I've read 53% of the list (which put me in the top 8% of respondents). An interesting list, actually, and I liked using the book covers (even if most of them were not of the editions I'd read).
And since these sorts of lists actually need to be listed …
I Have Read …
Lord of the Rings
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Dune
1984
Foundation Trilogy
Brave New World
American Gods
Princess Bride
Animal Farm
Watchmen
I, Robot
Stranger in a Strange Land
Frankenstein
2001: A Space Odyssey
The Martian Chronicles
Sandman
Starship Troopers
Watership Down
Dragonflight
Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Time Machine
Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea
Flowers for Algernon
War of the Worlds
Amber
Belgariad
Mists of Avalon
Ringworld
Silmarillion
Neverwhere
Childhood's End
Stardust
Thomas Covenant (well, I read the first one, but hate to admit it)
Vorkosigan Saga
The Forever War
Mote in God's Eye
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
I Am Legend
Sword of Shannara
Conan the Barbarian
Farseer Trilogy
Old Man's War
Rendezvous with Rama
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Crystal Cave
Codex Alera
Elric Saga
Illustrated man
Caves of Steel
Lucifer's Hammer
Xanth series
Space Trilogy (C S Lewis)
I Have Not Read …
Hyperion
Sunshine
Fire Upon the Deep
Mars trilogy
Doomsday Book
Perdido Street Station
Way of Kings
Malazan Book fo the Fallen series
Eyre Affair
Culture Series
Anathem
Book of the New Sun
Thrawn Trilogy
Outlander series
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Legend of Drizzt series
The Diamond Age
Kushiel's Legacy series
The Dispossessed
Wicked
Sword of Truth series
The Road
The Riftwar Saga
The Time Traveler's Wife
Cryptonomicon
Going Postal
World War Z
The Last Unicorn
Small Gods
Mistborn Trilogy
Contact
Once & Future King
Left Hand of Darkness
Ender's Game
Canticle for Leibowitz
Song of Ice and Fire (well, only three chapters of it)
Fahrenheit 451
Kingkiller Chronicle
Slaughter House Five
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
Handmaid's Tale
The Stand
Snow Crash
Clockwork Orange
Dark Tower Series (okay, I think I read one of them)
Wheel of Time
Neuromancer
NPR’s Top 100 Science-Fiction & Fantasy Books – How many have you read?
More than 5,000 of you nominated. More than 60,000 of you voted. And now the results are in. The winners of NPR’s Top 100
59%! But I didn't consider a lot of those to be science fiction. Hmmm.
I've never been a Neil Gaiman fan. I've tried.
42. I have read 34 of Dave's read books and eight of his unread books. I tend to stick to authors I like and those with similar styles, so i don't try a lot of authors.
+Paula Moore, remember that it's fantasy and science fiction, not just SF.
Dave beat me by one – I've read 52. Now I know what I'll be doing this summer…
Dude! You hate to admit you read the first Thomas Covenant? What's wrong with the Unbeliever? Loved those books… although the first one was really slow.
+Marty Shaw Really, really derivative. And plodding.
46 for me, because I was honest and didn’t include the ones I tried to read, but didn’t like, so didn’t finish (like Neil Gaiman). Just as an aside, The Eyre Affair was fun to read and I enjoyed it, but hated all the other books in the series.
I guess I liked it because it was new to me. I was into LOTR and things like that, with noble heroes and stuff. The concept of a hero not knowing how to use his power, who hated the idea of being a hero, and definitely didn't fit the definition of hero was neat twist to me back then.
+Marty Shaw It was probably the latter aspect that threw me. I just found the titular character to be a terribly unpleasant person, and chose not to read on from there.
The Thomas Covenant books swept through my social circle in college one year. I found that people either loved them or hated them, with little in-between.
+Paula Moore As a "popularity" list, it's kind of interest where things skew. I was actually pleased to see the number of classic SF (Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, Niven) on the list, and that (plus Gaiman) got me off to a healthy start.
Another interesting list would be "How many of these would you read again?" I know my tastes have changed over the (mutter mutter) years.
+Dave Hill , that's been my experience, too. There's no halfway with the series. It's either love or hate. There was a second and third trilogy with the same character. I haven't read the last few. think it's reaching into the 'beating a dead horse' category now.
58 of 100
# 2,938 of 55,313 users (top 5%)
Read
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (School)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Ender's Game (hated it)
The Dune Chronicles
A Song of Ice and Fire Series
1984 (school)
Fahrenheit 451 (school)
The Foundation Trilogy
Brave New World (school)
The Princess Bride
Animal Farm (school)
Neuromancer
Watchmen
I, Robot (school)
Stranger in a Strange Land (school)
Slaughter House Five (school)
Frankenstein (school)
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
The Handmaid's Tale (school)
2001: A Space Odyssey (school)
The Stand (abridged and full)
Snow Crash
The Martian Chronicles
The Sandman Series
A Clockwork Orange
Starship Troopers
Watership Down
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
A Canticle for Leibowitz (school – hated it)
The Time Machine (school)
Flowers for Algernon (school)
The War of the Worlds (school)
The Amber Chronicles (sadly, our ADRPG games logs read better than this series – hated it)
The Mists of Avalon (hated it)
The Left Hand of Darkness (school)
The Silmarillion (school)
Stardust
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (hated it)
Vorkosigan Saga
The Road
The Sword of Shannara Trilogy (sames damn book over and over again)
The Conan the Barbarian Series
The Diamond Age
Rendezvous with Rama
Wicked
The Eyre Affair
Anathem
The Illustrated Man
The Caves of Steel
Mars trilogy
Doomsday Book
Perdido Street Station (hated it)
The Xanth Series
The Space Trilogy
Not Read
The Wheel of Time Series
The Kingkiller Chronicle
The Dark Tower Series
Cat's Cradle
Dragonflight
20,000 Leagues under the Sea
The Belgariad
Mistborn Trilogy
Ringworld
The Once and Future King
Contact
The Hyperion Cantos
World War Z
The Last Unicorn
The Forever War
Going Postal
The Mote in God's Eye
The Sword of Truth Series
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
I am legend
The Riftwar Saga
Farseer Trilogy
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Way of Kings
A Journey to the Center of the Earth
The Legend of Drizzt Series
Old Man's War
The Kushiel's Legacy Series
The Dispossessed
Something Wicked This Way Comes
The Malazan Book of the Fallen Series
The Culture Series
The Crystal Cave
The Codex Alera Series
The Book of the New Sun
Thrawn trilogy
The Outlander Series
The Elric Saga
Sunshine
A Fire Upon the Deep
Lucifer's Hammer
+Stan Pedzick Nice the number on the list that comes from school.
Looking at the "not" list, there's nothing there I think is life-altering, though I believe you'd enjoy The Forever War.
+Dave Hill okay, I'll add it to my list.
+Stan Pedzick, you haven't read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or Ringworld? I've reread both multiple times.
I'd also suggest World War Z for both you and Dave. It's a series of interviews that give unique and personal perspectives on the "zombie apocalypse." Not at all your standard zombie movie in book form.
+Scott Randel _World War Z_ is on my "Want to Read" list.
20,000 Leagues is interesting, from an historical perspective.
Ringworld Niven at his tech-speculativest, some remarkable world-building (quite literally). I never read any of the sequels (the original was exhausting enough).
I'm enjoying his …of Worlds books about the Puppeteer exodus more than I did the Ringworld sequels.
+Scott Randel Frankly after the movie I didn't really have a desire to read 20,000 Leagues under the Sea.
I would never base my decision on the movie version of a book. Too many liberties are taken.
If I did that, I would never have read Dune or I, Robot or World War Z or I Am Legend.
+Scott Randel But there are so many choices with I Am Legend … vincent Price, Charlton Heston, Will Smith …
+Stan Pedzick It's been many moons since I read 2KL, but tonally and content-wise it struck me as quite a bit different from the movie.
55, depending on how much 'read' counts as read. I started reading Strange/Norrell a half dozen times, but eventually acknowledged I just wasn't enjoying myself.
It's interesting to me the degree of non-interlap we have. In your non-read, I honestly think you'd enjoy Kushiel's Legacy series (interesting almost alternate history descendents of angels sorta thing), Left Hand of Darkness, Ender's Game, Canticle for Leibowitz (interesting angle on history).
+Doyce Testerman Thanks — I'll make a note of those. Some of the commentary about Ender's Game (the book) that came out at the time of the movie sort of scared me off a bit.
Re Left Hand of Darkness, I've never quite found LeGuin to click for me. I read the Earthsea trilogy, and Lathe of Heaven [*] and never enjoyed them as much as I felt I should.
[*] Which includes a cautionary tale about ever including any description of real scenery in your writing, even about mountains, as the opening paragraph mentions the "perfect cone of St. Helens" visible on the horizon …