Favorite Books of All Time


When all tallied up – counting honorable mentions, books I forgot to add when I first made the lists, and series I counted as one book – there are at least 125 books here.  All are good!

HM#1 The World Almanac & Book of Facts

HM#2 Rise up Singing by Peter Blood & Annie Patterson

100 Puff: A Novel by Bob Flaherty

99 The Grand Complication: A Novel by Allen Kurzweil

98 The Shoemaker and the Tea Party: Memory and the American Revolution by Alfred F. Young

97 Stalemate Icchokas Meras

96 King Lear by William Shakespeare

95 Vandals in the Stacks?: A Response to Nicholson Baker’s Assault on Libraries by  Richard J. Cox

94 Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

93 Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond

92 The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

91 The Iowa Baseball Confederacy: A Novel by W.P. Kinsella

90    T. H. White:A Biography by Sylvia Townsend Warner

89   You Gotta Have Wa by Robert Whiting

88    Paper Lion: Confessions of a Last-String Quarterback by George Plimpton

87    The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

86    Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

85    Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness by Joshua Wolf Shenk

84    Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins

83    Tales of the City Series by Armistead  Maupin

82    Snowshoeing Through Sewers: Adventures in New York City, New Jersey, and Philadelphia by Michael Aaron Rockland

81    Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World’s Most Revered and Reviled Bird by Andrew D. Blechman

80    How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They’re Built by Stewart  Brand

79    The Guns of August by Barbara W.  Tuchman

78    The Road to Mobocracy: Popular Disorder in New York City, 1763-1834 by Paul A. Gilje

77    Sophie’s Choice by William Styron

76    Amphigorey & Amphigorey Too by Edward Gorey

75    Silent Traveller in San Francisco by  Chiang Yee

74    A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

73    Thumbs, Toes, and Tears: And Other Traits That Make Us Human by Chip Walter

72    Dreamland by Kevin Baker

71    Looking for America on the New Jersey Turnpike by Angus K. Gillespie

70 My Life With the Saints by James Martin, SJ

69 Through a Window by Jane Goodall

68 Dead Certainties: (Unwarranted Speculations) by Simon Schama

67 Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

66 The Princess Bride: S Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure by William Goldman

65 Five Points: The Nineteenth-Century New York City Neighborhood That Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections and Became the World’s Most Notorious Slum by Tyler Anbinder

64 Joshua: A Parable for Today by Joseph F. Girzone,

63 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

62 The Devil in the White City : Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson

61  To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

60    Irish America: Coming Into Clover by Maureen Dezell

59    Time and Again by Jack Finney

58    A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle

57    Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes

56    The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff

55    Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser

54    The Portable Door by Tom Holt

53    The lost continent : travels in small-town America by Bill Bryson

52    The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

51    In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan

50.5   Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder

50    The Baroque Cycle by Neal  Stephenson

49    Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream by Jay  Stevens

48    Nickel and Dimed On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara  Ehrenreich

47    The Grapes of Wrath by John  Steinbeck

46    Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference by David Garrow

45    The Appalachian Trail Reader by David Emblidge

44    1939: Lost World of Fair by David  Gelernter

43    The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap by Stephanie Coontz

42    The End of Elsewhere: Travels Among the Tourists by Taras  Grescoe

41    Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland and Through the Looking-glass by  Lewis Carroll

40    The New History in an Old Museum: Creating the Past at Colonial Williamsburg by Richard  Handler

39    Seeing Things by Seamus  Heaney

38    Iron and Silk by Mark  Salzman

37    The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

36    Under the Net by Iris  Murdoch

35    The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael  Pollan

34    Life of Pi by Yann Martel

33    Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee  Brown

32    The Radicalism of the American Revolution by Gordon S.  Wood

31    The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe

30 The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation: The Pox Party & The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation: The Kingdom of the Waves by M. T. Anderson

29 A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

28 Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz

27 The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving

26 Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood & Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return by Marjane Satrapi

25 The Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit by J.R.R, Tolkien

24 Ball Four by Jim Bouton

23 A Clearing In The Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the 19th Century by Witold Rybczynski

22 The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage by Paul Eliel

21 Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

20 Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hanh

19 Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning: 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City by Jonathan Mahler

18 Round Ireland with a Fridge by Tony Hawks

17 Shoeless Joe by W. P. Kinsella

16 Watership Down by Richard Adams

15 We Can’t Eat Prestige: The Women Who Organized Harvard by John Hoerr

14 Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

13 The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A.J. Jacobs

12 To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

11  The Color Purple by Alice Walker

10    The Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

9    In Small Things Forgotten: An Archaeology of Early American Life by James Deetz

8    The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel by Jasper Fforde

7    Jazz by Toni  Morrison

6    Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

5    Song of Solomon by Toni  Morrison

4    The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger

3    The Once and Future King by T.H. White

2    Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

1    To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

2 thoughts on “Favorite Books of All Time

  1. That is quite the list you have there, I love how you know your top 100+ books of all time! If you liked Stephanie Coontz’s The Way We Never Were, you should check out her new book, ‘A Strange Stirring- The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960’s’. Coontz continue to bust myths about the time we all thought was so great. It is a really good read, I am about half way through.

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