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

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