Top 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime

So many books, so little time. With this in mind, the Amazon Books editors set out to compile a list of 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime. We had a few goals when we started out: We wanted the list to cover all stages of a life (which is why you'll find children's books in here), and we didn't want the list to feel like homework. Of course, no such list can be comprehensive – our lives, we hope, are long and varied – but we talked and argued and sifted and argued some more and came up with a list, our list, of favorites. What do you think? How did we do?


1
1984
by George Orwell
4.5 avg rating, 7391 reviews, 1961-01-01

2
A Brief History of Time
by Stephen Hawking
4.5 avg rating, 1793 reviews, 1998-09-01

3
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
by Dave Eggers
3.1 avg rating, 1080 reviews, 2001-02-13

4
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
by Ishmael Beah
4.6 avg rating, 1844 reviews, 2008-08-05

5
The Bad Beginning
by Lemony Snicket
4.5 avg rating, 1342 reviews, 2007-05-08

6
A Wrinkle in Time
by Madeleine L’Engle
4.5 avg rating, 3610 reviews, 2007-05-01

7
Selected Stories, 1968-1994
by Alice Munro
4.2 avg rating, 96 reviews, 1997-11-11

8
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
by Lewis Carroll
4.4 avg rating, 5324 reviews, 1984-06-01

9
All the President’s Men
by Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein
4.6 avg rating, 365 reviews, 1994-06-16

10
Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir
by Frank McCourt
4.4 avg rating, 2137 reviews, 1999-05-25

11
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
by Judy Blume
4.7 avg rating, 1809 reviews, 2010-04-13

12
Bel Canto
by Ann Patchett
4.1 avg rating, 1611 reviews, 2008-06-10

13
Beloved
by Toni Morrison
4.2 avg rating, 1023 reviews, 2004-06-08

14
Born to Run
by Christopher McDougall
4.7 avg rating, 3916 reviews, 2011-03-29

15
Breath, Eyes, Memory
by Edwidge Danticat
4.2 avg rating, 253 reviews, 1998-05-31

16
Catch-22: 50th Anniversary Edition
by Joseph Heller
4.2 avg rating, 1628 reviews, 2011-04-05

17
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
by Roald Dahl
4.7 avg rating, 1095 reviews, 2001-09-11

18
Charlotte’s Web
by E. B White
4.8 avg rating, 1682 reviews, 2012-04-10

19
Cutting for Stone
by Abraham Verghese
4.6 avg rating, 4094 reviews, 2010-01-26

20
Daring Greatly
by Brené Brown
4.7 avg rating, 3207 reviews, 2012-09-11

21
Diary of a Wimpy Kid
by Jeff Kinney
4.7 avg rating, 7121 reviews, 2007-04-01

22
Dune
by Frank Herbert
4.6 avg rating, 3803 reviews, 2005-08-02

23
Fahrenheit 451
by Ray Bradbury
4.4 avg rating, 3457 reviews, 2012-01-10

24
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
by Hunter S. Thompson
4.4 avg rating, 1062 reviews, 1998-05-12

25
Gone Girl
by Gillian Flynn
3.9 avg rating, 43949 reviews, 2014-04-22

26
Goodnight Moon
by Margaret Wise Brown
4.7 avg rating, 3427 reviews, 2007-01-23

27
Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens
4.4 avg rating, 8237 reviews, 2001-08-01

28
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
by Jared Diamond Ph.D.
4.3 avg rating, 2518 reviews, 2005-07-17

29
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
by J.K. Rowling
4.7 avg rating, 29146 reviews, 1998-09-01

30
In Cold Blood
by Truman Capote
4.5 avg rating, 1899 reviews, 1994-02-01

31
Interpreter of Maladies
by Jhumpa Lahiri
4.4 avg rating, 1302 reviews, 1999-06-01

32
Invisible Man
by Ralph Ellison
4.3 avg rating, 778 reviews, 1995-01-01

33
Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth
by Chris Ware
4.1 avg rating, 187 reviews, 2003-04-29

34
Kitchen Confidential
by Anthony Bourdain
4.6 avg rating, 3435 reviews, 2007-01-09

35
Life After Life
by Kate Atkinson
3.7 avg rating, 3788 reviews, 2014-01-07

36
Little House on the Prairie
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
4.7 avg rating, 603 reviews, 2010-09-28

37
Lolita
by Vladimir Nabokov
4.1 avg rating, 1452 reviews, 1993-03-09

38
Love in the Time of Cholera
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
4 avg rating, 993 reviews, 2007-10-05

39
Love Medicine
by Louise Erdrich
4 avg rating, 234 reviews, 2016-08-23

40
Man’s Search for Meaning
by Viktor E. Frankl
4.7 avg rating, 4953 reviews, 2006-06-01

41
Me Talk Pretty One Day
by David Sedaris
4 avg rating, 1512 reviews, 2001-06-05

42
Middlesex
by Jeffrey Eugenides
4.3 avg rating, 1897 reviews, 2002-06-05

43
Midnight’s Children
by Salman Rushdie
3.9 avg rating, 432 reviews, 2006-04-04

44
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
by Michael Lewis
4.6 avg rating, 1370 reviews, 2004-03-17

45
Of Human Bondage
by W. Somerset Maugham, Jane Smiley
4.3 avg rating, 468 reviews, 1991-06-01

46
On the Road
by Jack Kerouac
3.9 avg rating, 1461 reviews, 2012-11-20

47
Out of Africa
by Isak Dinesen
4.1 avg rating, 251 reviews, 1992-09-05

48
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
by Marjane Satrapi
4.5 avg rating, 1113 reviews, 2004-06-01

49
Portnoy’s Complaint
by Philip Roth
3.8 avg rating, 281 reviews, 1994-09-20

50
Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen
4.5 avg rating, 8360 reviews, 2008-05-15

51
Silent Spring
by Rachel Carson
4.5 avg rating, 643 reviews, 2002-10-22

52
Slaughterhouse-Five
by Kurt Vonnegut
4.2 avg rating, 3027 reviews, 1999-01-12

53
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
by Doris Kearns Goodwin
4.8 avg rating, 3218 reviews, 2006-09-26

54
The Age of Innocence
by Edith Wharton
4.1 avg rating, 935 reviews, 2008-03-04

55
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
by Michael Chabon
4.3 avg rating, 1117 reviews, 1905-07-04

56
The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley
by Malcolm X, Alex Haley, Attallah Shabazz
4.7 avg rating, 1343 reviews, 1992-11-01

57
The Book Thief
by Markus Zusak
4.6 avg rating, 18087 reviews, 2007-09-11

58
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
by Junot Díaz
4 avg rating, 1567 reviews, 2008-09-02

59
The Catcher in the Rye
by J. D. Salinger
4.1 avg rating, 3448 reviews, 2001-01-30

60
The Color of Water
by James McBride
4.6 avg rating, 1344 reviews, 2006-02-07

61
The Corrections
by Jonathan Franzen
3.7 avg rating, 1270 reviews, 2002-09-01

62
The Devil in the White City
by Erik Larson
4.3 avg rating, 5906 reviews, 2004-02-10

63
The Diary of a Young Girl
by Anne Frank
4.6 avg rating, 2561 reviews, 2010-10-19

64
The Fault in Our Stars
by John Green
4.7 avg rating, 37701 reviews, 2014-04-08

65
The Giver
by Lois Lowry
4.4 avg rating, 7629 reviews, 2006-01-24

66
His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass
by Philip Pullman
4.5 avg rating, 3893 reviews, 2003-09-09

67
The Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
4.2 avg rating, 7525 reviews, 2004-09-30

68
The Handmaid’s Tale
by Margaret Atwood
4.1 avg rating, 14631 reviews, 1998-03-16

69
The House at Pooh Corner
by A. A. Milne
4.5 avg rating, 855 reviews, 1992-08-01

70
The Hunger Games
by Suzanne Collins
4.6 avg rating, 56880 reviews, 2010-07-03

71
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
by Rebecca Skloot
4.6 avg rating, 14815 reviews, 2011-03-08

72
The Liars’ Club: A Memoir
by Mary Karr
4 avg rating, 542 reviews, 2005-05-31

73
The Lightning Thief
by Rick Riordan
4.7 avg rating, 4836 reviews, 2006-04-01

74
The Little Prince
by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
4.5 avg rating, 3140 reviews, 2013-03-05

75
The Long Goodbye
by Raymond Chandler
4.2 avg rating, 1182 reviews, 1988-08-12

76
The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
by Lawrence Wright
4.7 avg rating, 927 reviews, 2007-08-21

77
The Lord of the Rings
by J.R.R. Tolkien
4.7 avg rating, 19924 reviews, 2012-08-14

78
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat
by Oliver Sacks
4.2 avg rating, 779 reviews, 1998-04-02

79
The Omnivore’s Dilemma
by Michael Pollan
4.5 avg rating, 1568 reviews, 2007-08-28

80
The Phantom Tollbooth 50th Anniversary Edition
by Norton Juster
4.8 avg rating, 1441 reviews, 2011-10-25

81
The Poisonwood Bible
by Barbara Kingsolver
4.5 avg rating, 2570 reviews, 2008-06-10

82
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
by Robert A. Caro
4.7 avg rating, 360 reviews, 1975-07-12

83
The Right Stuff
by Tom Wolfe
4.4 avg rating, 815 reviews, 2008-03-04

84
The Road
by Cormac McCarthy
4.1 avg rating, 4643 reviews, 2006-03-28

85
The Secret History
by Donna Tartt
4 avg rating, 2385 reviews, 1992-09-11

86
The Shining
by Stephen King
4.7 avg rating, 3535 reviews, 2012-06-26

87
The Stranger
by Albert Camus
4.2 avg rating, 1661 reviews, 1989-03-13

88
The Sun Also Rises
by Ernest Hemingway
3.8 avg rating, 1412 reviews, 2006-10-17

89
The Things They Carried
by Tim O’Brien
4.4 avg rating, 2628 reviews, 1905-07-01

90
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
by Eric Carle
4.6 avg rating, 6283 reviews, 1994-03-23

91
The Wind in the Willows
by Kenneth Grahame
4.5 avg rating, 1652 reviews, 2003-09-15

92
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
by Haruki Murakami
4.2 avg rating, 914 reviews, 1998-09-01

93
The World According to Garp
by John Irving
4.3 avg rating, 352 reviews, 1997-06-23

94
The Year of Magical Thinking
by Joan Didion
4.2 avg rating, 1287 reviews, 2007-02-13

95
Things Fall Apart
by Chinua Achebe
4.3 avg rating, 1718 reviews, 1994-09-01

96
To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
4.7 avg rating, 10416 reviews, 1988-10-11

97
Unbroken
by Laura Hillenbrand
4.8 avg rating, 27871 reviews, 2014-07-29

98
Valley of the Dolls
by Jacqueline Susann
4.3 avg rating, 394 reviews, 1997-09-22

99
Where the Sidewalk Ends
by Shel Silverstein
4.9 avg rating, 1835 reviews, 2000-10-03

100
Where the Wild Things Are
by Maurice Sendak
4.7 avg rating, 2379 reviews, 2012-12-26