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Mike Honcho
Trad climber
Glenwood Springs, CO
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Topic Author's Original Post - Sep 8, 2018 - 06:13pm PT
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Amazon, which owns Goodreads, had its editors agonize over their own list, but the two turned out very different.
https://www.businessinsider.com/100-books-everyone-should-read-amazon-goodreads-2015-3
Here's the full, ranked list:
1. "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee
2."Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen
3."The Diary of Anne Frank" by Anne Frank
4."1984" by George Orwell
5.Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" by J.K. Rowling
6."The Lord of the Rings" (1-3) by J.R.R. Tolkien
7. "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
8."Charlotte's Web" by E.B. White
9. "The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien
10. "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott
11."Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury
12. "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte
13. "Animal Farm" by George Orwell
14. "Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell
15."The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger
16."The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak
17. "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain
18."The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins
19. "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett
20. "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wadrobe" by C.S. Lewis
21. "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck
22. "The Lord of the Flies" by William Golding
23. "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini
24. "Night" by Elie Wiesel
25. "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare
26."A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L'Engle
27. "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck
28. "A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens
29. "Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare
30. "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams
31. "The Secret Garden" by Frances Hodgson Burnett
32. "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens
33."The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
34. "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley
35. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling
36."The Giver" by Lois Lowry
37."The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood
38."Where the Sidewalk Ends" by Shel Silverstein
39. "Wuthering Heights" Emily Bronte
40."The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green
41. "Anne of Green Gables" by L.M. Montgomery
42. "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain
43. "Macbeth" by William Shakespeare
44. "The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larrson
45. "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley
46. "The Holy Bible: King James Version"
47. "The Color Purple" by Alice Walker
48. "The Count of Monte Cristo" by Alexandre Dumas
49. "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith
50. "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck
51."Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll
52. "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote
53."Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
54. "The Stand" by Stephen King
55. "Outlander" by Diana Gabaldon
56. "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" by J.K. Rowling
57. "Enders Game" by Orson Scott Card
58. "Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoy
59. "Watership Down" by Richard Adams
60. "Memoirs of a Geisha" by Arthur Golden
61. "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier
62. "A Game of Thrones" by George R.R. Martin
63."Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens
64. "The Old Man and the Sea" by Ernest Hemingway
65. "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (#3) by Arthur Conan Doyle
66. "Les Misérables" by Victor Hugo
67. "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" by J.K. Rowling
68. "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel
69. "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne
70. "Celebrating Silence: Excerpts from Five Years of Weekly Knowledge" by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
71. "The Chronicles of Narnia" by C.S. Lewis
72. "The Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follett
73. "Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins
74. "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" by Roald Dahl
75. "Dracula" by Bram Stoker
76. "The Princess Bride" by William Goldman
77. "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen
78. "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe
79. "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd
80."The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel" by Barbara Kingsolver
81. "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel García Márquez
82. "The Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger
83. "The Odyssey" by Homer
84. "The Good Earth (House of Earth #1)" by Pearl S. Buck
85. "Mockingjay (Hunger Games #3)" by Suzanne Collins
86. "And Then There Were None" by Agatha Christie
87. "The Thorn Birds" by Colleen McCullough
88. "A Prayer for Owen Meany" by John Irving
89. "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls
90."The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot
91. "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
92."The Road" by Cormac McCarthy
93."The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien
94. "Siddhartha" by Hermann Hesse
95."Beloved" by Toni Morrison
96."Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut
97."Cutting For Stone" by Abraham Verghese
98."The Phantom Tollbooth" by Norton Juster
99. "The Brothers Karamazov" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
100. "The Story of My Life" by Helen Keller
My list would not include- Game Of Thrones, all 3 of the Harry Potter silliness. I like Mark Twain, but not Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn, Watership Down, Charlotte's Web, The Chronicles Of Narnia, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and The King James Bible alone seems silly without other cultures version of their God or Gods books, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and The Hunger Games seem like obviously weak choices, at least in my opinion.
Oh yeah, Lolita is not on this list but I absolutely thought that book was waaay overblown. Again, just my opinion.
Caylor
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hamie
Social climber
Thekoots
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I think that SuperTopo is the wrong forum for this topic.
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Looks like an east coast college student kind of list.
For climbers - in the west - a few mega classics missing:
Desert Solitaire
Monkey Wrench Gang
On the Road
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Walden
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Another Amazon plot so everyone will buy the books from them.
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TLP
climber
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Really weak sauce, made from an envelope. What, practically no non-fiction books???!?!??! Fewer than 10 percent from writers in other languages? Lame advertising by idiots.
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fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
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Q
Sep 8, 2018 - 06:33pm PT
I think that SuperTopo is the wrong forum for this topic
If its not a politaRd thread, it'll do.
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hailman
Trad climber
Ventura, CA
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No Moby Dick?!?! Unacceptable!!!!
I'd agree with others the list is pretty one dimensional...all English, all fiction....yes just like a high school English class.
How about Seven Years in Tibet? Written by an Austrian dude about an exotic ancient culture that has been all but erased from the planet....
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ms55401
Trad climber
minneapolis, mn
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first thought on scanning that Is that there's a lot of fluff
second thought on reading through comments is that there are unpardonable omissions, which in light of the fluff is doubly damning
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Yury
Mountain climber
T.O.
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My favorite Russian book "Master and Margarita" by Bulgakov is missing.
Too much of J.K. Rowling.
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Capt.
climber
some eastside hovel
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The list is incomplete without Endurance. ;-)
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thebravecowboy
climber
The Good Places
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juge not lest ye be juged.
but seriously, what about Enchanted Vagabonds?
v V Jack Burns approves of MWG and TBC but DS is rosy toiletwater V vvvvvv
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originalpmac
Mountain climber
Timbers of Fennario
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I thought Watership Down was a great book. This list is missing Lonesome Dove and Shogun As far as fiction goes, those two are brilliant.
The Monkey Wrench Gang and Desert Solitaire should be there for sure. As should The Brave Cowboy. (the book)
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Yes it is heavy on fluff. But the list isn't 100 best classics, but rather 100 books to read.
So maybe that is ok.
But even so I would ditch half that list.
And reorder it.
Alice in Wonderland and Anna Karenina would be in my top five.
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Bale
Mountain climber
UT
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Yeah, for adventurers the list is way different. Anything by Abbey, Roberts, Krakauer. Twain’s “Roughing It” is awesome. Shackleton, Messner, Lowe, Twight, Terray, etc.
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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A lot of modern stuff that is entertaining, but hardly classic.
Even limiting the list to novels written in English, it's pretty poor. No Cormac McCarthy and several Hunger Games books?
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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hey there say, ...
oh my!
they did NOT include these:
JAKE ... 'I'm thinkin'...' by Neebeeshaabookway
JAKE AND SOFIA by Neebeeshaabookway
JAKE HUGS TEXAS by Neebeeshaabookway
JAKE'S RANCH AND THE SECOND GATE by Neebeeshaabookway
and--
short stories:
STEPPINGSTONES THROUGH JAKE'S RANCH by Neebeeshaabookway...
then:
The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope
Heidi by Johanna Spyri
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Barnett
and, true story memoirs:
I'll Scream Later, by Marlee Matlin
(wouldn't hurt the guys to read the 'heidi' actually... even though
it sounds a bit weak...
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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That’s rather an inbred list, if you will, or outright xenophobic.
Crime and Punishment at 91 with Harry Potter at 5? Seriously?
No Hesse, Mann, Undset, Dante, Eco, Hamsun, Strindberg, Ibsen, Turgenev, Proust, Camus, Moliere, Thomas More, Joyce, Bulgakov, Nin, Solzhenitsen, Gogol, Conrad, Becket?
What a joke.
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Rudder
Trad climber
Costa Mesa, CA
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Joke for sure.
The Brothers Karamazov
The Bible
The Idiot
Crime and Punishment
Four there that you have to read. :)
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little Z
Trad climber
un cafetal en Naranjo
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why read? I can just watch the movies and knock off 80% of that stupid list
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Aeriq
Social climber
Location: It's a MisterE
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Agreed that there is a lot of fluff in the list.
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson is the biggest oversight, IMO.
Also:
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Narcissus and Goldman by Herman Hesse
Unseen Rain by Rumi
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
The Brothers Karamozov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Also, Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach
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wilbeer
Mountain climber
Terence Wilson greeneck alleghenys,ny,
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“People buy books thinking they will have time to read them”
Warren Zevon.
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Bad Climber
Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
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Crap list. Some great stuff in there, and all probably worth reading, but the one hundred YOU MUST READ BEFORE YOU DIE?! Crap.
Unless I missed it, here's one:
Cadillac Desert by Mark Reisner. Ten years of research, beautifully written. A screamin' classic. And you learn shiz, too.
I'm also a huge fan of Lopez's Arctic Dreams.
Fiction? I'm with a poster up stream: Crime and Punishment for sure should be on that list but ain't.
To have such a list but then put in multiples of pop fiction from Rowling is ridiculous. Yeah, just a crap marketing ploy.
BAd
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Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
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So if I don't read these books I will not die?
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Mike Honcho
Trad climber
Glenwood Springs, CO
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 9, 2018 - 07:40am PT
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I think that SuperTopo is the wrong forum for this topic.
This is actually perfect for me, and exactly the response I was hoping for. I'm a massive reader and I thought this was a rather sh#t list as most here think. I just stumbled across it and was wondering what the Taco Headz thought.
Caylor
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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de gustibus non est disputandum.
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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I would include Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T E Lawrence and Gravities' Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
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Tricouni
Mountain climber
Vancouver
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Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Some that I would prioritize on my list:
All quiet on the western front by Erich Maria Remarque
One day in the life of Ivan Denisovitch by Solzhenitsyn
Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl
7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey
Journey Into Love by Kani Comstock
Positive Discipline by Jane Nelsen
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Nic
Trad climber
Cornwall
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Find "The Way of the Transgressor" by Negley Farson if you can. That chap lived one hell of a life.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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I've been thinking about this more, and I'm a bit disturbed by the lack of a premise: books to read before dying, but to what end?
Books for mindless distraction? Books for erudition? Books for building compassion and empathy and deeper understanding of humanity? If we don't know where we are going, any road will take us there. And as a corollary, by defining a list of books to read in one's life, one is implicitly defining a purpose for life and what one values.
While I may enjoy a lot of mindless reading, even some stuff from Tom Clancy, it wouldn't make the list that I see as shaping my values and the meaning I have decided to derive from my own or our collective existence. I think that is why I bristle a bit at some of the titles on that list like the Harry Potter series.
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
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Meditations - Marcus Aurelius
Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu
Book of Five Rings - Miyamoto Musashi
Narrow Road to the Interior - Matsumoto Basho
On The Loose - Renny and Terry Russell
The Essential Rumi - Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī
The Gift - Khwāja Shams-ud-Dīn Muḥammad Ḥāfeẓ-e Shīrāz
In Search of Zarathustra: Across Iran and Central Asia to Find the World's First Prophet - Paul Kriwaczek
Journey to Ixtlan - Carlos Castaneda
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Oh, come on. Give me a list of your top 100 anything, and I'll be able to find all kinds of fault in it. Just as you would find in my top-hundred list.
Top hundred books? Hundred best finger cracks? Best restaurants in the US? One hundred reasons why offwidths suck? Best movies of all time? The world's best guitarists?
Of course the list is wrong -- because I didn't write it. But wait... if I wrote it, _you_ would find it wrong.
But the discussion that can grow out of lists like this can be interesting. And useful.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Well, including Camus rather than Proust is debatable but Harry Bleeding Potter at #5 rather than either of those guys? 😳
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Ha! That’s why I wouldn’t include my current book by Benoit Mandelbrot.
It’s edificious and entertaining, but only to a select few crankloons.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
Nothing creative to say
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7 habits? Really NutAgain? Guess it goes to your question about 'to what end'...
I'm somewhat partial to A Climber's Guide to the Sonora Pass Highway, Young/Dawson.
But even that takes second fiddle to Yosemite Climbs; Free Climbs, by Reid.
However, I just read climbing guides for the articles. ;)
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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A book that does both learning and entertainment at a high level is a worthwhile read
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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What a weird, flawed list both in it’s inclusions and exclusions.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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No Germans except Hesse
?
Kafka (Czechoslovakia)
Mann
Hitler (Austria)
Grass (Poland)
Gotta read
The Art of War, Sun Tzu
and
The Art of the Deal, Tony Schwartz
BTW Trump couldn't read the first, he fell asleep, and didn't write the second.
A Clockwork Orange
The Tin Drum
The Stranger
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Frankenstein
Sometimes a Great Notion
Tarantula
The Grapes of Wrath
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
1984
The Metamorphosis
On the Road
Cat's Cradle
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Lonesome Dove
Fundamental Algorithms
Naked Lunch
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
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Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Grapes of Wrath, and Frankenstein. Good calls.
As long as Gothic novels are on the list - Dracula.
Mr. Donini, I’m curious to know what floats your boat.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Harry Potter, Pillars of the Earth....give me a break. Only one Hemingway...and where are Conrad and Cormac McCarthy?
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
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Thanks! Your curmudgeon is coming out. Must admit I liked Pillars of the Earth, but, no, it’s not a great novel.
Top Twenty Geek Novels - The Survey
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2005/nov/09/top20geeknov
1. The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- Douglas Adams 85% (102) 2. Nineteen Eighty-Four -- George Orwell 79% (92) 3. Brave New World -- Aldous Huxley 69% (77) 4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? -- Philip Dick 64% (67) 5. Neuromancer -- William Gibson 59% (66) 6. Dune -- Frank Herbert 53% (54) 7. I, Robot -- Isaac Asimov 52% (54) 8. Foundation -- Isaac Asimov 47% (47) 9. The Colour of Magic -- Terry Pratchett 46% (46) 10. Microserfs -- Douglas Coupland 43% (44) 11. Snow Crash -- Neal Stephenson 37% (37) 12. Watchmen -- Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons 38% (37) 13. Cryptonomicon -- Neal Stephenson 36% (36) 14. Consider Phlebas -- Iain M Banks 34% (35) 15. Stranger in a Strange Land -- Robert Heinlein 33% (33) 16. The Man in the High Castle -- Philip K Dick 34% (32) 17. American Gods -- Neil Gaiman 31% (29) 18. The Diamond Age -- Neal Stephenson 27% (27) 19. The Illuminatus! Trilogy -- Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson 23% (21) 20. Trouble with Lichen - John Wyndham 21% (19)
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Flip Flop
climber
Earth Planet, Universe
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Every climber should read Where Clouds Can Go-Conrad Kain
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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There are so many 100 best novel lists - this one seems like a waste of time - public high school english lit for the millennials who made it.
The Bible - like seriously - like someone’s read that thing cover-cover in the past 50 years - right there with Harry Potter? Awful, just awful
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Bad Climber
Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
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Sep 10, 2018 - 07:09am PT
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Oh, Crime and Punishment is on there, thank goodness. Glad to see the Odyssey, too, although throwing in multiple Potters and leaving out The Iliad is freakin' bizarre.
BAd
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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Sep 10, 2018 - 07:15am PT
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How can we agree on 100 top books when we can't agree on 100 top climbs?
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SC seagoat
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, Moab, A sailboat, or some time zone
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Sep 10, 2018 - 08:06am PT
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Very middle class.
What about that “fixing your motorcycle while praying” book (or something like that). Didn’t we all go gaga over that one?
And no Rod McKuen poetry? Oh the travesty.
Susan
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JerryA
Mountain climber
Sacramento,CA
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Sep 10, 2018 - 08:22am PT
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"A Journey in Ladakh " by Andrew Harvey , "The Worst Journey in the World" by Apsley Cherry-Garrard , "Downward Bound:A Mad Guide to Rock Climbing"by Warren Harding , "In Patagonia" by Bruce Chatwin , "Arabian Sands"by Wilfred Thesiger ,"The Devil Drives :A Life of Sir Richard Burton" by Fawn Brodie , "A Journal of Ramblings through the High Sierras of California " by Joseph LeConte & hundreds of others !
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okay, whatever
climber
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Sep 10, 2018 - 08:26am PT
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I think "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", which I first read back in the mid-1970's, when it first came out, is quite an interesting book. I re-read it last winter, and still found it interesting... partly because the story of what is really going on unfolds slowly. You don't really know what he's saying until the end. That said, I am also very moved by Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being", though not quite as much by the movie that was made of it. And then there is "Sophie's Choice"... probably everyone has seen the movie, which was definitely very good, but if you can put the time into reading the novel, which is very long, it's worth it for some of the language... Styron had his moments. "The Life of Pi", by Yann Martel, published in 2001, is also quite a unique and interesting novel (and it has nothing at all to do with the mathematical constant). And from my youth way back when (I'm 64), I liked "A Wrinkle in Time" and "A Separate Peace", among others.
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Capt.
climber
some eastside hovel
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Sep 10, 2018 - 09:07am PT
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I think we need a list of what popular books not to read-- Celestine Prophecy would be #1 for me.
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Bad Climber
Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
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Sep 10, 2018 - 09:44am PT
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Hilarious, Capt.! Another vote for The Worst Journey in the World--amazing.
BAd
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Sep 10, 2018 - 09:51am PT
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Yer better men than me to admit to reading that stuff.
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EdBannister
Mountain climber
13,000 feet
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Sep 10, 2018 - 12:05pm PT
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Man's Search for Meaning Viktor Frankl
any Sharkespear or Hemingway, or Pat Ament leftover before Stephen King or Harry Potter.
recent?
The Rational Bible Dennis Prager
Old?
Some people really did read the Bible in the past 50 years.. and the results of it's wisdom are what gave you the best government in the world, despite your ingratitude.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Sep 10, 2018 - 12:14pm PT
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+1 to Victor Frankl!
+1 to Seven Pillars of Wisdom!
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Bad Climber
Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
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Sep 10, 2018 - 12:23pm PT
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+1 for Frankle
Found much of Seven Pillars to be heavy sledding, but it's a good and important work. I used a passage from it in my college composition classes to illustrate style.
BAd
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Sep 10, 2018 - 12:25pm PT
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Some people really did read the Bible in the past 50 years.
Really - have you?
I actually come from a few years of Catholic schooling, so I've met a few of the type. I have never in my life met someone who has sat down and read the Bible cover-cover like one would a novel. In fact, I have never met someone who has read the whole thing in any order over any period of time. If you've read Genesis and the Apostles - maybe 5% of that mess - you're probably in the 0.001%.
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John M
climber
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Sep 10, 2018 - 12:41pm PT
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I have read the bible multiple times.
This is a lecture series by Jordan Peterson on the bible. Its not from the perspective of needing to believe in God. Its from a psychological perspective. I don't necessarily agree with everything that he says, but he is a thoughtful thinker and gives a good understanding of the early stories in the bible.
Edit; Jordan Peterson is a clinical psychologist who taught at Harvard and the University of Toronto. He became well know for his opposition to a bill in Canada, bill C-16, which he claimed would make it hate speech to not address a person by their preferred gender pronoun. He claimed the bill was poorly written and allowed for a myriad number of gender pronouns. Not just Sir, Mister Miss, or Misses, but pronouns like They, or Them, xe, ve, ze, which are supposed to be gender neutral. Its a problem that is likely to come to the US some day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-wWBGo6a2w&t=1s
As for the list, well.. It could be better. There are so many great writers out there.
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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Sep 10, 2018 - 01:25pm PT
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Seven Pillars is indeed very worthy.
If you like the topic, another good one is
Lawrence in Arabia by Scott Anderson
It's partly a biography of Lawrence and partly a broader context on the events of the time and how they have influenced the modern Middle East.
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EdBannister
Mountain climber
13,000 feet
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Sep 10, 2018 - 09:36pm PT
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JLP yes
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Sep 11, 2018 - 03:14am PT
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I could not possibly have lived this life having read fewer than 10,000 books.
I've not bothered with Joyce's "Ulysses" thanks to Tom Robbins.
I've left Cheyenne with McMurtry three times and always come back to it.
I dare you to do it once.
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okay, whatever
climber
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Sep 11, 2018 - 05:12am PT
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I would add David Denby's 1996 volume "Great Books", which is a grand tour of literature and philosophy starting with Homer and Plato, and ending with Joseph Conrad and Virginia Woolf. He also addresses both the old and new testaments of the Bible as literature, not from a religious perspective. although obviously religion and literature have been entwined through the ages. This survey approach came from his experience as an undergraduate at Columbia starting in 1961, taking the course "Literature Humanities", and then auditing that same course thirty years later as a middle-aged man.
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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Sep 11, 2018 - 06:11am PT
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THocking...not sure about that list you posted. 50% of those are/were typical required HS reading.
So if you did your classwork, I'd have thought most folks would have nailed a good chunk of that list.
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Nick Danger
Ice climber
Arvada, CO
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Sep 11, 2018 - 07:27am PT
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Lists such as this are incredibly subjective. If your interests run towards science fiction it will be significantly different than if it runs towards military history, or poetry, or adventure/travel. All of those categories as well as a plethora of others are filled with fine reads. I love to read, it is, along with good coffee, my drug of choice. That being said, such a list I would make now would differ greatly from one I would have made back in college. Additionally, there are books that it seems everyone likes that I found to be tedious beyond all belief. Never been fond of anything Ayn Rand wrote (most humorless writer ever, and takes herself way too seriously) and I thought "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance" was dense and boring. I love Dostoevsky but thought, and still think, he should be read in the dead of winter in a place that has very cold winters. Loved Herman Hesse back in the day, and have always loved Kurt Vonnegutt, but some of his work is certainly better than some other stuff (Sirens of Titan is a favorite). There are some children's books that I just absolutely love, but gave mine all away to friends with little kids (and I STILL miss those books!). All very subjective, but a life-long love afair ith reading abides in me still.
cheers
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Don'tKnowHim
Social climber
California
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Sep 11, 2018 - 09:36am PT
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"The Dharma Bums" -Jack Kerouac
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Sep 11, 2018 - 09:48am PT
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Besides Vonnegut, a couple of other Hoosier writers should be on the list:
The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington
Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
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Rick A
climber
Boulder, Colorado
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Sep 11, 2018 - 11:31am PT
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For your consideration:
I like historical novels and here are my a couple of my favorites:
Burr by Gore Vidal. A contrarian view of the American Revolution that argues that Hamilton was the villain in the duel, not Aaron Burr.
The series of 19 or so seafaring novels by Patrick O'brian, starting with Master and Commander. Taken together they are one long, great adventure story.
On the non-fiction side, Robert Caro's The Power Broker is an eye-opening story of how 1960s and 1970s urban renewal projects in New York city decimated poor and minority neighborhoods, all in the name of progress. Caro is one of the best living writers of non-fiction, now working on his final volume of the equally fascinating biography of Lyndon Johnson.
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Mike Honcho
Trad climber
Glenwood Springs, CO
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 11, 2018 - 05:49pm PT
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Seriously, not trying to bump this thread. Just wanted to say thanks for about a decade worth of solid reading recommendations from y'all. I'm a big reader, history mostly, but have gotten quite the list going now.
For some reason, every Christmas and Birthday my Dad always sends me a pre-loaded $500 Amazon gift card and I blow the whole wad on books. So this is great!
Caylor
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Yury
Mountain climber
T.O.
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Sep 11, 2018 - 05:55pm PT
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Honestly, I read only 2 out of 10. :(
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Sep 11, 2018 - 06:11pm PT
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Honch, if ya like history then honor Rick A’s nod to Patrick O’Brian. I dare ya to stop at one!
Virtually everything that happens in his books actually occurred and often quite closely to
how he so eloquently relates it.
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Mike Honcho
Trad climber
Glenwood Springs, CO
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 11, 2018 - 06:35pm PT
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Thanks dude, but I actually wrote down everything he suggested. You had me at Rick A!
Funny, I've actually had Master and Commander at the bottom of a fat stack of books for years and just haven't read it.
Super interesting Gore Vidal suggestion that has Alexander Hamilton maybe being the villain! Hamilton seemed like he might have been a really big as#@&%e if you weren't on his side.
If everybody would just read a couple books on a our founding fathers (pick any of them, I don't care which), the US would be a far smarter landscape I think.
Caylor!
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hailman
Trad climber
Ventura, CA
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Sep 11, 2018 - 07:00pm PT
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Agreed everyone's list is different which is cool. I've been affected by two books centered around places I've lived.....
namely the Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold -- lots of Wisconsin pastoral appreciation in there....and....
Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana. Coastal CA before the Gold Rush? Oh my!!
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WBraun
climber
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Sep 11, 2018 - 07:24pm PT
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There's nothing in books except ink and paper so I threw them into the dumpster ......
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Jorroh
climber
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Sep 11, 2018 - 07:36pm PT
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Three more modern novels that I enjoyed.
By Gaslight
All The Light We Cannot See
The Orchardist
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originalpmac
Mountain climber
Timbers of Fennario
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Sep 11, 2018 - 10:59pm PT
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I never finished Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and I was reading it while riding an XR 650 from Colorado to California. And it was breaking down! Agreed with Nick Danger. Dense and boring.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Sep 11, 2018 - 11:44pm PT
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Boardman Tasker Omnibus. Okay, three books in one, but the Changabang stuff is awesome and it's well written.
They each wrote about Changabang, and their individual accounts of the climb, what happened there, are very personal, and different. For a climber this is the real stuff.
As for the original list, Harry Potter with no mention of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or anything by Ambrose Bierce?
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Sep 12, 2018 - 05:56am PT
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I’ve read Zen and the Art 2x, and once by audiobook, far from anything I’d call dense. It’s a worthy book.
Audible.com has gotten better, good selection, often multiple readers for the same book and you can sample them to see what might be tolerable. I drive a lot, great time for a book. It’s a little lazier, but I also have a bit of ADT for the novel, less so for technical books, having someone read to me is nice.
Richard Bach - Johnathan Livingston Seagull and Illusions are quick reads - almost childrens books in thier content - but good - definitely not dense.
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Aeriq
Social climber
Location: It's a MisterE
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Sep 12, 2018 - 06:25am PT
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^^Dense? You want dense?
Godel Escher Bach.
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okay, whatever
climber
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Sep 12, 2018 - 06:45am PT
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Yes, Douglas Hofstader's book "Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" is one that I encountered in the late 1970's, or maybe 1980, whenever it was published. I have it to this day. It is an intellectual merry-go-round, for sure, for anyone interested in logic, computer science, and so forth. Though the main topic that suffused the book was really RECURSION, or self-reference of a sort, which anyone who has a software education or a mathematical education would know about. You certainly can see the concept visualized in some of Escher's work. Hofstadter was, and maybe still is, a physics or computer science professor at the University of Indiana. He wrote at least two, and probably more books after that, which were also good... "Metamagical Themas", and "The Mind's I" ( or was it "The Mind's Eye"?) were two, I think? And also wrote a column for "Scientific American" magazine, for several years. I haven't looked him up for several years now online, but perhaps will now.
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Rick A
climber
Boulder, Colorado
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Sep 12, 2018 - 08:02am PT
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Hank,
One upside of reading is that it carries less risk than base jumping :)
On the Patrick O'Brian Aubrey/Maturin (main characters) novels, I have recommended those books to many of my friends over the years. About half read the entire series, then read it again, sometimes multiple times, like I have.
It's very rich and dense with details about life at end of the 18th century, including nobility and slavery, warfare, domestic life, philosophy, botany, music, food and wine.
The other half don't make it through the first book and tell me,
"meh".
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Sep 12, 2018 - 08:59am PT
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The Octopus is a good read, not a slog. The best part, though, is after you read it you can look up Victor Davis Hanson's interpretation of the novel. VDH thinks Norris was sympathetic to the Southern Pacific!!!
Here's another great one not on the list: Joe Hill by Wallace Stegner.
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spectreman
Trad climber
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Sep 12, 2018 - 01:07pm PT
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A must read about the Vietnam War is "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien
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Mike Honcho
Trad climber
Glenwood Springs, CO
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 12, 2018 - 01:15pm PT
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A must read about the Vietnam War is "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien
I've heard that's good, it's on the list, thanks!
Reminds me of one of my favorite Largo stories "Rats" a little bit.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Sep 12, 2018 - 01:24pm PT
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Best flying memoir of Nam: Flying Through Midnight by Halliday.
You can’t make that shiz up, and he is a gifted writer.
You should be able to relate, Honch, rumour has it you’ve done some flyin’ on Half Dome. 🤡
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perswig
climber
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Sep 12, 2018 - 02:11pm PT
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A must read about the Vietnam War is "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien
A good triptych of grunt-level Vietnam is the above book, Quang Tri Cadence by Jon Oplinger, and Into the Green by Cherokee Paul McDonald.
IDK about 100 books/die, but in my top 100 would certainly be The Alchemist.
Dale
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Sep 14, 2018 - 07:19am PT
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A good list or at least a good rough draft of such a list, I’ve read eighty some of the op list, my list, or any bodies, would be different, but it’s a good staring point and you can’t. Go too far wrong with it.
This seems like a good place to talk about Harry Potter. I wouldn’t have any of those books on my own list. However, though they don’t work for me, I am still a JK Rowling fan, for what she has done.. Just because they didn’t click with me is not to say that she isn’t on to something that seems to really work for her fan base and much to her credit she has gotten millions of kids to actually read big dense books! Good on her! When I was a kid I was immersed in the Oz books, Edger Allen Poe, a wrinkle in time, then Tolkien, all of which inspired me to find my way into Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Kerouac, Steinbeck, Burroughs, Hemingway etc.
if that series works for kids today and inspires the inspiration to explore and puts them into the wider questioning world, then they have done something magnificent!
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don't have one
climber
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Sep 14, 2018 - 09:39am PT
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I remember feeling somewhat reluctant or obligated sitting down with the first Harry Potter, only to find myself pleasantly surprised and blasted through it; found the first three books to be entertaining, fun and funny, and it provides an easy parent-child connection that not many other books can do in terms entertaining both parent and child simultaneously. The audibles are great as well, and the movies take the usual 3rd place, but are fun and -- from the parenting point of view -- much better than something like Star Wars or anything Disney.
But if you're a crusty muggle climber who gets stressed out by money, politics, and bolts, and middle-age has zapped your imagination, HP will be hard to grasp. ;-)
When I look at that top 100, I can see ditching about half of the list before HP (although seems like HP should be grouped into one book as Lord of the rings did). Half of that list looks like books I remember reading in school. Yawn.
I'd add...
Lonesome Dove if you like cowboy fiction.
Hampton Sides Ghost Soldiers and Blood and Thunder.
Gregory Crouches book Bonanza King is $.
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Aeriq
Social climber
Location: It's a MisterE
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Sep 14, 2018 - 07:02pm PT
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The 5 Agreements
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Cragcloud
Trad climber
Denmark
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Sep 15, 2018 - 08:26am PT
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The Road
Eiger Dreams
The Fifth Revolution
Into Thin Air
Into the Wild
...just adventure stuff ;)
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Scole
Trad climber
Zapopan
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Sep 26, 2018 - 02:45pm PT
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It would really suck to be limited to 100 books in a lifetime. I have read three in a day while tent-bound in Patagonia. That would add ou to only a little over a months worth of reading.
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Scole
Trad climber
Zapopan
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Sep 27, 2018 - 08:07am PT
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I have read 92 of the titles listed in the OP. What do I do with the next 20 years of life, watch television?
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Aeriq
Social climber
Location: It's a MisterE
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Missing some spiritual stuff:
Tao Te Ching (I have an early 60's hard-back translation)
Book of Runes - Ralph Blum
Not exactly good "reads" but some kind of reference nonetheless
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