Books have the great capacity to remain with us for the rest of our lives. Whether they’re written for children, mathematicians, sci-fi lovers, or fiction aficionados, particular stories surpass their genre and should be read by everyone.
Amazon editors released their list of “100 Books to Read in a Lifetime” which launched their Best Selling Book Campaign. This list spans only the past 200 years or so. Amazon admits the list was exceedingly subjective and based on the deliberation of the Amazon’s editorial team.
The editorial team of Amazon devotes a small portion of their time to celebrate books in seasonal applications by producing curated lists of recommended reads. This list is the best one hundred titles that spoke to a broad audience of readers.
At the same time, the list was meant to cover various stages of any given reader’s life, therefore incorporating adult titles for fighting human rights and freedom, the young adult favorite which helps shape worldviews, and beloved children’s classics.
Below is the list of 100 books which no one should miss in their lifetime.
1. To Kill a Mockingbird – by Harper Lee
2. 1984 – by George Orwell
3. Pride and Prejudice – by Jane Austen
4. The Lord of the Rings (The Lord of the Rings #1-3) – by J.R.R. Tolkien
5. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone – by J.K. Rowling
6. Jane Eyre – by Charlotte Bronte
7. The Hobbit – by J.R.R. Tolkien
8. Little Women – by Louisa May Alcott
9. Charlotte’s Web – by E.B. White
10. Animal Farm – by George Orwell
11. The Great Gatsby – by F. Scott Fritzgerald
12. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia 1) – by C.S. Lewis
13. The Catcher in the Rye – by J.D. Salinger
14. The Hunger Games – by Suzanne Collins
15. Gone with the Wind – by Margaret Mitchell
16.Fahrenheit 451 – by Ray Bradbury
17. The Book Thief – by Markus Zusak
18. Night – by Elie Wiesel
19. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – by Mark Twain
20. The Kite Runner – by Khaled Hosseini
21. The Help – by Kathryn Stockett
22. Lord of the Flies – by William Golding
23. The Grapes of Wrath – by John Steinbeck
24. The Diary of the Young Girl – Anne Frank
25. The Little Prince – by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
26. A Wrinkle in Time – by Madeleine L’Engle
27. Hamlet – by William Shakespeare
28. The Tale of Two Cities – by Charles Dickens
29. Of Mice and Men – by John Steinbeck
30. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – by Douglas Adams
31. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – by J.K. Rowling
32. Romeo and Juliet – by William Shakespeare
33. A Christmas Carol – by Charles Dickens
34. The Secret Garden – by Frances Hodgson Burnett
35. Brave New World – by Aldous Huxley
36. The Giver – by Lois Lowry
37. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer – by Mark Twain
38. Where the Sidewalk Ends – by Shel Silverstein
39. Anne of Green Gables – by L.M. Montgomery
40. The Handmaid’s Tale – by Margaret Atwood
41. Wuthering Heights – by Emily Bronte
42. The Fault in Our Stars – by John Green
43. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – By J.K. Rowling
44. Frankenstein – by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
45. The Color Purple – by Alice Walker
46. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – by Stieg Larsson
47. Holy Bible: King James Version – by Anonymous
48. Macbeth – by William Shakespeare
49. The Count of Monte Cristo – by Alexandre Dumas
50. A Game Of Thrones ( A Song of Ice and Fire 1) – by George R.R. Martin
51. East of Eden – by John Steinbeck
52. The Stand – by Stephen King
53. Alice in Wonderland – by Lewis Carroll
54. Ender’s Game ( Ender’s Saga 1) – by Orson Scott Card
55. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – by Betty Smith
56. The Old Man and the Sea – by Ernest Hemingway
57. Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier
58. Outlander – by Diana Gabaldon
59. Anna Karenina – by Leo Tolstoy
60. Catch-22 – by Joseph Heller
61. In Cold Blood – by Truman Capote
62. Memoirs of a Geisha – by Arthur Golden
63. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes ( Sherlock Holmes 3) – by Arthur Conan Doyle
64. Life of Pi – by Yann Martel
65. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – by J.K. Rowling
66. Watership Down – by Richard Adams
67. Great Expectations – by Charles Dickens
68. Les Miserables – by Victor Hugo
69. The Pillars of the Earth – by Ken Follett
70. The Chronicles of Narnia 1-7 – by C.S. Lewis
71. Catching Fire ( The Hunger Games 2 ) – by Suzanne Collins
72. Celebrating Silence: Excerpts from Five Years of Weekly Knowledge 1995-2000 – Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
73. The Scarlet Letter – by Nathaniel Hawthorne
74. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – by Roald Dahl
75. The Raven – by Edgar Allan Poe
76. The Secret Life of Bees – by Sue Monk Kidd
77. One Hundred Years of Solitude – by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
78. Dracula – by Bram Stoker
79. Water for Elephants – by Sara Gruen
80. The Princess Bride – by William Goldman
81. Crime and Punishment – by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
82. And Then There Were None – by Agatha Christie
83. The Poisonwood Bible – by Barbara Kingsolver
84. Mockingjay ( The Hunger Games 3 ) – by Suzanne Collins
85. The Odyssey – by Homer
86. The Good Earth – by Pearl S. Buck
87. The Time Traveler’s Wife – by Audrey Niffenegger
88. Siddhartha – by Hermann Hesse
89. The Road – by Cormac McCarthy
90. The Thorn Birds – by Colleen McCullough
91. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – by Rebecca Skloot
92. Prayer for Owen Meany – written by John Irving
93. The Glass Castle – by Jeannette Walls
94. The Story of My Life – by Helen Keller
95. The Brother’s Karamazov – by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
96. The Things They Carried – by Tim O’Brien
97. Beloved – by Toni Morrison
98. Cutting of Stone – by Abraham Verghese
99. Slaughterhouse-Five – by Kurt Vonnegut
100. The Phantom Tollbooth – by Norton Juster
Takeaway
Over many months, Amazon’s editing team passionately defended and debated the books that are included in the list for their Best Selling Book Campaign. In other words, they applied many bookish equivalents to come up with the final picks. Unfortunately, not all favorite books can be counted, but all the books in the list should be included in any bookworm’s bucket list.
Author Credits For Tyler Wagner
Tyler Wagner is a leading best selling author who has created Authors Unite to help people become WSJ or USA Today Best Sellers. He has achieved this over 100 times with his proprietary process and hands-on approach.