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

Published by WarrenBluhm

Wordsmith and podcaster, Warren is a reporter, editor and storyteller who lives near the shores of Green Bay with his wife, two golden retrievers, Dejah and Summer, and Blackberry, an insistent cat. Author of It's Going to Be All Right, Echoes of Freedom Past, Full, Refuse to be Afraid, Gladness is Infectious, 24 flashes, How to Play a Blue Guitar, Myke Phoenix: The Complete Novelettes, A Bridge at Crossroads, The Imaginary Bomb, A Scream of Consciousness, and The Imaginary Revolution.

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