Top 100 Books by Leisa L. Watkins

When people talk about the greatest books of all time, they often cite one of the Big Lists by companies such as Random House or Time Magazine. These lists often somewhat overlap, but can change from year to year or vary slightly from list to list. Leisa L. Watkins on Wealth, Wisdom and Success took it upon herself to use mathematical means to create her own Top 100 list of novels, based on the frequency with which each book appeared on six major lists. She provides permission to reprint her list, which I am going to do for you below. Following each title is the number of lists it occurred on, based on her research. Her original post is from November 2007.

Books that I have at least attempted or read parts of will be italicized. Those I have read in full will be in bold. 


How many have you read?

1. THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald (6)
2. ULYSSES by James Joyce (6)
3. 1984 by George Orwell (6)
4. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger (6)
5. ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac (6)
6. THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck (5)
7. CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller (5)
8. LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov (5)
9. BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley (5)
10. BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh (5)
11. THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner (4)
12. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee (4)
13. THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkien (4)
14. A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce (4)
15. ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell (4)
16. TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf (4)
17. INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison (4)
18. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess (4)
19. GONE WITH THE WIND by Margaret Mitchell (4)
20. AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner (4)
21. A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway (4)
22. A PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M. Forster (4)
23. LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding (4)
24. THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London (4)
25. DAVID COPPERFIELD by Charles Dickens (3)
26. EMMA by Jane Austen (3)
27. TESS Of The D’URBERVILLES, Thomas Hardy (3)
28. THE SCARLET LETTER by Nathaniel Hawthorne (3)
29. WUTHERING HEIGHTS by Emily Bronte (3)
30. THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers (3)
31. SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut (3)
32. JANE EYRE by Charlotte Bronte (3)
33. BELOVED by Toni Morrison (3)
34. ANNA KAREINA by Leo Tolstoy (3)
35. THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway (3)
36. NATIVE SON by Richard Wright (3)
37. ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (3)
38. NOSTROMO by Joseph Conrad (3)
39. HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad (3)
40. UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry (3)
41. THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford (3)
42. HERZOG by Saul Bellow (3)
43. THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS by Kenneth Grahame (3)
44. U.S.A. (trilogy) by John Dos Passos (3)
45. FINNEGANS WAKE by James Joyce (3)
46. AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser (3)
47. WOMEN IN LOVE by D.H. Lawrence (3)
48. THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith Wharton (3
49. THE WOMAN IN WHITE by Wilkie Collins (3)
50. THINGS FALL APART by Chinua Achebe (3)
51. TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller (3)
52. MY ANTONIA by Willa Cather (3)
53. LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner (3)
54. THE MAGUS by John Fowles (3)
55. THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP by John Irving (2)
56. DON QUIXOTE by Miguel de Cervantes (2)
57. TOM JONES by Henry Fielding (2)
58. WAR AND PEACE by Leo Tolstoy (2)
59. MOBY-DICK by Herman Melville (2)
60. MADAME BOVARY by Gustave Flaubert (2)
61. WINNIE THE POOH by A(lan) A(lexander) Milne (2)
62. GREAT EXPECTATIONS by Charles Dickens (2)
63. THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV by Feodor Dostoevsky (2)
64. TRISTAM SHANDY by Laurence Sterne (2)
65. LITTLE WOMEN by Louisa M. Alcott (2)
66. VANITY FAIR by William Makepeace Thackeray (2)
67. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE by Jane Austen (2)
68. IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME by Marcel Proust (2)
69. THE AMBASSADORS by Henry James (2)
70. THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand (2)
71. GRAVITY’S RAINBOW by Thomas Pynchon (2)
72. THE AWAKENING by Kate Chopin (1851-1904) (2)
73. DUNE by Frank Herbert (2)
74. A TOWN LIKE ALICE by Nevil Shute (2)
75. ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND by Lewis Carroll (2)
76. CLARISSA by Samuel Richardson (2)
77. THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY by Douglas Adams (2)
78. A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY by John Irving (2)
79. THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO by Alexandre Dumas (2)
80. THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY by Henry James (2)
81. OF MICE AND MEN by John Steinbeck (2)
82. ALL THE KING’S MEN by Robert Penn Warren (2)
83. GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN by James Baldwin (2)
84. CHARLOTE’S WEB by E. B. White (2)
85. ROBINSON CRUSOE by Daniel Defoe (2)
86. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT by Feodor Dostoevsky (2)
87. THE STAND by Stephen King (2)
88. REBECCA by Daphne du Maurier (2)
89. I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves (2)
90. HOWARDS END by E.M. Forster (2)
91. TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald (2)
92. THE RAINBOW by D.H. Lawrence (2)
93. BLEAK HOUSE by Charles Dickens (2)
94. ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand (2)
95. ABSALOM, ABSALOM! by William Faulkner (2)
96. THE WINGS OF THE DOVE by Henry James (2)
97. AUSTERLITZ by W. G. Sebald (2)
98. THE TRIAL by Franz Kafka (2)
99. WISE BLOOD by Flannery O’Connor (2)
100. FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Shelley(2)

Thanks to my high school education, I have read more than I probably would have picked up on my own. A couple of these I have read again and again. Others I have started and don't know that I will ever finish.

Again, this is just one of a multitude of lists. I do hope to bold face more of them as time goes by.

Read the original post here.

~ Compiled by Leisa L. Watkins