Remembering Jennifer Paustenbaugh: 100 Great Books
On November 23, 2019, Jennifer Ford Paustenbaugh, BYU’s University Librarian, passed away following a long battle with breast cancer.
Paustenbaugh left a legacy of making library services and programs more student focused. Her work led to new ways for students to access scholarly resources and to student-focused changes to the library building. The Library has continued to build on her plans for improvements to ensure that students will benefit from her influence for years to come.
To mark the one year anniversary of her death, colleagues suggested that the Library look for something that symbolized her love of learning. One of her last goals was to read 100 great books. With that in mind library employees set out to collect 100 titles that they would recommend. Being library people, they quickly came up with well over 100, but the list has been narrowed down to fit the original goal. If you need more suggestions, you are always welcome to ask any library employee.
Most of these books are available from the library and others can be obtained through inter-library loan. Some are books we know she read, Anna Karenina, for example, and others are books our staff would have suggested to her.
| Author | Title | BYU Library
Call # |
| Charles C. Mann | 1491 : New revelations of the Americas before Columbus by | E 61 .M266 2006 |
| David McCullough | 1776 | E 208 .M396 2005 |
| George Orwell | 1984 | PR 6029 .R8 N4944 1987 |
| Mark Twain | Adventures of Huckleberry Finn | PS 1305 .A1 |
| Irving Stone | Agony and the Ecstasy, The | PS 3537 .T669 A72 1961 |
| Paulo Coelho | Alchemist, The (Portuguese: O Alquimista) | PQ9698.13.O3546 A813x |
| Lewis Carroll | Alice in Wonderland | 823 D66a 1990 |
| Ronald C. White | American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant | E 672 .W48 2016 |
| Leo Tolstoy | Anna Karenina | PG 3366 .A6 1939 vol.2 |
| Parley P. Pratt | Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt | BX 8670.1 .P886 1985 |
| Levi S. Peterson | Backslider, The | BX 8688.3 .P4425b 1986 |
| Charles Dickens | Bleak House | PR 4556 .A1 1991 |
| Markus Zusak | Book Thief, The | 823 Z89b |
| Trevor Noah | Born a Crime: stories from a South African childhood | PN 2287 .N557 A3 2016 |
| C.S. Lewis | Chronicles of Narnia | 823 L585c 2004 |
| Attributed to Confucius; translation by Edward G. Slingerland | Confucius Analects: With Selections from Traditional Commentaries | PL 2478 .L8 2003 |
| Alexandre Dumas | Count of Monte Cristo, The | PQ 2226 .A31 1996 |
| Fyodor Dostoyevsky | Crime and Punishment | PG 3326 .P7 1964 |
| Willa Cather | Death Comes for the Archbishop | PS 3505 .A87 D4 1999 |
| Dante Alighieri | Divine Comedy, The (Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise) | PQ 4315 .W5 |
| John Steinbeck | East of Eden | St34ea |
| Orson Scott Card | Ender’s Game | PZ 4 .C178 E52 1991 |
| Ray Bradbury | Fahrenheit 451 | PS 3503 .R167 F318 2007 |
| Buck Brannaman | Faraway Horses, The | |
| Thomas Hardy | Far From the Madding Crowd | PR 4745 .A1 1962 |
| Mary Shelley | Frankenstein | PR 5397 .F7 1977 |
| Jason Reynolds | Ghost | 813 R3345tr bk.1 |
| Maureen Whipple | Giant Joshua | BX 8688.3 .W57g 1976 |
| Marilynne Robinson | Gilead | PS 3568 .O3125 G55 2004 |
| Pearl S. Buck | Good Earth, The | PS 3503 .U198 G6 2004 |
| Alex Bellos | Grapes of Math, The: How Life Reflects Numbers and Numbers Reflect Life | |
| John Steinbeck | Grapes of Wrath, The | PS 3537 .T3234 G8 1986 |
| C.S. Lewis | Great Divorce, The | BR 83 .L48 1996 vol.2 |
| F. Scott Fitzgerald | Great Gatsby, The | PS 3511 .I9 G7 2002 pt.2 |
| Louise Fitzhugh | Harriet the Spy | 813 F57h |
| J.K. Rowling | Harry Potter | 823 R797h |
| Catherine Ryan Hyde | Have You Seen Luis Velez? | Popular Reading |
| Johanna Spyri | Heidi | 833 Sp99h 1996 |
| Kathryn Stockett | Help, The | PS 3619 .T636 H45 2009 |
| Peter Wohlleben | Hidden Life of Trees, The: what they feel, how they communicate: discoveries from a secret world | QK 475 .W6413x 2016 |
| Corrie Ten Boom | Hiding Place, The | D 811.5 .T427x 1995 |
| Richard Llewellyn | How Green Was My Valley | PR 6023 .L47 H6 |
| Matt Parker | Humble Pi: A comedy of maths errors | QA 99 .P375x 2018 |
| Maya Angelou | I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | E 185.97 .A56 A3 1969 |
| Rebecca Skloot | Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks , The | RC 265.6 .L23 S55 |
| Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee | Inherit the Wind, a play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee | PS 3523 .A934 I6 2003 |
| Susanna Clark | Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell | C556jo |
| Bryan Stevenson | Just Mercy: A story of justice and redemption | KF 9223 .S74x 2014 |
| Eleanor Herman and Peggielene Bartels | King Peggy | |
| Jorge Luis Borges | Labyrinths | PQ 7797 .B635 A29 1983 |
| Walter Isaacson | Leonardo da Vinci | N 6923 .L33 I827 2017 |
| Victor Hugo | Les Miserables | PQ 2286 .A38 1997 |
| David Herbert Donald | Lincoln | L66Li |
| Antoine de Saint-Exupéry | Little Prince, The (French: Le Petit Prince) | PQ2637.A274 P413x |
| Louisa May Alcott | Little Women | PS 1017 .L5 1982 |
| Larry McMurtry | Lonesome Dove | PS 3563 .A319 L6 1985 |
| William Golding | Lord of the Flies | PR 6013 .O35 L6 2003 |
| J.R.R. Tolkien | Lord of the Rings trilogy | PR 6039 .O32 L6 |
| Arthur C. Brooks | Love Your Enemies | JK 1726 .B754 2019 |
| Fredrik Backman | Man Called Ove, A
(translated from Swedish) |
PT 9877.12 .A32 M3613 2014 |
| Viktor E. Frankl | Man’s search for meaning | D 805 .G3 F7233 2006 |
| C.S. Lewis | Mere Christianity | BR 83 .L48 1996 |
| George Eliot | Middlemarch | PR 4462 .A2 N4x 1926 |
| Laurel Thatcher Ulrich | Midwife’s Tale, A: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 | F 29 .H15 U47 1990 |
| Kate DiCamillo | Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, The | 813 D547m |
| Brandon Sanderson | Mistborn | Popular Reading |
| Willa Cather | My Antonia | PS 3505 .A87 M8 1947 |
| Elena Ferrante | My Brilliant Friend (Italian: L’amica geniale) | Online |
| Kamala Markandaya | Nectar in a Sieve | PR 6063 .A642 N43 |
| Helen Mustard’s translation | Nibelungenlied, The | PN 6110 .E6 M4 1998 |
| Lois Lowry | Number the Stars | 813 L955n |
| Homer | Odyssey (Robert Fagles translation specifically) | PA 4025 .A5 F34 2001 |
| TH White | Once and Future King | 823 W585o |
| John Milton | Paradise Lost | PR 3560 .A2 K37 2005 |
| Leif Enger | Peace Like a River | PS 3555 .N4223 P42 2001 |
| Norton Juster | Phantom Tollbooth, The | 813 J982p 2005 |
| Barbara Kingsolver | Poisonwood Bible, The | K617po |
| Jane Austen | Pride and Prejudice | PR 4034 .P7 1991 |
| William Goldman | Princess Bride, The | Popular Reading – Fantasy G569p |
| Azar Nafisi | Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books | PE 64 .N34 A3 2003 |
| Cameron Wright | Rent Collector, The | Popular Reading |
| Edmund Morris | Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, The | E 757 .M883 2001 |
| Lloyd Douglas | Robe, The | PS 3507 .O7573 R62 |
| E.M. Forster | Room with a View, A | PR 6011 .O58 R66x 1923 |
| Eloise M. Boyle and Genevra Gerhart | Russian Context, The: The culture behind the language | P 35.5 .R9 R87 2002 |
| Jack London | Sea Wolf, The | PS 3523 .O46 S42 1959 |
| Carlos Ruiz Zafón | Shadow of the Wind, The (Spanish: La sombra del viento) | PQ 6668 .U49 S6613 |
| Herman Hesse | Siddhartha | PT 2617 .E85 S5213 1951 |
| George Eliot | Silas Marner | PR 4670 .A1 1993 |
| Bess Streeter Aldrich | Song of Years | PS 3501 .L378 S65 1939 |
| Helen Keller | Story of My Life, The | HV 1624 .K4 A15 1904 |
| Charles Dickens | Tale of Two Cities, A | PR 4571 .A1 1993 |
| Harper Lee | To Kill a Mockingbird | PS 3562 .E353 T6 2002 |
| Betty Smith | Tree Grows in Brooklyn, A | PS 3537 .M2895 T7 2001 |
| Sawako Ariyohi | The Twilight Years | PL 845 .R5 K613 1984 |
| Bill Bryson | Walk in the Woods, A: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail | Online only |
| Sharon Creech | Walk Two Moons | 813 C8617w |
| Richard Adams | Watership Down | PZ 4 .A64 W33 1996 |
| Yevgeny Zamyatin | We | Popular Reading |
| Terry Pratchett | Wee Free Men, The | Popular Reading |