Top Ten Tuesday: Books Written Before I Was Born That I’ve Read

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

woman wearing a book on her head and smiling slightly.

This isn’t me, but it is something I’d do.

Every so often, a Top Ten Tuesday topic comes up that makes me wish I could read what is in everyone’s drafts folders for it as I work on my post.

Will you all choose books that were written hundreds of years ago?

Maybe you will pick books from many different eras instead?

Only time will tell!

 

1. The Chronicles of Narnia (Chronicles of Narnia, #1-7) by C.S. Lewis

2. The Stand by Stephen King

3. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

4. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

5. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

6. Animal Farm by George Orwell

7. The Color Purple  by Alice Walker

8. Native Son by Richard Wright

9. Things Fall Apart (The African Trilogy, #1) by Chinua Achebe

10. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

 

 

106 Comments

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106 Responses to Top Ten Tuesday: Books Written Before I Was Born That I’ve Read

  1. That’s a fabulous list of books. I took a look at books that were published just before I was born, and contemplated whether my mom read them.

  2. Nice! I’m so glad people are enjoying this theme!

  3. Stefani Tabakovska

    I plan on rereading LOTR this year! Happy reading! 😀 My TTT https://readwithstefani.com/books-written-before-i-was-born-the-classics-edition/

  4. Such an awesome list, Lydia! I’ve only read One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Color Purple and Things Fall Apart but all the others are on my TBR. I’m especially keen, but also scared, to read LoTR… I hope I enjoy it more than The Hobbit (that sadly wasn’t my jam)! 😅

  5. Loved Narnia and LotR – I really need to read some more Stephen King though!

  6. Great choices Lydia. I have enjoyed some of these, but there are others that I haven’t yet. Some were published after I was born, yes I am old. I chose children’s books for this TTT.

  7. I didn’t even try this one. Where to begin? XD

  8. Jo

    I had a couple of 19th century books, but pretty much all of my list was 20th century, ranging from the 1930s to the 90s.
    My TTT: https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2021/02/02/top-ten-tuesday-301/

  9. I love The Lord of the Rings, though it’s a while since I read it!

  10. Excellent list! It’s been so long since I read Stranger in a Strange Land. I wonder if it still holds up?

  11. Things Fall Apart was a fascinating read. I really ought to make a plan to read Gabriel García Márquez.

  12. Great list! I want to read The Color Purple as well.

  13. I’ve read a couple from your list but one I would love to read this year is Things Fall Apart. I’ve had it on my shelves forever! Great Top Ten Tuesday list!

  14. This is a fun list! Isn’t it weird to have to look up books from before you were born? It made me feel so old!

  15. I love the LotR, but I’ve somehow never gotten through the Chronicles of Narnia. I should rectify that sometime. Great post!

  16. All wonderful books! The first of these I read was Orwell, decades ago, when I was in 7th grade I believe at school (in France)

  17. I’m so freakin old it hurts! I was a sophomore or junior in high school when The Stand came out!
    Thanks for stopping by!

  18. Native Son is a great read, and of course I’m always happy to see LOTR on any list. 🙂

  19. Loved Lord of the Rings! I also remember reading Animal Farm back in high school 🙂

  20. Great list! Out of all these I’ve only read “Animal Farm” and it wasn’t my favorite lol.

  21. THINGS FALL APART is one of those books you probably won’t like but you will recognize that it is good you read it. I think of it fairly often.

  22. Gods but I hated Animal Farm; I think school really helped instill a dislike for literature about horrible people being horrible- Lord of the Flies, 1984, Animal Farm… as if school was hard enough to get through, then we had to wade through a bunch of depressing stories.

    That being said- I really love The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings. They’re go-to’s for comfort and solace in story form.

  23. Louise @Foxes and Fairy tales

    I really need to read The Color Purple someday.

  24. Great choices! I enjoyed doing this list but it’s made me feel really old!

  25. I would like to re- read Narnia at this point.

  26. I went with the classics to avoid feeling old – but I like that Narnia is such a childhood staple, it’s popped up on a lot of lists!

  27. I am constantly wishing that I could check draft folders for certain topics! Great list

  28. This is a good list! I see we both have The Stand. I love the Narnia series! I have read two of the Lord of the Rings ones.

  29. I’ve always been a huge Stephen King fan, but was unable to use him in my list. I was born in 1974 and that’s when Carrie was published…3 months after my birthday. It’s been interesting to see what people came up with this week. There’s been much more variety than what I expected.

  30. I haven’t heard of a lot of these! I did read Animal Farm for school, and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

  31. Great list! I’ve read about half of them (more, if you count Narnia and LOTR as individual books 🙂 ) and several of the others are on my TBR.

  32. I have such distinct memories of reading Things Fall Apart in high school.

  33. I read The Bluest Eye in high school! And I actually just started reading The Color Purple! So many of the rest are on my TBR list. Great list!!

  34. Looks like a lot of great ones here, there’s so many I haven’t read!

  35. Great list. I see so many of my favorites on it. 🙂

  36. I’ve read 8 out of 10 of these. Not bad 🙂 Great list!

  37. I told you, I’d find you. LOL
    Great list. I read #s 5,6,7,9,10. Hardly any of your books would have made it onto my list since some of them were written after my birth. (#s 2,4,5,7,9,10) But there you see, there are great books all the time.

    Thanks for visiting my TTT earlier.

  38. M.

    Oh! The Stand is one of my favorite books EVER! It’s also the longest I’ve ever tackled! I couldn’t make it through One Hundred Years of Solitude. It’s been a few years since I tried it and think I should give it another go. I may not have really been in the mood for it the first read through. Animal Farm is a favorite as well and I’ve been meaning to read Things Fall Apart Forever!

  39. Great list of books! I read The Bluest Eye in a grad class where we read all of Toni Morrison’s work. It was good but it was a lot of sadness at the same time.

  40. I loved the Chronicles of Narnia! I have yet to read 3 though 🥺 But I know the rest of the series are as great as the first two! 😍

    I would like to get to The Lord of the Rings, The Stand and The Color Purple soon!

    • I hope you enjoy the rest of the Chronicles of Narnia and the other books on your TBR and my list, too. Which Narnia books haven’t you read yet? Some of them are so different from each other!

  41. Great list! The Stand and The Lord of the Rings would’ve been included in my list too. 🙂

  42. I finally read LOTR after the first Peter Jackson movie came out. Probably time for a re-read! I really like The Hobbit as well, I read it every few years…

  43. Awesome list, Lydia! I really need to read The Lord of the Rings trilogy 🙂

  44. while I love doing what you said at the beginning (look at other posts!), this one certainly made me feel like, well, old…
    a few of the books would easily fit on my list too.. 🙂

  45. Great list! I still need to read The Bluest Eye.

  46. I loved Things Fall Apart. I read it for my Comparative Literature class in college. It was actually one of the only books I enjoyed from that class. Some of the book on your list are ones that are on my TBR list. You have some really good books on here!

  47. Some great books listed here. Some of these could never have made my list, though, as they were written after I was born!

  48. I’ve only read Animal Farm out of these. I don’t tend to read that many classics.

  49. RS

    I read Stranger in a Strange Land for class — sci fi isn’t normally my genre, but I was impressed by the quality of this one.

  50. I think this is the first list I can honestly say that I’ve read every single book on.

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