A few years back, my book club put together its collective Top 100 Books. I remember in that exercise, that I had a hard time selecting just a top 10. Since then, I’ve wondered what my top 100 books would be. I recently sat down to figure it out, and it was much harder than I thought. I ended up removing all non-fiction, and perhaps one day I’ll put out a top non-fiction reads. I left a few in that are technically non-fiction, but they read enough like a novel that I felt I should put them in this list. To put these in any sort of order according to taste would have been nearly impossible. So, here they are in alphabetical order by author’s first name. (If there’s a link, it takes you to my review of the book!)
How many of these have you read? Are any of them also among your favorites?
| Title | Author |
| Vinegar Hill | A. Manette Ansay |
| Possession | A.S. Byatt |
| Cutting for Stone | Abraham Verghese |
| Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories | Alice Munro |
| Runaway | Alice Munro |
| Rules of Civility | Amor Towles |
| A Gentleman in Moscow | Amor Towles |
| House of Sand and Fog | Andre Dubus III |
| Strange Fits of Passion | Anita Shreve |
| Fortune’s Rocks | Anita Shreve |
| Bel Canto | Ann Patchett |
| The Undertaking | Audrey Magee |
| The Fountainhead | Ayn Rand |
| The Poisonwood Bible | Barbara Kingsolver |
| The Reader | Bernhard Schlink |
| Did You Ever Have a Family | Bill Clegg |
| My Name Is Asher Lev | Chaim Potok |
| A Tale of Two Cities | Charles Dickens |
| Midwives | Chris Bohjalian |
| Little Bee | Chris Cleave |
| Rebecca | Daphne du Maurier |
| The Secret History | Donna Tartt |
| Ethan Frome | Edith Wharton |
| The Children | Edith Wharton |
| The Lies That Bind: A Novel | Edward Deangelo |
| My Brilliant Friend (The Neapolitan Novels #1) | Elena Ferrante |
| The Signature of All Things | Elizabeth Gilbert |
| Amy and Isabelle | Elizabeth Strout |
| Olive Kitteridge | Elizabeth Strout |
| Wuthering Heights | Emily BrontÌÇ |
| Of Love and Dust | Ernest J. Gaines |
| The Violent Bear It Away | Flannery O’Connor |
| A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories | Flannery O’Connor |
| Godric | Frederick Buechner |
| Britt-Marie Was Here | Fredrik Backman |
| My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry | Fredrik Backman |
| Year of Wonders | Geraldine Brooks |
| People of the Book | Geraldine Brooks |
| A Little Life | Hanya Yanagihara |
| To Kill a Mockingbird | Harper Lee |
| Enduring Love | Ian McEwan |
| The Cement Garden | Ian McEwan |
| Disgrace | J.M. Coetzee |
| The Kept | James Scott |
| The Blue Notebook | James A. Levine |
| Follow the River | James Alexander Thom |
| The Book of Ruth | Jane Hamilton |
| The Glass Castle | Jeannette Walls |
| The Virgin Suicides | Jeffrey Eugenides |
| Middlesex | Jeffrey Eugenides |
| Interpreter of Maladies | Jhumpa Lahiri |
| Stoner | John Williams |
| Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil | John Berendt |
| The World According to Garp | John Irving |
| Last Night in Twisted River | John Irving |
| A Prayer for Owen Meany | John Irving |
| The Grapes of Wrath | John Steinbeck |
| East of Eden | John Steinbeck |
| Rabbit, Run (Rabbit Angstrom #1) | John Updike |
| Gods in Alabama | Joshilyn Jackson |
| Between, Georgia | Joshilyn Jackson |
| We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves | Karen Joy Fowler |
| Plainsong (Plainsong, #1) | Kent Haruf |
| Our Souls at Night | Kent Haruf |
| Cane River | Lalita Tademy |
| Fates and Furies | Lauren Groff |
| Saving Grace | Lee Smith |
| Rush Home Road | Lori Lansens |
| Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? | Lorrie Moore |
| The Door | Magda SzabÌ |
| The Handmaid’s Tale | Margaret Atwood |
| Alias Grace | Margaret Atwood |
| The Velveteen Rabbit | Margery Williams Bianco |
| A Spot of Bother | Mark Haddon |
| The Interestings | Meg Wolitzer |
| The Elegance of the Hedgehog | Muriel Barbery |
| In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex | Nathaniel Philbrick |
| The Picture of Dorian Gray | Oscar Wilde |
| The Great Santini | Pat Conroy |
| The Prince of Tides | Pat Conroy |
| Midnight Assassin: A Murder in America’s Heartland | Patricia L. Bryan |
| Perfume: The Story of a Murderer | Patrick Suskind |
| Fahrenheit 451 | Ray Bradbury |
| The Narrow Road to the Deep North | Richard Flanagan |
| Ava’s Man | Rick Bragg |
| Serena | Ron Rash |
| The Outcast | Sadie Jones |
| Sacred Hearts | Sarah Dunant |
| The Birth of Venus | Sarah Dunant |
| Fingersmith | Sarah Waters |
| The Rapture of Canaan | Sheri Reynolds |
| The Bell Jar | Sylvia Plath |
| Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald | Therese Anne Fowler |
| The Space Between Us | Thrity Umrigar |
| In Cold Blood | Truman Capote |
| The Hour I First Believed | Wally Lamb |
| I Know This Much Is True | Wally Lamb |
| She’s Come Undone | Wally Lamb |
| A Land More Kind Than Home | Wiley Cash |
| Lord of the Flies | William Golding |
Thank you ! Lots of great ideas, love it !!
Fantastic! Thank you for stopping by!