
Added which ones I have read; Edit 2: Forgot one

[Madeleine]

There are over 30 Shakespeare plays!

[Hux]

Noughts and Crosses? Really?

 

 

 

[Lau_Lou]

I have read 20 from the list. However it is actually more than that. I have read the whole Chronicles Of Narnia series and would class that as 7 books not 1! I have also read the first two Harry Potter books but didn't include them if I have to have read the whole series for it to be counted as just 1  

 

Agree with Hayley and Madeleine. 

[Talisman]

This seems a pretty strange list of must read books to me - an odd mixture of both British and overseas 'classics' and more modern books - with not one non fiction book - not even The Bible! I have only read 11 of them, but it doesn't matter as there are tons of other good books I have read.

[Hayley]

14 hours ago, Raven said:

I've read 14⅓ of those (the ⅓ being The Northern Lights, as I never got any further with His Dark Materials, but having enjoyed the TV series - so far - I may go back to them).

I loved those books! The Amber Spyglass was the first book I ever cried at (although I think I was about 13 at the time...). 
 

 

On 16/02/2021 at 7:31 PM, Raven said:

wouldn't waste time on The Time Machine (no pun intended!) as it's a pretty weak story and more heavy-handed social commentary, really, and I can't say Do Androids Dream... is all that special either

Oh dear... two of the books I was most looking forward to! 
 

11 hours ago, Madeleine said:

I've  read 23 of them, although if you count the series - Game of Thrones, LotR, Narnia, Potter - it's a lot more, I agree counting a whole series as one book is a bit of a cheat. And the Orwell books weren't my choice (set books at school).

The size of the Game of Thrones series too! I actually liked 1984 but I haven’t read Animal Farm.

 

On 17/02/2021 at 10:25 AM, France said:

Likewise with the lists that include "the Bible"

I agree that’s a strange one to include! 
 

On 17/02/2021 at 2:51 PM, Athena said:

I've read either 20, 19 or 18

I’m glad you liked all the ones you read, apart from The Time Machine! 
 

23 hours ago, Hux said:

Noughts and Crosses? Really?

 

 

 

I have heard of it but I don’t know a lot about it. I think it was made into a film or tv series recently? Why don’t you think it should be on the list? 
 

[Hux]

15 minutes ago, Hayley said:

I have heard of it but I don’t know a lot about it. I think it was made into a film or tv series recently? Why don’t you think it should be on the list? 
 

 

This is supposed to be a bucket list of must-reads. 

 

Noughts and Crosses is no must-read. If it's a diversity thing (which I suspect it is), I would recommend literally anything by James Baldwin as an alternative.

 

The whole list is pretty poor if you ask me, muddled and sloppy.

Edited February 18, 2021 by Hux

[Hayley]

31 minutes ago, Talisman said:

This seems a pretty strange list of must read books to me - an odd mixture of both British and overseas 'classics' and more modern books - with not one non fiction book - not even The Bible! I have only read 11 of them, but it doesn't matter as there are tons of other good books I have read.

There are a few non fiction books on there, ‘A Brief History of Time’, ‘Notes from a Small Island’, ‘The Selfish Gene’, ‘The Complete Art of War’ and ‘Long Walk to Freedom’ (there might be more, there are some books on there I’ve never heard of). I really don’t know how they compiled the list though, there doesn’t seem to be any sort of of theme. (I like your new profile picture by the way!)

I feel like I should also point out that I don’t think these lists matter in any way. The only books you ‘should’ read are the books you want to read, because everyone has different tastes and interests. My friend just thought this would be fun for me and that’s what I’ll be treating it as. There’s a very good chance I’ll never complete all of these these books, even if I manage to try them all. 

[Hayley]

10 minutes ago, Hux said:

 

This is supposed to be a bucket list of must-reads. 

 

Noughts and Crosses is no must-read. If it's a diversity thing (which I suspect it is), I would recommend literally anything by James Baldwin as an alternative.

 

The whole list is pretty poor if you ask me, muddled and sloppy.

I looked up Noughts and Crosses (I do recognise the plot now) and it has actually been on a couple of other ‘top 100’ lists (‘most inspirational’ by the BBC and ‘best books of the 21st century’ by the Guardian). The author was children’s laureate and was awarded an OBE for services to children’s literature. There are a couple of other children’s books on the list so I can see why they included this one. I wonder whether they actually used various ‘top 100’ lists to make this one, which is why it seems oddly disjointed. 

[Raven]

3 hours ago, Hayley said:

 

I loved those books! The Amber Spyglass was the first book I ever cried at (although I think I was about 13 at the time...). 
 

 

I think I will end up reading them at some point; as I said, I've very much enjoyed the TV series.

 

3 hours ago, Hayley said:

 

Oh dear... two of the books I was most looking forward to! 
 

 

Sorry!  

 

If you have not read it, then The War of the Worlds is infinitely better than The Time Machine and you should enjoy that (it is a far better story and novel all around, really, so I would say read The Time Machine first, and then follow it up with The War of the Worlds!).  

 

It would be interesting to know who wrote this list and when, because either they aren't that widely read (on science fiction, anyway) or this is a safe list of well known classics from a few years ago. 

 

Iain M. Banks should be on there, somewhere. 

 

[lunababymoonchild]

15 hours ago, Hayley said:

I feel like I should also point out that I don’t think these lists matter in any way. The only books you ‘should’ read are the books you want to read, because everyone has different tastes and interests. 

 

I agree wholeheartedly.  I look at these lists with interest because I'm always interested in what other people are reading and what they find interesting and then I carry on reading what I enjoy and want to read. 

[Hayley]

16 hours ago, Raven said:

 

If you have not read it, then The War of the Worlds is infinitely better than The Time Machine and you should enjoy that (it is a far better story and novel all around, really, so I would say read The Time Machine first, and then follow it up with The War of the Worlds!).  

I do have both so I’ll take your advice. I’m still hoping I won’t totally hate The Time Machine though! 
 

16 hours ago, Raven said:

 

It would be interesting to know who wrote this list and when, because either they aren't that widely read (on science fiction, anyway) or this is a safe list of well known classics from a few years ago. 

Well the box just says ‘Gift Republic’ with a note that you can also get ‘100 films’ and ‘100 albums’, so I don’t think there was any particularly deep thought about which books made the list. It’s more of a novelty thing. I think it’s pretty likely that they just looked at existing ‘top 100’ book lists and merged them together. 

 

4 hours ago, lunababymoonchild said:

 

I agree wholeheartedly.  I look at these lists with interest because I'm always interested in what other people are reading and what they find interesting and then I carry on reading what I enjoy and want to read. 

Exactly this  

[Raven]

4 hours ago, Hayley said:

 

I do have both so I’ll take your advice. I’m still hoping I won’t totally hate The Time Machine though! 
 

 

I don't think it is something you will hate - I can't say I hated it - but after reading The War of the Worlds, I just didn't think it was anywhere near as good!

 

A caveat on the above is that The War of the Worlds is one of my favourite books, so I may have been expecting greatness when I read The Time Machine, and was holding it to too high a standard!*

 

*I wasn't, it's just not as good!

 

4 hours ago, Hayley said:

 

Well the box just says ‘Gift Republic’ with a note that you can also get ‘100 films’ and ‘100 albums’, so I don’t think there was any particularly deep thought about which books made the list. It’s more of a novelty thing. I think it’s pretty likely that they just looked at existing ‘top 100’ book lists and merged them together. 

 

 

I understand, but - as with reviews - it helps to know who is doing the recommending so you can put the recommendation into some in of context, otherwise it is just a list!

 

You seem to have taken a bit of flack for this topic, but please don't take my comments as being negative; my comments - and others - are obviously just opinions - you may love the books that I found lacking, and so the wheel turns! (and as someone once said, "if we all liked the same thing, the world would be a boring place"**).

 

**"Someone" who had obviously never read the Twilight saga...

 

[Hayley]

3 hours ago, Raven said:

A caveat on the above is that The War of the Worlds is one of my favourite books

Well at least I know that should be something to look forward to 

 

3 hours ago, Raven said:

as with reviews - it helps to know who is doing the recommending so you can put the recommendation into some in of context, otherwise it is just a list!

I agree, it would be great to have this list by someone who really knows/ cares about books! (I think it would be great to have genre specific ones too). 
 

3 hours ago, Raven said:

You seem to have taken a bit of flack for this topic, but please don't take my comments as being negative;

I know you’re not negative, you’re one of the funniest people I know . 
 
And anyway it’s not like I wrote or bought this list / poster. The friend that sent it to me isn’t a reader but knows how much I love books, so it was very thoughtful of him and I will try to get the most out of it  

[Lau_Lou]

2 hours ago, Hayley said:

 

 
And anyway it’s not like I wrote or bought this list / poster. The friend that sent it to me isn’t a reader but knows how much I love books, so it was very thoughtful of him and I will try to get the most out of it  

 

It is a very lovely gift 

[Talisman]

On 18/02/2021 at 6:21 PM, Hayley said:

There are a few non fiction books on there, ‘A Brief History of Time’, ‘Notes from a Small Island’, ‘The Selfish Gene’, ‘The Complete Art of War’ and ‘Long Walk to Freedom’ (there might be more, there are some books on there I’ve never heard of). I really don’t know how they compiled the list though, there doesn’t seem to be any sort of of theme. (I like your new profile picture by the way!)

I feel like I should also point out that I don’t think these lists matter in any way. The only books you ‘should’ read are the books you want to read, because everyone has different tastes and interests. My friend just thought this would be fun for me and that’s what I’ll be treating it as. There’s a very good chance I’ll never complete all of these these books, even if I manage to try them all. 

 

I guess I didn't look at the list carefully enough - but yes, there are some non fiction books in there. I agree though that there are no real 'must' reads as its all subjective and we like different things. I read a lot of non fiction but II know that most on here read predominantly fiction. Some read for escapsim, some read in order to learn something - I do a bit of both, but it's all good, and doesn't matter as long as you enjoy what you're reading.

 

I quite like that profile picure too though - it was taken during a visit to the European Parliament last summer. It might be a while before I manage to travel overseas again! 

[willoyd]

Very, very late to this - months after everybody else, but found this an interesting thread which I seem to have overlooked somehow.

 

FWIW I've read 60 of these.  I find lists fascinating - what people choose and why.  This is an intriguing one, as there seems no rhyme nor reason behind the selection: it's almost as if it's a list compiled by somebody of books they've yet to read and feel they should or want to?  The most eccentric aspect for me is the non-fiction.  I read a lot of non-fiction,but  there's quite a high proportion of non-fiction books I haven't read, much higher than the fiction, and quite a lot where I'm thinking, why on earth this?

 

What this has got me thinking though is that it might be fun (I said I was a list fan!) to put together a bucket list of 100 from my own perspective: books I haven't read yet but really would have liked to.  It would certainly be less daunting that the 1000+ books on my TBR list (i.e. on my shelves but yet to read), and might focus the mind wonderfully (or hopelessly).  That, of course, would be on top of all my other reading lists and challenges!

 

 

[Raven]

4 hours ago, willoyd said:

 

I find lists fascinating - what people choose and why. 

 

 

The "why" is important, otherwise it is just a list.

 

[willoyd]

12 hours ago, Raven said:

 

The "why" is important, otherwise it is just a list.

 

 

Very true, but it doesn't have to be an in-depth reason for me.  This list is an example of that.  It's suggested it's a bucket list.  I'm intrigued as to what or whose bucket list?  A bucket list aimed at others - this is what you 'should' read - or someone's own personal list?  Doesn't need much depth, but without that, it's hard to have any sort of meaningful conversation about it.