1. The histories, Herodotus (ancient history) 2. Complete chronicles of Conan 3. Complete fiction of Lovecraft 4. Sherlock Holmes, Doyle 5. Dracula, Stoker 6. I am legend, Matheson (end of the world) 7. Princess of Mars, Burroughs (mars trilogy science fiction, pulp fiction) 8. Frankenstein 9. Count of Monte Cristo, Dumas 10. Mythology, Edith Hamilton (ancient history) 11. Lord of the rings 12. The big sleep, Chandler (novel) 13. City, Simak (science fiction novel) 14. Time Machine, Wells (science fiction) 15. Maltese Falcon, Hammett (detective) 16. 20'000 leagues under the sea (Jules Verne 17. Tarzan of the apes, Burroughs 18. Les miserables, victor hugo 19. Pet Sematary, Stephen king (horror) 20. Tender is the night, Fitzgerald (doomed relationship) 21. The great god Pan, Machen (fantasy horror) 22. Left hand of Darkness, Ursula Le Guin (science fiction) 23. History of the peloponnesian War, Thycydides (historical war, author lived through it) 24. Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky 25. Gods of Mars, Burroughs (science fiction) 26. She, Haggard (lost world) 27. Bran mak morn, Howard (fantasy Conan, picts vs romans) 28. Dune 29. The big book of the continental OP, Hammet (continental OP saga about detectives) 30. The great gatsby 31. The iliad 32. The shrinking man, Matheson (horror science fiction) 33. Farewell, My lovely, Chandler (mystery) 34. War and Peace, Tolstoy 35. The three musketeers, Dumas 36. The dark eidolon and other fantasies, Smith (short fantasy novels) 37. The war of the worlds, Wells 38. The picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde 39. The martian chronicles, Bradbury (science fiction) 40. The Galton Case, Macdonald (noir) 41. Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevsky 42. Kull Exile of Atlantis, Howard (fantasy Conan) 43. Heart of Darkness 44. Appointment in Samarra 45. Return of Tarzan, Burroughs 46. The hobbit 47. The glass key, Hammett (detective) 48. Jane Eyre, Bronte 49. The odyssee 50. Treasure island, Stevenson (pirate) 51. The way some people die, Macdonald (detective) 52. Day of the Triffids, Wyndham (killer plants, end of the world) 53. Anabasis, Xenophon (persian expedition) 54. At the earth's core (lost world adventure) 55. Caves of Steel, Asimov (science fiction) 56. Island of doctor moreau, Wells 57. Ancient sorceries and other weird stories, Blackwood 58. Dark Gods, Klein (horror novels) 59. The Long goodbye, Chandler 60. For whom the bell tolls, Hemingway 61. Best of Richard matheson (short fiction) 62. The woman in white, Collins (novel) 63. King Solmon's mines (cowboy) 64. Ivanhoe, Scott (classic adventure novel middle ages) 65. The death of Grass, Christopher (famine and end of civilization) 66. Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck 67. History of Rome, Livy (ancient history) 68. Night shift, Stephen King (horror stories) 69. Why not you and I, Wagner (horror stories) 70. Solomon Kane, Howard (pulp) 71. Best served cold, Abercrombie (fantasy revenge) 72. Copperfield, Dickens 73. Hell House, Matheson (haunted house) 74. Egypt, Greece and Rome, Freeman (ancient history of the ancient mediterannean) 75. House on the borderland (horror) 76. Allan Quatermain, Haggard (cowboy) 77. The histories, Polybius (Rise of the Roman Empire) 78. East of Eden, Steinbeck 79. Earth abides, Stewart (end of the world science fiction) 80. Bloodstone, Wagner (fantasy) 81. Gardens of the moon, Erikson (fantasy novel) 82. A tale of two cities, dickens 83. Hellenika, Xenophon (ancient history) 84. The haunting of hill house, jackson 85. Legend, Gemell (fantasy) 86. the lost world, arthur conan doyle (dinos) 87. Time and the gods, lord dunsany (fantasy) 88. Salem's lot, Stephen King (vampires) 89. The blade itself, abercrombie (fantasy series) 90. Campaigns of alexander, arrian 91. Planet of the apes 92. elric, moorcock (fantasy) 93. The lottery and other stories, Jackson (short stories packing a punch) 94. Moving target, Macdonald (first book in series) 95. Robots of Dawn, Asimov 96. Complete tales and poems of edgar alan poe 97. Land that time forgot (fantasy novel) 98. Musashi, Yoshikawa (japanese historical novel) 99. Darkness weaves (dark fantasy) 100.Journal of the gun years (dark western)
Good list. Having read many of those, today I finished the Silmarillion also by JRR Tolkien. For Hobbit & LOTR fans, The Silmarillion is pure gold and will always be on my top ten GOAT books that brought me joy reading.
One of my all-time favorite videos by one of the greatest Booktubers around. Thank you for the work I know it took to make this awesome video. This entire list are books I have read or books I want to read. Excellence! Scott.
Thanks! I’m very sorry there were no alien romances on this list (does Princess of Mars count?)but my taste has always been questionable. I’m so glad you liked the video! This was one of my nuttier ideas! I was annoyed with myself while I was putting in all those pictures but I guess it turned out okay.
Nice to see which writers and genres press your reading pleasure buttons! I too have a soft spot for Edith Hamilton's _Mythology_ Got me interested in that subject at a young age. Great video and thanks for showing all those covers.
Truly an achievement. First, that you managed to get your thoughts together to put together a list of 100, and then you have presented it so well!! Really enjoyed the last. Happy to see a lot of my favourites on your list!
Love an eclectic list without pretension. There’s not much intersection with what I might come up with if I was brave enough to make such a list, but Ihave to admit that I love all the spots where we would overlap. Surprised you don’t include anything g from the other McDonald brothers (John and Philip). You make me think that I should dive into some of the ancient histories. Also, We Have Always Lived in the Castle is Jackson’s best book.
Every year I compile a list of books and send them to my family and they each buy me one from the list for Christmas. I have added a couple from your video , Dune and Herodotus. Thank you for for such a varied list of books.
Hi Michael, i loved the video! The list was quite diverse and interesting. I have one question /request though : can you, sometimes in the future, make a video on ancient history books, go through your favourite ancient writers and tell us which modern versions are the best. I think that would be very entertaining!
I strongly second this suggestion. Would love some directions on where to start with ancient writers, which editions to get. Also if you could throw some light on the extent of historical accuracy on part of the authors, that would be great! Great list, great video, Michael!
This list must have taken a long time to put together! Nice to see that someone else appreciates Clifford D. Simak! Read Bran Mak Morn this year and loved it. Will be adding other books on your list to my TBR of course. Wishing you health and happiness this year!
Happy New Year!🎊🎉 Great list. I make these lists on scrap paper all the time. Melville, Conrad, Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky always make it along with most of the ancient Greek and Romans I've read. Despite forcing myself to read postmodernism and current literature, most of it doesn't resonate with me. Definitely need to read more classic pulp fiction; there's a lot of fun to be had!
Wow, what a quirky list! Loads of books i would never have considered, but many I’d like to explore. I like pulp fiction, and hard-boiled detective stories, but will have to eliminate all the horror stories, just because my imagination has always been overheated. And i want to read some ancient history, because I adored I,Claudius, but never knew where to go next. Thanks, Michael.
So glad to see Hemingway on your list...and of course Dracula is also a favorite of mine. Its really hard to find Tarzan books at the used bookstores here. I wonder why...I love your list. Good job!
That's an impressive achievement, and a wonderful list to watch. So many great books in there! I can't even imagine trying to list the 100 favorites. Not only would the list constantly be changing around, but the minute I decided on 100, there would be hundreds of, "oh, yeah, there's that one, too" moments that would take me back to the beginning. I really enjoyed your video.
I don’t think I could come up with a list of 100 in order. Very impressive. I just read I am legend in December 😍 I have read many of your top 10 but not all. Thanks for sharing!
A wonderful list - I dont like much fantasy but those I do like I really love. A few on your list would qualify. I think a lot of the titles you mentioned would also be in my list, but I think I'd include a lot more classic crime.
I have such a hard time finding obscure gems of literature. You are definitely my go to for discovery of books that i never even thought about! Thank you so much expanding my knowledge of books to read beyond The NY Times bestseller lists ( not that there is anything wrong with that)! I love books, and your a great resource to expand my knowledge of the very best out there!
This is an impressive list! I kept wondering where Herodotus was going to be when you mentioned several other ancient works. :). I love Edith Hamilton’s Mythologies too. It was a gateway for me as well.
I cannot image how long you spent working on this. And I am so glad you did because it was WELL WORTH IT! I loved hearing about this list and your favoirate books. Happy New Year!
Super video! So many great ideas here that I have to rewatch it with a pen&paper. I was excited to hear you mention Musashi . I have a copy I've been meaning to read. This must be the year! Happy New Year dude!
Amazing list! Sensory overload, but in a good way. I love listening to a person who's passionate about books just dump a ton of 'em on me, lol. Lots of stuff I need to check out, but Count of Monte Cristo is definitely up there for me too. 😊
I read Appointment In Samarra last year. My god, what a phenomenally engrossing read from page 1 to the end! The whole idea of the "tragic flaw". One of my faves of all time!
Gosh...100 books. Wow. So many of my favorites are on this list too! The Lost World. King Solomon's Mines. For Whom the Bells Toll. Crime and Punishment. Les Miserables. Dracula So many greats! And a few of these I'll be adding to my TBR!
I have 36 of those, haven't read all of them yet though as many I've picked up from watching your vids!
2 года назад
I just received a used copy of the very first Book I read. On Christmas of 1945 my grandmother gifted me a copy of 'Bertram's Trip To The North Pole'. That began my life haunting libraries. Two years later I was able to finish Moby Dick and I still have books waiting to be read. Thank you for entertaining us.
The moment I saw ancient history books I was waiting for Herodotus, never imagined you would put him at number 1. I'm from the Netherlands and my twin brother finished gymnasium with ancient greek. Incidentally his exam subject was the histories by herodotus, so we got a good laugh out of that. Aside from that, thank you for the goldmine of new books I'd never even heard of before! Greetings from the Netherlands
SO !!! - I watched the video with a notepad so I could note down what you said, and then comment properly on it. You've also inspired me to write my 100 books....which I have done but I'm going to do a video for them in May, which will be the 2nd anniversary of when I turned this channel into a "bookcentric", booktuber channel. ANYWAY - I expected to see lots of crossover - and there were loads of books that crossed over into my taste. Just quickly I see that you're a massive fan of Matheson (in my top 5 writers of all time), King, Moorcock's Elric books, Steinbeck, Boulle, Shirley Jackson, HG Wells, Wyndham, Homer, Tolkien, Bradbury, Le Guin and loved that I AM Legend was so high in the list. I have very little knowledge of Conan or Burroughs books, so I will definitely be delving into those this year. (there's a 2nd hand book shop down the road that's bound to have something I can start with....hopefully Tarzan of the Apes). Great, great list. Loved seeing the video. Love the crime books you mentioned too - I delved into Elmore Leonard last year and really enjoyed it - I will look into Chandler and Hammett. Oh, and you've inspired me to make a History book video too - I have tons of history books because I have a Bachelors Degree in History, so I had to buy loads and loads of History books. I will choose my 10 favourites. I was planning on doing a general non-fiction one, but I could do one that focuses on History, then does other non-fiction like Philosophy and social commentary after....? Anyway, thanks for getting my thinking and influencing what I'm doing. Happy New Year Michael.
Happy New Year to you! I’m so glad you enjoyed the video! I did the whole thing on my phone so it was a bit time consuming. I can’t wait to see yours, and the history video! I think you will like Hammett and Chandler a lot.
Wow, this was an ambitious undertaking! Not sure I could have pulled this kind of thing off! 😅 Very interesting stuff, and you really covered the entire spectrum pretty much. It was cool to see The House on the Borderland on here; that book is so obscure now I was glad to see someone else who knows about it. And I was happy to see Frankenstein so near the top; that book is my favorite ever! 😀
Wow, i have been recommending T.E.D Kleins works for 30 years! The Ceremonies is my favorite horror novel of all time. It pointed me to Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Ambrose Bierce, Lord Dunsany, etc. Dark Gods 4 stories are amazing. Too bad he only wrote those 2 books. Great list as always! Great way to start the year.
Love these lists. I've just started reading "the Left Hand of Darkness," on your recommendation (from another list) I found the first few chapters hard going, but I'm beginning to ease into it now! 😉📚
Hello Michael, even though I don’t read fantasy or much science fiction except for one that I’ll tell you later, I found some books of your favorites that are favorites of mine. First, I love Raymond Chandler and have read all of his books and loved all of his books. I also love mystery and thus Sherlock Holmes. I am about to read my first science fiction book called Fahrenheit 451. Aloha
What an incredible list! Got to read some of these Ross macdonald and Karl Edward Wagner books, among others. I've read the other Chandlers mentioned ut not Farewell my lovely. Really want to get into Joe Abercrombie as well.
Awesome list, even though I haven't read most of these 😅 Really thought Dracula was going to be number one! It would take me forever to put together a top 100, lol. I will say though, there are about 7 or 8 books on your list that would make mine
Liked this list immensely! Got to know the titles of quite a few new novels! And yes, number 42, Heart of Darkness! One of the best books ever written. I am currently teaching it to my students 😃
Oh I watched a silly film noir the other week called, “The Treasure of Monte Cristo”. It basically involved a descendent of Edmond Dantes. It was great fun though.
Another great novel, the first of all novels, is Don Quixote. I've read it four times, and once in the original Spanish (very difficult). The English translation by Edith Grossman is tops.
I watched a video of yours about Moby Dick, and once you got to the second place, I was sure MD would be the first one because I thought "no way he's left MD out of the list of 100 best books"
WOW - 100 of all time....I am going to watch this with a notepad and see what crossovers there are and hunt the ones I don't know or haven't read yet. Can't wait.
Ah, ok thanks! Btw I love all of your videos and this list is remarkable. I've ready some of these books and looking forward to reading many more of them! Thanks again!
Loved this video. Really fun seeing your wide ranging tastes. I was thrilled to see Gardens of the Moon on your list. How far have you made it into Malazan thus far? Also, have you read The Book of the New Sun or any Gene Wolfe? If you have, I would love to know what criticisms disqualified it from your list. Thanks!
None Bernard Cornwell? One of the best authors to describe medieval battles! He manages to bring you into the battlefield in a brutally visceral way! Well, it's your list anyway, cheers! Great list, great channel!
Thanks a lot for this important list. In my past 61 years I read many of the titles you mentioned. I may add The Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, and The Dictionary of the Kazars " Hazarski Rêćnik " by Milorad Pavić, as well as the Metamorphosis by Ovid. Thanks a lot
The Long Goodbye might be my favourite Chandler novel. It is surprisingly emotional. Farewell My Lovely is also great and was the first Chandler novel to be adapted to film. Dick Powell did an awesome job as Chandler in the 1944 version, which included a trippy drug scene and had Mike Mazurka as Moose Malloy.
Hi Michael, yes, I've read Herodotus too ! What a great book about all these different tribes. It is in that book that I learned of the Cimmerians and as a result about Conan.
I would have quite a few of these on my 100 favourite lists including War of the Worlds, Sherlock, 20000 Leagues, The Shrinking Man, Death of Grass, Day of the Triffids, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Earth Abides. Other books would probably make my top 100 if I reread them but I am hesitant to put them on the list at the moment. Two books that would not be on my top 100 would be ‘Hell House’ and ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ both of which I listened to in 2020. For some reason I do not usually find ghost books to be interesting - they tend to be placed in with zombies which I am also rarely interested in.
That's a lovely list. Nothing too generic. A bit too much history and horror for my taste. Nice inclusion of short stories. Do you not enjoy Kurt Vonnegut? Seems he could fit in with the sci-fi.
Michael, great job on a most difficult subject, only 100? What about best 1,000? Just kidding. You have a good mix and hit most of the high spots. Liked seeing those vintage Paperback Covers also. Outstanding job!
I really want to read the Haunting of Hill House! A Tale of Two Cities, too, I want to listen to that one, though. I'm currently reading Night Shift with the Bookish Drummer's discord group. LOVE Woman in White!!
GEEZZZZ. How many of these book I have read. LoL. I liked how You threw in ....it's not Rubbish 🗑 for a certain someone. LoL 🤣 I would have different top 100 , but what's crazy is out of all of these books only 29 of them I haven't read, and 8 of them I have in line 2 read . Most of the books I haven't read are those Detective type books. Outside of Sherlock Holmes. I've really never read many. LoL. Great Video Michael 👍😁👍
I'm so happy you make these videos. It has really helped me to create a do-able TBR list for myself: Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky Billy Summers by Stephen King Dracula Frankenstein Histories by Herodotus Anna Karenina Ulysses Woman in White by Wilkie Collins Conan by Robert H. Howard The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (père) 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo SHE by H. Rider Haggard The Complete Sherlock Holmes by AC Doyle Lost World by AC Doyle I am Legend by Richard Matheson Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I've already read some of your recommendations that I would never have discovered on my own and they were very enjoyable. Tarzan and A Princess of Mars are only two of them. THANK YOU!
Nice top 100! i'm currently reading War and Peace, but slowly due to my busy month at work. Why do we need to work so much? Anyway, i've finished "Amityville" by Jan Anson, very scary indeed and maybe Roger could buy it to you. Very nice if you like Dracula. PS: I would send you a copy but I'm from another planet and my spaceship broke down and crashed in Brazil, so apparently my space money worth nothing over here :(
Since it is not on your list, I just wondered if you have ever read anything by Clark Asthin Smith, since he was a good friend of Robert E. Howard and Lovecraft? Also have you read anything by Gene Wolfe? He is my favorite and from what I have heard, a lot of people believe he is the "best" Fantasy/Scifi author ever. Love your channel btw! :)
One night I decided that I wanted to watch the Coppola Dracula but couldn't find my dvd copy. An hour later I went walking the dogs and a few yards up the road I found a new sealed copy of the movie lying on the sidewalk. Quite typical of things that happen to me, I ask, I get. They say 'beware what you ask of god' it's true, life has unfortunately (sometimes ) given me exactly what I wanted !
@@michaelk.vaughan8617 Better to stumble across the movie than the personage ! As a child I used to walk outside the village (highlands of Scotland) and go lie on one of the oldest tombs in the graveyard at night to study the stars and the milky way. I never once imagined anything weird or scary although when a predator caught a rabbit and it screamed it was quite impressive. I would also go into dark abandonend houses and cellars never thinking what could happen with no one knowing where I was ! Mad ! Not sure that today I would do the same, oh to be young and fearless!
Interesting list. You included Classic Histories (Herodotus, Xenophon, Thucyides, etc). That surprised me in a pleasant way. If I made a list like that, I'd suggest including not only the writers you've chosen but In Addition : Hume's History of England, Voltaire's Age of Louis XIV, Charles XII, and Macaulay's Essays. I'd also include Machiavelli's History of Florence, The Prince and The Discourses. In my own case I'd also include Platos' Dialogues, Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, and some of Hegel (He's very hard to read) and Several works by Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud. And I almost forgot Nietzche. It might be better to divide fiction and history and Philosophy into separate lists. Writers or books I would include are: Voltaire, Candide, Melville Moby Dick and Billy Budd, Flaubert Madame Bovary, Turgenev Father's and Sons. Some Zola, Maupassant and Chekov. Oh, and last but not least Tomas Wolfe--Look Homeward Angel. I also noted the complete absence of dramas. No Shakespeare, no Sophocles, no Oscar Wilde, or Bernard Shaw. That doesn't surprise me because most people don't think of theater as literature for reasons I don't understand. Some of the world's best literature was written as drama or comedy. Because of the great role theater has played in my life and as a writer/translator that's hard for me to accept. But I have to because it is a fact. Still, it's an excellent list not too heavily weighted to books written in the last 25 years or so.
Thanks! Of course, this is a list of favorites not works judged on their literary quality or type of book. Your list would certainly be interesting! Thanks for the well thought out comment.
All the books I suggested are favorites of mine regardless of their literary merit. More interesting might be to list the ones that influenced me the most. In my case that would mean those which influenced me most as a person and those which influenced me most as a writer. When I was 16, I read War and Peace, Look Homeward Angel, and Fathers and Sons. They had a powerful impact on me personally. I also read some Machiavelli, to be explicit: The Prince and the Discourses. They changed the way I looked at life or solidified the way I looked at it in directions it was already inclined towards. I was particularly impressed by Look Homeward Angel because Wolfe's troubled family life struck rather close to home. And one day, I picked up a book of Modern Drama which collected plays from the 1900's. The three that really influenced me were in no particular order: Sudermann's Magda (about a Prussian girl whose strict father kicked her out of the house for having a love affair. Years later, now a famous Opera Diva, she wants to return home but still meets opposition from her disapproving father. Ferenc Molnar's Lilliom about a circus roustabout who is a devil with ladies, and Schnitzler's wistful plays about lover affairs and their consequences. These opened my eyes to what drama could do and from that point on, I was hooked.
My favorite video ever, watched so many times! I've read most of them and a looot of them based on your recommendation. Have you read: One Hundred Years of Solitude Don Quijote Anna Karenina 1984 Midnight's Children Moby Dick ??
I just bought a 1962 set of eleven novels by Daphné du Maurier in French and heavilly and beautifully illustrated by Fontanarosa, really gorgeous hardbacks with see through jackets protecting illustrated covers, so pleased, paid 1 euro each. I have read them in English but am curious to see how they read in French, I don't usually read French translations of English, just Spanish.
