No one even tried to guess the books on my list for last month’s contest. I’m disappointed in you.
Well, what do you think of them? How many have you read? Are any of your favorites on the list?
At the bottom of this post I have listed a few more that have come to mind…if I expanded the list to maybe the 50 best sellers.
Some of these titles are very hard to find (or once were, like Infinite Jest). Some are regularly on the shelves because we hunt for them with dedication.
I find it funny that Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was rejected by publishers 126 times and has now sold over 5 million copies.
Even Harry Potter was rejected by foolish publishers who apparently couldn’t recognize a winner when they had it in their hands. I remember being about three pages in the first Harry Potter book and being so in awe I compared it to Charlotte’s Web.
Man’s Search for Meaning – Viktor Frankel
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – Robert Pirsig
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
On the Road – Jack Kerouac
How to Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie
1984 – George Orwell
Charlotte’s Web – E. B. White
Farenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
A Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
A People’s History of the United States – Howard Zinn
Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut (and others by Vonnegut)
anything by C. S. Lewis
anything by Edward Abbey
anything by Stephen King
anything by William S. Burroughs
anything by Charles Bukowski
anything by Hunter S. Thompson
The Devil in the White City – Erik Larson
Seven Years in Tibet – Heinrich Harrer
The Power of Positive Thinking – Norman Vincent Peale
The Alchemist – Paul Coelho
Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace
I think I should add these to this list, and now we’ve topped 50:
Jane Eyre and others by Charlotte Bronte
Pride and Prejudice and others by Jane Austen
E. A. Poe
Philip K. Dick
Robert Heinlein
Isaac Asimov
Thick Nhat Hanh
J. R. R. Tolkien
Ursula LeGuin
Frank Herbert
Tom Robbins
Herman Hesse
Douglas Adams
Ayn Rand
Ernest Hemingway
John Steinbeck
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon
Game of Thrones series by George R.R. Martin
The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan
The Tao of Pooh and The Te of Piglet by Benjamin Hoff
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
The Tao Te Ching
The Little Prince by Antoine de St. Exupery
Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
Douglas Adams books
And today…Terry Pratchett , Neil Gaiman, Chuck Palahniuk
The Eclectic Reader 