These are all the books that I have completed since 1994 when I was about 24, so while it doesn't include the college years, it does more or less cover my adult life. It does mean, however, that early favorites like Atwood, Forster, Hesse, Maugham, Shute, and others are underrepresented
Keep in mind that these ratings do not really address literary merit. They merely represent how I felt about a book after reading it. So compare the ratings to other books of similar genre and quality, not necessarily to other books with the same rating.
Rating Scale:
10 - All time favorite
9 - Loved
8 - Almost loved
7 - Really liked
6 - Liked
5 - Ambivalent
4 - Almost disliked
3 - Disliked
2 - Really Disliked
1 - Hated
M
MacLaverty, Bernard: Grace Notes (6) 10/1/97
Maine, David: The Flood (6) 3/8/08
Malouf, David: Remembering Babylon (3) 6/25/07
Maria Dominguez, Carlos: The House of Paper (5) 12/29/07
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia: Love in the Time of Cholera (5) 5/26/97
Marshall, Anthony: Trafficking in Old Books (9) 9/8/07
Martel, Yann: The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios (5) 7/12/06
Martin, Steve: Shopgirl (6) 8/4/01
Martinac, Paula: Out of Time (6) 6/6/07
Maugham, W. Somerset: Ashenden: The British Agent (6) 11/4/08
Maugham, W. Somerset: Christmas Holiday (7) 1/21/01
Maugham, W. Somerset: Christmas Holiday (8) 12/10/09
Maugham, W. Somerset: Liza of Lambeth (6) 1/16/04
Maugham, W. Somerset: Up at the Villa (9) 5/31/98
Maupin, Armistead: The Night Listener (3) 6/1/01
Mayes, Frances: Bella Tuscany (7) 8/28/04
Mayle, Peter: Anything Considered (7) 3/24/05
McCall Smith, Alexander: 44 Scotland Street (7) 2/29/08
McCauley, Stephen: True Enough (5) 3/10/06
McCullers, Carson: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (4) 12/31/06
McEwan, Ian: Amsterdam (8) 7/28/99
McEwan, Ian: The Comfort of Strangers (6) 10/16/05
McEwan, Ian: Enduring Love (7) 10/24/00
McEwan, Ian: On Chesil Beach (10) 10/22/07
McEwan, Ian: The Cement Garden (8) 1/12/07
McEwan, Ian: The Innocent (6) 3/25/09
McGrath, Patrick: Ghost Town (6) 12/29/08
McInerney, Jay: Bright Lights, Big City (5) 2/27/04
McInerney, Jay: The Good Life (6) 7/1/08
McMurtry, Larry: Books: A Memoir (7) 7/12/08
McNamee, Thomas: Alice Waters and Chez Panisse (6) 6/9/09
Melville, Herman: White Jacket (7) 10/17/95
Mendelson, Cheryl: Anything for Jane (9) 4/25/09
Mendelson, Cheryl: Love, Work, Children (8) 1/25/09
Mendelson, Cheryl: Morningside Heights (9) 3/23/04
Messud, Claire: A Simple Tale (7) 4/5/07
Messud, Claire: The Emperor's Children (6) 10/20/07
Messud, Claire: The Hunters (7) 4/5/07
Messud, Claire: When the World Was Steady (7) 6/27/07
Miller, Merle: A Gay and Melancholy Sound (7) 6/7/04
Miller, Merle: Reunion (8) 9/24/04
Miller, Merle: The Warm Feeling (8) 4/13/09
Mitchell, Joseph: Old Mr. Flood (5) 12/28/05
Monette, Paul: Afterlife (7) 2/15/05
Moore, Brian: The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (3) 4/3/05
Moore, Susanna: My Old Sweetheart (2) 7/4/06
Morrow, Bradford: Trinity Fields (8) 5/14/96
Morton, Frederic: A Nervous Splendor (4) 5/8/07
Mulisch, Harry: Siegfried (4) 2/11/06
Mulisch, Harry: The Assault (6) 3/11/10
Murdoch, Iris: A Fairly Honourable Defeat (9) 7/15/03
Murdoch, Iris: A Word Child (6) 6/4/07
Murdoch, Iris: An Accidental Man (9) 3/18/03
Murdoch, Iris: Bruno's Dream (7) 8/30/02
Murdoch, Iris: Nuns and Soldiers (9) 6/26/00
Murdoch, Iris: The Sacred and Profane Love Machine (7) 5/28/02
Murdoch, Iris: Something Special (8) 7/10/01
Murdoch, Iris: The Bell (9) 11/8/99
Murdoch, Iris: The Italian Girl (8) 9/12/03
Murdoch, Iris: The Nice and the Good (7) 5/15/04
Murdoch, Iris: The Philosopher's Pupil (7) 5/22/05
Murdoch, Iris: The Sea, The Sea (9) 7/5/01
Murdoch, Iris: The Unicorn (7) 7/10/06
Murdoch, Iris: Under the Net (10) 2/21/99
N
Nabokov, Vladimir: Lolita (9) 9/27/97Naipaul, V.S.: A House for Mr. Biswas (6) 11/11/06
Naipaul, V.S.: A Bend in the River (6) 8/8/99
Naipaul, V.S.: The Enigma of Arrival (6) 7/10/94
Newby, P.H.: A Season in England (6) 9/11/08
Nicolson, Juliet: The Perfect Summer (4) 1/2/07
Niffenegger, Audrey: Her Fearful Symmetry (8) 1/15/10
Nissen, Thisbe: The Good People of New York (6) 5/2/05
Nissen, Thisbe: Osprey Island (6) 11/3/07
O
Oates, Joyce Carol: First Love (4) 7/15/01Obama, Barack: Dreams From My Father (8) 1/3/09
O'Brien, Darcy: A Way of Life, Like Any Other (9) 2/9/10
O'Brien, Tim: In the Lake of the Woods (5) 9/21/02
O'Casey, Eileen: Cheerio, Titan (6) 9/10/08
O'Farrell, Maggie: The Distance Between Us (8) 1/16/10
O'Farrell, Maggie: The Hand That First Held Mine (7) 3/22/10
O'Farrell, Maggie: The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox (7) 3/8/10
O'Hara, John: Appointment in Samarra (6) 7/27/01
Ondaatje, Michael: The English Patient (6) 4/8/95
Ondaatje, Michael: In the Skin of a Lion (5) 5/28/95
Orne Jewett, Sarah: The Country of the Pointed Firs (6) 7/11/01
Orwell, George: Animal Farm (6) 6/6/99
Orwell, George: Down and Out in Paris and London (6) 6/16/01
O'Shea, Samara: For the Love of Letters (2) 6/18/09
P
Page, Martin: How I Became Stupid (8) 9/12/05Parkman, Francis: The Oregon Trail (6) 9/27/95
Patchett, Ann: Bel Canto (9) 1/4/01
Patchett, Ann: Run (9) 10/27/07
Patchett, Ann: Taft (8) 10/9/04
Patchett, Ann: The Magician's Assistant (9) 5/5/04
Patchett, Ann: The Patron Saint of Liars (9) 3/14/05
Pate, Alexs D.: West of Rehobeth (4) 3/14/05
Peck, Richard: London Holiday (9) 1/15/02
Peck, Winifred: House-Bound (6)12/25/02
Percy, Walker: The Moviegoer (6) 8/31/05
Perez-Reverte, Artruro: The Club Dumas (7) 3/14/00
Perret, Geoffrey: Eisenhower (5) 2/18/09
Phillips, Marie: Gods Behaving Badly (8) 6/2/09
Picano, Felice: Like People in History (5) 6/17/97
Piercy, Marge: Fly Away Home (9) 8/29/09
Piercy, Marge: The Third Child (8) 3/2/06
Piercy, Marge: Three Women (8) 4/30/06
Pirandello, Luigi: Loveless Love (5) 6/25/07
Porter, Katherine Anne: Ship of Fools (9) 1/23/09
Porter, Katherine Anne: The Old Order (5) 4/10/97
Powell, Julie: Julie & Julia (9) 12/12/08
Price, Reynolds: The Promise of Rest (6) 5/24/02
Proulx, Annie: Brokeback Mountain (7) 12/30/05
Pye, Michael: The Pieces from Berlin (6) 2/21/06
Pym, Barbara: A Glass of Blessing (8) 9/15/02
Pym, Barbara: Crampton Hodnet (8) 4/5/02
Pym, Barbara: Excellent Women (8) 2/28/10
Pym, Barbara: Jane and Prudence (7) 5/27/04
Pym, Barbara: Some Tame Gazelle (9) 8/31/09
Q
Quindlen, Anna: Imagined London (4) 5/8/07Quindlen, Anna: Rise and Shine (6) 3/1/09
R
Read, Miss: Mrs Pringle of Fairacre (6) 4/28/08Read, Miss: Village Centenary (6) 4/22/08
Reeve, F.D.: My Sister Life (6) 9/29/07
Reichl, Ruth: Comfort Me With Apples (10) 3/26/03
Reichl, Ruth: Garlic and Sapphires (9) 7/18/06
Reidinger, Paul: The City Kid (No recollection) 3/26/02
Remarque, Erich Maria: All Quiet on the Western Front (8) 7/14/01
Roach, Mary: Stiff (8) 2/27/06
Robinson, Marilynne: Housekeeping (3) 8/9/05
Rodi, Robert: Closet Case (6) 7/17/01
Rorem, Ned: Lies: A Diary 1986-1999 (7) 4/25/05
Ross, Sinclair: As For Me and My House (10) 3/6/00
Ross, Sinclair: As For Me and My House (10)
Ross, Sinclair: Sawbones Memorial (7) 6/16/00
Rostenberg and Stern: Old Books in the Old World (7) 11/5/09
Roth, Philip: The Plot Against America (9) 6/11/06
Rowling, J.K.: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (7) 2/23/00
Rowson, Susanna: Charlotte Temple (7) 11/23/96
Roy, Arundhati: The God of Small Things (6) 6/2/98
Russo, Richard: Straight Man (8) 5/1/08
S
Sackville-West, Vita: Family History (6) 5/30/08Sackville-West, Vita: No Signposts in the Sea (6) 5/31/09
Sackville-West, Vita: The Edwardians (7) 6/9/02
Salzman, Mark: The Soloist (No recollection) 3/24/02
Sarton, May: As We Are Now (10) 2/11/10
Sarton, May: Journal of Solitude (8) 5/7/09
Sarton, May: Kinds of Love (6) 12/23/08
Sarton, May: Mrs Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing (6) 7/25/09
Sarton, May: Plant Dreaming Deep (9) 9/27/09
Sarton, May: The House by the Sea (8) 5/17/09
Sarton, May: The Small Room (8) 8/25/08
Schlink, Bernhard: The Reader (7) 6/6/05
Schwartz, Christina: All is Vanity (6) 11/4/09
Schwartz, Lynne Sharon: Ruined by Reading (5) 11/9/08
Scott, Glenway: The Pilgrim Hawk (2) 11/30/09
Sedaris, David: Barrel Fever (9) 6/18/95
Sedaris, David: Dress Your Family in Courduroy and Denim (5) 7/10/05
Sedaris, David: Me Talk Pretty One Day (6) 10/5/00
Sedaris, David: Naked (8) 7/5/98
Selvadurai, Shyam: Cinnamon Gardens (8) 11/14/04
Selvadurai, Shyam: Funny Boy (9) 5/3/98
Shaffer and Barrows, Maryann and Anne: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (9) 9/14/09
Shelley, Mary: Frankenstein (6) 2/18/01
Shields, Carol: A Celibate Season (5) 5/9/03
Shields, Carol: Dressing Up for the Carnival (9) 1/12/01
Shields, Carol: Happenstance (9) 9/4/97
Shields, Carol: Larry's Party (9) 1/8/99
Shields, Carol: The Orange Fish (9) 9/2/02
Shields, Carol: The Stone Diaries (8) 11/2/97
Shields, Carol: Swann (9) 11/18/97
Shields, Carol: The Republic of Love (9) 12/8/97
Shields, Carol: Unless (8) 5/3/02
Shteyngart, Gary: The Russian Debutante's Handbook (3) 10/9/06
Shute, Nevil: A Town Like Alice (7) 6/22/09
Shute, Nevil: In the Wet (9) 9/9/06
Shute, Nevil: Ordeal (9) 1/29/08
Shute, Nevil: Pastoral (8) 1/14/07
Shute, Nevil: Pied Piper (9) 11/10/09
Sijie, Dai: Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (4) 12/20/05
Silko, Leslie Marmon: Ceremony (5) 4/22/97
Simenon, Georges: Dirty Snow (7) 5/20/07
Simonson, Helen: Major Pettigrew's Last Stand (8) 7/13/10
Sinclair, Upton: The Jungle (9) 2/7/95
Smiley, Jane: Moo (4) 3/10/04
Smith, Betty: Joy in the Morning (7) 8/31/06
Smith, Betty: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (9) 5/24/04
Smith, Diane: Letters From Yellowstone (2) 12/17/05
Smith, John Samuel: The Bookshop at 10 Curzon Street (7) 1/6/06
Snow, C.P.: The Masters (7) 6/13/09
Snow, C.P.: Trollope: His Life and Art (5) 12/26/05
Soehnlein, K.M.: The World of Normal Boys (9) 3/18/02
Soehnlein, K.M.: You Can Say You Knew Me When (9) 11/8/06
Spark, Muriel: Aiding and Abetting (6) 1/23/07
Spark, Muriel: A Far Cry from Kensington (8) 3/20/04
Spark, Muriel: Loitering with Intent (7) 5/28/09
Spark, Muriel: Memento Mori (6) 7/29/08
Spark, Muriel: Reality and Dreams (7) 3/19/10
Spark, Muriel: The Abbess of Crewe (6) 7/24/07
Spark, Muriel: The Driver's Seat (9) 3/28/06
Spark, Muriel: The Finishing School (8) 5/11/06
Spark, Muriel: The Mandelbaum Gate (7) 7/1/07
Spark, Muriel: The Only Problem (6) 4/24/09
Spark, Muriel: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (8) 2/8/99
Spark, Muriel: The Public Image (8) 7/18/09
Spyri, Johanna: Heidi (10) 11/9/03
Stead, C.K.: Talking About O'Dwyer (5) 2/6/06
Stegner, Wallace: Angle of Repose (8) 5/6/04
Stegner, Wallace: Crossing to Safety (9) 7/7/02
Stegner, Wallace: Remembering Laughter (6) 5/27/03
Steinbeck, John: Of Mice and Men (7) 3/1/97
Steinbeck, John: The Grapes of Wrath (9) 5/22/03
Steinbeck, John: The Winter of Our Discontent (6) 3/30/04
Stewart, Leah: The Myth of You and Me (6) 9/25/06
Stowe, Harriet Beecher: Uncle Tom's Cabin (8) 10/24/95
Strachey, Julia: Cheerful Weather for the Wedding (6) 11/13/09
Strachey, Lytton: Queen Victoria (6) 11/13/09
Sullivan, Robert: Rats (6) 3/20/06
Sulzer, Alain Claude: A Perfect Waiter (7)
Swift, Graham: The Light of Day (7) 8/13/09
T
Tan, Amy: The Kitchen God's Wife (8) 4/30/97Tarkington, Booth: The Magnificent Ambersons (7) 3/22/01
Tartt, Donna: The Secret History (8) 2/16/04
Taylor, Elizabeth: A Wreath of Roses (7) 10/14/03
Taylor, Elizabeth: Palladian (6) 7/26/07
Tennant, Emma: Strangers: A Family Romance (4) 10/23/07
Tenney, Tabitha Gilman: Female Quixotism (6) 12/3/96
Tessaro, Kathleen: Elegance (8) 12/7/06
Tessaro, Kathleen: Innocence (8) 9/5/08
Theroux, Paul: The London Embassy (7) 6/12/01
Thomas, Dana: Deluxe (8) 7/5/09
Thompson, Jean: Wide Blue Yonder (5) 10/13/05
Tisdale, EEP: Queen Victoria's Private Life (6) 6/21/08
Tolstoy, Leo: Anna Karenina (8) 7/6/97
Toole, John Kennedy: A Confederacy of Dunces (7) 7/27/04
Tremain, Rose: The Way I Found Her (8) 5/16/08
Trillin, Calvin: About Alice (5) 6/6/10
Trillin, Calvin: Tepper Isn't Going Out (10) 6/7/06
Trollope, Anthony: Barchester Towers (8) 6/30/02
Trollope, Anthony: Can You Forgive Her? (8) 8/28/03
Trollope, Anthony: Dr. Thorne (7) 9/19/02
Trollope, Anthony: Dr. Wortle's School (6) 3/15/10
Trollope, Anthony: The Small House at Allington (7) 2/26/05
Trollope, Anthony: The Last Chronicle of Barset (6) 7/13/08
Trollope, Anthony: The Three Clerks (7) 2/14/06
Trollope, Anthony: The Warden (8) 6/2/02
Trollope, Fanny: Widow Barnaby (7) 6/5/10
Tsing Loh, Sandra: If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home by Now (3) 4/27/07
Twain, Mark: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (6) 11/12/95
U
Uhlman, Fred: Reunion (9) 8/8/05V
Various: Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard and Other Poems (5)
Verne, Jules: Around the World in 80 Days (5) 8/21/05
Vidal, Gore: The City and the Pillar (7) 1/30/05
Vidal, Gore: The Golden Age (7) 5/30/05
Vidal, Gore: Washington, D.C. (9) 1/6/05
Voltaire: Candide (8) 7/27/97
von Arnim, Elizabeth: The Enchanted April (8) 6/25/01
Vonnegut, Kurt: God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (5) 1/31/09
Vonnegut, Kurt: Hocus Pocus (6) 4/4/04
Vonnegut, Kurt: Slaughterhouse Five (9) 2/12/99
W
Walker, Alice: The Color Purple (10) 8/9/00
Wang, Annie: Lili: A Novel of Tiananmen (3) 3/20/05
Waugh, Evelyn: A Handful of Dust (8) 6/28/00
Waugh, Evelyn: Charles Ryder's School Days (6) 8/12/02
Waugh, Evelyn: Decline and Fall (6) 7/12/09
Waugh, Evelyn: Scoop (7) 11/12/03
Weldon Johnson, James: Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (6) 2/20/97
Wells, Rebecca: Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (6) 10/10/99
Welty, Eudora: Delta Wedding (6) 4/16/97
Welty, Eudora: One Writer's Beginnings (6) 7/26/05
Welty, Eudora: The Optimist's Daughter (6) 7/12/05
Wenzel, Kurt: Lit Life (8) 5/6/06
West, Nathanael: The Day of the Locust (5) 3/6/97
West, Rebecca: Harriet Hume (4) 4/8/09
West, Rebecca: The Return of the Soldier (8) 10/20/09
Wharton, Edith:The Age of Innocence (10) 1/6/96
Wharton, Edith: Bunner Sisters (6) 3/24/08
Wharton, Edith: The Children (7) 6/13/09
Wharton, Edith: The Custom of the Country (8) 2/6/03
Wharton, Edith: Ethan Frome (9) 1/16/00
Wharton, Edith: The House of Mirth (9) 7/27/98
Wharton, Edith: Hudson River Bracketed (8) 7/19/08
Wharton, Edith: Madame de Treymes (6) 3/19/08
Wharton, Edith: The Mother's Recompense (8) 6/3/03
Wharton, Edith: Sanctuary (6) 3/12/08
Wharton, Edith: Summer (8) 10/19/00
Wharton, Edith: The Thouchstone (6) 3/10/08
Whipple, Dorothy: High Wages (9) 3/23/10
Whipple, Dorothy: The Priory (9) 2/4/10
White, E.B.: Here is New York (5) 12/27/05
White, Edmund: City Boy (5) 12/20/09
White, Edmund: The Farewell Symphony (6) 2/6/00
White, Edmund: Hotel de Dream (9) 3/18/09
White, Edmund: The Married Man (6) 11/1/03
White, Edmund: Our Paris (7) 3/11/09
White, Edmund: Skinned Alive (7) 5/23/09
Whitney, Craig R.: All the Stops (7) 4/6/09
Wiesel, Ellie: Night (9) 1/23/06
Wilde, Oscar: The Ballad of Reading Gaol (6) 12/13/03
Wilde, Oscar: The Picture of Dorian Gray (10) 4/2/95
Wilder, Thornton: The Bridge of San Luis Rey (6) 2/23/99
Williams, Conrad: The Concert Pianist (8) 4/1/07
Williams, John: One For New York (The Angry Ones) (7) 4/6/06
Williams, John: Stoner (10) 2/6/10
Wilson, A.N.: Iris Murdoch As I Knew Her (3) 11/2/09
Wilson, A.N.: London: A History (6) 10/8/07
Winick, Judd: Pedro and Me (7) 4/29/04
Wister, Owen: The Virginian (5) 1/13/97
Wodehouse, P.G.: Spring Fever (6) 5/23/08
Wodehouse, P.G.: Young Men in Spats (6) 9/23/05
Wolfe, Tom: A Man in Full (8) 5/25/99
Wolfe, Tom: I Am Charlotte Simmons (8) 4/20/07
Wolff, Tobias: Old School (9) 10/14/04
Wolitzer, Meg: Surrender, Dorothy (7) 7/29/07
Wolitzer, Meg: The Ten Year Nap (7) 5/1/09
Wolitzer, Meg: The Wife (8) 1/27/07
Woolf, Virginia: The London Scene (5) 1/7/09
Woolf, Virginia: To The Lighthouse (6) 12/14/03
Wright, Richard: Black Boy (6) 1/2/97
Wright, Richard: Native Son (7) 7/19/07
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