70 novels I’m glad I read

I have been obsessed with the number 70 of late — go figure. And I have always been obsessed with lists. For this next week leading up to, well, my 70th, I have compiled lists of 70 things that have affected me over the years. I hope you find them interesting; if nothing else they’ll tell you something about me, probably more than I intended.

We begin with 70 works of fiction that shaped me into who I am, for better or for worse, presented in no particular order — I only numbered them to make sure I hit 70 — although this is the order in which I thought of them, so maybe that means something. 

1. The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne

2. The Martian – Andy Weir

3. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay – Michael Chabon

4. Dandelion Wine – Ray Bradbury

5. True Grit – Richard Portis

6. Night – Elie Wiesel

7. Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell

8. The Haunted Bookshop – Christopher Morley

9. Bambi – Felix Salten

10. The Martian Chronicles – Ray Bradbury

11. Animal Farm – George Orwell

12. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain

13. Catching Fire – Suzanne Collins

14. Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien

15. Klara and the Sun – Kazuo Ishiguro

16. The Fountainhead – Ayn Rand

17. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress – Robert A. Heinlein

18. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

19. The Archivist – Martha Cooley

20. Enemy Mine – Barry B. Longyear

21. She – H. Rider Haggard

22. The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger

23. Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro

24. An Enemy of the State – F. Paul Wilson

25. The Lost World – Arthur Conan Doyle

26. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – J.K. Rowling

27. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens

28. Men in War – Andreas Latzko

29. Moby-Dick – Herman Melville

30. Akata Witch – Nnedi Okorafor

31. Anne of Green Gables – L.M. Montgomery

32. I Shall Wear Midnight – Terry Pratchett

33. Rilla of Ingleside – L.M. Montgomery

34. Daughter of the Morning Star – Craig Johnson

35. Hell and Back – Craig Johnson

36. The Probability Broach – L. Neil Smith

37. A History of Wild Places – Shea Ernshaw

38. Secret Identity – Alex Segura

39. Iron Lake – William Kent Krueger

40. Olga Dies Dreaming – Xochitl Gonzalez

41. Crazy Rich Asians – Kevin Kwan

42. Murder on the Orient Express – Agatha Christie

43. Wool – Hugh Howey

44. One False Move – Harlan Coben

45. The Wrong Side of Goodbye – Michael Connelly

46. Angels Flight – Michael Connelly

47. A Study in Scarlet Women – Sherry Thomas

48. The Book Thief – Marcus Zusak

49. The Other Side of Everything – Linda R. Spitzfaden

50. Jexium Island – Madeline Grattan

51. The Shy Stegosaurus of Cricket Creek – Evelyn Sibley Lampman

52. Alpha Centauri – Robert Siegel

53. The Last Unicorn – Peter S. Beagle

54. Project Hail Mary – Andy Weir

55. The Demi-Gods – James Stephens

56. The Man Who Was Thursday – G.K. Chesterton

57. A Princess of Mars – Edgar Rice Burroughs

58. The Man of Bronze – Kenneth Robeson

59. Lethal White – Robert Galbraith

60. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

61. Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury

62. Buddenbrooks – Thomas Mann

63. Anthem – Ayn Rand

64. Anatomy of a Murder – Robert Traver

65. High Fidelity – Nick Hornby

66. Time and Again – Jack Finley

67. The Kaiju Preservation Society – John Scalzi

68. And Then There Were None – Eric Frank Russell

69. Stranger in a Strange Land – Robert A. Heinlein

70. The Invisible Life of Addie Larue – V.E. Schwab

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