100 Books to Read in a Lifetime

The Amazon Book Editors have created a list of 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime 

1.       1984 by George Orwell

2.       A Brief History Of Time by Stephen Hawkings

3.       A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

4.       A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah

5.       A Series of Unfortunate Events #1: The Bad Beginning: The Short-Lived Edition by Lemony Snicket

6.       A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

7.       Alice Munro: Selected Stories by Alice Munro

8.       Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

9.       All the President’s Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein

10.   Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt

11.   Are You There, God? It’s me, Margaret by Judy Blume

12.   Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

13.   Beloved by Toni Morrison

14.   Born To Run – A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall

15.   Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat

16.   Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

17.   Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl

18.   Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White

19.   Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese

20.   Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brene Brown

21.   Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Book 1 by Jeff Kinney

22.   Dune by Frank Herbert

23.   Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

24.   Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream by Hunter S. Thompson

25.   Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

26.   Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

27.   Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

28.   Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared M. Diamond

29.   Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

30.   In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

31.   Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

32.   Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

33.   Jimmy Corrigan: Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware

34.   Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain

35.   Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

36.   Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder

37.   Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

38.   Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

39.   Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich

40.   Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

41.   Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

42.   Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

43.   Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

44.   Moneyball by Michael Lewis

45.   Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham

46.   On the Road by Jack Kerouac

47.   Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen

48.   Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

49.   Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth

50.   Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen

51.   Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

52.   Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

53.   Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin

54.   The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

55.   The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

56.   The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley

57.   The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

58.   The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

59.   The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

60.   The Color of Water by James McBride

61.   The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

62.   The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson

63.   The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank

64.   The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

65.   The Giver by Lois Lowry

66.   The Golden Compass: His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

67.   The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

68.   The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

69.   The House At Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne

70.   The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

71.   The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

72.   The Liars’ Club: A Memoir by Mary Karr

73.   The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1) by Rick Riordan

74.   The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

75.   The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler

76.   The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright

77.   The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

78.   The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks

79.   The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan

80.   The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

81.   The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel by Barbara Kingsolver

82.   The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert A. Caro

83.   The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe

84.   The Road by Cormac McCarthy

85.   The Secret History by Donna Tartt

86.   The Shining by Stephen King

87.   The Stranger by Albert Camus

88.   The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

89.   The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

90.   The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

91.   The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

92.   The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: A Novel by Haruki Murakami

93.   The World According to Garp by John Irving

94.   The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

95.   Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

96.   To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

97.   Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

98.   Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann

99.   Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

100.                  Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

99 Book Nerd Problems

Posted by Melissa Albert  (at The Barnes and Noble Book Blog)

Original Post

Cause we’ve got 99 problems, but having nothing to read ain’t one.
1. You’ll never get to read your favorite book again for the first time.
2. The weird look your coworkers give you when they find out your “awesome weekend” primarily took place between the pages of a book.
3. People who say, “You do know it’s just a book, right?”
4. No boss will let you take a sick day because Beth March just died.

5. The mark on your wall from where you threw your book after the Red Wedding.

6. Books so scary you have to put them in the closet/under a stack of dictionaries/in the freezer before you can go to sleep.
7. Books so sexy you worry reading them in public view constitutes sexual harassment.
8. Books so funny you become that person laughing alone at a restaurant.
9. Hiding in the work bathroom with a book is damaging your reputation.
10. Don’t fall in love with fictional dogs. Just…don’t.
11. Those blank pages at the end of old books that trick you into thinking you’ve got more left than you actually do.
12. The distinctive facial ridging pattern you get from falling asleep on a nice, heavy hardback.
13. Only four pages to go!…and it’s your train stop.
14. Only four pages to go!…and your doctor’s ready to see you now.
15. Only four pages to go!…and it’s time to walk down the aisle.
16. Being prisoner to a book so good you’re unable to think of or do anything else till you’ve turned the last page.
17. Purses that can’t fit even a paperback.
18. Getting book spoilers from HBO.
19. Worrying about George Weasley for the rest of your life.
20. Ugly crying in public.
21. Wanting to reread the most amazing book you read when you were a kid, but all you can remember is that it had a…girl in it. And maybe a train. Or a mirror or something.
22. Ripply book bottoms from reading in the bath.
23. Cracked spines.
24. Uncracked spines.
25. ”I’m just not that into books.” –Your date, before the drinks have even come.
26. The wait between installments.
27. Books that won’t stay open when you’re trying to read and eat a sandwich at the same time.
28. Worrying about your favorite author’s health (for selfish reasons).
29. Tiny factual inconsistencies that ruin the entire book for you.
30. Expanded universe fiction you can’t get down with.
31. That thing where authors have lives, but us readers have NEEDS.
32. The pro/con of loaning out your favorite book: everyone should read it/you’ll never see it again.
33. Skipping a birthday party because you need to know what happens next (and it’s your own birthday).
34. Missing pages.
35. 400 bedtime readings later, and Love You Forever still makes you weep.
36. Miscasting in adaptations.
37. Deleted characters in adaptations.
38. The inability to stop telling people how it *really* happened when they’re trying to watch an adaptation.
39. None of your friends wanting to watch adaptations with you anymore, because you’re so, um, outspoken about them.
40. The way Jane Austen ruined us for modern dating.
41. The way Stephen King ruined us for ever being able to sleep soundly in an old hotel.
42. The way J.K. Rowling made us all into self-loathing Muggles.
43. The way George R. R. Martin feeds off reader dismay the way Dementors feed off souls.
44. No matter how many times you read it, the sad parts of your favorite book always happen just the same.
45. Other people’s marginalia.
46. Chocolate stains right on the best part (cause you’ve reread it so many times).
47. Feeling like you have to “forgive” your loved ones for not adequately appreciating your favorite book.
48. Ereader, meet hand lotion.
49. Paper cuts.
50. Dropping a book on your face while reading on your back.
51. Talking to yourself while reading in public because it’s that good.
52. Realizing that you’re accidentally reading lines of dialogue out loud in public because your book is that engrossing.
53. Finishing all your reading material on your second day of vacation.
54. Finishing all your reading material halfway through your flight.
55. People who greet the sight of the book you’re reading with, “Oh, isn’t that the one where [insert spoiler here]?”
56. Mispronouncing words because you’ve never actually heard them out loud—you’ve only read them in books.
57. Wishing you could send every child you meet to Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle.
58. Foxed corners.
59. Remembering too late that the anecdote you’re relating actually happened to a fictional character, not your friend.
60. Still following beauty tips you learned from Judy Blume.
61. Remembering Scarlett O’Hara’s first kiss better than you remember your own.
62. Nobody takes you seriously when you say you hurt your wrist holding up a Charles Dickens omnibus.
63. Reading a book so good it (temporarily) ruins you for everything else on your shelves.
64. People respect not wanting to pause a movie way more than they respect not wanting to pause a book.
65. Using your phone as a bookmark, forgetting you’ve done so, not finding it till hours later.
66. (Using unpaid bills as bookmarks is an even worse idea.)
67. The fall from favor of the pocket-sized paperback. (There is no sexier accessory.)
68. Family members who don’t respect shelving protocol.
69. The depression that falls after reading the last book in a trilogy.
70. Finishing the best book ever before anyone else you know, and having no one to talk to about it.
71. Finishing the MOST INFURIATING book ever before anyone else you know, and having no one to talk to about it.
72. The scary stuff you find in the pages of borrowed books.
73. The scary stains you find in the pages of borrowed books.
74. Diagnosing yourself incapable of safely finishing a book after realizing that the villain is giving you rage blackouts.
75. People who assume your book is a prop, a crutch, or a conversation starter. (Sometimes it’s the third one. But usually you just want to read.)
76. Racing through a book to find out how it ends…and discovering when you get there that it’s just book one in a projected trilogy.
77. People who hate on books they’ve never read.
78. Some people start talking in a British accent after a one-week trip to London. You started talking like Hagrid after reading 50 pages of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. (Neither is great.)
79. That thing where your preferred dinner conversation is dependent on everyone else’s deep knowledge of your current read.
80. Hand-wringing articles that claim nobody reads anymore.
81. Your mind’s so stuck in your book that you experience a mild shock when you look in the mirror and don’t see Jane Eyre. Or James Bond. Or Hercule Poirot.
82. The unfair stigma attached to books included on required-reading lists.
83. ”I just want to look really quick.” –Famous last words, spoken just before you enter the bookstore
84. Starting a new series, accidentally buying book two first.
85. Having stacks of unread books that you just can’t get rid of because you KNOW someday they’ll be the exact perfect read that you must have at that very moment.
86. Your bedtime lies somewhere between 11 p.m. and whenever this book stops being so. damn. good.
87. Always being surprised by whodunnit, even when you suspect it’s pretty obvious.
88. Trying to force yourself to finish a long read by bringing it—and only it—on a flight. Ending up reading Skymall cover to cover instead.
89. The concern that some of the books in your house have become load-bearing stacks.
90. A book haul that overcomes the tensile strength of your tote bag.
91. Finding out distractingly awful things about the personal lives of your favorite authors.
92. The inescapable urge to thump the back of every wardrobe you encounter.
93. Publicly snort laughing at jokes written 150 years ago.
94. Crushing helplessly on characters you do realize are clinically insane.
95. The stress of hating an ink-and-paper person more than you’ve ever hated anything in your life.
96. So you’ve got one coffee table made entirely of books, and people think you’re weird?
97. The unreasonable disappointment of discovering that your secret quirky character crush is everyone’s secret quirky character crush.
98. Predicting a twist way too early.

99. Nobody ever wants to help you move.