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There's a list on Goodreads called Best Books Ever. Thousands of readers have voted for their favorite books. I decided to look at the top 100 best books and see which ones I haven't read.
Turns out, I've read 87 of the top 100. Here are the popular ones I missed for various reasons.
Best Books I Haven't Read
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Adult Science Fiction
Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor.
Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have") and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox—the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years.
Where are these pens? Why are we born? Why do we die? Why do we spend so much time between wearing digital watches? For all the answers stick your thumb to the stars. And don't forget to bring a towel!
Why I haven't read it: Time. This book is high on my priority list, but there are so many books and so little time.
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Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Young Adult Science Fiction
In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut—young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.
Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister.
Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives.
Why I haven't read it: Because someone once told me that the author was a jerk to them. The conversation happened so long ago that I no longer remember why the author was a jerk to a random person. I admit that this is a very flimsy excuse for not reading a book.
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The Princess Bride by William Goldman
Young Adult Fantasy
What happens when the most beautiful girl in the world marries the handsomest prince of all time and he turns out to be . . . well . . . a lot less than the man of her dreams?
As a boy, William Goldman claims, he loved to hear his father read the S. Morgenstern classic, The Princess Bride. But as a grown-up he discovered that the boring parts were left out of good old Dad's recitation, and only the "good parts" reached his ears.
Now Goldman does Dad one better. He's reconstructed the "Good Parts Version" to delight wise kids and wide-eyed grownups everywhere.
What's it about? Fencing. Fighting. True Love. Strong Hate. Harsh Revenge. A Few Giants. Lots of Bad Men. Lots of Good Men. Five or Six Beautiful Women. Beasties Monstrous and Gentle. Some Swell Escapes and Captures. Death, Lies, Truth, Miracles, and a Little Sex.
In short, it's about everything.
Why I haven't read it: Time. This is another book that I badly want to read. I just haven't gotten to it yet!
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The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Adult Thriller
Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden’s wealthiest families disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate. He is aided by the pierced and tattooed punk prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of unfathomable iniquity and astonishing corruption.
Why I haven't read it: I rarely enjoy thrillers. I usually don't find them thrilling. I find them underdeveloped and silly.
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Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Adult Classic
Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged, frustrated college professor. In love with his landlady's twelve-year-old daughter Lolita, he'll do anything to possess her. Unable and unwilling to stop himself, he is prepared to commit any crime to get what he wants.
Is he in love or insane? A silver-tongued poet or a pervert? A tortured soul or a monster? Or is he all of these?
Why I haven't read it: The subject matter sounds extremely unappealing.
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A Tale Of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Adult Classic
A Tale of Two Cities is Charles Dickens’s great historical novel, set against the violent upheaval of the French Revolution. The most famous and perhaps the most popular of his works, it compresses an event of immense complexity to the scale of a family history, with a cast of characters that includes a bloodthirsty ogress and an antihero as believably flawed as any in modern fiction. Though the least typical of the author’s novels, A Tale of Two Cities still underscores many of his enduring themes—imprisonment, injustice, social anarchy, resurrection, and the renunciation that fosters renewal.
Why I haven't read it: I can tell that Charles Dickens was paid by the word. The man badly needed an editor.
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Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Adult Science Fiction
Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war. It combines historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barber’s son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. As Vonnegut had, Billy experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonnegut, he experiences time travel, or coming “unstuck in time.”
Why I haven't read it: The plot sounds really weird. This book might be smarter than me.
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The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Adult Classic
Dostoevsky’s final, greatest novel, The Brothers Karamazov, paints a complex and richly detailed portrait of a family tormented by its extraordinarily cruel patriarch, Fyodor Pavlovich, whose callous decisions slowly decimate the lives of his sons—the eponymous brothers Karamazov—and lead to his violent murder. In the aftermath of the killing, the brothers contend with dilemmas of honor, faith, and reason as the community closes in on the murderer in their midst.
Why I haven't read it: I think I've been traumatized by Russian classics. They're so big! And they take months to slog through! And some of them are insufferably boring!
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My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
Young Adult Contemporary Fiction
Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate—a life and a role that she has never challenged . . . until now. Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister—and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves.
Why I haven't read it: I might be wrong, but the synopsis makes it sound like an "issue" book. Those often get too preachy or melodramatic for my tastes.
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Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead
Young Adult Fantasy
St. Vladimir’s Academy isn’t just any boarding school—it’s a hidden place where vampires are educated in the ways of magic and half-human teens train to protect them. Rose Hathaway is a Dhampir, a bodyguard for her best friend Lissa, a Moroi Vampire Princess. They’ve been on the run, but now they’re being dragged back to St. Vladimir’s—the very place where they’re most in danger.
Rose and Lissa become enmeshed in forbidden romance, the Academy’s ruthless social scene, and unspeakable nighttime rituals. But they must be careful lest the Strigoi—the world’s fiercest and most dangerous vampires—make Lissa one of them forever.
Why I haven't read it: Twilight ruined vampire books for me. In my mind, vampires look like sparkly Mormons who badly need couples' therapy. I can't take them seriously.
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The Old Man And The Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Adult Classic
This short novel, already a modern classic, is the superbly told, tragic story of a Cuban fisherman in the Gulf Stream and the giant Marlin he kills and loses.
Why I haven't read it: Fishing is boring. Reading about fishing seems extra boring.
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Am I wrong about these books? Tell me which ones to read.
I remember in high school (I went to a state Deaf school), I too thought Old Man and the Sea was about some stupid dude not letting go of a fish and hurting his hands. Then my teacher was like, yes, Hillary, that is the plot, but this story has many layers of meaning in it. That book changed my reading life. I went from an okay reader to excelling at reading.
ReplyDeleteReading 87 out of 100 books is pretty good! I haven't read most of these either, although I do know a bit about Orson Scott Card. He used to be one of my favorite authors, but he was very outwardly homophobic, including publishing some pretty nasty articles years ago. Haven't followed him in a while, so no idea if he's still like this, but that's why a lot of people don't like him. Ender's Game is still a really good book.
ReplyDeleteMy TTT: http://lifewithnoplot.com/2026/06/09/top-ten-tuesday-june-9-2026/
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was incredible and I highly recommend it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your assessment of Charles Dickens. Thanks for sharing your #TTT
ReplyDeleteWhile I enjoyed the movie, I had to DNF Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. As for Ender's Game, I tried to do a buddy read with my daughter who had to read it for school. I just couldn't do it, and it ended up in the DNF pile. I found My Sister's Keeper an interesting read with a devastating ending.
ReplyDeleteHere's my TTT for the week: https://readbakecreate.com/book-covers-with-eye-catching-typography/
I actually did read Ender's Game, even knowing he's a homophobe... but definitely a second-hand copy, ahaha. It wouldn't surprise me if he'd been awful to a fan or something.
ReplyDeleteThe whole thing where people think Charles Dickens was paid by the word is an urban myth, though! He was paid per instalment. He was writing very much in a style designed for those instalments, though: perhaps a bit repetitive (in case people forgot details while waiting for the next part), structured to make the instalments exciting and get people wanting the next one, etc. When I studied the development of the novel at university, one of my tutors explained his wordiness by pointing out that they didn't have TV, so someone would often read the books aloud to entertain the whole family, and travel was rarer so more detailed descriptions were needed to make settings clearer, etc.
Still... not a huge fan of Dickens myself, haha.