Books to Read Before You Die

There are so many of the greatest books lists out there, but I always find them so stuffy. So many books are "classics" or what I call "literature reading," mostly things you expect to read in a class. I feel like these lists leave out so many precious reads and genres that I decided to create a list of my own. While I was introduced to some of the novels in the classroom, many were not.

A work in progress (in no particular order):

• The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
• All But My Life - Gerda Weissman Klein
• A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini
• Three Cups of Tea - Greg Mortenson
• Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide - Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

• the entire Scarpetta Series (20 books) - Patricia Cornwell (sidebar, Bone Bed was just released but I have no doubt that it will be amazing) 
• Gone Baby, Gone - Dennis Lehane
• Deeper Than the Dead mini series - Tami Hoag
• The Alibi Man - Tami Hoag
• Night Sins - Tami Hoag
• Prior Bad Acts - Tami Hoag
• The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
• Angels and Demons - Dan Brown
• The Color Purple - Alice Walker

• Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea - Chelsea Handler 
• Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang - Chelsea Handler
• Quiet Hero - Rita Cosby
• the Hunger Games trilogy - Suzanne Collins
• the Nina Reilly series (12 books) - Perri O'Shaughnessy
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith
• Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi
• Kindred - Octavia Butler
• The Diary of Anne Frank - Anne Frank
• The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien
• To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
• A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
• The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd
• Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
• Little House on the Prairie series - Laura Ingalls Wilder
• The Giving Tree - Shel Silverstein
• A Light in the Attic - Shel Silverstein
• Falling Up - Shel Silverstein                            
• Where the Sidewalk Ends - Shel Silverstein

• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis 
• The Bridge to Terabithia - Katherine Patterson

• The BFG - Roald Dahl
• Out of the Dust - Karen Hesse
• Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret - Judy Blume
• Walk Two Moons - Sharon Creech
•  Babysitter Club series - Ann M. Martin
• Babysitter's Little Sister series - Ann M. Martin
• The Giver - Lois Lowry
• Jamaica and Me: The Story of an Unusual Friendship - Linda Atkinson
• Those Who Save Us - Jenna Blum
• Dear America: A Picture of Freedom - Patricia C. Mckissack
• Dear America: The Winter of the Red Snow - Kristiana Gregory
• Dear America: Dreams in the Golden Country - Kathryn Lasky
• Dear America: A Line in the Sand - Sherry Garland