The New Classics

From EW.com:The 100 best reads from 1983 to 2008

(crossing them off as I read them)

1. The Road , Cormac McCarthy (2006

2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling — 2000

3. Beloved, Toni Morrison — 1987

4. The Liars’ Club, Mary Karr — 1995

5. American Pastoral, Philip Roth — 1997

6. Mystic River, Dennis Lehane — 2001

7. Maus, Art Spiegelman — 1986/1991

8. Selected Stories, Alice Munro — 1996

9. Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier — 1997

10. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami — 1997

11. Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer — 1997

12. Blindness, José Saramago — 1998

13. Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons — 1986-87

14. Black Water, Joyce Carol Oates — 1992

15. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers — 2000

16. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood — 1986

17. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez — 1988

18. Rabbit at Rest, John Updike — 1990

19. On Beauty, Zadie Smith — 2005

20. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding — 1998

21. On Writing, Stephen King — 2000

22. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz — 2007

23. The Ghost Road, Pat Barker — 1996

24. Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry — 1985

25. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan — 1989

26. Neuromancer, William Gibson — 1984

27. Possession, A.S. Byatt — 1990

28. Naked, David Sedaris — 1997

29. Bel Canto, Anne Patchett — 2001

30. Case Histories, Kate Atkinson — 2004

31. The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien — 1990

32. Parting the Waters, Taylor Branch — 1988

33. The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion — 2005

34. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold — 2002

35. The Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst — 2004

36. Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt — 1996

37. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi — 2003

38. Birds of America, Lorrie Moore — 1998

39. Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri — 2000

40. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman — 1995-2000

41. The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros — 1984

42. LaBrava, Elmore Leonard — 1983

43. Borrowed Time, Paul Monette — 1988

44. Praying for Sheetrock, Melissa Fay Greene — 1991

45. Eva Luna, Isabel Allende — 1988

46. Sandman, Neil Gaiman — 1988-1996

47. World’s Fair, E.L. Doctorow — 1985

48. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver — 1998

49. Clockers, Richard Price — 1992

50. The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen — 2001

51. The Journalist and the Murderer, Janet Malcom — 1990

52. Waiting to Exhale, Terry McMillan — 1992

53. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon — 2000

54. Jimmy Corrigan, Chris Ware — 2000

55. The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls — 2006

56. The Night Manager, John le Carré — 1993

57. The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe — 1987

58. Drop City, TC Boyle — 2003

59. Krik? Krak! Edwidge Danticat — 1995

60. Nickel & Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich — 2001

61. Money, Martin Amis — 1985

62. Last Train To Memphis, Peter Guralnick — 1994

63. Pastoralia, George Saunders — 2000

64. Underworld, Don DeLillo — 1997

65. The Giver, Lois Lowry — 1993

66. A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, David Foster Wallace — 1997

67. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini — 2003

68. Fun Home, Alison Bechdel — 2006

69. Secret History, Donna Tartt — 1992

70. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell — 2004

71. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Ann Fadiman — 1997

72. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon — 2003

73. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving — 1989

74. Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger — 1990

75. Cathedral, Raymond Carver — 1983

76. A Sight for Sore Eyes, Ruth Rendell — 1998

77. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro — 1989

78. Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert — 2006

79. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell — 2000

80. Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney — 1984

81. Backlash, Susan Faludi — 1991

82. Atonement, Ian McEwan — 2002

83. The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields — 1994

84. Holes, Louis Sachar — 1998

85. Gilead, Marilynne Robinson — 2004

86. And the Band Played On, Randy Shilts — 1987

87. The Ruins, Scott Smith — 2006

88. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby — 1995

89. Close Range, Annie Proulx — 1999

90. Comfort Me With Apples, Ruth Reichl — 2001

91. Random Family, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc — 2003

92. Presumed Innocent, Scott Turow — 1987

93. A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley — 1991

94. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser — 2001

95. Kaaterskill Falls, Allegra Goodman — 1998

96. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown — 2003

97. Jesus’ Son, Denis Johnson — 1992

98. The Predators’ Ball, Connie Bruck — 1988

99. Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman — 1995

100. America — the Book, Jon Stewart/Daily Show — 2004