Recently, I’ve been on a quest to make a list of books that I should read and/or want to read. I’ve recently stumbled upon the BBC’s Big Read list and thought it would be fun to see how my tastes compared to those of the Brits who nominated and voted upon these books in 2003. I also found an online site that basically accepts nominations, maintains votes, and updates their list periodically. Therefore the second list has the possibility of more current titles. I’ve pasted both lists below and will bold the ones I’ve completely read and italicize in green the ones I’ve read partially read.
1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
- 1984 by George Orwell
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
- The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
- The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
- Animal Farm by George Orwell
- Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
- War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
- The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
- The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
- Lord of the Flies by William Golding
- Ulysses by James Joyce
- Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
- A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
- Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
- Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
- Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
- East of Eden by John Steinbeck
- One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
- The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
- Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
- Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
- Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
- The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
- A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
- The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
- The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
- The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
- The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
- Moby Dick by Herman Melville
- Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
- The Stranger by Albert Camus
- Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
- The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
- Watership Down by Richard Adams
- His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman
- The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
- On the Road by Jack Kerouac
- Dracula by Bram Stoker
- The Stand by Stephen King
- The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
- The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
- The Road by Cormac McCarthy
- Dune by Frank Herbert
- Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
- Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
- Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
- Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
- Life of Pi by Yann Martel
- Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
- Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
- A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
- A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
- Middlemarch by George Eliot
- For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
- Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust
- Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
- The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
- Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
- Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
- The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Persuasion by Jane Austen
- Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
- To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
- The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
- A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
- As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
- The Trial by Franz Kafka
- The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
- The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
- Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
- The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
- Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
- The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
- Emma by Jane Austen
- A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
- Siddharta by Hermann Hesse
- The Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer
- Atonement by Ian McEwan
- Beloved by Toni Morrison
- The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
- Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
- The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
So…if I’ve counted correctly…I’ve read 22 (and a half) from the Brits list and 26 (and 2 halves) from the online compendium. There are, not surprisingly many shared titles between the lists.
Obviously there can never be any such thing as a true “Must Read” or “Classics” list as literature is an art and therefore as such is subjective by definition.
However, I do find it interesting to see what other people have evidently enjoyed reading and that I’ve read 20-25% of each of the compiled lists. I can see several that I may add to my TBR list as well as several that I honestly never plan to read.
How would you fair with these lists? How many have you read??
Are there any here that you feel are must reads? Or conversely any with which you’ve been disappointed??
Unless I’ve forgotten 1 or 2 – 37 on the BBC list and 52 on the Best 100. Happy reading! … Susan
I would assume then by those high numbers that the general consensus regarding what a good novel is seems to match your own inclinations quite well!
What a great list!!! Definitely most of the best!!
Yes…much as one can appreciate the scholarly lists of classics…it’s fun to see lists voted upon by the general public!
28 on the Brit list and 17 on the other. Pride and prejudice is my favourite!
I need to read that soon!!
Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird are two favorites of mine! Read one of those!
Thanks for the recommendations!
Oh wow! Some really good books on there! My favorites are:(been wanting to read to kill a mocking bird!)Lord of the rings, and the Harry Potter are good! I also Loved, The Scarlet Letter!
I loved the Scarlet Letter as well 🙂 But then perhaps I have an affinity for Nate since I lived in “his” town for a spell!
I’m surprised at how many of those I have read. You really must read “To Kill a Mockingbird”…it is one of my all time favorites. I’ve read it several times over the years!
That’s the third recommendation for To Kill a Mockingbird! I’ll definitely add it to my list to read! Thank you!
Wow, I thought I actually haven’t read most of those on the list, but I’ve read 23 of the best 100 (and was surprised at some of the ones listed – Twilight?!) and 16 on the BBC list. There are definitely a lot that I need to read still – I just feel like most “classic” literature goes over my head so I am afraid to even start!
I was surprised to see Twilight as well, but then remembered that this is a “popular opinion” list not a scholarly one!
I remember finding an old copy of Wuthering Heights at a used bookstore in Italy and spending the day reading by a fountain while my friends were off sightseeing. It’s one of my most favorite memories to this day. Whenever I think about that book or see that title (like on your blog!), that’s what I remember. 🙂
What a wonderful image! So glad I could remind you of a wonderful memory!
Wow, this is a great list, Melissa…I think I’ve read about seventy % of them, but some of them were so long ago. I have a book journal (books you’ve read, books you want to read…) that has a lot of lists that are “top books” given awards. We’ll have to swap lists! I’m definitely going to save this one.
I’d love to see your list! And hear any recommendations you may have… I used to keep a journal of books I’d read but was so heartbroken when it was lost in a move in my 20s that I never started another!
hope you’re sitting down for these numbers…5 from the first list and 9 from the second. two books i tried to read but couldn’t finish were gone with the wind and the poisonwood bible.
now, if we were counting how many of the movie version i’ve seen then i’d be rocking those lists!
I am so with you on Gone with the Wind—I killed myself to finish it. And I hated it so much that I swore I’d never watch the movie!!!
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