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Sarah (7798 KP) created a post in Bookworms

Apr 3, 2018  
A couple of years ago Goodreads posted a list of their 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime, as voted by users. We may have moved on a little, but personally I think this list still stands.

What do you think? How many have you read?


1. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
2. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
3. The Diary of Anne Frank - Anne Frank
4. 1984 - George Orwell
5. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - JK Rowling
6. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
7. The Great Gatsby- F Scott Fitzgerald
8. Charlotte's Web - EB White
9. The Hobbit- JRR Tolkien
10. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
11. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
12. Jane Eyre- Jane Austen
13. Animal Farm - George Orwell
14. Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
15. The Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
16. The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
17. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
18. The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
19. The Help - Kathryn Stockett
20. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis
21. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
22. The Lord of the Flies - William Golding
23. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
24. Night - Elie Wiesel
25. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
26. A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle
27. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
28. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
29. Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare
30. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
31. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
32. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
33. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
34. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
35. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - JK Rowling
36. The Giver - Lois Lowry
37. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
38. Where the Sidewalk Ends - Shel Silverstein
39. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
40. The Fault in Our Stars - John Green
41. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
42. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain
43. Macbeth - William Shakespeare
44. The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson
45. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
46. The Holy Bible: King James version
47. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
48. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
49. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith
50. East of Eden - John Steinbeck
51. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
52. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
53. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
54. The Stand - Stephen King
55. Outlander - Diana Gabaldon
56. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - JK Rowling
57. Enders Game - Orson Scott Card
58. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
59. Watership Down - Richard Adams
60. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
61. Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
62. A Game of Thrones - George RR Martin
63. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
64. The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
65. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
66. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
67. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince - JK Rowling
68. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
69. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
70. Celebrating Silence: Excerpts from Five Years of Weekly Knowledge - Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
71. The Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
72. The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett
73. Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins
74. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
75. Dracula - Bram Stoker
76. The Princess Bride - William Goldman
77. Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen
78. The Raven - Edgar Allan Poe
79. The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd
80. The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
81. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
82. The Time Travelers Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
83. The Odyssey - Homer
84. The Good Earth - Pearl S Buck
85. Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins
86. And Then There Were None - Agatha Christie
87. The Thorn Birds - Colleen McCullough
88. A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
89. The Glass Castle - Jeanette Walls
90. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Rebecca Skloot
91. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
92. The Road - Cormac McCarthy
93. The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien
94. Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse
95. Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
96. Beloved - Toni Morrison
97. Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese
98. The Phantom Tollbooth - Norton Juster
99. The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
100. The Story of My Life - Helen Keller
   
Show all 14 comments.
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Angelicalynnn (21 KP) Jul 6, 2018

I’ve read 30 not to bad but still plenty I would love to read!
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iamsara (130 KP) Jul 19, 2018

14 ?
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Kristy H (1252 KP) rated Half Of What You Hear in Books

Mar 20, 2019  
Half Of What You Hear
Half Of What You Hear
Kristyn Kusek Lewis | 2018 | Fiction & Poetry
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Captivating characters and story
Bess and Cole Warner arrive in Greyhill, Virginia from Washington, DC. Ostensibly they've come to take over the local inn from Cole's parents, Diane and Bradley, but they are also fleeing the city. Bess is leaving behind her job as a social secretary at the White House, which she left in disgrace. Greyhill, meanwhile, is a beautiful town, but also one of old money, tradition, and gossip. Bess literally lives across the stress from her in-laws, allowing Diane to pop in anytime, bringing with her her trademark mixture of judgement and condescension. Bess soon realizes that it's not easy to assimilate into Greyhill if you're deemed an "outsider." Her husband seems happy among his old friends--many of whom are more than glad to spread gossip about Bess. Her twin children are figuring out their way at the local private school--a challenge that seems harder for her daughter than son. When she's offered a chance to write an article on a local figure, Susannah Greyhill Lane, Bess jumps at the chance. She soon realizes Susannah is a bit of a kindred spirit: the town doesn't seem to like her much either. Susannah also has a lot of secrets, some of which involve Bess' in-laws. As Bess learns more about Greyhill's past, she starts to wonder exactly what she's gotten herself and her family into.

This was a really engaging, easy-to-read book that expertly captured the small town dynamic. Bess was a likeable character, struggling as an outsider in her husband's town. She's trying to put a mistake behind her at her former job, giving her even more trust issues. The novel is told mainly from Bess' point of view, but we also get snippets of town gossip, too. Ugh, having lived in such a town, I can tell you that Lewis really gets it right. I was wrapped up in the story from the beginning and felt awfully sorry for Bess--moving away from all she knew and having to deal with those hateful small town busybodies (sometimes there's nothing worse, really).

"It's like living in Stars Hollow, the charming small town on Gilmore Girls... Although honestly, so far, Greyhill feels a little more Desperate Housewives. The star character being me."

I was initially drawn to reading this book because the fake town of Greyhill, as written, is practically in my backyard. It frequently mentions my hometown of Madison (which, believe me, *never* shows up in books - it's not that big), as well as where I currently live. Even better, Lewis captures both quite well, as well as the moneyed, snobby atmosphere of Greyhill that will be intimately familiar to anyone who lives in Virginia. There's always something fun about reading about a place (or places) you know. My favorite sports team even gets a mention!

Bess is also a very realistic mother. The book does an excellent job of capturing how hard it is being a mom when your kid is going through a hard time, for example. Honestly, it does a good job of portraying parenthood in general--it's real and true throughout. I very much appreciated that. None of the sugarcoated parent/child relationships we get in some books.

This one was not completely what I expected. While it's character-driven and portrays Bess' struggle to fit in in Greyhill, it is almost a mystery at times. You can't really trust what you read and it's twisty, with some surprises thrown in. It makes for a fast, interesting read that delves into the history of Greyhill and Bess' family.

Overall, this was a really captivating book. I enjoyed the characters and the story--and the setting was a real bonus. This is the first book I've read by Krusek Lewis, but I definitely would like to read more.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher, Harper Collins, via LibraryThing in return for an unbiased review - thank you!