Chris' Fill in the Gaps Top 100 List — Final!
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: my fill-in-the-gaps book list.
The list is arranged alphabetically by author and will be read in no particular order. I will offer a review or response as I read the books.
Now, I am not going to carve these into stones. I give myself permission to adjust over the years.
What do you think? Have I chosen books you love? Did I miss one of your favorites? Let me know!
Chris' Fill in the Gaps Book List
Things Fall Apart | Chinua | Achebe | |
Foundation | Isaac | Asimov | |
Pride and Prejudice | Jane | Austen | |
Sense and Sensibility | Jane | Austen | |
Sundays With Vlad | Paul | Bibeau | |
The | Lost Symbol | Dan | Brown |
The | Good Earth | Pearl S. | Buck |
A | Little Princess | Frances Hodgson | Burnett |
The | Secret Garden | Frances Hodgson | Burnett |
Cold Sassy Tree | Olive Ann | Burns | |
The | Land that Time Forgot | Edgar Rice | Burroughs |
Tobacco Road | Erskine | Caldwell | |
The | Plague | Albert | Camus |
Ender's Game | Orson Scott | Card | |
Death Comes for the Archbishop | Willa | Cather | |
O Pioneers | Willa | Cather | |
The | Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay | Michael | Chabon |
The | Big Sleep | Raymond | Chandler |
The | Stories of John Cheever | John | Cheever |
Girl with the Pearl Earring | Tracy | Chevalier | |
The | Woman in White | Wilkie | Collins |
Moll Flanders | Daniel | DeFoe | |
The | Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao | Junot | Diaz |
A | Tale of Two Cities | Charles | Dickens |
David Copperfield | Charles | Dickens | |
Little Dorrit | Charles | Dickens | |
Oliver Twist | Charles | Dickens | |
Great Expectations | Charles | Dickens | |
The | Count of Monte Cristo | Alexandre | Dumas |
The | Man in the Iron Mask | Alexandre | Dumas |
The | Last Cavalier | Alexandre | Dumas |
A | Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius | Dave | Eggers |
Middlemarch | George | Eliot | |
Madame Bovary | Gustave | Flaubert | |
Where Angels Fear to Tread | E.M. | Forster | |
The | Corrections | Jonathan | Franzen |
The | Quiet American | Graham | Greene |
Goodbye, Mr. Chips | James | Hilton | |
Lost Horizon | James | Hilton | |
Les | Miserables | Victor | Hugo |
Their Eyes Were Watching God | Zora Neale | Hurston | |
The | Lost Weekend | Charles R. | Jackson |
The | Haunting of Hill House | Shirley | Jackson |
The | Portrait of a Lady | Henry | James |
Three Men in a Boat | Jerome K | Jerome | |
Up the Down Staircase | Bel | Kaufman | |
On the Road | Jack | Kerouac | |
Please Don’t Eat the Daisies | Jean | Kerr | |
The | Poisonwood Bible | Barbara | Kingsolver |
The | Jungle Books | Rudyard | Kipling |
The | Man Who Would Be King | Rudyard | Kipling |
A | Separate Peace | John | Knowles |
Little Drummer Girl | John | LeCarre | |
The | Golden Notebook | Doris | Lessing |
Sliver | Ira | Levin | |
Elmer Gantry | Sinclair | Lewis | |
The | Monk | Matthew Gregory | Lewis |
The | Call of the Wild | Jack | London |
The | Best of H.P. Lovecraft | H.P. | Lovecraft |
One Hundred Years of Solidude | Gabriel Garcia | Marquez | |
Love in the Time of Cholera | Gabriel Garcia | Marquez | |
The | Road | Cormac | McCarthy |
The | Member of the Wedding | Carson | McCullers |
Atonement | Ian | McEwan | |
Lonesome Dove | Larry | McMurty | |
Moby-Dick | Herman | Melville | |
Peyton Place | Grace | Metalious | |
The | Seven-Per-Cent Solution | Nicholas | Meyer |
Beloved | Toni | Morrison | |
Lolita | Vladimir | Nabokov | |
Suite Francaise | Irene | Nemirovsky | |
A | Confederacy of Dunces | John Kennedy | O'Toole |
Doctor Zhivago | Boris | Pasternak | |
Bel Canto | Ann | Patchett | |
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance | Robert M. | Pirsig | |
Atlas Shrugged | Ayn | Rand | |
The | Fountainhead | Ayn | Rand |
All Quiet on the Western Front | Erich Maria | Remarque | |
Home | Marylynne | Robinson | |
The | Human Stain | Philip | Roth |
The | God of Small Things | Arundathi | Roy |
Midnight’s Children | Salman | Rushdie | |
Sarum | Edward | Rutherford | |
Frankenstein | Mary | Shelley | |
Enemies, A Love Story | Isaac Bashevis | Singer | |
Angle of Repose | Wallace | Steigner | |
Dracula | Bram | Stoker | |
The | Valley of the Dolls | Jacqueline | Suzanne |
The | Magnificent Ambersons | Booth | Tarkington |
The | Man who Fell to Earth | Walter | Tevis |
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas | Hunter S. | Thompson | |
Anna Karenina | Leo | Tolstoy | |
War and Peace | Leo | Tolstoy | |
All the King's Men | Robert Penn | Warren | |
Brideshead Revisited | Evelyn | Waugh | |
Night | Elie | Weisel | |
Journey to the Center of the Earth | H.G. | Wells | |
Trainspotting | Irvine | Welsh | |
The | Age of Innocence | Edith | Wharton |
The | Inimitable Jeeves | P.G. | Wodehouse |
1001 Nights / Arabian Nights |
Good list. I see some I've read as well as some on my Fill In The Gaps List.
ReplyDeleteThank you -- I think I'll start with Dracula. I've been eyeing that one for a while....
ReplyDeleteI'd love to see your Fill in the Gaps List!
Great list! I'm excited for you... some of my personal thoughts. I suggest So Big by Edna Ferber in place of the Magnificent Ambersons... I found it much more readable and they give me the same kind of vibe, same period, I think.
ReplyDeleteI disliked Tobacco Road intensely, but that could be because I was living in the South when I read it and it was too close to home!
Love many of the books on your list and I think they'll lead you to further reading of some of the authors. GWAPE by Chavalier is great, and I also enjoyed her Virgin Blue and and the Lady and the Unicorn (her other books not so much for me). Angle of Repose is on my to-read list, and I also highly recommend Crossing to Safety.
I admit that I could not force myself to wade through War & Peace and Moby-Dick. I tried and I tried and I failed.
Surprised that I loved Lolita. Atonement is also a personal fave (and I love the movie).
Have you looked through our book club list (it's posted in the databases on the Yahoo site). Some on your list were discussed in the book club, so you can look back and see the discussions, too.
Have fun filling in your gaps!
Thank you! I shall read some of the discussions as I devour the books.
ReplyDeleteI fear I'll venture down a single author's lane and never return. I seriously wondered if so much Dickens was a good idea, but I wanted to read every single one of those. Plus, I read Drood last year, so I'm fascinated by all that is Dickens and Collins. However, A Tale of Two Cities always puts me to sleep, so I wonder how many times I'll have to pick it up. :-)
Chevalier is a great read, I've heard, and I figured I'd start with the one everyone talked about. Have you read her latest?
I hope Tobacco Road isn't my Bastard Out of Carolina. I got about 60 pages into the book and was so depressed I had to stop. That might be the sign of a good book, but I couldn't go on.
I'll have to keep So Big in mind. You and Carole have spoken very highly of it. LOVED Crossing to Safety, so I can't wait to start Angle. Why can't I just quit work to read?????
With Tracy Chevalier, I'm afraid I have suffered from Author Repeatitis! ;) I loved the 3 I mentioned. I was lukewarm on Fallen Angels. I read about 50 pages of Burning Bright and could not go further. So... I have to admit, I was not eager to get Remarkable Creatures and now with the Shakespeare thing going, I probably won't read it for a while!
ReplyDeleteTry watching the movie version of a Tale of Two Cities... then read the book. I love the film and it gives you the big picture before you fall into the details of the book. It's been many years since I've read Dickens, but he's worth the effort. You will enjoy it! You should add A Christmas Carol... it's really a great book.
Oooh, I hate Author Repeatitis! Few authors can weather that. I felt the same way about Dan Brown: the two Robert Langdon novels were good, but the other two were just okay. I haven't read The Lost Symbol yet for that very reason.
ReplyDeleteGreat suggestion for A Tale of Two Cities! Is there a particular production you find most worthy?
I just finished A Christmas Carol last month and loveloveloved it! I think that will become a holiday tradition....
I saw one last year that was really good. I think it must have been the 1980 version with Chris Sarandon.
ReplyDeleteI shall look for it. I found War and Peace, starring Audrey Hepburn, at the library. Guess what I'm watching while David ODs on the Olympics?
ReplyDelete