100 favorite books
Thanks to Juan, who lugged this doorstop home from a trip. Read What can W.H. Auden do for you? in Prospect.
In no particular order. Several series are listed as one book. Aaargh we just remembered a bunch of other books. This list changes constantly.
The Once and Future King, T.H. White
The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
The Stories of John Cheever
Dune, Frank Herbert
The Collected Stories of W. Somerset Maugham
The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Nine Stories, J.D. Salinger
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
The Outsider, Albert Camus
Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
Without Feathers, Woody Allen
A Handful of Dust, Evelyn Waugh
A Boy and His Dog, Harlan Ellison
The Collected Stories of Paul Bowles
Kim, Rudyard Kipling
The Man Who Watched the Trains Go By, Georges Simenon
First Love, Last Rites, Ian McEwan
A Sport and A Pastime, James Salter
Motherless Brooklyn, Jonathan Lethem
Wittgenstein’s Mistress, David Markson
Rogue Male, Geoffrey Household
The Unrest-Cure and Other Stories by Saki, H.H. Munro
The Jeeves stories, P.G. Wodehouse
Persuasion, Jane Austen
The Gambler, Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Stories of Anton Chekhov
The Angel Esmeralda, Don DeLillo
The Smiley novels, John LeCarre
The Little Drummer Girl, John LeCarre
Watchmen, Alan Moore
Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
The Patrick Melrose novels, Edward St. Aubyn
Another Marvelous Thing, Laurie Colwin
Miss Garnet’s Angel, Salley Vickers
Our Story Begins, New and Selected Stories, Tobias Wolff
Waiting for Sunrise, William Boyd
The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien
From Hell, Alan Moore
Love In A Cold Climate, Nancy Mitford
The Separation, Christopher Priest
The End of the Affair, Graham Greene
The Lottery and Other Stories, Shirley Jackson
Possession, A.S. Byatt
The Collected Poems of W.H. Auden
The Decameron, Boccacio
Jesus’s Son, Denis Johnson
The Book of J, David Rosenberg and Harold Bloom
Plays, Tom Stoppard
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon
The Ogre, Michel Tournier
Burning Your Boats, The Collected Short Stories, Angela Carter
Don’t Look Now, Daphne Du Maurier
Light Years, James Salter
Seven Gothic Tales, Isak Dinesen
The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
100 Selected Poems, e.e. cummings
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
The Leopard, Giuseppe di Lampedusa
The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz
The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis
Amphigorey (series), Edward Gorey
Night Soldiers, Alan Furst
History of the Kelly Gang, Peter Carey
Perfume, Patrick Susskind
The Iliad, Homer
The Odyssey, Homer
The Oresteia, Aeschylus
Complete Poems of T.S. Eliot
The Most Beautiful Woman in Town, Charles Bukowski
The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje
Ripley’s Game, Patricia Highsmith
The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton
The Go-Between, L.P. Hartley
The Sense of An Ending, Julian Barnes
Zeno’s Conscience, Italo Svevo
Double Fault, Lionel Shriver
Numbers in the Dark, Italo Calvino
Cyrano de Bergerac, Edmond Rostand
The Good Soldier, Ford Madox Ford
The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoevsky
A Time of Gifts, Patrick Leigh Fermor
Between the Woods and the Water, Patrick Leigh Fermor
The Hare With Amber Eyes, Edmund De Waal
For Keeps, 30 Years at the Movies, Pauline Kael
Memoirs of An Anti-Semite, Gregor von Rezzori
Stalingrad, Antony Beevor
The Stones of Florence, Mary McCarthy
Into the Heart of Borneo, Redmond O’Hanlon
America’s Boy, James Hamilton Paterson
Longitude, Dava Sobel
Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere, Jan Morris
In Patagonia, Bruce Chatwin
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, Peter Biskind
We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families, Philip Gourevitch
The Drunkard’s Walk, Leonard Mlodinow
Einstein’s Dreams, Alan Lightman
The Forger’s Spell, Edward Dolnick
War is a force that gives us meaning, Chris Hedges
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, Oliver Sacks
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
October 17th, 2013 at 08:27
Yay more book recommendations! Thanks!
Last great read that I had was The Place of Dead Roads by William S. Burroughs.
October 17th, 2013 at 13:31
wow. a list of all-time favorites. strong recommendations from someone who consumes a book a week? thank you, madame.
katuwaan lang, ilan na ang nabasa ninyo sa listahan?
ito ang akon:
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Nine Stories, J.D. Salinger
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
The Outsider, Albert Camus
Without Feathers, Woody Allen
Watchmen, Alan Moore
Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon
The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz
Einstein’s Dreams, Alan Lightman
read more than 50% of:
The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis
Our Story Begins, New and Selected Stories, Tobias Wolff
The Sense of An Ending, Julian Barnes
Jesus’s Son, Denis Johnson
Less than 50% of:
The Smiley novels, John LeCarre
The Stories of John Cheever
The Jeeves stories, P.G. Wodehouse
sumatotal, mga 12% lang ng sa listahan ang nabasa ko. anlayo pa ng hahabulin!
October 17th, 2013 at 13:53
I have a list of your favorite books that I carry with me and thank God for Fully Booked I found most of them. So far, I crossed out most of the items in the list, and yes Love In A Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford was a gem. (Along with “Pursuit of Love”)
I see that there are new ones in the list. More books to look for! Thanks! :)
October 17th, 2013 at 15:02
I’m happy to see John Cheever in a list of favorite books. And Motherless Brooklyn! I think it’s underappreciated.
October 17th, 2013 at 21:41
Never actually tried this, will find time to do so soon, but my list would definitely include The Lord of the Rings, Letters to a Young Poet (though I haven’t read it in over a decade so I should probably find time again), The Vampire Chronicles (first three books, and maybe Tale of the Body Thief), The Witching Hour, Dracula, Kingdom Come, The Catcher in the Rye, Macbeth, Watchmen, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Mythology (by Edith Hamilton)… and more. This is hard. :)
Locally, Dekada ’70 and ZsaZsa Zaturnnah, I love, along with El Filibusterismo.
October 17th, 2013 at 22:35
Aaaaaaaaaaaa! Possession ni A.S. Byatt! Nagliwanag ang aking madilim na araw sapagkat kasama ito sa inyong listahan. Manghang-mangha ako sa talento ni Dame Antonia–mga tula, kwento, mga liham, at dalawang plot ng romansa sa isang nobela. Paborito ko rin ang kanyang koleksyon ng maikling kwento na Elementals, dahil sa kwentong Cold at Bag Lady.
At ang koleksyon ni H.H. Munro! Aaaaaaaaaaaa! Ang mayroon ako’y ang The Best of Saki, na hinanap ko dahil sa inyong pagbabahagi.
Ang iba na nasa inyong listahan ay tutuklasin ko rin. Maganda ito. Salamat, Your Grace.
October 17th, 2013 at 23:09
Thanks for the list! My ‘score’ – 9/100 (ngee)
Is there a book that you regularly re-read?
October 17th, 2013 at 23:15
Baglady pala, Your Grace.
Maiba… ang hirap maghanap ng The Leopard ni Lampedusa. Kailangan kong mabasa ito gawa ng Oro, Plata, Mata.
October 17th, 2013 at 23:19
silentfollower: Korek! Luchino Visconti’s film adaptation of The Leopard was one of the sources of Oro, Plata, Mata. We’ll alert you if we spot a copy.
October 17th, 2013 at 23:21
Ms. JZ, thanks for these recommendations. These will keep me busy for . . . a lifetime! I realize that nothing encourages me to take on reading than a list of books that people love.
Glad to see Michael Chabon and Lydia Davis in this list. Haven’t heard of Philip Gourevitch, but I’ll go looking for “We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families” because the title is interesting.
angus25: Fan din ako ni John Cheever, lalo na ‘yung The Wapshot Chronicles niya. May nakita akong sale sa National Robinsons Manila, mga 200-something lang.
October 17th, 2013 at 23:22
UVDust: The older titles in this list are available online for free. We reread The Once and Future King and Dune regularly. And many of the short stories (Salinger, Wolff, Cheever, DeLillo, Johnson).
October 17th, 2013 at 23:38
wenkebach: The Gourevitch is a harrowing account of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Along with our sister, we have an interested in insane regimes and mad dictators. Recommended: The World’s Most Dangerous Places by Robert Young Pelton, and The Emperor by Ryzard Kapuscinski. Aaargh, we left out a lot of brilliant journalism.
October 17th, 2013 at 23:39
allancarreon: Aaaaaaa we forgot Noli and Fili.
October 18th, 2013 at 05:02
I liked Noli, but for some reason I loved Fili so much more.
Of course, the best part of Noli for me is Ibarra describing Elias so… uhmm, lustfully.
October 19th, 2013 at 14:58
Predominantly fiction? I’d like to see your list of non-fiction favorites. At least a couple books by Hitch must be on there, I hope.
And so Eurocentric, which I am probably guilty of myself. I genuinely would like to explore more non-white literature.
October 19th, 2013 at 16:19
I am 7/100, but I have six books listed that I haven’t finished reading. Dickens, Wharton, Hardy, Susskind, LeCarre, Dostoevsky. Sa sarili kong listahan, mas marami ‘yong nabibiling books kesa sa actual na nababasa.
Thank you for sharing.
November 8th, 2013 at 05:13
http://alenette.wordpress.com/2013/11/07/96100/
November 8th, 2013 at 05:14
Happy Reading to me! Madamo gd nga Salamat gd, Dominatrix!