The 100 best reads from 1983 to 2008

Entertainment Weekly's list of the 100 most important books since 1983

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20207076_20207387_20207349,00.html

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)

Only one I read of these is Neuromancer, lulz.

96
Oh lawd. I get the feeling these people don't read many decent books. I don't know how Neuromancer snuck in, but I'm not sure I'm willing to call it "important" except to a small group of geeks. Should be called, "100 books we liked that were also fairly popular."

>>3
Why are you silent about the god damn #2 then, Anon. Do you think it's very important?

have read 2, 13, 36, 40, 46, 72, 84, 88, 96. dont hold it against me

How the fuck did Harry Potter get that high on the list?

>>4
I forgot about it by the time I got to #96. #2 isn't important to the field of literature, but at least it was a large, long lasting fad and is of interest as future historical trivia. Not that I would have put it on my list.

>>5
No hate for 46, 72, or 84. Read 26 now.

Wow, what a god-awful list. I've read THREE of the books on that list. Of course this is to be expected from Entertainment Weekly.

9 here. Upon closer inspection I see that i've read four of the books on that list.

10. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami (1997)
Give the impression of something deep and nobody will dare to call your book crap.

>>11
Give the impression that you know what you're talking about and people will rarely dare to call you out on it.

>>12
True. But today is one of those rare days. So tell me about the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

>>11
We'll call it "The Ocean Walker"

Honestly, though, do you think people will be reading Harry Potter in 50 years?  I mean, people probably said the same thing about Lord of the Rings when it came out, but I honestly can't imagine Harry Potter being a classic that lasts through the ages.  I mean, I really am curious what you guys think, I'm not just hating on Harry Potter (although I do hate it).

>>14
Potter is going to be like Narnia books. Derivative bullshit, poorly written and composed, but people will read it because it was injected in their heads when they were young. Will certainly last for half a century; not much more, though.

I mean, imagine a modern 10 year old harry Potter fan. You think he'll be dissing his childhood love when he's 50? I don't think so. His children and grandchildren, on the other hand, aren't going to buy into that crap: they'll have plenty of their own new bullshit by that time.

>>13
Seeing as you made the original claim I believe the burden is on you to back it up.

>>16
I say there's nothing particular deep in the book. Now prove me wrong. Nonexistence of something is pretty hard to prove.

>>15
You think he'll be dissing his childhood love when he's 50? I don't think so.
Why not? I do that all the time with things I liked during my childhood.

PROTIP: If you have actually read more than 10 books on this list, it means you probably suck just as much as EW's authors do.

I just got assigned "The Road" by my college, to read over the summer before my freshmen year.

Dear. God.

This book is horrid.

It feels like a mundane, simplified Fallout fanfic about some poor bastard and his child who are just wandering in a southern direction. It's very bloated with irrelevant events. After reading a sequence that goes something along the lines of "Wake up -> See kid asleep -> Go cry -> day end" for the millionth time, I couldn't help but shouting "WE GET IT, YOU FEEL HOPELESS AND RIGHTFULLY SO!" on the buss I was riding.

It's like Resident Evil with the cast missing, and no evil corporation or zombies. Yeah. It's worse than Resident Evil.

>>20
You should keep notes and prepare a short speech so when they want you guys to discuss it you can diss it eloquently.

At least they got Sandman, Watchmen and Neuromancer right. The rest is stupid though. The Kite Runner? Seriously?

Actually, I'm surprised Max Brooks's books didn't make it on there.

God damn, 100 books and only a handful are decent.

America (the Book), Jon Stewart/Daily Show made it on there. Evidence enough that the list was compiled by a bunch of jerk-offs.