2015 Reading Goals

This upcoming year, I am planning on delving into the literary world. I am really focusing on building up my "read" shelf (both physical books and goodreads shelves). I really want to complete all of the books on my refurbished TBR. I hope to read at least one book a week to stay up with my goodreads group, but sometimes life happens. My mantra for the upcoming year is: don't worry so much about the number of books you've read; worry about whether or not you are reading. So here are my reading goals for 2015:

1. Read 52 books
2. Read 5 books that are 500 pages or more
3. Reread 10 books (including the Harry Potter series)
4. Read more new-to-me authors
5. Read 3 classics
6. Do Katytastic's TBR Jar challenge
7. Popsugar / Goodreads group challenge

Refurbished To-Be-Read List

1. All The Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr
2. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
3. The Silkworm - Robert Galbraith
4. The Lunar Chronicles - Marissa Meyer
1. Fairest (Prequel of the Lunar Chronicles)
2. Cinder
3. Scarlet
4. Cress
5. Winter
5. Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell
6. The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender - Leslye Walton
7. Lord of the Rings Trilogy - J.R.R. Tolkien
1. The Fellowship of the Ring
2. The Two Towers
3. The Return of the King
8. Heroes of Olympus Series - Rick Riordan
1. The Lost Hero
2. Son of Neptune
3. Mark of Athena
4. House of Hades
5. Blood of Olympus
9. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
10. Fahrenheit 451- Ray Bradbury
11. The Book Thief - Marcus Zusak
12. Where'd You Go, Bernadette - Maria Semple
13. Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern
14. Four - Veronica Roth
15. The Mortal Instruments & The Infernal Devices Series - Cassandra Clare
1. City of Bones
2. City of Ashes
3. City of Glass
4. Clockwork Angel
5. City of Fallen Angels
6. Clockwork Prince
7. City of Lost Souls
8. Clockwork Princess
9. City of Heavenly Fire
16. The Iron Trial - Holly Black and Cassandra Clare
17. Code Name Verity - Elizabeth Wien
18. Rose Under Fire - Elizabeth Wien
19. Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock - Matthew Quick
20. The Good Luck of Right Now - Matthew Quick
21. The Throne of Glass Series
1. Throne of Glass
2. Crown of Midnight
3. Heir of Fire
4. (Prequel) The Assassin's Blade 
22. The Drowning of Arthur Braxton - Caroline Smailes
23. The Shock of the Fall - Nathan Filer
24. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
25. Peter Pan - J.M. Barrie
26. The Starbound Series - Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner
1. These Broken Stars
2. This Shattered World
27. Shatter Me Trilogy - Tahereh Mafi
1. Shatter Me
2. Unravel Me
3. Ignite Me
28. The House Girl - Tara Conklin
29. Anna and the French Kiss - Stephanie Perkins
1. Anna and the French Kiss
2. Lola and the Boy Next Door
3. Isla and the Happily Ever After
30. The Diviners - Libba Bray
31. The Mime Order (The Bone Season #2) - Samantha Shannon

Top 5 Wednesday: Top 5 Historical Books

December 17 - Top 5 Historical Books

1. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

This is my top 5 books of all time, so naturally it has made my list of top 5 historical books. I had to read this book in school, but I didn't have any dread coming into it because it was a book that no one else in my school had to read because we had a new teacher. Since then, I've reread it at least twice and quickly made it into my favorites. This novel follows Doctor Manette when he is released from the Bastille. The before takes place before and during the French Revolution. It also follows the lives of two very different men, Syndey Carton and Charles Darnay, who both are madly in love with Doctor Manette's daughter, Lucie.

2. Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes is a character that everyone knows but not that many people have read about. If you haven't heard of Sherlock Holmes by now, I don't know where you've lived. If you've never read the books, and if you have seen any adaptation of these stories, I would encourage you to read them. They're great.

3. Essential Tales and Poems - Edgar Allan Poe

I love Poe. You can't deny his importance in literature; you just can't. He is the father of the short story, and my personal favorite of the dark romantics. His poems are haunting and beautiful with their constant rhyming. Even his short stories rhyme within the writing. I picked up this book the other day because I hadn't owned any Poe, but I had studied him and school and loved him. If you're a skeptic about Poe or if you read him in school and were a little intimidated, I would pick this up because they don't show you the good stuff in school.

4. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

First off, if you're scared of this book because of it's size but otherwise are intrigued by it, go to Books a Million and ask them for this "Lifetime Library" edition of it because it's half the size of the others. The words are small, the pages are thin, but the size is much less intimidating. Jane Eyre is an orphan who lives with her aunt and her children. Her aunt hates her, and ends up in the Lowood girl's school. And when she becomes a governess, she meets Mr. Rochester. 

5. All The Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr

I haven't read this book yet. However, I have heard nothing but wonderful things about this book, so I feel as though I can put this in here as my top 5 because I'm already in love. I mean, look at that cover.

goodreads group

176. The Bone Season

The Bone Season - Samantha Shannon

Started: Monday - 1 December 2014
Finished: Sunday - 7 December 2014

In short, I adored this book and stayed up quite late the past few nights because I just couldn't keep my hands off of it. In the midst of studying for midterms and Christmas shopping chaos, this book was my wonderful little escape. This book is almost 500 pages and technically an adult novel, but it reads like Young-Adult in the sense that it is a fast paced plot, but the characters are very not-YA and it lacks the angst that YA most always brings to the bookshelf.

This novel is part urban fantasy, part futuristic, and part supernatural. The novel takes place in 2059 and follows 19 year old Paige Mahoney. She lives in Scion London -Scion being the governmental security that desires to rid their cities of the "unnaturals" or "clairvoyants" aka the people like Paige. Paige is a dreamwalker, which basically means that she can walk in other peoples' minds (how cool, right!?). This specific type of clairvoyance is super rare, but Paige just being alive is illegal. Because Paige's power is so rare, she works with an underground groups as part of the Seven Seals.

The one drawback with the novel is that the terminology used is hard to understand at the beginning, but Samantha Shannon has you back. She knows you don't understand it, so she intricately weaves in the understanding throughout the novel in a way that doesn't make it seem like you're learning anything new. However, while some people found this not-understanding rather frustrating, I found it really intriguing. I was able to really delve into this alternate-London that Shannon so delicately pulled together.

(Also, I feel like I need to address the ending of this novel in a very spoiler-free way, so here goes. I loved it because I think it was the most realistic ending for the characters Shannon created, and I think the ending remains true to their characters. Also, when I finished this book, I just hugged it for a really long time because I love it, and it has rightfully earned it's place on my favorites shelf.)

goodreads - 5/5

175. Paper Towns

Paper Towns - John Green

Who are you? Do you open yourself like a book to the world, or do you tend to keep your pages to yourself? Do you have multiple faces that you where depending on where you are and who you're around?

Meet Margo Roth Spiegelman. Even though this story is from Quentin Jacobsen's point of view, this story is very much about Margo, about finding Margo and who Margo is.

Quentin Jacobsen, affectionately dubbed Q, is a senior in a high school in Orlando, Florida. Q isn't the coolest kid at school, but he doesn't sit alone at lunch or hate people or anything. The only thing he hates is prom. Until they were nine, he and Margo were best friends. Since then, they have grown into completely separate circles at school -Margo is a "cool kid" while Q hangs out with the band kids despite not being in band- and completely separate lives -despite being next door neighbors.

I loved this book immensely because I was really able to connect with these characters -not being a cool kid, thirsting to leave, thirsting for adventure, confused about life, being a senior and making decisions. However, I think people older will also really connect to Q and his friends -Radar and Ben- by being able to look back on their years in high school.

I honestly don't want to give you too much information about this book because I really think you don't need to know too much before going into it. What I will tell you is to not judge the book by it's author. That's new, right? I hated The Fault in Our Stars, and but I really liked Looking For Alaska, so when this one was $5 at Target, I picked it up.

Quotes

"That's always seemed so ridiculous to me, that people would want to be around someone because they're pretty. It's like picking your breakfast cereals based on color instead of taste." -Margo

"When you say nasty things about people, you should never say the true ones, because you can't really fully and honestly take those back, you know?" -Margo

"It's more impressive . . . from a distance, I mean. You can't see the wear on things, you know? You can't see the rust or the weeds or the paint cracking." -Q

It all struck me as so lonely and so very unMargo . . . Margo was herself -at least part of the time- very unMargo. -Q

"You know your problem, Quentin? You keep expecting people not to be themselves." -Radar

The town was paper, but the memories were not. -Q

goodreads review

145. The Hunger Games - Part 3 (A Reread)

Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins

In honor of the last Hunger Games novel being made into a movie, I decided to give everyone's "least favorite" of the trilogy a quick re-read before going to see it in theaters. And a major disclaimer, this post will be filled with spoilers, so if you don't want to read this, I won't be in the least offended. So if you haven't already read Mockingjay or don't want any spoilers for the next two movies, I wouldn't read this post. 

I think Mockingjay is vastly underrated. Everyone I've talked to truly doesn't like it, but I believe that the reason is because all too often when the last book in a series comes around, people have built up what they want it to be in their minds, and then the book doesn't fufill those expectations. However, this is a book about war, and war isn't supposed to fufill anyone's expectations. It's supposed to be tragic, which I think Mockingjay lives up to. 

Collins gives us both viewpoints of the war: (to quote Katniss's narriation) Gale's fire and Peeta's dandelion in the spring. She shows us Gale's compassion to the members of Thirteen when Katniss asks who they are. Gale tells her that they are them if they had grown up the same way. But he doesn't seem to think the same about the Capitol: that they are them if they had grown up the same way because Gale believes in a true sense of right and wrong, black and white, fire and ice. You either have good intentions or bad intentions, and the Capitol has bad intentions. 

She gives us the nurses of war, Mrs. Everdeen and Primrose, and the beacons of hope, Katniss. With a second read through I see the importance of these two and the visit to Eight. How Gale, a miner who "never gives up unless the situation is hopeless", can't find a way to help the broken rebels of Eight with his fire, but Katniss gives them all the hope in the world with a few kind words and a few touches of the hand. 

Katniss is Collin's personification of the necessary hope in dark and dreary situations. 

I also never understood why Katniss shot Coin instead of Snow at the end. Until I reread it, I thought it was a careless choice, that she should have shot Snow, and that it was a last act of defiance to the Capitol. The last it was, but with the reread you see the hints that Katniss's decision isn't as spur-of-the-moment as it seems. 

"The Hanging Tree" while a wonderful metaphor and hauntingly beautiful is used twice later is the novel, and I find them unnecessary and overkill of a beautiful metaphor. However one metaphor I enjoy used twice is the Meadow song from the first novel. I think it was beautifully placed in the epilogue of Collins' epic trilogy and brings everything to a wonderful end. 

Favorite Quote / Most Under-Appreciated Quote: "I drag myself out of nightmares each morning to find there's no relief in waking." -Finnick Odair when talking to Katniss in the bunkers of Thirteen

161. Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

Z - Therese Anne Fowler

In honor of semi-finishing the review of literature for my senior thesis, I wanted to partake in the month of Bookvember (which is to my knowledge my own creation). In this reading-driven month, I have challenged myself to read four books: Z, The Princess Bride, Paper Towns, and The Silkworm. Of these, I have finished the first in the allotted week to which I gave myself to read it.

This novel is a wonderful adaptation of the life of Ms. Zelda Sayre who becomes very early on in the novel Mrs. Zelda Fitzgerald. At the beginning of the novel, Fowler presents us with the wonderful romance that is at the beginning of most people's marriages. Fowler then shows us that this marriage was not what the media of the time presented it as. We are presented with a marriage that, like all marriages, has it's struggles. We find that their specific marriage has struggles with alcohol and health and the struggles of a writer's unpredictable salary that isn't much when placed in the thirst to have the best and newest of everything that comes with the 1920's.

In school, I learned that writers like Fitzgerald and Hemingway fled to France to escape the "corruption of the 20's." Meanwhile this novel show me a different story: that Fitzgerald -at least- fled to France because he wasn't frugal and wasn't able to stretch his money in America like he would be able to do in France. Fowler presented a story that I wasn't able to keep my hands off of (which resulted in a hot sauce stain at the bottom of one of the pages). However, this wasn't the same kind of "couldn't put it down" that stories like Divergent and The Hunger Games gives you. This was nothing more than a "oh my goodness, I have to figure out what happens next to Zelda" and "will she actually leave Scott to go to Naples" and "when is the next health issue going to happen" that kept me going.

Fowler showed me that not everyone has giant climax moments in their lives, and that -if anything- Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald were just normal people with normal struggles. "Even now," Fowler wrote through the narration of Zelda at the end of the novel, "I wouldn't choose differently than I did." Even after all of her troubles with Scott, she would have married him all over again. Even with all of the pain that they caused to each other, she would do it all over again. That is the most powerful lesson this novel teaches me: that life sometimes hands you a lot of bad situations, but without enduring those bad situations, you wouldn't be who you are today.

159. The Zoo at the Edge of the World

The Zoo at the Edge of the World - Eric Kahn Gale

I know this book is in the children's section, but I couldn't help myself from buying (once again, a NEW) book. I have been a fan of Starkid since middle school, so when they posted videos of Eric Kahn Gale and three of my favorite members from Starkid reading excerpts from the book, I knew I had to get it as soon as it came out. And I did. 

This book follows Marlin, a boy with a severe stutter, around his father's zoo for a week following the capture of a jaguar. The jaguar is the newest addition to the zoo, but not on good terms. And this jaguar is not just any jaguar, he is a jaguar with magical powers. He gives Marlin the ability to talk to animals, which isn't as wonderful as it sounds all the time. Sure, he helps solve problems around the zoo with his new-found ability, but he has trouble sleeping and carrying out tasks he normally wouldn't have a problem doing. Gale shows us that, sure, the power to talk to animals is cool but it's not all it's cracked up to be. 

The climax to the story is very clear and very exhilarating. However, the ending wasn't the best. This is, however, a children's story and they might think the ending is cool, but I can't help but wonder why a parent is (SPOILERS) letting their youngest child ride off into the South American jungle on the back of a magical jaguar. 

But maybe that's just me. 

However, this book is a wonderful read for younger teens (middle school aged) because there are some themes that might be harder for the elementary aged kids to grasp. I did thoroughly enjoy this book, and it was a nice escape from growing-up world. 

49. Eleanor & Park

Eleanor & Park - Rainbow Rowell

Began: Tuesday, May 6th 2014

Finished: Wednesday, May 14th 2014

With far too many cuss words to be a young adult novel and far too mushy and gushy to be anything else, I really don't know what to call Eleanor & Park. Anything but a sappy love story, there were many times when reading it that I turned my head and went "what?" and many times when I wanted to throw my head back laughing because this book brings out the nerd in you. At least in me, but I go to a Magnet school and get all the comic book references.


However, I can hardly call this book groundbreaking. I did enjoy it, and thoroughly at that, but would I read it again? Probably not. Because for anyone who has seen more than one CSI: (regular, Miami, or New York), Criminal Minds, or Law & Order SVU knows where this story is going once you hit the middle of the novel. I just feel like it's one of those books that was written to be a movie, and I really hate authors that do that because then they tend to write for the money and what they know will sell versus writing about what they truly feel passionate about.


And as cynical as I may sound, (SPOILER ALERT) I'm happy the book didn't really have a "fairy tale ending" because fairy tale endings don't really happen in real life. Except maybe for Park's parents, but they still yell at each other and get in fights at least five times or more in the novel (which I love, by the way because no marriage is perfect no matter how perfect it may seem on the outside. Every couple will fight about something eventually. It's just inevitable.)

I love how awkward Eleanor and Park's relationship is, but that is coming from the most openly awkward sphere of my existence. It's coming from me hoping that no matter how awkward I am, the perfect boy will just happen to stumble into my life and fall completely head-over-heels in love with me. But the one thing about Rowell's writing (other than the fact that I feel it was written to be a movie) that I didn't like was that the nerdy parts of Eleanor and Park's relationship kind of disintegrated when they became a "couple" of sorts. It was kind of felt like when Rowell was writing this novel, she forgot about that part of their relationship until the last few chapter and then just threw in a few more references. 


Quotes
Park: When he touched Eleanor's hand, he recognized her. He knew. 


Eleanor: Disintegrated. Like something had gone wrong beaming her onto the Starship Enterprise.

88. Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children

Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children - Ransom Riggs

Began: Monday, April 14th 2014

Finished: Friday, April 25th 2014

The book begins wonderfully. I love the idea of Jacob’s grandfather (a Jewish boy) running from “the monsters” which are actual monsters and not Nazis. I thought this book would be a beautiful analogy about that. About how Jacob goes off to find out about his grandfather and what he was running from. 

But it wasn't. The most redeeming quality about this book was the pictures, but it felt as if Mr. Riggs was simply using the pictures to string his story along for some 300 odd pages.

Many of his ideas are quite interesting, but they are not fully explained. If they had been fully explained then I feel that the novel would be better. The end was pleasant in a way, but we are left without knowing what exactly happened to Miss Peregrine which I find rather annoying. However, I didn't really like the main character, Jacob. To me, he seemed fairly static but round while the other children were more dynamic and flat. I personally would love to know more of the children's background and how they came to Miss Peregrine.

Olive, the girl on the cover, was my favorite character in the entire book, and I believe she is mentioned no more than five times. And the entire situation with Emma and Abe and Jacob made me fervently uncomfortable. I feel like Ransom should never have made that any part of the book, but he did so anyway because he imagined it would draw in teenage girls. The book would be much better if the all romance with Jacob had been cut. That will be the one thing I will always associate this book with, and I believe that was one of Ransom's biggest mistakes in writing this novel. 

Also, what sixteen year old says the word "dour?"

11. The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky

Began: Friday, March 28th 2014
Finished: Monday, March 30th 2014

I have this thing with books. I like owning them because I don't really like library books: they have stains that you don't know where they came from and bent pages and some of them (like this one) have random pages that are missing. I guess that's what makes library books special though: they go from person to person, and no two people had the same experience with the same book. 

I do, however, love libraries. I love the feeling of being surrounded by books that haven't just been sitting on a shelf their entire life. These books have been used and loved and cried over by many people. I think that is why I tend not to like stores like Barnes & Noble, and I instead like online stores like Thrift Books. I like knowing that the book I'm reading has multiple stories: the one written on the pages, the one written in the margins, and the one of the person who read it before I did. 

I say all this because my spring break began Friday afternoon, and I stopped by the library to pick up a few books from my list: this book as well as Jeanette Walls's memoir. 

This was my second attempt to read Chbosky's novel, and I enjoyed it so much more than the first time where it mostly just sat on my bedside table until I had to return it to the library. However, I really did enjoy it this time around. This is one of the many reasons why I am a firm believer in second chances: you may not like a book the first go-round, but when you try it again it's not so bad. 

I love that the novel is written as letters to an anonymous person. It gives the story a sincerity that you wouldn't get with first or third person and a true connection with young adults who are reading this novel because -in a sense- it almost feels like Charlie is writing to us. He's writing to us because we understand these things. We might not have experienced them, but we -Chbosky's audience- are wallflowers: we see things and we understand them and we watch as events unravel before us. 

The perks of being a wallflower are that we are relatable, and we -like Charlie's friend who listens and understands and didn't try to sleep with that person at that party even though they could have- are always there to listen when someone needs to talk. Before being exposed to this book, I always thought of being a wallflower as a bad thing and that I should become more outgoing and less wallflower-y (and maybe I should but that's not the point), but now I see that being a wallflower isn't always a bad thing. 

But sometimes it is. Sometimes, like Sam said, we have to take action and do something for a change. As wallflowers, we have to allow ourselves to experience the world and feel infinite when it matters most. We can still sit and listen, but the most important thing to be as a wallflower is ourselves.

Quotes
"So, what's the point of using words nobody else knows or can say comfortably? I just don't understand that."

"I just think it's bad when a boy looks at a girl and thinks that the way he sees the girl is better than the girl actually is. And I think it's bad when the most honest way a boy can look at a girl is through a camera."

" 'I don't want to be somebody's crush. If somebody likes me, I want them to like the real me, not what they think I am. And I don't want them to carry it around inside. I want them to show me, so I can feel it, too. I want them to be able to do whatever they want around me. And if they do something I don't like, I'll tell them. . . . I'm going to do what I want to do. I'm going to be who I really am.' " - Sam

"I think that if I ever have kids, and they are upset, I won't tell them that people are starving in China or anything like that because it wouldn't change the fact that they're upset. And even if somebody else has it much worse, that doesn't really change the fact that you have what you have. Good and bad."

34. The Hobbit or There and Back Again

The Hobbit or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien 

Began: Tuesday March 18th 2014
Finished: Thursday March 27th 2014

I was first introduced to Lord of the Rings and J.R.R. Tolkien as a little girl. I remember watching the Lord of the Ring films with my family and hiding under my blanket whenever Gollum came on the screen because he scared me. I was introduced to The Hobbit when my older sister was in high school and had to read it for sophomore English -they even made their English teacher a hobbit hole to surprise her! I was re-introduced when the Hobbit movie came around, and I put off reading it for as long as I could. However, I couldn't resist picking it off the shelf at Walmart when I passed it after babysitting on Tuesday. I immediately started it when I got home.

This book pleasantly surprised me. I did thoroughly enjoy it, and now I cannot wait for my shipment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy to come in so that I can get to work on those as well.

The thing that I admire the most of Tolkien's novel is indeed Bilbo. I admire his unfading loyalty, his cunning nature, and his courage, but mostly the loyalty. When thirteen dwarves waltz into his precious hobbit hole without an explanation, he doesn't force them to leave. Instead, he gives them his food and his bedrooms and his tea all without a question.

While the "races" if you will are segregated throughout the novel, Bilbo -a hobbit- journeys with thirteen dwarves and a wizard. The loyalty between the dwarves is already established because they are of the same "race" while loyalty to Bilbo takes a little more time, but after a while they grow as loyal to him as they are their own dwarves. While the group does have their trust issues, Gandalf brings them together and forces them to coexist.

Another thing I truly admire about Bilbo is his insane amount of courage. He is the least experienced person in the group with stepping outside of their comfort zone, yet he is most often the one who does most of the courageous acts. In fact he goes into the dragon's lair alone! He doesn't know what to expect, but he embraces it.

I think we could all learn a thing or two from Bilbo.

Quotes
"May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks." - Gandalf

"I think I shall be off and wish you like the eagles 'farewell wherever you fare!'" - Gandalf

"It is horrible being all alone." - Bilbo

"I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!" - Gandalf

Book Bucket List

1. The House Girl - Tara Conklin
2. Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
3. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
4.  Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen
5. Redeeming Love - Francine Rivers
6. Mark of the Lion Trilogy - Francine Rivers
7. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
8. The Cuckoo's Calling - Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)
9. Walking on Water - Madeline L'Engle
10. The Casual Vacancy - J.K. Rowling
11. The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky
12. Silver Linings Playbook - Matthew Quick
13. Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
14. The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
15. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
16. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
17. The Last of the Mohicans - James Fenimore Cooper
18. Everything is Illuminated - Jonathon Safran Foer
19. Inferno - Dante
20. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
21. The Pillars of Earth - Ken Follett
22. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
23. Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes (Spanish and English versions)
24. American Gods - Neil Gaiman
25. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
26. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou
27. The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brian
28. The Devil in the White City - Erik Larson
29. Frankenstein - Mary Shelly
30. The Known World - Edward P. Jones
31. Death of a Salesman - Arthur Miller
32. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
33. The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
34. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien 
35. Candide - Voltaire
36. The Glass Castle - Jeanette Walls
37. One the Road - Jack Kerouac
38. Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen
39. Gifted Hands - Ben Carson
40. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
41. Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woof
42. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
43. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
44. Beowulf
45. Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka
46. Code Name Verity - Elizabeth Wein
47. The Monuments Men - Robert Edsel
48. Seraphina - Rachel Hartman
49. Eleanor & Park - Rainbow Rowell
50. The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo
51. Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
52. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
53. The Invisible Man - H.G. Wells
54. Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
55. Out of Africa - Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen)
56. Go Down, Moses - William Faulkner
57. Breakfast at Tiffany's - Truman Capote
58. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
59. Looking for Alaska - John Green
60. The Fault in Our Stars - John Green
61. The Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux
62. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
63. The Blind Side - Michael Lewis
64. La Casa en Mango Street - Sandra Cisneros
65. Never Mind - Edward St. Aubyn
66. The Time Machine - H.G. Wells
67. I'm Proud of You - Tim Madigan
68. Let's Pretend This Never Happened - Jenny Lawson
69. The Power of Habit - Charles Duhigg
70. Steal Like an Artist - Austin Kleon
71. Love With a Chance of Drowning - Torre de Rouche
72. End of Your Life Book Club - Will Schwalbe
73. The Accidental Creative - Todd Henry
74. How to be Interesting - Jessica Hagy
75. The Joy of Less - Francine Jay
76. Daring Greatly - Brene Brown 
77. The Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
78. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy - J.R.R. Tolkein
79. The Spectacular Now - Tim Tharp
80. Tiny Beautiful Things - Cheryl Strayed
81. The Starboard Sea - Amber Dermont
82. The Lantern - Deborah Lawrenson
83. The Woman Warrior - Maxine Hong Kingston
84. God at Work - Gene Veith
85. The Tempest - William Shakespeare
86. The Imitation of Christ - Thomas a'Kempis
87. The Diviners - Libba Bray
88. Miss Peregrines's Home for Peculiar Children - Ransom Riggs
89. Graceling - Kristin Cashore
90. The Good Luck of Right Now - Matthew Quick
91. Shotgun Lovesongs - Nickolas Butler
92. The Enchanted - Rene Denfeld
93. The Museum of Extraordinary Things - Alice Hoffman
94. Above - Isla Morley
95. While Beauty Slept - Elizabeth Blackwell 
96. The Wives of Los Alamos - Tarashea Nesbit
97. Redeployment - Phil Klay
98.  Blood Will Out - Walter Kim
99. Profiles in Courage - John F. Kennedy
100. The Giver - Lois Lowry
101. The Norse Myths - Kevin Crossley-Holland
102.  Front of the Class - Brad Cohen
103. We Bought a Zoo - Benjamin Mee
104. Surviving the Extremes - Kenneth Kambler
105. Holes - Lois Sachar
106. The Harry Potter Series - J.K. Rowling
107. The Invention of Hugo Cabret - Brian Selznick
108. Peter Pan - J.M. Barrie
109. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants - Ann Brashares
110. The Princess Diaries - Meg Cabot
111. Crazy Love - Francis Chan
112. The Queen in Winter - Delacroix, Kurland, Shinn, and Monette
113. Three Cups of Tea - Mortenson and Relin
114. Daughter of Venice - Donna Jo Napoli
115. Drowning Ruth - Christina Schwartz
116. Girl in Hyacinth Blue - Susan Vreeland
117. A Midsummer Night's Dream - William Shakespeare
118. Mere Christianity - C.S. Lewis
119. Wicked - Gregory Maguire
120. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - Frank Baum
121. Bridge to Terabithia - Katherine Peterson
122. Eragon - Christopher Paolini
123. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
124. Son of a Witch - Gregory Maguire
125. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larson
126. My Sister's Keeper - Jodi Picoult
127. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Jonathon Foer
128. Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
129. The Memory Keeper's Daughter - Kim Edwards
130. The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom
131. The Girl Who Played With Fire - Stieg Larson
132. The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova
133. Sarah's Key - Tatiana de Rosnay
134. The Namesake - Jhumpa Lahiri
135. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
136. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
137. The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion
138. The Monsters of Templeton - Lauren Groff
139. One Million Lovely Letters - Jodi Ann Bickley
140. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
141. The Divergent Trilogy - Veronica Roth
142. 14,000 Things to Be Happy About - Barbra Ann Kipfer
143. My Life in France - Julia Child
144. Mother Night - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. 
145. The Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
146. Ask the Passengers - A.S. King
147. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe - Benjamin Sáenz
148. Where Things Come Back - John Corey Whaley
149. How to Lead a Life of Crime - Kirsten Miller
150. Before I Go to Sleep - S.J. Watson
151. The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
152. Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern
153. East of the Sun - Julia Gregson
154. Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn
155. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
156. Reconstructing Amelia - Kimberly McCreight
157. The Silkworm - Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)
158. The Princess Bride - William Goldman
159. The Zoo at the Edge of the World - Eric Kahn Gale
160. The Silver Star - Jeanette Walls
161. Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald - Therese Anne Fowler
162. Four - Veronica Roth
163. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest - Stieg Larsson
164. The Drowning of Arthur Braxton - Caroline Smailes
165. Rose Under Fire - Elizabeth Wein
166. Ashfall - Mike Mullin
167. Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock - Matthew Quick
168. What Alice Forgot - Liane Moriarty
169. Where'd You Go, Bernadette - Maria Semple
170. The Witch's Daughter - Paula Braxston
171. The Magicians - Lev Grossman
172. Girls in White Dresses - Jennifer Close
173. Night Film - Marisha Pessl
174. The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender - Leslye Walton
175. Paper Towns - John Green
176. The Bone Season - Samantha Shannon
177. The Archived - Victoria Schwab
178. The Rosie Effect - Graeme Simsion