THE BIG 100 of 2011:

1. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
2. Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson
3. Girl Who Played With Fire by Steig Larsson
4. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
5. The Alchemist by Paul Coelho (so great!)
6. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
7. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
8. Man Walks Into a Room by Nicole Krauss
9. The Final Solution by Michael Chabon
10. i am no one you know by Joyce Carol Oates
11. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (re-read)
12. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
13. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris
14. The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
15. The Wild Things by Dave Eggers
16. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera
17. Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
18. Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
19. I Love You, Ronnie by Nancy Reagan
20. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
21. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Steig Larsson
22. Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
23. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
24. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (an incredible series!)
25. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
26. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
27. Blindness by José Saramago
28. Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen  J. Dubner
29. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
30. On Beauty by Zadie Smith
31. The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards
32. Ms. Hempel Chronicles by Sarah Shun-Lein Bynum
33. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
34. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
35. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
36. The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon
37. The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye: Short Stories by Jonathan Lethem
38. Bossypants by Tina Fey (unbelievable! I was laughing out loud!)
39. When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedarisune
40. What is the What by Dave Eggers (re-read) (a hugely important, wonderful book)
41. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
42. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (re-read)
43. A Separate Peace by John Knowles (re-read)
44. War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
45. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
46. ‘Tis by Frank McCourt
47. Miss American Pie by Margaret Sartor
48. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
49. Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama
50. The Life to Come and Other Stories by E.M. Forster
51. Seconds of Pleasure by Neil LaBute
52. Choke by Chuck Palahniuk
53. South of the Border West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami
54. Let the Great World Spin by Collum McCann (amazing! a unique, deep story–and one of my favorites so far)
55. Eight White Nights by Andre Aciman
56. Invisible by Paul Auster
57. The Road by Cormac McCarthy (fascinating and lovely)
58. Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon
59. Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
60. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
61. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
62. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut (this man is a genius)
63. Bel Canto by Ann Pachett
64. The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
65. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (a delight!)
66. Zeitoun by Dave Eggers (another hugely important, incredible read by Dave Eggers)
67. Lies My Mother Never Told Me by Kaylie Jones (excellent)
68. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls  (beautiful!)
69. East of Eden by John Steinbeck
70. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver (gorgeous, insightful short stories with real, heartfelt people)
71. Dubliners by James Joyce
72. Eleanor Rigby by Douglas Coupland (such a surprise, and truly lovely)
73. After Long Silence by Helen Fremont
74. Setting Free the Bears by John Irving (my favorite Irving novel yet!)
75. Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffeneger
76. Slam by Nick Hornby
77. Dark Places by Gillian Flynn (a thrilling horror/mystery novel)
78. In the Heart of the Country by J.M. Coetzee
79. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
80. Men and Cartoons: Short Stories by Jonathan Lethem
81. The World to Come by Dara Horn (UNBELIEVABLE! So complex and gorgeous. One of my favorites of the year.)
82. You Don’t Love Me Yet by Jonathan Lethem
83. A Model World and other short stories by Michael Chabon
84. The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman
85. The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers
86. Disgrace by  J.M. Coetzee
87. The Hours by Michael Cunningham
88. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
89. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling
90. In the Image by Dara Horn
91. The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac
92. No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
93. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut (amazing! a speed-read and a thoughtful, hilarious one at that)
94. Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby (my favorite Hornby so far)
95. The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
96. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
97. Village of a Million Spirits by Ian McMillan
98. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barberry
99. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut (man, Vonnegut is so good.)
100. This Side of Brightness by Colum McCann (I think McCann is my new favorite author).

 

10 Books I’m too happy I’ve read (just the beginning of the list of dozens I loved):

1. Let the Great World Spin
2. The World to Come
3. Bossypants
4. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?
5. Zeitoun
6. The Alchemist
7.  Life of Pi
8. The Elegance of the Hedgehog
9. The Road
10.  Fahrenheit 451

5 books I wish I hadn’t wasted time on:

1. Super Sad True Love Story
2. Eight White Nights
3. The Corrections
4. Freedom
5. To the Lighthouse