The Top 100 Books I Highly Recommend

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The reality? This is take two of this blog post.

Many years back when I first started building Peace to the People, I decided to make a "Top 100 Book List" of books I'd read, loved, and highly recommended... I was twenty-something, whipped up a list, and posted it to Pinterest.

Several years later I realized that comments existed on Pinterest. (😬👵🏼)

I had never noticed or read the feedback.

I clicked and found myself a bit bewildered, remembering that I was in fact putting things out onto the world wide web in live time, which can be at once fascinating and a bit dismaying. (#people #amiright 🤣)

Frankly, my list seriously set some people off. 👀

📚 "There are only 99 books on this list! You repeated one."

📚 "A Wrinkle in Time?! This book SUCKS."

📚 "No FILL IN THE BLANK AUTHOR?! This person has no credibility."

📚 “What about FILL IN THE BLANK BOOK?! Two thousand thumbs down.”

📚 “This person has both secular AND spiritual books listed—so hypocritical!!!”

What more to do but laugh, leave it out there, and try, try again. 😅📚✨

Thus, to clarify: these are one hundred books, in somewhat but not particularly relevant order of my very favorites top to bottom.

Not the best books of all time (as a declaration of objective truth)—but my personal top 100 I'd recommend.

(I'll try to get all one hundred this time.) 😬😂

1. The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream — Paulo Coelho

2. Fight Club — Chuck Palahniuk

3. Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life — Thich Nhat Hanh

4. 1984 — George Orwell

5. Leaves of Grass — Walt Whitman

6. This is It — Alan Watts

7. Bhagavad Gita: The Authentic English Translation

8. The Great Gatsby — F. Scott Fitzgerald

9. The Five People You Meet in Heaven — Mitch Albom

10. The Greatest Salesman in the World — Og Mandino

11. Anger — Thich Nhat Hanh

12. Become What You Are — Alan Watts

13. Being Nobody, Going Nowhere — Ayya Khema

14. The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom — Don Miguel Ruiz

15. The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety — Alan Watts

16. The Great Work of Your Life: A Guide for the Journey to Your True Calling — Stephen Cope

17. You Are Here: Discovering the Magic of the Present Moment — Thich Nhat Hanh

18. A Wrinkle in Time — Madeleine L'Engle

19. Invisible Monsters — Chuck Palahniuk

20. The Way of Zen — Alan Watts

21. Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul — Stephen Jenkinson

22. A Fine Balance — Rohinton Mistry

23. Brave New World — Aldous Huxley

24. Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close — Jonathan Safran Foer

25. Magnolia Table: A Collection of Recipes for Gathering — Joanna Gaines

26. The Hours — Michael Cunningham

27. The Power of Now — Eckhart Tolle

28. The Radiance Sutras — Lorin Roche

29. At Hell's Gate: A Soldier's Journey from War to Peace — Claude Anshin Thomas

30. The Glass Castle: A Memoir — Jeannette Walls

31. Tuck Everlasting — Natalie Babbit

32. I Know This Much Is True — Wally Lamb

33. In the Company of Women: Inspiration and Advice from over 100 Makers, Artists, and Entrepreneurs — Grace Bonney

34. The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation — Thich Nhat Hanh

35. To Kill a Mockingbird — Harper Lee

36. The Things They Carried — Tim O'Brien

37. Living Buddha, Living Christ — Thich Nhat Hanh

38. Ideaship: How to Get Ideas Flowing in Your Workplace — Jack Foster

39. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing — Marie Kondō

40. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West — Gregory Maguire

41. House of Sand and Fog — Andre Dubus III

42. The Book — Alan Watts

43. Yoga in the Kashmir Tradition: The Art of Listening — Billy Doyle

44. Think Like an Artist: How to Live a Happier, Smarter, More Creative Life — Will Gompertz

45. Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort of Joy — Sarah Ban Breathnach

46. The Book Thief — Markus Zusak

47. Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life — Winifred Gallagher

48. She's Come Undone — Wally Lamb

49. Loving Frank — Nancy Horan

50. The Time Traveler's Wife — Audrey Niffenegger

51. The Perks of Being a Wallflower — Stephen Chbosky

52. Water for Elephants — Sara Gruen

53. White Oleander — Janet Fitch

54. Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears — Pema Chodron

55. Don't Sweat the Small Stuff: Simple Ways to Keep the Little Things from Taking Over Your Life — Richard Carlson

56. The Artist's Way — Julia Cameron

57. The Bright Forever — Lee Martin

58. Meditation Secrets for Women: Discovering Your Passion, Pleasure, and Inner Peace — Camille Maurine, Lorin Roche

59. The Power — Rhonda Byrne

60. Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson — Mitch Albom

61. The Meaning of Happiness: The Quest for Freedom of the Spirit in Modern Psychology and the Wisdom of the East — Alan Watts

62. The Way to God — Mahatma Gandhi

63. The Wisdom of Yoga — Stephen Cope

64. The Two Hands of God: The Myths of Polarity — Alan Watts

65. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: The Chronicles of Narnia — Michael York

66. Mrs. Dalloway — Virginia Woolf

67. Cutting for Stone — Abraham Verghese

68. The Kite Runner — Khaled Hosseini

69. The Book of Lost Things — John Connolly

70. Woman: An Intimate Geography — Natalie Angier

71. The Body Keeps the Score — Bessel van der Kolk M.D.

72. Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity — David Allen

73. Their Eyes Were Watching God — Zora Neale Hurston

74. So Far from God — Ana Castillo

75. The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists — Eleanor Payson

76. Timeless Healing — Herbert Benson

77. Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life — Lilian Cheung, Thich Nhat Hanh

78. To the Lighthouse — Virginia Woolf

79. I Am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up for Education and Changed the World — Malala Yousafzai

80. A Thousand Splendid Suns — Khaled Hosseini

81. See Jane Run — Joy Fielding

82. From Suffering to Peace: The True Promise of Mindfulness — Mark Coleman

83. In Defense of Food — Michael Pollan

84. The Heart of the Yogi — Doug Keller

85. How to Love — Thich Nhat Hanh

86. How to Fight — Thich Nhat Hanh

87. Psychotherapy East & West — Alan Watts

88. The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader — Gloria Anzaldúa

89. The Girl with the Louding Voice — Abi Daré

90. Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth — Chris Ware

91. The Book of Beginnings and Endings — Jenny Boully

92. The Elegance of the Hedgehog — Muriel Barbery

93. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic — Alison Bechdel

94. Everything Is Illuminated —  Jonathan Safran Foer

95. The Namesake —  Jhumpa Lahiri

96. The Art of Racing in the Rain —  Garth Stein

97. A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose — Eckhart Tolle

98. Night — Elie Wiesel

99. Resilience: Powerful Practices for Bouncing Back from Disappointment, Difficulty, and Even Disaster — Linda Graham

100. Ask and It Is Given: Learning to Manifest Your Desires — Esther and Jerry Hicks