Thursday, 1 October 2015

Better Reading's Top 100

Australia's favourite 100 books as voted by the good folks at Better Reading. Apparently 5,000 Australians voted on this one. Yes it's a populist list, but we can't all be reading Patrick White all the time. Seriously, I got through one of his, and I think that maybe I'm done. If I only had Patrick White to read I just wouldn't read. This is clearly a list of books Australians like, not a list of Australian books.

Brigid Delaney at The Guardian Australia got herself in quite a tizz about it all. I can't imagine that anyone really does imagine that this is the new canon. And what if someone did read all of these? Well, they'd have read a 100 books that they hadn't read before. I for one think that that would be a good thing. Although I do think we could leave 50 Shades of Grey off any list whatsoever.



1. The Power of One - Bryce Courtenay


2. The Book Thief - Markus Zusak


3. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee


4. Outlander - Diana Gabaldon


5. Cloudstreet - Tim Winton


6. Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn


7. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen


8. The Potato Factory - Bryce Courtenay


9. The Bronze Horseman - Paullina Simons


10. The Fellowship of the Ring - J.R.R. Tolkien


11. Still Alice - Lisa Genova (see my review)


12. The Narrow Road to the Deep North - Richard Flanagan


13. Burial Rites - Hannah Kent





14. Fifty Shades of Grey - E.L. James


15. My Sister's Keeper - Jodi Picoult


16. The Lavender Keeper - Fiona McIntosh


17. The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion (see my review)


18. The Thorn Birds - Colleen McCullough


19. The Light Between Oceans - M.L. Stedman


20. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini


21. The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett


22. The Secret River - Kate Grenville


23. Personal - Lee Child


24. The Winter Sea - Di Morrissey


25. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte


26. Life or Death - Michael Robotham


27. The Girl on the Train - Paula Hawkins (see my review)





28. Shantaram - Gregory Roberts


29. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson


30. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien (see my review)


31. The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt


32. Hello from the Gillespies - Monica McInerney


33. Ice Station - Matthew Reilly


34. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown


35. Hope to Die - James Patterson


36. Jasper Jones - Craig Silvey


37. Little Women - Louise May Alcott


38. A Game of Thrones - George R.R. Martin


39. Breath - Tim Winton


40. The Great Zoo of China - Matthew Reilly


41. The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho


42. 1984 - George Orwell


43. Eat Pray Love - Elizabeth Gilbert


44. The Woman Who Stole My Life - Marian Keyes


45. A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini


46. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald


47. The Notebook - Nicholas Sparks


48. Dirt Music - Tim Winton


49. Nightingale - Fiona McIntosh


50. Me Before You - Jo Jo Moyes


51. The Husband's Secret - Liane Moriarty





52. Only Time Will Tell - Jeffrey Archer


53. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute


54. Child 44 - Tom Rob Smith


55. Life of Pi - Yann Martel


56. Big Little Lies - Liane Moriarty


57. Magician - Raymond E. Feist


58. It Started With Paris - Cathy Kelly





59. The Help - Kathryn Stockett


60. The Slap - Christos Tsiolkas (see my review)


61. We Need To Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver


62. I Am Pilgrim - Terry Hayes


63. Inferno - Dan Brown


64. Chocolat - Joanne Harris


65. Lost & Found - Brooke Davies (see my review)


66. Oscar and Lucinda - Peter Carey


67. The Secret History - Donna Tartt 


68. The Street Sweeper - Elliot Perlman


69. The Tournament - Matthew Reilly


70. The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern


71. Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen


72. All That I Am - Anna Funder


73. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks


74. Barra Creek - Di Morrissey


75. Cleanskin Cowgirls - Rachael Treasure


76. Elianne - Judy Nunn


77. The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger


78. Leap of Faith - Fiona McCallum


79. The Road To Hope - Rachael Johns


80. The Burning Room - Michael Connelly


81. Enduring Love - Ian McEwan


82. Desert God - Wilbur Smith


83. The Great Plains - Nicole Alexander


84. The Forever Girl - Alexander McCall Smith


85. It - Stephen King


86. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller


87. The Harp In The South - Ruth Park





88. My Brilliant Career - Miles Franklin


89. Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel


90. The Collector - Nora Roberts


91. One Day - David Nicholls


92. The Escape - David Baldacci


93. Before I Go To Sleep - S.J. Watson


94. The Little Coffee Shop Of Kabul - Deborah Rodriguez


95. The Daughters of Mars - Tom Keneally


96. The Shifting Fog - Kate Morton


97. Shopaholic To The Stars - Sophie Kinsella


98. Dark Heart - Tony Park


99. The Pact - Jodi Picoult


100. Year of Wonders - Geraldine Brooks


22/100


Many of these books are lurking in my TBR. Exactly when they'll get read who can tell? At least there's always something else to read.


1 comment:

Brona said...

Well, Life or Death is now a Gold Dagger award winning crime book for Robottom - beating JK Rowling (AKA Galbraith) and Stephen King.

I've actually read quite a few of these books & have to say that The Power of One is the only Courtenay I've ever managed to finish (& enjoy).

I'm glad Year of Wonders managed to scrape onto the list, but I could have done without the Picoult's (& like you) Fifty Shades of Puke! Both of which, I skim read - one for a book club and one for work. And don't get me started on Eat Prey Love.

Oscar and Lucinda is a surprise - not one of Carey's more accessible books. I enjoyed his Ned Kelly one more (but I know a lot of people hated it!)

And all the crime fiction simply reflects what most people read and what we sell most of (usually) each month at work.

Very interesting....