A Lifetime of Fiction

The author of “A Lifetime of Fiction”, William Patrick Martin, admits that his list is not definitive. For example, “Beloved” by Toni Morrison and “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak are on his young adult list – but not his adult fiction list.

I believe that reading lists are very useful.  Unless you are active in a book club or scan the various book review lists religiously – you can miss some wonderful stories.  Therefore, I was unpleasantly surprised that I had only read nine of his 100 recommended works of fiction.  At least I can recommend those works and would agree that each one was a wonderful read.  But I can't get over the fact that I’ve missed out on ninety percent (90%) of his recommendations.  I guess I have to buckle down and get to work.

Here is his list of 100 Most Recommended Works of Fiction for Adults

   (this list is not in order of status or importance; just his recommended 100 reads)

1. Rabbit (series). Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit Is Rich; and Rabbit at Rest. Written by John Updike.     (I've read)

2. Bring Up the Bodies. Written by Hilary Mantel.

3. This Is How You Lose Her. Written by Junot Dfaz.

4. Atonement. Written by Ian McEwan.

5. Lolita. Written by Vladimir Nabokov.

6. On the Road. Written by Jack Kerouac.

7. The Corrections. Written by Jonathan Franzen.

8. Gilead. Written by Marilynne Robinson.

9. Midnight's Children. Written by Salman Rushdie.

10. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. Written by Michael Chabon.  (I've read)

11. Cloud Atlas. Written by David Mitchell.

12. Invisible Man. Written by Ralph Ellison.    (I've read)

13. Gone Girl. Written by Gillian Flynn.

14. Love in the Time of Cholera. Written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

15. Possession. Written by A. S. Byatt.

16. Ulysses. Written by James Joyce.      (I've read)

17. Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk. Written by Ben Fountain.

18. All the King's Men. Written by Robert Penn Warren.

19. The Handmaid's Tale. Written by Margaret Atwood.

20. Brideshead Revisited. Written by Evelyn Waugh.

21. Housekeeping. Written by Marilynne Robinson.

22. The Poisonwood Bible. Written by Barbra Kingsolver.

23. American Pastoral. Written by Philip Roth.

24. White Teeth. Written by Zadie Smith.

25. Bel Canto. Written by Ann Patchett.

26. Empire Falls. Written by Richard Russo.

27. Brave New World. Written by Aldous Huxley.

28. Love Medicine. Written by Louise Erdrich.

29. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Written by Junor Dfaz.

30. A Clockwork Orange. Written by Anthony Burgess.

31. Gone with the Wind. Written by Margaret Mitchell.

32. The Known World. Written by Edward P. Jones.

33. The Yellow Birds. Written by Kevin Powers.

34. Middlesex. Written by Jeffrey Eugenides.

35. The Road. Written by Cormac McCarthy.

36. On Beauty. Written by Zadie Smith.

37. The Remains of the Day. Written by Kazuo Ishiguro.

38. The Sun Also Rises. Written by Ernest Hemingway.

39. The Age of Innocence. Written by Edith Wharton.

40. Years of Red Dust: Stories of Shanghai. Written by Qiu Xiaolong.

41. As I Lay Dying. Written by William Faulkner.

42. Brick Lane. Written by Monica Ali.

43. Austerlitz. Written by W. G. Sebald.

44. The Bonfire of the Vanities. Written by Tom Wolfe.

45. Kafka on the Shore. Written by Haruki Murakami.

46. Death Comes for the Archbishop. Written by Willa Cather.

47. The Inheritance of Loss. Written by Kiran Desai.

48. Arcadia. Written by Lauren Groff.

49. Ironweed. Written by William Kennedy.

50. The Kite Runner. Written by Khaled Hosseini.        (I've read)

51. The Maltese Falcon. Written by Dashiell Hammett.

52. Wolf Hall. Written by Hilary Mantel.

53. The Name of the Rose. Written by Umberto Eco.      (I've read)

54. A Prayer for Owen Meany. Written by John Irving.

55. Tree of Smoke. Written by Denis Johnson.

56. Song of Solomon. Written by Toni Morrison.     (I've read)

57. To the Lighthouse. Written by Virginia Woolf.

58. The Adventures of Augie March. Written by Saul Bellow.

59. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Written by Haruki Murakami.

60. Alias Grace. Written by Margaret Atwood.

61. Anna Karenina. Written by Leo Tolstoy.

62. Freedom. Written by Jonathan Franzen.

63. Billy Bathgate. Written by E. L. Doctorow.

64. Disgrace. Written by J.M. Coetzee.

65. The Blind Assassin. Written by Margaret Atwood.

66. Cathedral. Written by Raymond Carver.

67. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. Written by Carson McCullers.

68. A Confederacy of Dunces. Written by John Kennedy Toole.       (I've read)

69. The Day of the Locust. Written by Nathanael West.

70. A Flag for Sunrise. Written by Robert Stone.

71. Dune. Written by Frank Herbert.       (I've read)

72. Howards End. Written by E. M. Forster.

73. Life of Pi. Written by Yann Martel.        (I've read)

74. The Human Stain. Written by Philip Roth.

75. The Line of Beauty. Written by Alan Hollinghurst.

76. The Naked and the Dead. Written by Norman Mailer.

77. Lonesome Dove. Written by Larry McMurtry.

78. Angle of Repose. Written by Wallace Stegner.

79. The Master. Written by Colm Toibin.

80. The Lovely Bones. Written by Alice Sebold.

81. Money: A Suicide Note. Written by Martin Amis.

82. Old School. Written by Tobias Wolff.

83. The Moviegoer. Written by Walker Percy.

84. A Passage to India. Written by E. M. Forster.

85. Mrs. Dalloway. Written by Virginia Woolf.

86. Never Let Me Go. Written by Kazuo Ishiguro.

87. A Visit from the Goon Squad. Written by Jennifer Egan.

88. Portnoy's Complaint. Written by Philip Roth.

89. Netherland. Written by Joseph O'Neill.

90. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Written by Muriel Spark.

91. Ragtime. Written by E. L. Doctorow.

92. Schindler's List. Written by Thomas Keneally.

93. Rebecca. Written by Daphne Du Maurier.

94. The Satanic Verses. Written by Salman Rushdie.

95. On Chesil Beach. Written by Ian McEwan.

96. The Secret History. Written by Donna Tartt.

97. The Tiger's Wife. Written by Tea Obreht.

98. The Sheltering Sky. Written by Paul Bowles.

99. The March. Written by E. L. Doctorow.

100. Sophie's Choice. Written by William Styron.