100 Books to Read in a Lifetime

This is one of the 759 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

About this list

Amazon.com (USA), 100 Books

A bucket list of books to create a well-read life, from Amazon Book Editors.

This list was originally published in 2014 and was added to this site over 12 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
6 Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell 1949 British English
1783 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius Dave Eggers 2000 American English
293 A Wrinkle In Time Madeleine L'Engle 1962 American English
1285 Selected Stories of Alice Munro Alice Munro 1996 Canadian English
35 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll 1865 British English
1643 Angela's Ashes Frank McCourt 1996 American English
573 Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret Judy Blume 1970 American English
947 Bel Canto Ann Patchett 2001 American English
49 Beloved Toni Morrison 1987 American English
33 Catch-22 Joseph Heller 1961 American English
1377 Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl 1964 British English
102 Charlotte's Web E. B. White 1952 American English
100 Dune Frank Herbert 1965 American English
38 Great Expectations Charles Dickens 1860 British English
1384 Guns, Germs, and Steel Jared Diamond 1997 American English
109 In Cold Blood Truman Capote 1966 American English
1775 Interpreter of Maladies Jhumpa Lahiri 1999 American English
36 Invisible Man Ralph Ellison 1952 American English
2340 Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth Chris Ware 2000 American English
14 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov 1955 American English
166 Love in the Time of Cholera Gabriel García Márquez 1985 Colombian Spanish
1318 Love Medicine Louise Erdrich 1984 American English
582 Man's Search for Meaning Viktor Frankl 1946 Austrian German
1895 Me Talk Pretty One Day David Sedaris 2000 American English
418 Middlesex Jeffrey Eugenides 2002 American English
64 Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie 1981 Indian English
292 Of Human Bondage W. Somerset Maugham 1915 British English
41 On the Road Jack Kerouac 1957 American English
416 Out of Africa Isak Dinesen 1937 Danish Danish
241 Portnoy's Complaint Philip Roth 1969 American English
13 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen 1813 British English
162 Silent Spring Rachel Carson 1962 American English
84 Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut 1969 American English
92 The Age of Innocence Edith Wharton 1920 American English
314 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Michael Chabon 2000 American English
306 The Autobiography of Malcolm X Alex Haley 1965 American English
1085 The Book Thief Markus Zusak 2005 Australian English
396 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Junot Diaz 2007 Dominican English
4 The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger 1951 American English
237 The Corrections Jonathan Franzen 2001 American English
113 The Diary of a Young Girl Anne Frank 1947 Dutch Dutch
1799 The Giver Lois Lowry 1993 American English
3 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 American English
132 The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood 1985 Canadian English
4139 The Liars' Club Mary Karr 1995 American English
1122 A Brief History of Time Stephen Hawking 1988 British English
5267 A Long Way Gone Ishmael Beah 2007 Sierra Leonean English
3148 All the President's Men Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein 1974 American English
3151 A Series of Unfortunate Events #1 Lemony Snicket 1999 American English
14984 Born to Run Chris McDougall 2009 American English
14984 Breath, Eyes, Memory Edwidge Danticat 1994 Haitian English
5099 Cutting for Stone Abraham Verghese 2009 American English
13941 Daring Greatly Brené Brown 2012 American English
5618 Diary of a Wimpy Kid Jeff Kinney 2007 American English
150 Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury 1953 American English
683 Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Hunter S. Thompson 1971 American English
791 Gone Girl Gillian Flynn 2012 American English
636 Goodnight Moon Margaret Wise Brown 1947 American English
4366 Kitchen Confidential Anthony Bourdain 2000 American English
1435 Life After Life Kate Atkinson 2013 British English
693 Little House on the Prairie Laura Ingalls Wilder 1935 American English
2898 Moneyball Michael M. Lewis 2003 American English
670 Persepolis Marjane Satrapi 2000 French French
5358 Team of Rivals Doris Kearns Goodwin 2005 American English
2022 The Color of Water James McBride 1995 American English
1542 The Devil In The White City Erik Larson 2003 American English
3486 The Fault in Our Stars John Green 2012 American English
2486 The Golden Compass Philip Pullman 1995 British English
1707 The House at Pooh Corner A. A. Milne 1928 British English
1388 The Hunger Games Suzanne Collins 2008 American English
1817 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot 2010 American English
2881 Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book One Rick Riordan 2005 American English
44 The Little Prince Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1943 French French
161 The Long Goodbye Raymond Chandler 1953 American English
1884 The Looming Tower Lawrence Wright 2006 American English
17 The Lord Of The Rings J. R. R. Tolkien 1959 English English
1987 The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat Oliver Sacks 1985 British English
4751 The Omnivore's Dilemma Michael Pollan 2006 American English
522 The Phantom Tollbooth Norton Juster 1961 American English
878 The Poisonwood Bible Barbara Kingsolver 1998 American English
1901 The Power Broker Robert Caro 1974 American English
3618 The Right Stuff Tom Wolfe 1979 American English
290 The Road Cormac McCarthy 2006 American English
279 The Secret History Donna Tartt 1992 American English
400 The Shining Stephen King 1977 American English
23 The Stranger Albert Camus 1942 French French
62 The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway 1926 American English
648 The Things They Carried Tim O'Brien 1990 American English
1821 The Very Hungry Caterpillar Eric Carle 1969 American English
136 The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame 1908 British English
473 The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Haruki Murakami 1994 Japanese Japanese
407 The World According to Garp John Irving 1978 American English
370 The Year of Magical Thinking Joan Didion 2005 American English
60 Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe 1958 Nigerian English
16 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee 1960 American English
13941 Unbroken Laura Hillenbrand 2010 American English
2628 Valley of the Dolls Jacqueline Susann 1966 American English
13356 Where the Sidewalk Ends Shel Silverstein 1974 American English
320 Where the Wild Things Are Maurice Sendak 1963 American English
236 Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone J. K. Rowling 1997 British English