100 Books Before You Die: An Update

Another Wednesday dawns, and it’s another one not in work. I’d be sad, but it means I once again have time to read, write, and just generally keep on top of all things blogging. Some of you might remember back to 2016 when I looked at the Amazon list of 100 books to read before you die. Well, four years later I decided it might be time to revisit that list! This post contains affiliate links – read more in my disclaimer.

It dawned on me that in exactly 9 posting days, I will be posting on my 25th birthday – a rather terrifying thought! As I reach the quarter of a century milestone in age, now seems as good a time as ever to take stock of how many of the 100 books before you die list I have actually read. I had started off putting a strike through the books I’ve read, but realised pretty quickly that means you can’t read them! So instead, any I have read are in bold.  As I said, this post contains affiliate links. If you would like to learn more about affiliate sales, check out the Beginners Guide to Affiliate Sales [AFF].

1. To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee
2. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
3. The Tiger Who Came to Tea – Judith Kerr
4. The Book Thief – Markus Zusak
5. We’re Going on a Bear Hunt – Michael Rosen
6. American Gods – Neil Gaiman
7. The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
8. A Brief History of Time – Stephen Hawking
9. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat – Oliver Sacks
10. Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
11. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
12. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas – John Boyne
13. Freakonomics – Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
14. Noughts & Crosses – Malorie Blackman
15. Atonement – Ian McEwan
16. Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
17. In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
18. The Tale of Peter Rabbit – Beatrix Potter
19. The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
20. Catch-22 – Joseph Heller and Howard Jacobson

21. Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemmingway
22. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
23. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
24. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
25. Frankenstein – Mary Shelley
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
27. Norwegian Wood – Haruki Murakami
28. Bad Science – Ben Goldacte
29. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 – Sue Townsend
30. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
31. The Stand – Stephen King
32. American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis
33. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Maarquez and Gregory Rabassa
34. The Colour of Magic – Terry Pratchett
35. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
36. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick
37. The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver
38. Brighton Rock – Graham Greene
39. The Road – Cormac McCarthy
40. The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
41. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
42. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – Hunter S. Thompson
43. Trainspotting – Irvine Welsh
44. Artemis Fowl – Eoin Colfer
45. All Quiet on the Western Front – Erich Maria Remarque
46. A History of the World in 100 Objects – Neil MacGregor
47. Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China – Jung Chang
48. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – John le Carré
49. Tess of the d’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
50. The Hare With Amber Eyes – Edmund de Waal
51. The Sense of an Ending – Julain Barnes
52. White Teeth – Zadie Smith
53. Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
54. I Capture the Castle – Dodie Smith
55. The Selfish Gene – Richard Dawkins
56. Cider With Rosie – Laurie Lee MBE
57. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
58. London: The Biography – Peter Ackroyd
59. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
60. Long Walk To Freedom – Nelson Mandela
61. Murder on the Orient Express – Agatha Christie
62. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring – J R R Tolkien
63. To The Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
64. Casino Royale – Ian Fleming
65. Knots and Crosses – Ian Rankin
66. The Story of Tracy Beaker – Jacqueline Wilson
67. The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje
68. Venice – Jan Morris
69. Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathon Swift
70. Last Orders – Graham Swift
71. London Fields – Martin Amis
72. Schindler’s Ark – Thomas Keneally
73. The Hound of the Baskervilles & The Valley of Fear – Arthur Conan Doyle
74. Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit – Jeanette Winterson
75. The Gruffalo – Julia Donaldson
76. The Mill On The Floss – George Eliot
77. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
78. Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
79. The Commitments – Roffy Doyle
80. A Game of Thrones – George R. R. Martin
81. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
82. Dissolution – C. J. Sansom
83. The Time Machine – H. G. Wells
84. Winnie-the-Pooh – A. A. Milne
85. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
86. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
87. Watership Down – Richard Adams
88. Stormbreaker – Anthony Horowitz
89. The Diary of a Young Girl – Anne Frank
90. The Enchanted Wood – Enid Blyton

91. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
92. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – Stieg Larsson
93. My Man Jeeves – P. G. Wodehouse
94. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – J. K. Rowling
95. Watchmen – Dave Gibbons
96. High Fidelity – Nick Hornby
97. Goodnight Mister Tom – Michelle Magorian
98. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
99. Bridget Jones’ Diary – Helen Fielding
100. The Worst Witch – Jill Murphy

So all together, I have read 31 out of the 100 books to read before you die. Compared to 24 books back in 2016, I would say that’s reasonable. How many have you read? Pin this post to come back and tick them off as you read!

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