taken from
awesomeart and my beloved
winggleam :)
The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed.
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them ;-)
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (read about half already)15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne41 Animal Farm - George Orwell42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
52 Dune - Frank Herbert53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac --
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens72 Dracula - Bram Stoker73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill
75 Ulysses - James Joyce76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Looking through the list I detect a rather strong bias towards Jane Austin. I have never read any of her work but I reserve the right to having a healthy scepticism of the status the list gives her. The Same actually goes for Dickens, who I have read a lot by. I find Dickens to be highly variable - some brilliant writing (especially some of his short pieces) and some that's total drudgery to read!
I would be inclined to just have a single example by any given author on my own version of the list so authors like Umberto Eco can be included! It was all based on voting though, so thats why its such an odd list at times.
I had a look at The Big Read website and the list there is actually different and includes a few books I adore (like
Gormenghast- my all time favourite on both lists):
- The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
- His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
- Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne
- Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
- Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
- Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
- Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
- The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
- The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
- Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
- Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
- Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières
- War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
- Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J. K. Rowling
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling
- The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
- Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
- Middlemarch by George Eliot
- A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
- The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
- The Story of Tracy Beaker by Jacqueline Wilson
- One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
- The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
- David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
- Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
- A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
- Persuasion by Jane Austen
- Dune by Frank Herbert
- Emma by Jane Austen
- Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
- Watership Down by Richard Adams
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
- Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
- Animal Farm by George Orwell
- A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
- Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
- Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian
- The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher
- The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
- Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
- The Stand by Stephen King
- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
- A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
- The BFG by Roald Dahl
- Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
- Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
- Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer
- Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Noughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman
- Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
- A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
- The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
- Mort by Terry Pratchett
- The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton
- The Magus by John Fowles
- Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
- Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett
- Lord of the Flies by William Golding
- Perfume by Patrick Süskind
- The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell
- Night Watch by Terry Pratchett
- Matilda by Roald Dahl
- Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding
- The Secret History by Donna Tartt
- The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
- Ulysses by James Joyce
- Bleak House by Charles Dickens
- Double Act by Jacqueline Wilson
- The Twits by Roald Dahl
- I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
- Holes by Louis Sachar
- Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake
- The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
- Vicky Angel by Jacqueline Wilson
- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
- Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
- Magician by Raymond E. Feist
- On the Road by Jack Kerouac
- The Godfather by Mario Puzo
- The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel
- The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett
- The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
- Katherine by Anya Seton
- Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer
- Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
- Girls in Love by Jacqueline Wilson
- The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot
- Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
This list has far too much Terry Pratchett. Any list with even one book sole authored by him has too much for me. I think he is one of the worst writers of all time. Why have I read so many then? Well, I will read almost anything when I have the time and his works is so popular its always lying around somewhere near to hand. These days I given up even doing that with his books though.