If you are a white man and you think you do not own one of these books, try looking under your bed, it’s probably there.
1. Shogun, James Clavell
2. Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut
3. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
4. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
5. A collection of John Lennon’s drawings.
6. A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
7. The first two volumes of A Song of Ice and Fire, George R.R. Martin
8. God Is Not Great, Christopher Hitchens
9. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
10. I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, Tucker Max
11. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
12. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, Oliver Sacks
13. The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
14. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
15. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
16. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
17. Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk
18. The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
19. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown
20. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
21. The Stand, Stephen King
22. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson
23. The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer
24. Tuesdays With Morrie, Mitch Albom
25. It’s Not About the Bike, Lance Armstrong (definitely under the bed)
26. Who Moved My Cheese?, Spencer Johnson
27. Portnoy’s Complaint, Philip Roth
28. Seabiscuit, Laura Hillenbrand
29. John Adams, David McCullough
30. Ragtime, E.L. Doctorow
31. Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis
32. America: The Book, Jon Stewart
33. The World Is Flat, Thomas Friedman
34. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
35. The Curious Incident of the Dog In the Night-Time, Mark Haddon
36. Exodus, Leon Uris (if Jewish)
37. Trinity, Leon Uris (if Irish-American)
38. The Road, Cormac McCarthy
39. Marley & Me, John Grogan
40. Freakonomics, Steven D. Levitt
41. The Rainmaker, John Grisham
42. Patriot Games, Tom Clancy
43. Dragon, Clive Cussler
44. Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond
45. The Agony and the Ecstasy, Irving Stone
46. The 9/11 Commission Report
47. The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, John le Carre
48. Rising Sun, Michael Crichton
49. A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson
50. Airport, Arthur Hailey
51. Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki
52. Burr, Gore Vidal
53. Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt
54. The Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan
55. Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer
56. Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer
57. Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
58. Godel, Escher, Bach, Douglas Hofstadter
59. The World According to Garp, John Irving
60. A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking
61. The Tin Drum, Gunter Grass
62. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
63. Lord of the Flies, William Golding
64. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
65. The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe
66. Beowulf, the Seamus Heaney translation
67. Rabbit, Run, John Updike
68. The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
69. The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
70. The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler
71. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey
72. A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
73. House of Leaves, Mark Danielewski
74. The Call of the Wild, Jack London
75. Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
76. I, Claudius, Robert Graves
77. The Civil War: A Narrative, Shelby Foote
78. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis (a glaring omission from the original, pointed out by Naomi Fry)
79. Life, Keith Richards
Tags: books, i own most of these books myself, men, undisputable facts
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I love Lucky Jim, but hate the fact that I'm the kind of person who loves Lucky Jim so much.
Please do a "Films all White Men Love" list!
Did anyone else think, "wow, the average white guy owns a lot of books!"
Own 2, of which I have read 1.
…I vaguely feel like this means something…
Criminal Lack of Alan Moore here. As a white man, I know we basically all own either Watchmen or V for Vendetta. Also, why only the first 2 Game of Thrones? Most people I know own all 5…
Also I would add something by H.P. Lovecraft, though I'm not sure if that's all white men or just my friends
Wow, I feel naked and ashamed.
I have Atlas Shrugged but I use it to keep my window propped open in the summer, does that still count?
At one point or another, I have possessed about 30% of the list and read about 75%. Some pretty good stuff there, with a wide range of views (for white folk).
Yes! That, and for the 40+ set: more Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, William Burroughs (not Queer, of course–more like Naked Lunch), and other Western faux Eastern. Plus The Art of War, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. *shudder*
All true, I know many white men, I can attest to the accuracy. In certain regions you don't even have to buy the books, they come in the mail with samples of tide.
I have read 30 of these, and own 20, but I'm not white! Should I be concerned?
I only own 9 of these, and the only thing I found under my bed was my cat (he doesn't own any of them either, though he is neutered).
You know, I *tried* Foucault's Pendulum, on the recommendation of The Last Guy I Dated (we both realised we were, er, not each other's preferences). And I just couldn't get into it.
Loved Name of the Rose, though. Maybe Pendulum needed more labyrinths and books for me to care? Although perhaps 33yo me would succeed where 18yo me failed.
I LOVED Fagles, but I don't remember what translation First Year Classics told me to read (if any). I DO remember that I tried Penguin Classics (it was cheap! I was poor!) and hated it. Fagles at least read like the story was enjoyable, which is kind of a critical point with Homer. He is the Ancient Greek Clive Cussler! (Or Tom Clancy. Or whatever Boy's Own Adventure Novelist you enjoy.)
I'd say I should give Lattimore a go except 1) I'll have forgotten the name by the time I leave work and 2) I'm just about to go travelling/be adventurously homeless for a coupla months, so now is not the time for new projects.
CONGRESSWOMAN! (With her violet eyes.)
I read those books so often growing up. Some bewildered English teacher had to read a book review on Inca Gold when I was 12-13. I think I drew the Quipu on the front. I stopped reading after Flood Tide. I just didn't think that it and Shock Wave were quite as good as the older ones.
Great set of books! I personally recommend Cryptonomicon if you haven't read it yet.
I managed to read it the first time because I had literally nothing else to read being in the last week of my backpacking-esque trip around western Europe with my sister in 1999. It's also kind of (extremely) annoying about women and I can see that putting you off. But the way it talks about conspiracy theories and theorists is still, if not more, relevant.
And yes, Name of the Rose is practically perfect so I can't blame you for liking it more than FP, or anything else for that matter.
I have read over 90 percent of the books, I have less than half.. I keep only those who truly have words to remember . Little disappointed in the list.