We like books. A lot.
And we like lists.
And we like all things British.
So a few years ago, when the BBC did a "search for the nation's best-loved novel" & released their Top 100 list, Jenny & I decided to have a go at reading them all.
So far I've made it to 30, with 70 to go.
- I'm a little nervous about War & Peace. (#20) That book is long.
- I've been wanting to read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (#4) ever since I watched Julie & Julia. Julie's husband quotes from it: "I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."
- I read Matilda (#74) about 8 million times when I was a kid. My favourite part was in the beginning when it lists all the books she's been reading from the library.
- Every Summer I make great plans to read Gone with the Wind. (#21) Sadly it hasn't happened yet.
- Every Fall I make great plans to read The Lord of the Rings. (#1) Tragically it hasn't happened yet.
- Jane Eyre (#10) & Little Women (#18) get more then their fair share of my reading attention. I would happily re-read both books every year.
- My dad read The Hobbit (#25) out loud to us when we were kids. We still regularly say things like "We wants it, my precious" & "Nasty little hobbitses."
Ok now, without further ado, here it is:
1. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
2. Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne
8. 1984 by George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
10. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
11. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
13. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
18. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres
20. War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter & the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling
23. Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
24. Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
25. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
26. Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch by George Eliot
28. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
29. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
31. The Story of Tracy Beaker by Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
33. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
35. Charlie & the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion by Jane Austen
39. Dune by Frank Herbert
40. Emma by Jane Austen
41. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
42. Watership Down by Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm by George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
48. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice & Men by John Steinbeck
53. The Stand by Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
56. The BFG by Roald Dahl
57. Swallows & Amazons by Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer
60. Crime & Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
63. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCollough
65. Mort by Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton
67. The Magus by John Fowles
68. Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett
70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
71. Perfume by Patrick Suskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch by Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda by Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
77. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses by James Joyce
79. Bleak House by Charles Dickens
80. Double Act by Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits by Roald Dahl
82. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
83. Holes by Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake
85. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel by Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
89. Magician by Raymond E. Feist
90. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather by Mario Puzo
92. The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel
93. The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine by Anya Seton
96. Kane & Abel by Jeffrey Archer
97. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
98. Girls in Love by Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
What about you?
How many have you read?
Any particular favourites?
Sadly, only 10. Thanks for 100 great links.
ReplyDeleteFondly,
Glenda
I got 22! Thanks for the great list. LOTR is amazing, get to it when you can :)
ReplyDeleteI have read 18 of them, like a half of them are my favourites! I also own seven that I haven't read, I need to get to the asap!
ReplyDeleteI've only read 18 too but at least now I have a list I can reference . . . although thinking now, I have read a lot of good books that aren't on this list like "do androids dream of electric sheep" and a hell of a lot of R.L. Stine books XD
Delete43! I love all Harry Potter's and Jane Austen's books. And I highly recommend War and Peace. It's kind of scary because of the size bit it's easy to read and beautiful. Easier than Dostoiévski. Sad that the only brazilian book is Paulo Coelho, we havê a lot of better authors and books.
ReplyDeleteWww.lerounaoser.com
43 and I feel a little ashamed, as many of these have been on my to-read list for decades.
ReplyDelete43 and I feel a little ashamed, as many of these have been on my to-read list for decades.
ReplyDeleteYou might easily pick up an addiction to Terry Pratchett, and a select few others. It would be interesting to see this survey redone, and see which books were only there in passing, rather than staying.
ReplyDeleteOnly 25 so far!
ReplyDeleteHow can anyone have Bridget Jones' Diary on the same list as War and Peace and Anna Karenina? And many of the other authors I have never heard of and I read quite extensively. For me, this was a very odd list!
ReplyDeleteHow come the Brothers Karamazove is missing...
ReplyDeleteHow come the Brothers Karamazove is missing...
ReplyDeleteHow come the Brothers Karamazove is missing...
ReplyDelete39 and it's been years ago I read many of them. This is a good list for my book club
ReplyDelete