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Being a List of 100 Books I Shall Read Anon.
Writer is About to Die
[info]fairyrevel wrote in [info]100project
April 27th, 2009
Over 20 members so far! Awesome! :D Not bad for our first full day in existence I think. :)

For someone who wants to write for a living, I have some huge gaps in my reading. I love reading, but have never really placed the importance on it that I should. Also, after reading mostly Romance novels in my teenage years, I decided what I really love and want to write is Fantasy. So I have a lot of catching up to do in that genre. Whittling my list down to just 100 books was excruciatingly difficult, but I managed to do it (and it only gave me a little headache! lol)

My list consists mostly of:

- A few classics.
- SF/Fantasy genre classics.
- Newer SF/Fantasy that people have recommended to me as being particularly good.
- Some of John C. Wright's recommendations at SF Signal's Mind-Meld article on non-genre books for genre readers. (You have to scroll down for it.)
- Inklings' works and related that I've been meaning to get to for awhile.
- Medieval literature
- Classical literature, in the Greek and Roman sense.
- A smattering of history and/or political books.

And here 'tis, my list of 100 books, in no particular order:


  1. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

  2. The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

  3. The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester

  4. The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton

  5. Napoleon of Notting Hill by G.K. Chesteron

  6. Dune by Frank Herbert

  7. A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay

  8. The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe

  9. Against the Fall of Night by Arthur C. Clarke

  10. Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke

  11. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

  12. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

  13. Harvest of Stars by Poul Anderson

  14. A Midsummer Tempest by Poul Anderson

  15. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

  16. Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny

  17. Courtship Rite by Donald Kingsbury

  18. Emphyrio by Jack Vance

  19. The Languages of Pao by Jack Vance

  20. Lyonesse by Jack Vance

  21. Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H.P. Lovecraft

  22. The Night Land by William Hope Hodgeson

  23. More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon

  24. Way Station by Clifford Simak

  25. Norstrilia by Cordwainer Smith

  26. Little, Big by John Crowley

  27. Nightwings by Robert Silverberg

  28. The City of Singing Flame by Clark Ashton Smith

  29. The King of Elfland’s Daughter by Lord Dunsany

  30. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

  31. Anubis Gates by Tim Powers

  32. Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress

  33. A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge

  34. To Crush the Moon by Wil McCarthy

  35. The Iliad by Homer

  36. The Odyssey by Homer

  37. The Aeneid by Virgil

  38. Agamemnon by Aeschylus

  39. Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus

  40. The Oedipus Cycle by Sophocles

  41. Hippolytus by Euripides

  42. Bacchae by Euripides

  43. The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

  44. Paradise Lost by Milton

  45. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

  46. Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon

  47. Knight with Armor by Alfred Duggan

  48. Timaeus and Critias (in one volume) by Plato

  49. Utopia by Sir Thomas Moore

  50. Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

  51. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

  52. Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory

  53. Orlando Furioso by Ariosto

  54. Adventures of Huckleberry Fin by Mark Twain

  55. Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

  56. Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

  57. Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

  58. Gardens of the Moon by Stephen Erikson

  59. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

  60. The Summer Tree by Guy Gavriel Kay

  61. The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien

  62. American Gods by Neil Gaiman

  63. Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson

  64. Sabriel by Garth Nix

  65. Magician: Apprentice by Raymond E. Feist

  66. Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny

  67. Charles I by Hilaire Belloc

  68. The Servile State by Hilaire Belloc

  69. The Complete Works of Chrétien de Troyes

  70. Roman de la Rose by Guillaume de Lorris

  71. Le Roman de Renart

  72. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight trans. by J.R.R. Tolkien

  73. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

  74. The Education of a Christian Prince by Erasmus

  75. The Ruins of Ambrai by Melanie Rawn

  76. The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander

  77. The Swan's War by Sean Russell

  78. The Lion of Senet by Jennifer Fallon

  79. Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn

  80. Shadowmarch by Tad Williams

  81. Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson

  82. The Sword by Deborah Chester

  83. Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold

  84. The Black Company by Glen Cook

  85. The Light Ages by Ian R. Macleod

  86. Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner

  87. Letters to Malcom: Chiefly on Prayer by C.S. Lewis

  88. Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers

  89. Mind of the Maker by Dorothy L. Sayers

  90. The Song of Roland by Anonymous, trans. by Dorothy L. Sayers

  91. Splintered Light by Verlyn Flieger

  92. The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner

  93. A Morbid Taste for Bones: The First Chronicle of Brother Cadfael by Ellis Peters

  94. Beauty by Robin McKinley

  95. The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope

  96. Temeraire (aka His Majesty's Dragon) by Naomi Novik

  97. The Conquering Family by Thomas B. Costain

  98. Chronicles of Jean Froissart

  99. The Early South English Legendary, or Lives of Saints by Dr. Carl Horstmann

  100. Tam Lin by Pamela Dean


I'm excited! Five years should give us all time to finish our lists, and even do some guilty-pleasure reading on the side, lol.
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( 15 comments — Leave a comment )

[info]hoshichan

2009-04-27 11:55 pm (UTC)

(I don't have any book-type icon. I really must rectify this.)

Interesting list! I think you'll enjoy the Bradbury novels. You have quite a few things on there I don't recognize, looking forward to hearing about them! :)

Argh, since I declared last night that it didn't count if I read it in high school and can't remember it, I guess Huck Finn needs to go back on the list. Dang. ;P
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[info]fairyrevel

2009-04-28 01:46 am (UTC)

(I don't have any book-type icon. I really must rectify this.)

Indeed you must!

And for some reason, reading the thing about Huck Finn reminds me that I forgot to add Anne of Green Gables. (Can you believe I haven't read that? lol)
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[info]larinzia

2009-04-28 02:59 am (UTC)

You've never read AoGG? *grins* I'll try to keep that to myself so that no one thinks less of you.
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[info]fairyrevel

2009-04-28 03:25 am (UTC)

HA! XD [info]hoshichan just promised to loan me her copy (she's sitting across the table from me right now), so maybe I'll try to sneak it in somewhere, lol.
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[info]fairyrevel

2009-04-28 06:19 am (UTC)

I just realized I don't have a books icon either. XD So much for giving you a hard time about it, lol.
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[info]larinzia

2009-04-28 12:58 am (UTC)

I was so intimidated by Ray Bradbury's list that I wasn't sure what to put down... so I just didn't. He's going on my Must Read After This Challenge list. *grins*

Robin McKinley. *sigh* Love! All of her stuff is excellent.

And thanks for the Inklings' list! Hadn't thought to go looking for a list of what they all wrote!
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[info]hoshichan

2009-04-28 01:33 am (UTC)

Robin McKinley. *sigh* Love! All of her stuff is excellent.

Well met! And I agree!! :D (Except perhaps Dragonhaven, lol.) I thought Chalice was fantastic (I also adore Spindle's End and The Blue Sword.)
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[info]fairyrevel

2009-04-28 02:33 am (UTC)

I was so intimidated by Ray Bradbury's list that I wasn't sure what to put down... so I just didn't.

I've meant to read the two on my list for a long time. I think I'll probably read more after this challenge as well. I really want to read We'll Always Have Paris; the cover is just adorable, lol.

And thanks for the Inklings' list! Hadn't thought to go looking for a list of what they all wrote!

I had to prune a bunch of their stuff. There's just so much great reading material from them! I made sure to get enough Dorothy L. Sayers though as I haven't read any of her work yet. I had a lot more Tolkien on the list before the pruning. Only one Lewis went on the list, because out of all the Inklings I've read him the most. :)
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[info]rachelreads

2009-04-28 01:03 am (UTC)

What a great list! I'm particularly intrigued by all the medieval literature, since that's the subject of my MA and partial PhD. More people need to read medieval literature, and more of it! Let me know if you'd like to discuss any along the way. I'm always up for good banter. :)

Verlyn Flieger is an absolute dear, by the way. Can't believe I've never read any of her work -- although Tolkien's not really one of my favorite authors, so maybe that accounts for the oversight?

Enjoy! And, um, good luck for the next five years?
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[info]fairyrevel

2009-04-28 02:45 am (UTC)

Let me know if you'd like to discuss any along the way. I'm always up for good banter. :)

I will definitely do that. I don't think I know many people who've read the medieval literature on my list, apart from Malory. :) (I also have a biography of Malory that I am really wanting to read, but it didn't make the list. I figure I'd better actually read Malory first. :) )

Good luck to you too! I'm looking forward to seeing your list! :)

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[info]rachelreads

2009-04-28 03:14 am (UTC)

hahaha Thanks! I'm working on my list now, trying to separate things by year to better keep myself on track. This is harder than I thought it would be! (Especially because I want to read everything right now. Which clearly isn't possible.)

Of the medieval and classical literature on your list, I've read the following relatively recently (i.e., within the last five years):
  • The Aeneid by Virgil
  • The Oedipus Cycle by Sophocles
  • Paradise Lost by Milton (UGH!)
  • Utopia by Sir Thomas Moore
  • Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
  • Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory
  • Orlando Furioso by Ariosto (not in its entirety, though, so it’s on my list too)
  • Works of Chrétien de Troyes
  • Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, trans. by William Vantuono
  • The Song of Roland
  • The Early South English Legendary by Carl Horstmann
...and of course others as well. Let me know when you get to these -- I'd be happy to discuss and share some ideas!
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[info]stereosymbiosis

2009-05-03 06:07 pm (UTC)

Ooh, His Majesty's Dragon is wonderful!
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[info]fairyrevel

2009-05-03 07:55 pm (UTC)

Glad to hear it! I've had it on my bookshelf for a long time but other things kept getting in the way. I'm looking forward to finally reading it. :)
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( 15 comments — Leave a comment )
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