Life Lessons from a Bear

Out of all of the books on the BBC list, I was most surprised to realize that I had never gotten around to reading A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh. Its not like it looked like a hard book to get through, its about a stuffed bear for heaven's sake! I had copies of it at my disposal. My mom owns a fairly old copy of it and so does Amy. It really was one of those books that I just never got around to reading. So, while trudging through Brahm Stoker's Dracula, I decided that it would be a perfect time to pick up Winnie the Pooh and take a break from all of the blood sucking and undead fun of Dracula. I know, its quite a leap, but what better to take your mind off of a blood sucking, giant bat than a stuffed bear with an obsession with honey, right?

The story is fairly simple. Winnie the Pooh and his friends live in the 100 Acre Wood and have all kinds of adventures with Christopher Robin. This was one of those books that I could have finished in a couple hours. The stories are so sweet and the characters everything they were on the screen, while I watched Pooh's Corner as a kid. Rabbit was still as OCD in the book, constantly worried about his garden and never being able to figure out why no one cared as much as he. Eeyore, as endearing as he mopes around, not knowing why nothing ever goes right. Owl had his delusions of grandeur, Piglet (my personal favorite) as timid and creative as ever, and Christopher Robin in the middle of the group acting as the voice of reason and source of imagination all at the same time. 

I think the thing that makes Winnie the Pooh so timeless is the fact that despite the fact that Pooh is simply a "silly old bear", there are some serious life lessons to be learned from the book. Winnie the Pooh seemed to look at the world in a way that makes everything so incredible simple, it made me want to spend time in the 100 Acre Wood. Its all in a simple, 160 some-odd page book, but here is what I learned from that cubby all stuffed with fluff. 

• If you eat so much you can't fit through your friend's door anymore, its time to take a break from the sweets. At least until you fit through the door again. 
• Most problems can be solved with a little bit of your favorite thing, whether its honey, gardening, or storytelling. 
• If you're scared of something, its best to try and trap it before you face it because if its contained its substantially less scary. 
• A little imagination can go a long way. 
• If you want to blend into a crowd, sometimes wearing stripes and carrying a blue balloon just isn't enough. 
• And, the biggest life lesson I've learned from Pooh is sometimes, the most important thing you can do is whatever you can to make your friends smile, because that is what can make a day perfect.

So, there you go. I finished the book knowing why Winnie the Pooh is still so dang popular. There isn't anyone that can't identify with some aspect of at least one of the characters. As an actor, I may seem like I would identify with Owl, but put me in a group of people that I don't know and, much like Piglet, I start realizing just how little I am and start becoming the timid wallflower that doesn't necessarily want to draw too much attention. But, I think all of us could benefit from acting a little bit more like Winnie the Pooh once in a while. 

I suppose now its back to the world of vampires and vampire slayers. I don't have much further to go and I may have to take a break from the classics once I'm done. The bad thing is, I was at Barnes and Noble today and I saw a bookmark that has a list of 50 books to read before you die and I'm wondering what's on that list, too. Amy is already shaking her head at me. :-) Yay for my adventures in reading!

The Sparrows are CREEPY!

While bouncing ideas about this blog off of friends before I started it, I was talking to my dear friend, Christopher Thornton about how to write about all of the books I had already read on the list. He suggested I make my own list of 100 books I had never read and write about that. I really wanted to stick with the original BBC list of 100 books. So, I decided to compromise. Since I am never one to read only one book at a time, I thought that I would blog about the other books I read while reading my way through the BBC list. This is one of those books. 

Not long ago, I realized that with all of the books I've read, I had never read a single book by Stephen King. Most of the reason behind this is the fact that I have just recently gotten my bravery up enough to even think about reading anything from the horror genre. So, while walking through the teacher's lounge at my school one day, I saw a pile of books that someone had put on the "give away" table. Since I can't pass up a pile of free books without looking through it, I stopped and found Stephen King's The Dark Half. I figured since it was free and sitting there, waiting for its next reader, I'd pick it up and give it a try. This was my introduction to the crazy, messed up, weird world of Stephen King. 

Written in 1990, Stephen King's The Dark Half is about a writer named Thad Beaumont. The novel starts with Beaumont as a child with a strange quirk. Thad hears birds chirping. We find out later that the reason Thad hears birds chirping is he has a malignant brain tumor. At age 11, he has surgery to have the tumor removed and the doctor reveals that inside this tumor is an eye that blinks and everything. Yeah, 15 pages into the book and I'm already thinking I'm not gonna be able to read this book at night! Jettison forward and Thad is now married, has a set of twins, and is a fairly successful writer. He writes two types of books. The books he writes under his name are mildly successful, not necessarily groundbreaking. The books he writes under his pen name, George Stark are violent, dark, crazy, and wildly successful. However, Thad decides he's done writing under Stark. He even goes so far as to have an article written in People Magazine that has a picture of him, standing over a grave with a shovel and a gravestone with George Stark's name on it. This is where the whole tumor with the eyeball gets important. George Stark isn't just a pen name, he's the eyeball inside the tumor. Turns out, he's really Thad's unborn, undeveloped twin.  And he's PISSED! He developed more and more, every time Thad wrote a book under his name until he turned into an actual person.He doesn't want to die and he realizes that in order to stay alive, he needs to force Thad to write the next book in the George Stark series. He'll do whatever he needs to do, kill whomever he needs to kill, and say whatever he needs to say to make that happen. Throughout the book, Thad sees, hears, and even controls those birds that chirped in his head as a child. Stephen King uses the tagline, The Sparrows are Flying throughout the book, bringing it into crime scenes, Thad's journal, and even as a way for Thad to confuse George when he realizes that George can't hear the birds.

There's so much more to this book, but I don't want to spoil it for anyone that decides they want to read it later. I made the mistake of reading the book before going to bed once, and I regretting that one! I had a night of nightmares that involved birds, creepy twins, and a guy with flesh falling off of his face. Which brings me to one HUGE warning. The one thing that made this book hard to read was the gore. I think gore in the movies is one thing. You see it, you can convince yourself its all makeup, and there's not much left to the imagination. Books don't give you that luxury. Everything is left to the imagination. So, when George starts decomposing because technically, he's dead King doesn't leave anything out. Stark starts losing flesh as it decomposes and falls off of his body, pus comes out of his eyes, he starts smelling like rotting flesh......its all there. There were a couple times that I had to stop reading the book because it was getting down right disgusting. 

Despite that, I thought this book was amazing. Stephen King doesn't waste any time with back story and really grabs the reader right off the bat. I found the book hard to put down after reading about 10 pages. I will say that very little of it was surprising, not a whole lot of twists to the story. I mean, basically once you figure out the guy going on the killing rampage is George Stark, Thad's dead, undeveloped pen name/twin you're done with the surprises. That isn't even much of a surprise since its in the summary on the back of the book. But, I don't want anyone to think that the fact that there's little surprise makes the book boring in any sense of the word. I got wrapped up and horrified by George Stark and how his mind worked. Granted he was technically dead and all that, but it was amazing reading about someone who honestly had no conscience whatsoever. It was also pretty creepy how fascinated Thad was by George even though he knew what he was capable of and to what lengths he'd go to stay alive. 

All in all, the book made me want to read more Stephen King. I can see why he's so successful and basically has an entire section in bookstores dedicated to his work. The book also kind of made me scared of twins, but that's another story all together. I'm not sure I'll be reading any of his books at night, and certainly not when I'm by myself, but I've learned that I can handle them and put them away, having finished the book unscathed. However, if I ever look at anyone and say, "The sparrows are flying" take all Stephen King books away from me and make me sit down and read something less horrific, something like.......Bram Stocker's Dracula. Wait, that's not much better, is it? Oh well, onto the next adventure.

Melissa's Adventures in Wonderland

Like I said in my last blog, I did leave out my thoughts on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll when I wrote about all of the books on the list I had already read. I also mentioned that the reason was because they are my all time favorite books and a bit of an obsession of mine. That may be a bit of an understatement........ these books and the story behind them are a HUGE obsession of mine.

I'm pretty sure everyone knows the story, right? Girl falls down a rabbit hole, lands in Wonderland and meets all kinds of crazies down there. She gets home, goes through the looking glass back into Wonderland, where she meets even more crazies, including the terrifying Jabberwocky, gets named the Queen of Wonderland, defeats the Jabberwocky, and makes it back home safely. Most people know all about the books, but the story behind it isn't quite as well known. Here's my SPOILER ALERT: If you want to continue thinking Lewis Carroll was a man with a great imagination, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are simply great works of literature for children and adults alike, and everyone lived happily ever after, STOP READING NOW! That is not the real story! While there is a great deal known about the relationship between Lewis Carroll and his muse, there is also a great deal that was silenced by the family, so many of the details are speculation. Everything that I will write about from here on out are details that I've learned by reading a number of different books on the subject. Some of the books I've read are historical fiction, some are based on his personal diaries, and some are articles from different papers. (See, I told you I was obsessed!) 

Lewis Carroll's real name was Charles Dodgson. It has been said that he was an awkward, socially inept man with a stutter, migraines, epilepsy, and (by some accounts) autism. I haven't read about the autism theory yet, but, I suppose it wouldn't surprise me. He was also a professor of Math at Christ Church of Oxford , which is where he met his inspiration for the books. The Dean of Christ Church was Henry Liddell and while teaching, Dodgson met Henry Liddell's children, Harry, Arthur, Lorina, and.......Alice. Dodgson developed a special relationship with the Liddell children, Alice in particular and began spending a great deal of time with them. He would take them on picnics, walks, and boat rides, telling them stories while they were out. All of the stories had Alice in the forefront and all dealt with the crazy adventures in which Alice got involved. 

Alice Liddell wasn't the picture perfect Dean's daughter, which is probably why the stories always involved some sort of misadventure. She was the one who would show up to events with a dirty dress, had hair that never did what it should, and she always managed to say or do things she shouldn't. However, Dodgson never seemed to mind. Alice was the one to whom Dodgson played special attention, probably to a fault. Alice would beg Dodgson to tell her more stories and then later, begged him to write them down. Eventually, he did and Alice's Adventures Underground was created. However, it would be years before the title would change to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and the sequel of Through the Looking Glass would be published.

While Charles Dodgson was a brilliant mathematician and, obviously a talented author, he was also a very talented photographer. Like I said, while Dodgson spent time with all of the Liddell children, he had a special interest in Alice. He would have Alice sneak away so he could dress her up in different costumes and take her picture. One picture in particular became especially famous because of how little Alice was wearing for a child her age at the time. At around 11, Dodgson had Alice take off her clothes, down to her underwear, dressed her up as a gypsy and took a number of photographs. 

This is where the story of Charles Dodgson and Alice Liddell gets foggy. Some have said Dodgson gave a copy of the pictures to Alice, her family saw them and all hell broke loose. Some say Alice realized what was happening and ran away. Some say Dodgson hid the pictures, they were found and that's when all hell broke loose. Basically, at some point Alice's relationship with Charles Dodgson was abruptly cut short and no one is very clear why. His fascination with Alice was obviously unhealthy to say the least. There is a theory that he proposed marriage to an 11 year old Alice, causing her parents to decide that Dodgson would never see Alice again. There is a theory that something a lot more disturbing and sick happened that caused Alice's parents to end their relationship. What we do know is this, Charles Dodgson kept a detailed journal throughout his life. However, there are pages of his journal that would have been dated around the time of the rift between Dodgson and the Liddells that are missing. And not just missing, but purposely removed by human hand. The Liddells never made public what happened and Alice grew up, got married, and never spoke to Charles Dodgson again. 

One of the most well known theories is that Lewis Carroll wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass while under the influence of opium.That he is actually the opium smoking caterpillar who so famously asked Alice, "Who are you?" While it has been said that Dodgson had a problem with lithium because of his health problems, it seems as if Charles Dodgson was simply under the influence of an unhealthy fascination with a little girl named Alice. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are simply stories he told to a little girl while taking a boat ride and getting stuck on a train. 

I have to admit, there were times while learning about everything that happened to create these books, I thought the books would be ruined. The story would constantly be in the back of my head and I wouldn't be able to look at the books the same again. I am pleased to say, this is definitely not true. To this day, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass remain the books I can read a million times over. I collect copies of the book (I think the count is 6 or 7), and I try to read what I can about Charles Dodgson and Alice Liddell. They will always be a fascination of mine. And, as Alice said, sometimes the story can just get, "Curioser and curioser".

Oh, and in case anyone is curious, a couple of the books I've read are:

Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin

Still She Haunts Me by Katie Rophie

A Quick Rundown

Like I said before, when I got this list, I had already read about 25 of the books. While there are some books on the list I wouldn't mind re-reading, there are some I don't feel the need to pick up again. So, I figured that I should write a quick thought about all of the books I had read before starting this blog. When talking to a friend of mine about this blog, he suggested that I should add 25 more books to the list and read those instead. I figure I should get some credit for the books on the list I've read already, so I'm going to compromise. This time, I'm going to write about the books I've already read. However, since I NEVER read one book at a time, I'll also come on here and write about other books I've finished while on my reading adventure. But first, a quick rundown of the books I've already read.

1.  Harry Potter series - JK Rowling 

I was one of those people who hesitated starting the series. I remember getting a gift card to Crown Books and deciding that I would go ahead and buy the first 2 in paperback and go from there, but I didn't see myself being one of those ones that waited in line the day the next book came out to get my copy. Boy was I wrong!! I loved the whole series and cried myself silly reading the last book. 

2. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee 

One of my favorite books I read in highschool. I remember walking up to Mr. Sebastian (my sophomore English teacher) when he said it was time to read the next 2 chapters. I went up and said, "Ummm, Mr. Sebastian, I'm done." He looked at me and said, "Ok....read the next two chapters." I said, "No, I'm done with the book." He just looked at me, said with serious surprise, "But, we started the book two days ago!" When I just looked at him and told him I liked the book he sent me to the library.

3. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens 

Maybe it was because I read this my freshman year of highschool, but I HATED this book!

4. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott 

Loved this book! I think Laurie was my first literary crush, and I hated Jo for years because she turned him down. Never could figure out why she did that. 

5.  Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier 

I was really young when I read this one, so its one that I will read again at some point. But, I remember thinking it was pretty creepy and wonderful all at the same time.

6 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger 

So incredibly tragic!!! I loved this book so much. Its such a gorgeous story of true love and the things one will do to keep that one relationship that you know is THE relationship. Love truly conquers all in this one. 

7 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

I just read this one recently and thought it was pretty great. A piece of cake to read, it was just a great story. 

8 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

Another book I read in highschool and just didn't like at all

 

9 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis 

I must have walked to the back of every wardrobe, closet, armoire I could get my hands on and couldn't figure out why I never ended up in Narnia with Tumnus!

10 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden 

Beautiful story. The history of it is just amazing and hard to get your head around. The art of being a geisha is amazing!

11 Animal Farm - George Orwell 

Another highschool book I just didn't like reading

12 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown 

Was I the only one who had this ENTIRE book figured out in the matter of 3 chapters??

13 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I just recently read this entire series. I grew up on the miniseries that was on TV, but had just never read the books. After reading them, my opinion has not changed, I will alway and forever be in love with Gilbert Blythe. 

14 Lord of the Flies - William Golding 

Not a fan!

15 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

Once I saw the movie, and could actually follow the wordiness that is Jane Austen, I loved the book. Before I saw the movie and tried to read it, I probably read the same page 7 times!

16  The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon 

This guy truly knows how to get in the head of someone with autism. This is an incredible book if you want to try and understand how these brilliant people think. The subject matter isn't easy, and some parts made me sick to my stomach, but its an amazing book. The mind of a person with autism is a brilliant thing, and this guy somehow cracked the code.

17 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

I loved this book so much as a kid, I pretended my backyard was a secret garden. I would bury keys just so I could find them and pretend I could hear crying from the back of the house. I've played Mary Lennox in college, (yes, I did look 12 when I was 17), watched all kinds of the movies, and have reread the book numerous times. Its definitely one of my favorites.

18 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens 

Once I got through the 4 paragraphs of the fact that Jacob Marley was dead, how long he'd been dead, how dead he was, and how they knew he was dead it was an easy read! Maybe its because I've seen so many versions of the movie I had basically heard every part of the book before I read the book, but I still enjoyed it!

19 The Color Purple - Alice Walker 

I was so young when I read this book, I'm sure I didn't understand as much of it as I should have. But I do remember it being eye opening and tragic.

20 Charlotte’s Web - EB White 

The only time in my life I was sad when a spider died!

21 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom 

I love Mitch Albom. I've read all of his books and normally do so in a couple hours. This was no exception. Made me look at the whole idea of being in limbo a whole new way. Its an interesting concept to think that there are 5 people in your life that will show you the aspects in your life that decide where you end up when you die. 

22 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas 

I read this book in highschool and was naively surprised that it was nothing like the Disney movie! I loved it, still and even named my dog d'Artagnan. This book has action, mystery, history, comedy, and romance......can't beat it!

23 Hamlet - William Shakespeare 

My favorite Shakespearian tragedy. I even wrote an entire paper in college comparing Hamlet and Disney's The Lion King. (think about it, a young prince's father dies and his uncle takes over the kingdom. The prince leaves for a while, comes back to avenge his father's murder and finds out his uncle killed him, it's the same story!) Hamlet is full of crazy people, all of whom have an entirely different agenda. 

24 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

I read the book, looked out of the back door of my childhood home and was legitimately disappointed that I had a plain old tree; not one that grew gummy bears or gum, just leaves. Also was pretty disappointed when I looked at the creek that ran along the side of my house and realized that it was brown because it was dirty, not because it was made of chocolate. 

So, I know what those of you who know me well are thinking, "Ummmm.....genuis, you missed one. And its a big one." You're right, I skipped one that I've read. Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. But, I've skipped it on purpose. This being my all time favorite book and the subject of a serious obsession of mine...... that one deserves a blog all to itself, my friends!

I Know How you Love a Good Adventure!

This quote, from the 1993 movie The Three Musketeers will, at some point (when I have the chance) be painted above my library door. I realize the movie has NOTHING to do with the book, but I still feel like its a good way to describe the adventure on which I am about to embark.

While on Facebook one day, I was tagged in a note about a list of books created by the BBC. Here is the entry of the note: "Where do you fall on the list? The BBC believes that most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books here. Its always fun to prove them wrong." Well, I read that part and thought, I've been a reader my entire life, pretty much since the day I could pick up a book. My parents didn't take toys away when I was in trouble, they took books away. For me, that was getting me where it hurts. So, I figured I HAVE to have read at least half of these books.

I started marking all the books I'd read and counting, came to the end, proudly added up the books I've read and then stared at the number in disbelief. My magic number.....25! 25???? Really???? I know, I know, most people will say that's a lot, but I was thinking I had read a lot more than 25. Because of that, I have made a goal. Its not a goal I plan on achieving in a year. In fact, its not a goal on which I will even put a time limit. But, its my goal. I want to say, at some point in my life, that I have read all 100 of these books. Amy, my best friend figured that if I was going to read all these books, I should blog about them. I figure she might be the only person who reads the blog, but hey, maybe that's what Julie Powell said when she started blogging about making the recipes in Julia Child's cookbook and look at her now! Published books, a movie made about her, and all kinds of other adventures. Maybe at some point they'll make a movie about me and I can play myself.

For future reference, here are the 100 books on the list. I'm going to write about the 27 (I've read a couple more since getting the list) next time, but since I'm supposed to be doing paperwork for work right now, I should probably wrap this up. So, there it is, my new adventure! Some of the books on the list I can't believe I'd never read (The entire Bible, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Winnie the Pooh) and some I'm not so excited about (War and Peace, Crime and Punishment, pretty much anything by Steinbeck), but I'm going to read them all. Maybe I'll find some new favorites, maybe I'll get 100 pages into Anna Karenina and want to yell, "Just jump already!" who knows? But like d'Artagnan said to M'lady de Winter, "I know how you love a good adventure!"

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling 

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee 

6 The Bible (The entire thing!)

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens 

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott 

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier 

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger 

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald 

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck 

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll 

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34 Emma-Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis 

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden 

40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell 

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown 

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery 

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding 

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon 

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Inferno – Dante

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens 

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker 

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistr

87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White 

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom 

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Eupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas 

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare 

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo