I saw this on another blog yesterday (sorry for not giving proper credit. I forget where I saw this). It’s a list of “must read” books from the National Endowment for the Arts. According to the NEA, the average American has read only 6 of the 100 books. I was that geeky kid who was happy to hang out at home on weekends and read, and I was an English major in college so I’ve probably read more than the average reader. However, I’m embarrassed to admit that there are some serious gaps in my list. A couple of years ago I realized I’ve never read Catcher in the Rye. I bought a copy but it’s still in my stack of books to read.
How did you do? And are there books on here that you think shouldn’t be? Are there books missing?
.
The instructions for passing this list around are as follows:
1. Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2. Italicize those you intend to read.
3. Underline the books you love.

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
   
2. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
   
7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
   
8. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
    
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
    
13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
    
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
    
15. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier (Yes, Lesley, I did love this book and probably wouldn’t have read it if you didn’t recommend it!!)
    
16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
    
18. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch – George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
    
28. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
    
29. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
    
30. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
    
33. Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34. Emma – Jane Austen
35. Persuasion – Jane Austen
    
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
    
39. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41. Animal Farm – George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
    
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
45. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
    
48. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50. Atonement – Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
52. I don’t know what happened to #5152 Dune – Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
    
54. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
    
57. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon (I have this in my stack of books to read. In fact, I’ve tried before but couldn’t get through it. I’d like to try again at some point.)
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
    
62. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
    
63. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
    
64. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding (I liked this book, but I don’t get why it’s on the list.)
    
69. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72. Dracula – Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island – Bill
75. Ulysses – James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal – Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession – AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94. Watership Down – Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

At some point last year, they did add a few more books:

Their Eyes Were Watching God

Zora Neale Hurston’s vibrant novel presents Janie Mae Crawford’s growth from a voiceless teenage girl into a woman who takes charge of her own destiny. (I read this in college and it’s stuck with me since.)

The Joy Luck Club

In sixteen interwoven stories, Amy Tan’s characters—four Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-raised daughters—struggle to connect despite the ghosts and secrets of the past. (I loved this book!! The story is a a very relateable tale of mothers and daughters.)

The Call of the Wild

Abducted from his comfortable home and sold as a sled dog, Buck battles the elements to become leader of the pack. This story of a struggle for survival is an unforgettable adventure. (I think every kid should read this book.)

UPDATE:

I hope the NEA plans to update this list regularly because the more I look this over, the more I’m surprised by some omissions. I probably would have added the following:

• The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair

• White Noise, by Don DeLillo

• Anything by Michael Chabon (yes, Lesley, I know this may shock you!)

• Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen (C’mon, if Bridget Jones can be on here, a book like this should definitely occupy a spot on the list.