I'm a little shocked that Ender's Game isn't on there. I'd put it on my list (although I don't think it is OSC's best work).
Posts: 40 | Registered: Oct 2013
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There are so many books on there I'm meh about it doesn't even bother me Ender's Game isn't on there.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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I think I saw 4 or 5 that would be on my list plus a couple others that might make my list if I ever get around to reading them.
Posts: 891 | Registered: Feb 2010
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Seems like a good list. It's not meant, I think, to be tailored to a specific kind of taste, nor is it a list of "best" books. It seems to be meant to be a sampler of a lot of good books of different kinds, and I don't see anything that seems out of place. Hunger Games is great, for what it is, and they deliberately weren't excluding many kinds of "what it is".
I think one would be better-read than average if one read all those books. (That's not saying a lot, but still.)
*I am not familiar with all the titles. I'm basing my assessment on the ones I recognize.
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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Geez, "The Fault in Our Stars" sure made it onto that list fast.
They need to work on some of their four word descriptions atop each novel. A lot of them seemed to come from someone who had only the barest inkling of what the book was either about or how its viewed in popular memory.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Ugh, that list is really awful. While I liked "Gone Girl," I don't think a book belongs there after just a year of being a bestseller. I would definitely put Ender's Game on the list, especially in place of some of those others. This list makes the BBC Big Reads 100 books list look good. Posts: 428 | Registered: Nov 2006
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It seems to me to be a pretty effective list for what it's supposed to be, namely a squarely middlebrow snapshot of early millennial reading habits. Amazon makes its money not from identifying the most important or highest quality literature, but from selling the books that most people want to read at some given time and place. So their editors' '100 books to read in your lifetime' should be interpreted (IMO) as '100 books you can feel pretty confident most casual but educated American readers born in the current demographic will have at least heard of and probably read. And you should, too. So buy them from Amazon'.
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
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They lost me when they described The Handmaid's Tale as "Feminist Speculative Fiction." Really? That's the best they can do?
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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