In no particular order, here are 100 works of fiction or memoir I really enjoyed reading. The rules: I’ve only included books I think I would still enjoy if I read them now, and only one book from each author.
I’ve put an asterisk next to the authors from whom it was hard to allow just one book.
There are actually 101 books here. That is because I broke my second rule for Diana Wynne Jones. And I’ve included Plato’s Republic because it reads like a utopian novel.
Kristen Bakis, Lives of the Monster Dogs
Franny Bilingsley, The Folk Keeper
Kevin Crossley-Holland, Axe Age, Wolf Age
Bernard Evslin, The Green Hero
Phillipa Pearce, Tom’s Midnight Garden
*E. Nesbit, The Treasure Seekers
Constance Savery, The Reb and the Redcoats
*Diana Wynne Jones, The Lives of Christopher Chant
Diana Wynne Jones, The Homeward Bounders
*Tim Wynne-Jones, The Boy in the Burning House
Mrs Molesworth, The Tapestry Room
Kenneth Graham, The Wind in the Willows
Robin Hobb, Assassin’s Apprentice
Howard Pyle, Robin Hood
*Elizabeth Wein, The Winter Prince
*Elizabeth Knox, Dreamhunter
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn
Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility
Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front
John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress
Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
Plato, The Republic
Robert Louis Stevenson, David Balfour
J.D. Salinger, Catcher in the Rye
Peter Moore, Blind Sighted
Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Susan Juby, Alice, I Think
Lynne Reid Banks, My Darling Villain
Lewis Caroll, Through the Looking Glass
Rupert Thompson, The Insult
*Geoff Ryman, Air
Lois Bujold, Komar
Cherry Wilder, The Luck of Brin’s Five
Eloise Jarvis McGraw, Greensleeves
*Haruki Murakami, Dance, Dance, Dance
Yves Meynard, The Book of Knights
Karen Joy Fowler, Sarah Canary
Molly Gloss, Wild Life
Kelly Link, Magic for Beginners
Lydia Davis, Almost No Memory
Joanna Rose, Little Miss Strange
Jane Gardam, Bilgewater
James Hilton, Goodbye Mister Chips
L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
*L. Frank Baum, The Land of Oz
Andrew Crumey, Pfitz
*Ursula Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
Eleanor Arnason, A Woman of the Iron People
Suzy McKee Charnas, Motherlines
*Eric Christian Haugaard, Leif the Unlucky
Edward Carey, Observatory Mansions
Glyn Thomas, A Few Selected Exits
Robert Graves, Goodbye to All That
Katharine Butler Hathaway, The Little Locksmith
T.H. White, The Goshawk
J.M. Synge, The Aran Islands
August Strindberg, The People of Hemsö
Geraldine Harris, A Prince of the Godborn
Jill Paton Walsh, Unleaving
Matt Ruff, Set This House in Order
Richard Grant, Kaspian Lost
*John Crowley, Engine Summer
C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair
Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace
Abby Bardi, The Book of Fred
Kyoko Mori, Shizuko’s Daughter
*Rosemary Sutcliff, The Shield Ring
Emma Bull, The War for the Oaks
Holly Black, Tithe
Will Shetterly, Dogland
Peter Haug, Borderliners
*Patrice Kindl, Lost in the Labyrinth
Astrid Lindgren, Bill Bergson: Master Detective
Susan Price, The Sterkarm Handshake
*Meg Rosoff, How I Live Now
Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
*Kage Baker, The Graveyard Game (but read them in order!)
John Wright, The Golden Age
Kate Atkinson, Emotionally Weird
Hugh Gallagher, Teeth
Robert Irwin, Exquisite Corpse
*Iris Murdoch, Under the Net
An Na, A Step from Heaven
Baroness Orczy, The Scarlet Pimpernel
*Tove Jansson, Moominland Midwinter
Janusz Korczac, King Matt the First
Ernest Callenbach, Ecotopia
Maureen F. McHugh, Nekropolis
Mary Renault, The King Must Die
*Megan Whalen Turner, The Queen of Attolia (but read them in order, and avoid the paperbacks with their spoiler-y cover art)
Kazuo Ishiguro, When We Were Orphans
Sara Nickerson, How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found
Betsy James, Long Night Dance
Tobias Wolff, The Night in Question
L.M. Boston, The Children of Green Knowe
Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle
Susan Cooper, Over Sea, Under Stone
Joan Aiken, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase
*Selma Lägerlof, Marbäcka
June 26, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Hiya trapunto! I just have to check out people who touch on my blog – and I must say I have enjoyed yours immensely. But then – we are weavers and there is always that weird connection at the very least. Interesting read list. I havent read many of the same books – just the obvious like Through the Looking Glass, to Kill a Mockingbird, Huck Finn, and, of course, Catcher in the Rye. I’d like to find the Aran Islands book because I just know that must be a mysterious and wonderful place (places?). And I’m also going to look into the Moominland read (have decided that the Finns are very strange). Let’s keep in contact, shall we?