The Parade magazine that comes in our Sunday paper published a
“summer reading issue” on June 26th. One of the articles was by author Ann Patchett. She was asked by
Parade magazine to list the 75 best books of the past 75 years. I read her list and I was not that impressed.
Anyone can put together a list of best sellers. If she would have listed HER
favorites, that might have been more compelling.
So I decided it would be interesting for me to do something like that. I use Goodreads to help
me, yet it's still taken me a couple weeks to put my list together. The books I am sharing have all been in the top 100 most popular (not best
seller, necessarily) for their year. I am only listing books that I have
actually read. (If I did not read a top 100 in a particular year, I simply
skipped that year.)
One caveat: Many of the books were not necessarily read by me
the year they were published. Simply because A) I didn’t know how to read it
yet or B) I hadn’t heard of it yet.
Oh, and one more thing: Since I was born in 1960, I thought
I’d start there and stop at 2015,
however, for me 55 books was not enough. Ladies and gentlemen, this list is 75
books long!
Here. We. Go!
1960: Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss.
1962: The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
1963: Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak,
1964: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory By Roald Dahl
1967: The Outsiders by S.E.
Hinton. (She started this novel when she
was 15 and published at 17!)
1968: Tikki Tikki Tembo
by Arlene Mosel
1969: the Very Hungry
Caterpillar by Eric Carle
1970: Love Story by
Erich Segal
1971: The Monster at the
End of this Book by Jon Stone (I didn’t read
this book until I had my one
little kiddos.)
1973: Socks by Beverly
Cleary
1974: Jaws by Peter
Benchley
1975: Forever by Judy
Blume
1977: Shanna by Kathleen
E. Woodiwiss (This was my first in a long line of adult romance novels!)
1978: Mouse Tales by
Arnold Lobel (Used in my teaching years- a great beginner reader book!)
1979: Bunnicula by James
Howe
1980: Clan of the Cave
Bear by Jean M. Auel
1981: The Indian in the
Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks (My last read aloud to my quickly growing kids!)
1981: Ramona Quimbly,
Age 8 by Beverly Cleary
1983: Just Go to Bed by
Mercer Mayer (A little critter fav in our house!)
1984: Cold Sassy Tree by
Olive Ann Burns
1986: Writing Down the
Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg
1987: Owl Moon by Jane Yolen
(A great kid book)
1988: The Alchemist by
Paulo Coelho
1991: Outlander by Diana
Gabaldon (The first is a series—I read them all!)
1993: The Giver by Lois
Lowry
1995: Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts
1997: The Red Tent by
Anita Diamant
1998: One Thousand White
Women: The Journal of Mary Dodd by Jim Fergus
1999: On Writing: A
Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
2001: The Secret Life of
Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
2001: Deception Point by
Dan Brown
2002: Dinosaurs Before
Dark by Mary Pope Osborne (A kid’s book featuring time travel. I love my time
travel books!)
2003: The DaVinci Code
by Dan Brown
2004: The Jane Austin
Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler
2005: Twilight by
Stephenie Meyer (I read the whole series of this one too!)
2005: The Book Thief by
Markus Zusak
2005: The Memory Keeper’s
Daughter by Kim Edwards
2006: Water for
Elephants by Sara Gruen
2006: Sarah’s Key by
Tatiana de Rosnay
2006: Three Cups of Tea:
One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace… One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson
2007: The Shack by
William Paul Young
2008: The Hunger Games
by Suzanne Collins (read the whole series)
2009: Hotel on the
Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
2009: Mr. Penumbra’s
24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
2010: Unbroken: A World
War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand (I
still can’t watch the movie…)
2010 I Am Four by
Pittacus Lore (Fun Fact: Pittacus Lore is not a real person…the real author is unknown)
2010 Abraham Lincoln,
Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith
2010: The Mountain
Between Us by Charles Martin
2011: Divergent by
Veronica Roth (Read this series too..)
2011: Fifty Shades of
Grey by E.L. James (I didn’t read the others… really, this was more than
enough!)
2011: The Martian by
Andy Weir (This guy couldn’t get a publisher so he put his book on line chapter
by chapter. It was so popular that publishers actually (finally) came to
him!!!)
2011: 11/22/63 by
Stephen King (A time travel novel- trying to stop the assassination of JFK.
Great book!!)
2011: A Stolen Life by
Jaycee Dugard
2012: Tell the Wolves I’m
Home by Carol Rifka Brunt
2012: Gone Girl by Jillian
Flynn
2012: Quiet: The Power
of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain
2012: The Light Between
the Oceans by M.L. Stedman
2012: The Rope by Nevada
Barr (This is an origin story of how Anna Pigeon became a park ranger. There
are several mysteries with her as the central character that started way back in 2003)
2013: The Husband’s
Secret by Liane Moriarty
2013: Whistling Past the
Graveyard by Susan Crandall
2013: Orphan Train by Christina
Baker Kline
2013: Life After Life by
Kate Atkinson
2013: Calling Me Home by
Julie Kibler
2014: All the Light We
Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
2014: We Were Liars by
E. Lockhart
2014: Big Little Lies by
Liane Moriarty
2014: Station Eleven by
Emily St John Mandel
2015: Luckiest Girl
Alive by Jessica Knoll
2015: Girl At War by
Sara Novic
2015: Pretty Girls by
Karin Slaughter
2016: Breaking Wild by
Diane Les Becquets
There you have it! Seventy-five
winners! I hope you give one (or more) of these books a try.
Until next time,
Be Good to Yourself
~Nadine
http://www.goodreads.com/book/popular_by_date/